Yan Siqi defeated Nanjing Strategy and Zhang Heming, the army of the Minister of War, the Ming army guarding the city of Suzhou City voluntarily surrendered, and Yan Siqi occupied Suzhou. In this way, the Chinese army occupied the north from Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, and the south from Taihu Lake, Suzhou, and Yixing.
The area is a large and prosperous Jiangnan area that starts from the sea in the east and reaches Wuhu along the Yangtze River.
Jiangnan was the richest place in the Ming Dynasty, but this wealth belonged to royal relatives, officials, businessmen, gentry and landlords, and some wealthy businessmen who colluded with government officials, and had nothing to do with the common people. When Yin Feng visited Jiangnan a few years ago, he had discovered Su Song and Huzhou.
Small farmers in other places abandon land for refugees and sell land to become big landlords and tenants.
In the south of the Yangtze River, tenants are called "tenants". The landlords always regard tenants as servants and prohibit them from taking the imperial examination. Tenants are appendixes to landlords. Tenants change their owners as transactions of land ownership, which is almost equivalent to serfs.
The gentry and wealthy families bully tenants, regard them as slaves, and dominate their wives. The laws enforced by the prefectures and counties occupied by the Chinese army are a mixture of the Ming Dynasty laws and regulations of the Chinese company, so they generally do not easily touch the officials, gentry and wealthy families.
However, the landlords and gentry who resisted the Chinese army were killed without any scattering and dividing the real estate. This made some slaves and tenants see hope. Some of them intentionally attacked the Chinese army in the countryside, surrendered, and then confessed that it was the command of the master.
Yes, next, the Chinese army will confiscate the landlords' homes and distribute the land to the tenants and slaves.
Generally, the landlords who acknowledged the rule of the Chinese army had to improve the treatment of tenants a little, fearing that they would take risks and harm their entire family.
In this era, when government orders came out of the county gate, they had to rely on the power of local gentry to implement them. Grassroots government organizations had to be maintained by landlords and gentry. Therefore, the administrative power of the Ming government basically did not exist at the rural level.
The power is in the hands of the landlords, and the gentry and tyrants are the local emperors who do whatever they want.
Jiangnan is even more important for the imperial court to pay tribute. The taxes in Susong area are the most important in the country. Before the Jiajing year, Susong's tax grain accounted for one-ninth of the country's total tax grain:
In the early Ming Dynasty, the country had totaled taxes and grains in the world at the beginning of the country, with a total of more than 29.43 million stones, more than 2.752 million stones in Zhejiang, more than 2.89 million stones in Suzhou, and one hundred stones in Songjiang.
More than 209,000 stones, Zhejiang's tax and grain are equivalent to one-ninth of the country, Suzhou is slightly less than Zhejiang, and one province is used to reach one province, which is known as "the heaviest in the world". Songjiang is half in Suzhou, and Suzhou is seven in Suzhou.
The county and Songcai counties are one in four parts than Su's fields. Then the most important thing in the world is Songjiang.
It is obvious that there is no need to pay the tax grain for the 45th year of Wanli. I have no choice but to pay it, so the Chinese army announced a three-year exemption measure, and also prohibited landlords from forcing rent; I will not care about the tenants' resistance to rent.
It was just that the landlords would negotiate peace with the tenants themselves, and the Ming Dynasty government always took the initiative to help them urge their rent.
These grain exemption policies were deeply welcomed by small self-cultivated farmers and small landlords in the countryside. As for those gentry, officials and businessmen, they followed the ancient saying that a gentleman did not stand under the dangerous wall and did not have the courage to stand up to fight against the Chinese army. Moreover, the Chinese army had excellent military discipline, which was better than the Ming army.
It was a heaven and an underground, and the people saw it. Although the gentry's privileges had lost the protection of the government and their property was hit, it was difficult for the gentry class to encourage the people to arouse them.
Resist.
The crowd that welcomed Yin Feng’s army the most was the merchants and craftsmen.
The happiest crowd are handicraftsmen. The developed handicrafts in Jiangnan region have made the Chinese Army recruiting craftsmen very smoothly. The craftsmen attracted by the generous rewards of China United Company have concentrated in Nanjing City, and some have been temporarily opened in the Chinese Army. Working in silk weaving factories and military factories has begun. Most of them have to take a boat to Taiwan, Luzon, Ryukyu, West Borneo and other places. They have signed a contract with the company and must work for the company for five years before they can terminate the contract. Become a free craftsman and can also join the company's workshops as craftsmen and become long-term employees of the company. After the five-year period expires, they can return to their hometowns or open their own workshops in the company's ruling area.
Merchants can now do business directly with China United Company, and they can trade fairly regardless of their size. The officials and businessmen who originally monopolized the market, "power merchants" have left with the fleeing government and the official army, and these merchants have benefited a lot.
In the past few months, commercial trade has flourished in the Chinese Military-ruled Region. Even on the shore of Taihu Lake north of Huzhou, many businessmen are doing business with Chinese companies under the eyes of the government army, but in fact they are defeated. The morale of the officials was low and they didn't want to deal with the affairs of the small merchants and vendors.
Along the Yangtze River, there were endless ships from merchants from Sichuan, Huguang and Jiangxi from the upper reaches. The Chinese army's cannon ships even patrolled the city of Nanchang, escorting the ships of various merchants. The Yangtze River Navy of the Official Army has already been in full swing. Destroyed, and completely powerless to the warships of the Chinese army. Gu Yanwu wrote an article saying: "Since Wanli, the world's water conservancy, milling, farming, and markets have all belonged to the gentry, and they have been the common thing." In this case, officials and businessmen The landlords actually control the industrial and commercial economy.
However, the arrival of the Chinese army broke the old order of industrial and commercial orders. Without the protection of the government, the salt merchants, mainly Hui merchants, Shanxi Jin merchants and other merchants colluded with each other, suffered a major blow in Jiangnan. With the protection of the government, it is impossible to compete with the Chinese company on a fair basis for trading.
Similarly, in the Jiangnan city occupied by the Chinese army, the original phenomenon of clerks and gentry extortion on merchants disappeared immediately with the escape of the government officials. After the late Jiajing period, due to the increasing destruction of the administration, the two large and small yamen in the two capitals took the lead in "harmony" In the name of buying ", they blackmailed merchants from house to house. Even those yamen without purchasing rights tried every means to send soap clerks to the market to collect goods at half price, and even blackmailed them at an amount more than ten times the original price.
Although Yin Feng was not in the long term during his inspection in Nanjing, he also heard that Yingtian Mansion started with the officers, clerks, and other officials. Every yamen often had to make things difficult for merchants and issued tickets to Zaoli. When buying goods, the price is often only half, such as if the fan is worth two cents and only one cent, etc., some shops designated as "Hand-Buy" will go bankrupt as a result.
Nanjing Zaoli is an old official who marked the ticket "to pay for the yamen" on the merchant's ticket. When the merchant came to deliver the goods for the first time, he said that it was not good, and hit the top ten boards and kicked it out of the yamen. Zaoli held it The tickets are taken along the door, and the family gets the money, and then the family returns to the family. The Jiuqing Yamen Hall of Nanjing is over 200 people, almost all of them are good at extortion. This situation has become a common trend for passers-by, so merchants They would rather give these clerks a full bribe than suffer the pain of blackmail under the guise of "peace and purchase".
Especially at that time, the government blackmailed merchants by "one family gets money and returns to another family", and was carried out publicly. After the Chinese army occupied Nanjing, they drove away officials from Nanjing, sent their own officials from Taiwan, and deprived them of them. Almost all the clerks and officials have the power of Zaoli. The political system of the Chinese company is actually top-down. However, the power is clear and the structure is simple and effective. Officials at all levels come from the political academy and have been instilled with the concept of militarization of discipline and integrity. , has learned the concept of digital precision, and has supervision departments such as the Ministry of Commerce and Information that are directly responsible to Yin Feng, and there is very little corruption.
Moreover, the Chinese company started out as a businessman group and highly praised the view of fair trading. There is basically no phenomenon of investing in power. Of course, the Chinese army is the largest backstage of the company, but the Chinese army promotes the military-national spirit and the centralized and unified army. Discipline and system determine that soldiers rarely have the opportunity to bully the people.
Most merchants and civilians in Nanjing applauded this, and many ordinary people hoped that the Chinese army would not leave.
Of course, there are also scholars who don’t know the world to cause trouble. Some of them come to Nanjing and scold “thieves” on the streets, or want to meet Yin Feng and persuade him to surrender to the court. Among the people who do such boring things, there are the masters of Neo-School. Liu Zongzhou, Xia Yunyi, a native of Huating, Songjiang (now Songjiang, Shanghai).
Yin Feng knew about Liu Zongzhou, because before the sea ban, this guy wrote articles to attack the Chinese company to corrupt people's hearts, and the imperial court newspapers were reprinted. Yin Feng also saw Xia Yunyi's famous post. The more he read it, the more he felt that the name was very familiar. It took me a long time to remember: Isn’t this the father of Xia Wanchun, a young hero of the Qing Dynasty?
Xia Yunyi's name is Yi Zhong and his pseudonym is Yuan Gong. At this time, he was still a scholar who was studying and inherited his family in his hometown. He keenly discovered that the Chinese army had a good idea in winning people's hearts. He did not discuss the shortcomings of government administration for this, but instinct. He believed that this was a Chinese company's act of winning people's hearts, so he decided to come to Nanjing to argue with the pirates.
Liu Zongzhou is 39 years old and is already well-known in the Scholars. Because he has close contact with the Donglin Party, he failed to return home in the court's party struggles. He instinctively discovered that the Chinese army's "opening the sea and gaining the country, and doing business and benefiting the people. "The proposition of " and the act of emphasizing martial arts over literature are incompatible with the theories he advocates "preserving the laws of nature and curbing human desires", and saving the world depends on correcting people's hearts.
Therefore, Liu Zongzhou came to Nanjing despite his family's dissuasion, trying to persuade the pirates to turn back to justice and turn to the light. Therefore, he and Xia Yunyi walked all the way and came to Yingtian Prefecture's yamen to ask to see Yin Feng. Behind them, there were several men following him. The disciple of Liu Zongzhou who was following him.
At this moment, Yin Feng was worried about the court's rigid and uncompromising attitude.
Zeng Qi, Zeng Shan, Xu Hongji and others were also worried about how to negotiate peace with the court. Although the Chinese army is strong, it is insufficient. If you want to swallow the entire Ming Dynasty in one go, it is still impossible to do it now, but the court The current attitude really makes Yin Feng feel a little bit difficult to get rid of.
Yin Feng was surrounded by Juventus and Portuguese missionary Lu Ruohan. They could only serve as bystanders for this situation.
Now, the missionaries are accompanying Yin Feng to receive some Western missionaries and Chinese Catholics in Nanjing.