Chapter 78, Fujian Undercurrent (Part 2)
After thinking about it for a long time, Zou Weilian finally lost all sleepiness, so he yawned, stretched out, and slowly got up from the recliner. However, he really didn't have the heart to deal with official duties, so he walked out of the compartment under the recliner. , turned out a volume of "Research on War History" and read it with relish.
——Although Zou Weilian has always been very angry in his heart for the atrocities committed by the Australian thieves in colluding with the military generals of the country and endangering the Ming Dynasty. On the surface, he always pretended to be incompatible with the Australian thieves, but for these sea pirates, The governor Zou Weilian was quite interested in these new gadgets produced by the Waikun people, so he often asked his servants to go to the market to collect various exquisite books and newspapers printed by the Kun people, and then read them carefully in private.
In particular, this journal "Research on War History", which specializes in discussing the military affairs of the world, attracted Zou Weilian's attention. There are many military and national anecdotes and commentary on the current situation, including analysis of various classic battle cases in ancient times, as well as quick reports and related comments on today's wars. Although the articles in it are easy to understand and mostly use vernacular, the analysis is from the shallower to the deeper. It is clear and logical and quite interesting. In the latest issue of "Research on the History of War", there is a review article on the Battle of Daling River, Zou Weilian was so impressed by it that he read it several times, and was still filled with admiration after reading it several times.
"... It is said that during the Tianqi years, Wang, the Minister of War, presided over the war in Liaodong in Jin. At that time, Guangning was defeated. The official army in Liaodong had collapsed across the board, and everyone was afraid. After the king surveyed the front line in Jin, he believed that the imperial frontier troops could no longer fight. Even if they were lucky enough to recover, Guangning is also unable to hold on, and the country's financial resources are exhausted. It was impossible to confront the Jiannu for a long time, so they advocated abandoning Liaodong and western Liaoning, using the Great Wall as the border, rebuilding Shanhaiguan as the last line of defense, and only using the navy to harass the hinterland of the Jiannu. In this way, military expenditures could be greatly reduced, and the total project costs required were also Just one million taels of silver.
However, all the princes in the dynasty thought that the king in Jin did not plan to restore the lost territory in Liaodong, but would abandon western Liaoning. This was really cowardly and useless, so they dismissed him and appointed Sun Chengzong, the emperor's master, to supervise Liaodong. Sun Gelao wanted to fight back Liaoyang and Shenyang and regain Liaodong. However, the imperial army could not defeat the Jurchen slaves in the field, so he came up with a fortress plan to build a large scale of construction outside Shanhaiguan and continue to build fortresses eastward. When Jiannu came, the soldiers and civilians retreated into the fortress to hold on. When Jiannu retreated, they continued to build new fortresses. Construction continued as they advanced, and finally the fortress was built as far as Shenyang.
If this strategy had been used during the Yongle and Jiajing years, when the country's finances were abundant, it might have been feasible. However, since the Tianqi period, famines have been frequent in the world, taxes have been difficult to collect, and the Treasury of the Ministry of Households has long been unable to make ends meet. In order to implement fortress tactics, Commander Sun assembled more than 100,000 troops in western Liaoning. He also had to build fortresses, build artillery, and hoard food and supplies. However, he was still unable to take the initiative. Instead, he was defeated in every field battle, failed to recover an inch of lost ground, and could not disperse the army to recuperate. Naturally, the military expenditure could not be reduced, and a large amount of food, weapons, horses and salary were given to Jiannu in vain. Moreover, every time the Jurchen soldiers attacked and destroyed the fortresses along the way, the government troops had to rebuild them again, so the court had to spend a lot of money on the project.
As a result, the imperial court spent as much as five to six million taels of silver on the Guanning Army in western Liaoning each year. The previous annual income of the imperial household department was only about four million taels per year. The household department soon began to cry. Call me mother. Sun Gelao saw that it didn't work, so he wanted to be self-reliant and farm in western Liaoning. However, the amount of grain and fodder that could be harvested in western Liaoning was only 150,000 taels of silver. Moreover, if the Guan Ning army cannot defeat the Jiannu in the field and cannot prevent the enemy from looting, then the crops in your fields will be planted for the Jurchens.
Being unable to make ends meet, the imperial court had to impose additional taxes one after another, which made people in the world panic, but it still could not make up for this bottomless pit. Because so many forts had to be built in Liaodong, the project cost was too high, so the imperial court had to demolish the east wall to make up for the west wall. As a result, the towns in the northwest suffered from a long-term shortage of food and salary, which led to a mutiny by the Shanxi-Shaanxi border troops and the unstoppable trend of rogue bandits in the northwest. . The Central Plains and Shandong were also overwhelmed, and civil unrest broke out in droves. Regardless of the outcome of the Battle of Dalinghe, as long as Sun Ge's plan for the fort, which cost millions of dollars, does not change, the imperial court will be brought down sooner or later due to its financial embarrassment..."
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"...Sigh, even the most important ministers in the cabinet may not know much about Liao affairs. I didn't expect this bandit to be so concerned about it!"
Putting down the "Research on War History" in his hand, Fujian Governor Zou Weilian couldn't help but sighed, "...But even if you see it through, what can you do?"
——As a rare capable minister in the late Ming Dynasty, Zou Weilian certainly knew the shortcomings of Sun Chengzong’s fortress tactics, and some knowledgeable people in the court had also long criticized this——In fact, there was no need for it. What kind of foresight and foresight, just looking at the millions of taels of silver devoured by the Liaoxi Fortress Group and the Guan Ning Army every year, as well as the household account books that have been in deficit for years, all the officials and ministers know: the country really cannot afford such expenditures. .
However, since the finances have been so overwhelmed, why hasn't the imperial court changed its tune, reinstated the former governor Wang Zaijin, and used his strategy of sticking to Shanhaiguan to save money? Could it be that no important member of the cabinet is willing to bear the responsibility of abandoning the cities of Jinzhou and Ningyuan outside the Pass?
Well, there is some reason for this, but it is by no means the main reason. The real key issue is that there are many people who cannot see the court saving money!
To give a more striking similar example, since the Ming Dynasty moved its capital to Beijing, Beijing's food supply has relied on water transportation on the Grand Canal. But the problem is that a canal runs from south to north, from the local area to the center, from Caoding to transport troops to the household ministers and cabinet bosses. I don’t know how many people are sharing the wealth on this canal. According to regulations, eight million grains are transported from the south of the Yangtze River to Beijing every year. Stones, various inexplicable costs along the way amount to nearly 30 million stones, as well as the cost of repairing the canal and maintaining the sluices. It is really necessary to take out as much gold and silver as the sky every year, which makes the people of Jiangnan breathless. .
Therefore, the knowledgeable people in the south of the Yangtze River were thinking that since the water transportation is thousands of miles from south to north, and the water ships, Caoding, government offices along the way, and various fees are exploited, the expenses cannot be saved, and all have to be paid. spread on the heads of Jiangnan people. So why not pull the plug and switch to the sea route instead of the canal? You must know that the transport volume of sea ships is much greater than that of water ships, and the speed of sailing ships is also much faster than that of human fiber pulling. If water transportation can be changed to sea transportation, then the transportation costs and consumption along the way will definitely be greatly reduced, and the burden on the people of Jiangnan will also be reduced. Greatly reduced, benefiting people's livelihood, there is no greater good.
Therefore, since Qi Jiguang pacified the Japanese pirates and the sea area returned to calm, people have been proposing in the court to change water transportation to sea transportation to reduce the burden on the entire Jiangnan. But all the initiatives ultimately came to nothing - thousands of miles of canal transportation, nearly a million people involved, and tens of millions of shi of grain available for profit distribution every year, which is equivalent to tens of millions of taels of silver. Faced with such huge and stable profits, who is willing to change? Who dares to touch it?
Even though the Donglin Party in Jiangnan controlled the political affairs of the late Ming Dynasty, the financial backers behind them were the wealthy gentry and merchant groups in Jiangnan, not the small farmers in Jiangnan. No matter how hard water transport exploited the people of Jiangnan, they were good at tax evasion. It has little impact, and naturally there is no motivation for change.
As a result, it dragged on from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, even though steamships and railway trains appeared, because too many people's interests were involved, water transportation remained the same. Finally, at the beginning of the 20th century, the northern section of the Grand Canal was so clogged that it was impossible to sail. The Qing government, which had just experienced the Boxer Rebellion and signed the Xinchou Treaty and compensated the great powers 450 million taels of silver, Anyway Since they could no longer afford the funds for river management, they had no choice but to disregard the resentment of the officials and resolutely abolished water transportation. The Cao Gang who had lost their jobs became the Qing Gang. Some changed their careers to work in Shanghai, and some went to join Sun Yat-sen to become adults. the revolutionary party. In the future Revolution of 1911, these laid-off trackers also played a significant role in overthrowing the Qing Dynasty.
In the same way, Elder Sun Chengzong's fortress tactics not only cost five million taels of silver every year, which was not enough from the national tax, but also once a war actually started, it was impossible to attack and defend. The so-called Great Victory of Ningyuan and the Great Victory of Ningjin were just more than twenty fortresses. They were swept away by the Jin army until only four or five were left. A large amount of money, food, materials and personnel were taken away to support the enemy. Only a few of them were particularly strong. The fortress has not been breached.
In order to hold on to these fortresses and a piece of land the size of a palm, the price was chaos all over the world and chaos in the Central Plains. The people were overwhelmed and revolted. The border troops were cut off from pay and food and mutinied one after another. Countless bandits were rampant in Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Gansu. , Henan provinces, causing turmoil throughout the country.
As long as you compare the gains and losses, you will understand that the national power of the late Ming Dynasty can no longer support this kind of fortress tactics.
Since this fortress tactic is so bad, a waste of money, ineffective, and has huge sequelae, why does Ming Ting insist on holding on to it?
Because like water transportation, it has one of the biggest advantages, that is, it makes it easier for everyone to get involved in corruption!
Obviously, spending huge sums of money to build so many projects that cannot be defended at all is a perfect fit for the relevant departments to embezzle project funds - the enemy attacks, the fortress falls, and is then looted and demolished, causing a large amount of property In addition to losses and casualties, all traces of embezzlement of project funds by relevant personnel will be wiped out.
Therefore, wherever the fortress is built, corruption will spread. It's easy for those black-hearted officials to turn the fortress into a shoddy project. It's also common for them to just make up some non-existent strongholds on the bills specifically to defraud the court of money! Anyway, when the Jurchen soldiers arrived, everything was in ruins. Even if the court wanted to send people to check the accounts afterwards, there was nowhere to check... In addition, the hundreds of thousands of Guan Ning troops on the court roster were scattered among the 20 In several fortresses, unable to support each other, the Jurchens Once the army comes to sweep, the Ming army will naturally be defeated like a mountain, and the death will be in vain. After a defeat, all traces of shortfalls will be completely eliminated. It is true to what Wang Zaijin said: "There is food." , there is nothing when facing the enemy!”
As a result, the fortress group built by Sun Chengzong in western Liaoning not only became a fixed supply depot where the Jurchens regularly formed teams to kill monsters and exploded grain, grass and weapons, but also became a cornucopia for the generals of western Liaoning to blackmail the imperial court every year. What's even more terrible is that the generals of Liaoxi are also old officials in the officialdom. They understand the principle of not punishing the public and making a fortune together, so just like the canal transport, since the construction of the Liaoxi fortress complex started, I don't know how many people from the Sixth Department of the Cabinet to local officials. Everyone gets their hands on it - almost all of the imperial court's fiscal revenue comes here. Anyone with a bit of ability will find a way to make money from here!
As a result, the Ming Empire invested five to six million taels of silver in western Liaoning every year by selling iron and steel. For this purpose, people all over the world rose up in rebellion. The result was that they fattened a large group of vampires and gold-eating beasts, from central civil servants to generals in Liaoxi. The generals in western Liaoning developed a vassal town that was not controlled by the imperial court. They were only willing to take large amounts of food and salary, and were unwilling to fight properly. They also let the Jurchens steal a large amount of money, food and materials, and they became stronger day by day.
Therefore, although the Liaoxi fortress complex dragged down the imperial finances to a basic collapse, from the cabinet ministers, the six ministries of the imperial court, to all parties involved in the construction of the Liaoxi fortress complex, and of course the Liaoxi generals who were the direct parties, none were willing to switch to Wang Zaijin's strategy. , withdrew from Shanhaiguan to save money and let the court breathe a sigh of relief. Because once the court spends less, the benefits that corrupt officials like them can reap will also be less. And those who dare to forcibly implement this strategy will not only be stigmatized as "abandoning the land of their ancestors", but will also offend a lot of people, and most of them may not even be able to save their lives!
In this way, for the gray income of so many people, the Ming court could only bite the bullet and continue to adhere to the Liaoxi fortress tactics until the entire country collapsed. In fact, later on, even Sun Chengzong himself vaguely felt that this strategy The seemingly good and powerful fortress tactic has turned into something as harmful to the people as water transport. But when things got to this point, even he, the founder, couldn't change his ways.
——Any wrong strategic move, as long as it facilitates corruption and profit sharing by the bureaucracy, then there is no need to change it,
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"...Hey, although I haven't been able to come up with a real solution, I can still see the secrets in this remote place. It can be seen that the Australian scribe who wrote this article must be well-informed and knowledgeable. If he can be persuaded to abandon the dark side and serve the imperial court..."
Zou Weilian muttered to this point, but suddenly burst out laughing - although this article has sharp eyes and sophisticated comments, the words are all in vernacular, which is quite vulgar, and there are not many allusions in the whole article. With this kind of literary talent, at most he can be a child, and he may not even be able to pass the examination for a scholar, let alone a Jinshi. For a person like this, in the court of the Ming Dynasty, being able to serve as a staff member and a clean guest for those lowly warriors is probably the best destiny!
Thinking of this, Zou Weilian couldn't help but feel a little uninterested. He didn't want to read any more, so he threw the "Research on War History" everywhere, got up and called the servant, served him and dressed neatly, then came out of the study, stretched, and moved his hands and feet. , take a breath of fresh air.
As soon as I walked out of the door, a steward came up to greet me, "...Master, are you up? Do you want some refreshments?"
"...Oh, okay, let's take it to the pavilion in the garden to eat! What snacks are there today?" Zou Weilian asked casually.
"...The Australian sweet potatoes are steaming in the pot in the kitchen, and they are about to be cooked. There is also the newly launched Australian sweet corn. I know that you like this, so I took a boat all the way to Xia Puna. The waiter said with a flattering smile, "...I also bought some Australian tomatoes, Australian bell peppers and Australian cauliflower, and I'm going to make soup noodles for dinner!"
Zou Weilian couldn't help but feel very happy when he heard that today's tea had Australian sweet corn, and dinner included bell peppers, tomatoes and cauliflower. Although a gentleman was far away from the kitchen, eating was another matter. For all of you Donglin gentlemen who live a luxurious life and are well-fed in food and clothing, the more variety of ingredients, the better, and the fresher and more novel the better. Although various novel and exotic fruits and vegetables have been introduced to Daming from overseas over the years, in recent years, when Australian recipes and ingredients were spread to the southeastern provinces, they still caused a huge sensation and popularity.
Take this Australian sweet potato, for example. Merchants trading with overseas countries have also brought it here in the past few years, but when it comes to taste, it is really incomparable with Australian sweet potato varieties. The Australian sweet corn tastes a hundred times better than the Western French corn. There are also tomatoes, cauliflower, bell peppers, etc., which all taste good and feel quite novel. It is said that Australian rice also has extremely high yields, far better than Chinese rice varieties.
Unfortunately, the Australian did not know what secret method he used to buy the Australian sweet potatoes, but he could only eat them, not grow them! It’s not that these sweet potatoes were cooked in advance and therefore couldn’t germinate after they were planted. The buds can sprout, and the seedlings grow quite long, but the strange thing is that they only grow seedlings, but no potatoes! The same is true for several other Australian ingredients. Take the Australian tomatoes for example. The fruits you buy are red, big and sweet, but if you plant them... the fruits will definitely be small and sour, and the yield is still small. Surprisingly low, what a weird thing!
Therefore, up to now, most of the "Australian vegetables" on the market can only be provided by "Australians". I heard that in southern Fujian, these new crops have been promoted by the "work team" of Australian thieves, but in northern Fujian where the imperial power still exists, only the Funing Wei army households in Xiapu can obtain seeds and plant them... …Therefore, the supply has always exceeded demand, and vegetable vendors who go to Xiapu to buy goods have to queue up from time to time...
"...Hey, although this Australian thief is unruly and uncivilized, he is not only good at various trades, but also very accomplished in farming. Unfortunately, he refuses to serve the court obediently. Instead, he colludes with traitors and rebels. Disaster I am so cruel to Sheji..." Zou Weilian thought in his heart, and was about to move to the pavilion, but unexpectedly another servant came running in shouting, "...Master, Master!"
"...Shut up! What a shame for shouting! Why are you so flustered?" Zou Weilian frowned and scolded in displeasure.
"...Old...Master, there is a Mr. Zhang outside asking to see him. He seems to be from Jiangnan!" the servant hurriedly reported.
"...Oh? From Jiangnan? Is he the one who came last time?"
Hearing this, Governor Zou Weilian immediately felt a black line on his forehead - could it be that Zhang Dai from last time is here again?
"...No, it's another Mr. Zhang whom I don't know." The servant hurriedly replied, while handing over an exquisite name card with both hands.
Then, after looking at the handwriting on the name card, Zou Weilian's face turned darker, "...Zhang Pu and Zhang Gandu? We finally got rid of Zhang Dai last time, why is this mad dog here now? Jiangnan's What exactly are the Dukes of Donglin going to do?”
"...Then...Master, do you want to invite him in? Or do you mean you are not here?"
Seeing that the governor's face looked unhappy, the servant asked cautiously and tentatively. "...The visitor is a guest, so let's invite him in to meet him!" Governor Zou Weilian, who knew how difficult Zhang Pu was, finally did not dare to give him a cold shoulder, "...I'll see you in the flower hall, please prepare The good refreshments were also brought over... Hey, why can’t you just let me have some peace and quiet for two days?”