Chapter 52 Asking for Credit and Reward (1)
Due to its very remote geographical location, Yazhou has been a place where the imperial court distributes prisoners since ancient times. Very few residents from the mainland move to this place on their own initiative. Therefore, seven out of ten residents near Yazhou are prisoners or officials. Descendants of relatives. There are countless high-ranking officials in this place who have been exiled by the imperial court. Since the Tang Dynasty, there have been more than ten important ministers at the level of deputy prime minister or above, and the dismissal of an important minister will often implicate several party members. For hundreds of years, Accumulate. Yazhou actually has the nickname of "the home of secluded virgins". In later generations, the local government promoted Yacheng as a famous historical and cultural city for tourism promotion. It was known as "the hometown of poetry and rituals and an important cultural town", which was not groundless.
But it is precisely because of the large number of officials assigned here that a strange situation has been formed in which social resources are highly concentrated in one place. Most of these high-level prisoners were restricted to settle in the city so that they could be monitored by the relevant departments of the imperial court. This resulted in almost all the intellectuals in Yazhou being concentrated in Yazhou City. There were not only schools and bookstores in the city, but also gathering places for literati. Dedicated place. But just a few dozen miles outside the city, there wasn't even a private school to teach children how to read.
Out of envy for civilized life, some wealthy landowners in nearby towns will also take the initiative to move to Yazhou. In the long run, the price level in Yazhou City will gradually increase, resulting in an increase in the cost of living in the city, and some poor people will move to Yazhou. Landless people cannot live in the city and can only go to places far away from Yazhou City to open up wasteland to make a living. And these small towns and villages composed of extremely poor residents cannot even afford teachers and doctors, and their living standards are as low as what the action team had seen before.
Because these newly opened fields are far away from the city, the value of the land is extremely low. Once farmers have a serious illness or minor disaster and need money, they may have to sell their houses and land and go bankrupt to borrow money to survive. Over time, the land will slowly It was merged into the hands of a very small number of large landowners. And these wealthy landowners can use the means of production at their disposal to continuously acquire and annex more land, causing more and more farmers to become proletarians.
"The poor are getting poorer, the rich are getting richer, and polarization is serious. These are the consequences of vicious land annexation!" Yan Chujie couldn't help but sigh after listening to Luo Shengdong's introduction. Before his time travel, his understanding of the history of the late Ming Dynasty was limited to the textbook knowledge he learned in school. It was only after Ning Qi joined the team that he often taught everyone science after school that he gradually became more familiar with the social changes and historical events at that time. gained more understanding. But now that I have witnessed these sentiments of the people with my own eyes, it just confirms the historical facts I know.
When Luo Shengdong learned that the next stop of the action team was to go to Nanshan Town, he clearly expressed his opposition. Luo Shengdong had only one reason to object, and that was that there was an inspection department in Nanshan Town.
The Inspection Department is a grassroots administrative agency that integrates military and political affairs. It is inferior to the county level in terms of administrative level and mainly performs military and public security functions. Nanshan Town is located south of Yazhou, between mountains. It is an important land pass in the southeast of Yazhou. And because the population here is relatively dense, an inspection department has been set up to manage the area. There is even a fort built outside Nanshan Town. It serves as the headquarters of the inspection department during normal times and becomes a gateway for garrison defense during wartime. If these people appear in Nanshan Town, they will immediately attract the attention of the inspection department, which may cause unnecessary trouble. Luo Shengdong didn't want anything to go wrong at the critical moment when he was already at the door of his home, so he immediately made the stakes clear to the traveling public one by one.
Yan Chujie weighed the pros and cons, and finally agreed to Luo Shengdong's suggestion and temporarily canceled the inspection mission at this station in Nanshan Town, which made Luo Shengdong secretly relieved. The two parties discussed how to contact each other in the next few days, and then left Western Hawksbill Island and continued their journey.
In the afternoon of that day, after the two ships passed Nanshanjiao one after another, Luo Shengdong's ship would sail straight into the Ningyuan River. Yazhou Water Village was not far upstream from the entrance of the Ningyuan River. The "Speed" docked at the later location of Nanshan Port and used this place as a campsite for the next few days. This place is about three thousand meters away from the mouth of the Ningyuan River. If something special happens here in Yazhou Water Village, the "Speed" can come and go freely.
In the forty-fifth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, the former division of Shuizhai was established in Yazhou. In the 19th year of Jiajing, according to the report of Cai Jing, the censor of Guangdong and Guangxi, Yazhou Shuizhai appointed a general as a military commander, which shows that the central government at that time still paid enough attention to the military defense of this remote area. However, although Yazhou Water Village has a high-level establishment such as generals, its military strength is far from meeting the establishment requirements.
In the early Ming Dynasty, it was not unusual for a general to have tens of thousands of soldiers under his command. After Jiajing, a general could lead up to three or four thousand soldiers. By the time of Chongzhen in the late Ming Dynasty, a general could usually lead only one to two thousand soldiers. . However, the military strength of Yazhou Shuizhai is much smaller than this. The entire Shuizhai has less than 600 regular soldiers and sailors. It only maintains the staffing level of the former Shuizhai Division, so that the actual officer establishment is basically no more. It cannot be arranged according to the usual plan of the Ministry of War. In the end, after various adjustments and compromises, the officer establishment of Yazhou Shuizhai became one member of the general, one member of the general, and two members of the sentry officer, namely the general. All the guerrilla and garrison positions between the general and the general were eliminated. It was cancelled. This strange establishment was finally recognized by the Ministry of War, which can be regarded as an extraordinary thing done in an extraordinary period.
The previous president had been transferred to Qiongzhou Fucheng last month, so the position of president that Luo Shengdong desperately wanted to get was still vacant. His competitor Wei Sanzhu and Wei Baizong are five or six years older than Luo Shengdong. He usually does not show any extraordinary abilities, but he is very good at speculation and flattery - at least Luo Shengdong thinks so. . There is a small general position vacant in the border garrison. Naturally, the big bosses of the Ministry of War will not have the time to inquire about it. The general process is for the local government to recommend candidates, and then the Ministry of War approves and issues appointment documents. As long as the recommended candidates do not have any serious black history, they can basically be promoted steadily. In peacetime, there are no battles to fight. If you want to get promoted in the army, you can only build relationships with your superiors. Although Luo Shengdong had some winks, he was still far behind his opponents. He knew that he could not outsmart Mr. Wei Bai, so he took the initiative to ask for orders and led his troops to patrol, hoping to wipe out a group of pirates. Take the actual head back to claim credit. This is the tradition of the old Luo family. Luo Shengdong's father was transferred from the garrison to the frontier army by chopping off the heads of pirates, and then promoted from the head soldier to the chief executive.
Although there were many twists and turns, Luo Shengdong finally achieved the purpose of his trip and obtained more than 20 pirate heads and a ship. Although this number may not seem large, this achievement is no joke. Yes, you must know that the last time the Yazhou garrison captured more than 20 pirates was in the 14th year of Zhengde. It has been more than a hundred years since then. Chen Yaoen, the governor of Yazhou at that time, commanded Gu Zhengchun, and captured 24 pirates from Boni in the battle. Since then, the defense area of the Yazhou garrison has become smaller and smaller, and several garrison points near Yulin have been simply abandoned. The Luhuitou Peninsula has become the leading place for pirates in the South China Sea to attack from north to south.
As soon as Luo Shengdong's boat sailed into the mouth of the Ningyuan River, it was spotted by a sentinel boat patrolling the river. When the outpost came over to check, Luo Shengdong appeared at the side of the ship: "Ma Laizi, stop looking, I'm not giving you a reward on this ship!"
The leading soldier on the sentinel boat was nicknamed Ma Laizi. Hearing the sound, he looked up and said in shock: "Mr. Luo Bai! Why did you come back on this boat?"
Luo Shengdong had a high-spirited look on his face: "You, Mr. Luo, have made a great contribution this time! Stop talking nonsense and lead the way. I will go back to the village to deliver my duties first! Call the brothers tonight, Mr. Luo will reserve the place at Zuixianju today!" < br>
The lame horse responded and quickly shouted to the sailors on the sentinel boat to turn the boat around and guide Luo Shengdong's Guangzhou boat towards the water village.
After the Guangzhou ship sailed into Shuizhai Pier and docked, Luo Shengdong took several of his men and carried the three boxes containing the heads. He first went to the military Chinese scribe to report that he had returned from patrol, and then went to The general will ask for credit and reward. However, Luo Shengdong found that the expression on this document seemed a bit strange after seeing him today. With a thought, he quietly stuffed a piece of silver into Zhang Wen's hand - this was returned to him along with the military uniform and weapons before leaving. Personal items.
The document seemed to know something. He looked around and said in a low voice: "Mr. Luo Bai, the inspection department found two deserters outside Nanshan Town the day before yesterday. They said they were on your ship and they had been sent to them yesterday. Shuizhai came to recognize the person, and it was indeed one of the people you brought out..."
"Hiss——" Luo Shengdong couldn't help but take a breath of cold air. After they were defeated and captured, Haihan did count the number of prisoners of war once, and after repeated calculations, two were missing. In the end, they were recorded on the missing list. Unexpectedly, these two deserters hid for more than half a month. In the end, He was actually caught anyway. In this way, wouldn't his defeat in Yulin be completely exposed? Wouldn't it be a fraud to come back this time?
At this moment, Luo Shengdong even had the idea of turning around and running away. Taking advantage of the unpreparedness of the soldiers in the village, he grabbed a boat with a few cronies and rushed out. He should be 89% sure that he could escape. As long as they can reach the territory of the Haihan people, their lives will be safe. But this idea just came up, and he suppressed it himself: "I have suffered so much and finally got such an opportunity to get ahead, how can I give up just now!"
Luo Shengdong showed a hint of ferocity on his face: "I have been looking for these two deserters for a long time! This is the right time to chop off the heads of these two guys to celebrate my success!"
(End of chapter)