Chapter 154, The Turbulent Jiangnan (Part 2)
Therefore, seeing that the livelihood of Jiangnan citizens is getting worse day by day, the tuition money and rice subsidies that the government should pay to them have also been cut off for several months, because only a few years later, Zhang, the leader of the restoration society, Pu wrote the "Inscription of the Five Men" and took advantage of the Suzhou civil uprising to become famous in the world. The memory is still fresh in his memory. At present, there are many poor scholars in Suzhou Prefecture. They all got their ideas together and connected with each other. While publicizing it among the people, they held the memorial tablet of Confucius, the most holy teacher, and set up a formation outside the magistrate's office. They wanted to use the banner of "asking for orders for the people and doing justice for heaven". To reenact the anti-tax uprising in Suzhou in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, to ask for justice from the government, at least let yourself get some benefits.
However, they have forgotten a very important point. The Suzhou civil uprising in the sixth year of the Apocalypse was opposed to the eunuch party's dictatorship and to resisting the imperial court's tax on Jiangnan industry and commerce. Behind it were the Donglin Party and Jiangnan landlords, gentry and wealthy businessmen groups. The big benefactor acted as a promoter, so he naturally responded to his call and made a great fuss. But now the Nanjing court is dominated by the Donglin Party. How can it allow poor scholars like them to jump up and down?
Therefore, just like those poor Americans in later generations who were dazzled by the daily propaganda of human rights and freedoms and rashly went to "occupy" that Wall Street, these junior Suzhou scholars also seriously underestimated the Donglin Party. He is so cruel that he dares to take to the streets without anyone to back him up. Of course, there will be hardships - the array of broken boots set up by the Suzhou scholars outside the magistrate's office was noisy for three days at first. No one dared to take care of it at one time, which made these scholars feel proud and felt that they had succeeded. If you accomplish a great event, you may be as famous as Zhang Pu in the future.
Unexpectedly, three days later, the Nanjing court's response was unprecedentedly harsh. The cabinet actually ordered the dispatch of the newly formed Beijing Forbidden Army, rushed to Suzhou, and shot the troublemakers with bows and crossbows in the street. Anyone who couldn't escape was chopped into pieces!
Because the scholars and scholars were not only in Suzhou, but in Zhenjiang, Huzhou, Jiaxing, Songjiang, Changzhou, Nanjing and other places, they were killed on the spot under the bloody strangulation of the imperial officers and soldiers. There were thousands of people, and Confucius tablets were thrown all over the street. Afterwards, more than 600 scholars and more than 150 candidates were expelled from their official positions, and more than 80 relevant officials were dismissed from their posts.
However, it was relatively easy for the court to suppress those scholars who could only talk nonsense but had no power to restrain a chicken, and who had failed to rebel for ten years. However, the unemployed workers and workers who were so poor that only one life was left Bankrupt farmers are very head-scratching.
Faced with the thugs and police officers from the gentry who came to suppress the rice-grabbing movement, the anger and despair that had accumulated in the hearts of Jiangnan citizens for more than half a year suddenly erupted like a torrent. These people, who had been starved to the point of becoming emaciated and dying, somehow got the strength and courage to fight with the officials. Even though their heads were beaten with iron rulers and sticks, they still clung to the rice bags they grabbed. Refuse to let go.
In rural villages in the south of the Yangtze River, tax collectors who came to distribute poll taxes were also besieged by angry villagers, and many of them were beaten to death.
In the face of the threat of death, the once aloof government seems to have become less scary.
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Zhou Yanru, the chief assistant of the Cabinet of the Forbidden City in Nanjing, was facing the military intelligence reports flying in like snow, with a sad look on his face.
Seeing that the situation in the market was getting worse day by day, his hair was turning gray one after another. Now, the territory that the Nanjing Yonghe Emperor's court could really control was originally only as big as a palm. It didn't reach Anqing in the west, Songjiang in the east, Chuzhou in the north, and Jiaxing at most in the south. Now trapped in Quzhou, the governor of Zhejiang is in a dilemma. He is actually alone behind enemy lines.
But at present, the foreign enemies from all sides have not yet attacked further. This land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River, which is known as the fertile land, has already turned into a mess.
——The Wenxiang Cult monsters in Jiangbei were beaten to ashes by the Eight Banners Jiannu, and they basically no longer pose a threat to Jiangnan. The Jiannu from Liaodong had just arrived and had not yet established a foothold in the Huaihe River, so they would not attempt to cross the Yangtze River and go south soon. As for the Australian bandits in the south, they also stopped moving forward after occupying Hangzhou. Although the deposed emperor of Chongzhen in Huguang upstream has made great efforts to raise wages and recruit troops, after all, there has been no sign of sending troops so far.
However, although foreign enemies from all directions have not invaded on a large scale for the time being, the spark ignited by the rice grabbing movement in Suzhou and Songjiang Prefecture has spread throughout the entire Jiangnan, and every town, town, and county has been involved in the riot. swirl! In these cities with developed industry and commerce, the devastating economic depression has lasted for more than half a year, and the streets are full of unemployed citizens who are on the verge of starvation. Therefore, as long as someone raises his hand and shouts, tens of thousands of hungry people can immediately gather to launch riots and loot any store on the street, especially grain stores. Although the local government and gentry are trying their best to suppress it, in front of hundreds of thousands or millions of crazy people who are suffering from hunger and poverty, they are simply trying to control the situation.
Of course, without the leadership of advanced revolutionary ideas, these riots initially only remained at the low level of "grabbing food for survival." However, as time goes by, more and more people with political ambitions have joined these riots and become the core members of various chaotic parties. Among them are gang bosses, liars and magicians, as well as delusional landowners and gentry, and even some down-and-out scholars who are good at deception. Under the leadership of these folk intellectuals and urban and rural realists, the Jiangnan civil uprising soon showed a terrible trend of transforming from food grabbing to rebellion!
What's worse is that since the fall of Beijing, water transportation that has lasted for two hundred years has been automatically abolished. As a result, the canal gangs that controlled the canal also went bankrupt. Just like Chongzhen abolished the postmen of the world in the early years, he instantly created chaos in the south and north of the Yangtze River. There are hundreds of thousands of unemployed strong men, but these people have a high level of organization and a clear command system because they have been engaged in the transportation industry for a long time. With a little training, they can become a rebel army!
Previously, most of the Cao Gang in Jiangbei had surrendered to the Wenxiang Cult demons, causing countless troubles to the thieves' officers and soldiers. The Cao Gang in Jiangnan first actively participated in the criminal industry, causing the security situation in Jiangnan to deteriorate rapidly. Now it has become an important leading group in previous rice-grabbing riots, causing chaos and chaos in all prefectures and counties. The bandit rebellion that swept through Shaanxi seems to be happening again in the Jiangnan water town!
In desperation, Zhou Yanru, the chief minister who was under tremendous pressure both physically and mentally, had no choice but to be cruel and temporarily ignore the defense in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and mobilize the only mobile field force under the name of the Nanjing court that was still capable of fighting - Lu Weiqi, the Minister of the Ministry of War in Nanjing. With more than 10,000 "elite soldiers" withdrawn from the Yangzhou battlefield, they quickly set off to Suzhou, Songjiang and other places to quell the chaos. At the same time, he ordered the Zhejiang governor who was trapped in Quzhou to abandon the mountainous areas in western Zhejiang and led the remaining Zhejiang soldiers to southern Zhili to participate in quelling the rebellion. After a series of extremely bloody killings, the anxious Nanjing Communist Party finally suppressed these chaotic parties that had not yet had time to become popular. However, it also caused even greater damage to the economy and people's livelihood in these areas. destroy.
After all, the saying "Thieves come like a comb, soldiers come like a grate, and officials come like a shave" was not an exaggerated lie in the late Ming Dynasty!
——In mid-May, a rice-grabbing uprising broke out in Shanghai County, Songjiang Prefecture, and more than ten people including Juren, scholars, and retired officials were killed. The county magistrate quickly dispatched government officials and regiment officials, and gathered more than 800 people to enter the city with swords and sticks to suppress the rebels. In the melee, more than 2,000 houses were burned down, and countless people died.
——In late May, the Haining Guards in Zhejiang Province rebelled due to lack of pay. The rebels expelled General Hangjiahu and the commander of the Guards. They looted several counties and towns in Haiyan and Haining. They also colluded with the Hangzhou Kun thieves to provide foreign aid to counter the rebellion. At that time, there was great chaos in southern Zhili, and the officers and soldiers were unable to attack, so they retreated to Jiaxing Fucheng.
At the beginning of June, the governor of Zhejiang led more than 3,000 Zhejiang soldiers, together with more than 10,000 soldiers from the North Zhejiang Township Warriors, to suppress the Hainingwei rebels. After several battles, the rebels dispersed, the leader of the bandits was killed, and the remaining troops fled to the seaside. The governor personally led the army to pursue the victory. Unexpectedly, the bandit warships arrived at the port of Haiyan County, fired artillery to bombard the army's formation, and sent elite troops to land to counterattack. The army was defeated, the governor of Zhejiang was shot dead, and the remaining Zhejiang soldiers retreated to Nanjing.
——At the end of June, the villagers of Changzhou used force to resist taxes. The local government failed to suppress them, so the imperial court sent the Beijing camp to fight against them. More than 3,000 thieves were killed before they were put down.
——In early July, Chen, the leader of the Cao Gang in Taicang Prefecture, coerced tens of thousands of traitors to start a rebellion, expelled the Kunshan County Magistrate, and took up residence in Kunshan County to rebel. The two prefectures of Suzhou and Songjiang sent out troops to jointly suppress the army at the end of July, and the entire army was wiped out. On the contrary, the bandit soldiers broke into Jiading again, killed the Jiading county magistrate, and then returned with a large plunder. The fierce flames were blazing. On the third day of August, Lu Weiqi, Minister of War, swore an oath to go to Kunshan. He led 30,000 soldiers from the capital camp and Zhejiang soldiers, Xiangyong, Tuanlian, and garrison troops. They surrounded Kunshan County. They bombarded the city with red cannons and stormed for ten days before breaking the city. The bandit leader Chen fled during the chaos and did not know where he ended up. Afterwards, the army plundered Kunshan County and beheaded nine thousand people. Lu Weiqi ordered the construction of a Beijing temple outside the east gate to show off his martial arts and scare the traitors...