Chapter 190 Blood Waves

August 15th, Mid-Autumn Festival.

The weather in the capital has entered autumn, with drizzling rain, which sends a chill into everyone's muscles, as if covering the entire northern country with a layer of chill.

People visit relatives and friends, and the streets are decorated with lights and colorful lanterns.

From the scenery on the streets, it can be seen that people's lives this year are much better than in previous years, but what "spoiled the scenery" was that someone led five battalions of soldiers and rode war horses into the capital city with great momentum.

At the same time, people from the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the Eastern Depot, and the Five Cities Military Affairs Department also took action.

The troops of the five camps had experienced many battlefields and were filled with murderous aura, which brought a strange atmosphere to the festival.

"what happens?"

"Who knows? Will someone rebel?"

"It doesn't look like we're going to leave. Let's go and have a look."

What happened in recent days has made the people in the capital no longer so afraid of the Jinyiwei and the Eastern Depot, because they know that the emperor likes to kill people, but the blade will never reach their heads.

So every time the Jinyiwei and Dongchang troops went out, they were followed by a large group of people.

The already imposing army had a very long tail behind it, making it even more powerful.

The common people watched as the Jinyiwei rushed into the mansions of officials one after another. "Wu Yicheng, your case has been exposed. Come with us."

"Lang Ruli, you are suspected of treason, come with us..."

After the Anti-Corruption Department had thoroughly investigated the Ministry of Revenue, Ministry of Rites, Ministry of Personnel, Ministry of Works, and Ministry of Justice, it finally conducted a thorough investigation of the Ministry of War. All the evidence had been collected, but no action was taken.

The Ministry of War is too involved and is the most dangerous.

Since it concerns the national strength of the Ming Dynasty, no one dared to say anything, but His Majesty kept asking them not to relax.

Now, with the emperor's order, all the members are mobilized.

Any officials or their nephews who dared to resist arrest by swearing were shot to death on the spot.

In an instant, the Ministry of War in the capital was in an uproar, and a huge wave was set off.

An old man from Jiangsu and Zhejiang shouted, "I am Gong Shixian, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of War..."

Before he could finish his words, he was kicked to the ground by a captain of the Jinyiwei, "Capture him!"

When Gong Shixian fell, he saw someone walking towards him out of the corner of his eye.

He raised his head, his eyes narrowed, "Cao Huachun? You..."

Cao Huachun looked at him coldly, "Yes, it was me. His Majesty asked me to come here, and you should know your fate."

He sighed, "Why bother?"

Gong Shixian stood there in a daze for a long time before he asked loudly, "Your Majesty, can you kill all the civil servants in this court?"

"I don't know. We can't kill them all, but the officials in your Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas must be cut off."

"Fault?"

Gong Shixian's pupils suddenly contracted. The meaning behind this was like a giant hand grabbing his heart, making his whole body cold.

……

Kill the fault!

What Zhu Changgan had to do was to completely cut off the interest groups of civil officials and military generals.

How to cut it off?

political reform?

Reform is impossible to achieve.
For example, Wang Anshi's reform was a process that Wang Anshi wanted to stop, but once such a national interest group was formed, they would not allow anyone to stop them.

Fan Zhongyan is not good enough, Wang Anshi is not good enough, and Zhang Juzheng is not good enough.

Even Yongzheng's later policy of "equalizing the land tax" did not work.

The only thing that could make them stop was when the conflict reached its peak and was resolved by people like Huang Chao and Li Zicheng.

Now that Zhu Changgan is doing it himself, he can only do it through ruthless means.

If you want to scrape off these "dark pimples" and "rotten flesh" of the Ming Dynasty, you have to be ruthless and cruel, and have the same determination as the Hongwu Emperor to skin them and stuff them with straw, only then will you be able to clean up the bureaucracy.

"kill!"

Killing one person means heads rolling; killing one person means the universe becomes bright.

Let the military and political affairs truly fall into the hands of those who care about the Ming Dynasty.

In the typical civil service system of the Ming Dynasty, because there was no supervision from below, as long as one could deal with the superiors, one could be worry-free and get promoted and make money.

Under this model and this system, corruption is inevitable over time.

A lot of this corruption is not done through brutal means, but rather has hidden rules.

For example, the border wall repair model used by border officials.

At the same time, corruption is actually an institutional problem. Wherever there are people, there will be corruption, and it will never be completely eradicated.

The real harm of corruption does not lie in how much money is embezzled or accepted in bribes, but in the fact that corruption cannot be curbed, especially the hidden corruption, which will result in the evil driving out the good in the entire government management system.

When most people are corrupt, even those who are eager to remain honest have only two choices when they enter such a big ship.

Either actively be assimilated and enter that circle.

If you are unwilling to be assimilated and want to maintain your own original heart, then you will become an outlier.

Those who are not of my kind must have different hearts, and will either be eliminated or marginalized.

Once corruption spreads uncontrollably and even becomes the norm in society, and people no longer consider corruption to be an evil, but instead lament that they are not qualified to be corrupt, then the entire political system will be replaced by various powerful people.

A tacit understanding formed by officials' secret transactions and exchange of interests.

In this swamp, everything collapsed.

From the capital to the countryside, everything will be corrupted, and the upper beam will be crooked if the lower beam is not straight.

This is because throughout Chinese history, bureaucrats, literati, merchants, and landlords would combine into a hui clique as society continued to develop, and this clique would grow and expand rapidly like a snowball.

Because of the Matthew effect of wealth and power, they will plunder the wealth of the entire country and the people, causing the poor to become poorer and the rich to become richer.

And these people are not satisfied with corruption and tax evasion.

They will easily use their power to shift the taxes that should be paid to others.

As those small landlords and middle peasants continued to go bankrupt, the country's tax system was completely destroyed, and the national finances were on the brink of bankruptcy and could no longer operate.

Since they hold power and there are no laws to effectively restrain them, it can even be said that the laws of the Ming Dynasty are their playthings.

For example, the background that Zhu Changgan saw in "Jin Ping Mei" was the middle and late Ming Dynasty, when there was no legal order at all.

Using power instead of law has become the norm.

None of the cases involved were fair laws, and they became playthings of the powerful.

Ximen Qing is such a jerk, but he actually became the Chief Justice.

Ordinary people are just ants in Ximen Qing's eyes.

Ximen Qing could arrest anyone he wanted, and once he brought the person to court, he would beat him first.

Ximen Qing’s favorite thing to do was to smash the prisoners’ shin bones with a hammer. With such power, what could he not steal?
Therefore, the expansion of these people's wealth is basically obtained through unfair distribution means such as power, rather than through merit and labor.

They not only did not contribute to the development of the Ming Dynasty and the lives of the people, but were extremely harmful, because they had simpler and more effective means and methods to obtain wealth, and did not care whether the country could continue or whether the people could survive.

I only care about whether I can have more money in my pocket.

This is why the Ming Dynasty was ultimately hopeless.

Building fortresses and border walls is actually just a superficial phenomenon, and valuing things over people is just a side effect of this civil service system.

In the square outside the imperial city, soldiers from the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the Eastern Depot, and the Five Cities Army were marching around again and again.

The number of officials and generals who were captured increased.

Thirty people, fifty people...

One hundred people, two hundred people... five hundred people...

"Did you notice? This time it seems that most of the officials are from Jiangsu and Zhejiang?"

“Oh, I really didn’t see that before.”

"What's going on? Your Majesty is going to completely clean up the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas?"

The people were talking in low voices.

As the number of officials increased, the people became more and more frightened, and their emotions surged like huge waves.

"Reporting to the Governor, we should have arrested 667 people, but we actually arrested 658 people."

Among them are not only civil servants, but also the deputy generals who were escorted to Beijing in the previous battles of Shanxi and Datong, as well as the generals of Gansu and Fengyang a few days ago.

The Gansu general had a close personal relationship with the Shanxi general Wang Pu. When he was found to be collaborating with the enemy, he still wanted to resist. However, with the strong intervention of the troops from the five major camps, the battle was over in just a few hours.

The Gansu general and hundreds of his servants were all killed, and the main culprit was detained and taken to Beijing.

As for the general of Fengyang, he was guilty of corruption and killing innocent people to gain credit. In addition, when he was deputy general, he resisted passively, which led to the destruction of the imperial mausoleum. He was punished for multiple crimes and was beheaded.

Cao Huachun looked at the densely packed heads and said expressionlessly: "Execute!"

It was not until this time that these civil servants and military generals became truly terrified. Each of them was trembling like a sieve, and shouted to his Majesty, "Your Majesty, please spare my life."

Hundreds of officers and soldiers held their swords and swung them down fiercely.

in an instant,
Hundreds of streams of blood shot up into the sky, and heads rolled all over the ground.

Streaks of scarlet blood swam on the ground like giant earthworms, irritating everyone's nerves.

There was silence.

Apart from the sound of the wind, there was no sound of discussion.

Both the common people and the officials who did not participate in this event were completely frightened by this scene.

Even Cao Huachun himself felt his limbs were a little cold, not to mention the other officials, who were all frightened out of their wits.

……

The smell of blood in the capital city lasted for several days and never dissipated.

All the civil and military officials in the court were in fear.

Chongzhen was also frightened.

Because he was now facing a huge problem, because the number of people in his team was increasing rapidly, even if he tried to control the number of people in just a few days.

The team had reached a size of 80,000. Many times, he didn't want some people to join in, but the common people and able-bodied men around him were like leeches on the heel, willing to risk their lives to get in.

In a form of half coercion and half loyalty, they joined his army.

During this period, Chongzhen finally witnessed the destructive power of the bandits.

With too many people, there will not be enough food, so we have to keep fighting. Once we capture a county, compromise will become a luxury.

Once this war of robbing food and kidnapping people begins, not only the refugees but also myself will be unable to stop.

Unless... all the able-bodied agricultural men are injured or killed, and the food supply in this area cannot be sustained, this violent bandit movement will end.

It seems unrealistic at present that all the able-bodied men in agriculture will die out, but it is visible to the naked eye that all the able-bodied men in agricultural areas have gone to war, and the remaining old, weak, sick and disabled people are unable to carry out agricultural production effectively, resulting in a decline in grain output. The looting of the army during the war has further caused a serious food crisis.

Just like Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan now, the war potential has disappeared, and the peasant armies in various places have to move to other areas with relatively strong populations and better food production to open up new horizons.

The key is that the territory of the Ming Dynasty is large enough and the terrain is complex enough to provide enough strategic space for bandits and government troops to deal with each other.

I only attacked two prefectures. If I were like Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, who plundered several provinces, then...

"My Lord? My Lord?"

Old Han called him twice before Chongzhen's thoughts came back to reality, "Huh?"

He suddenly understood that at this moment his "staff" were discussing where to go next.

"My lord, we still have 12,000 dan of grain and 550,000 taels of silver..." The old blind man's apprentice now straightened his back and reported the battle report in a deep voice.

Old Han also clasped his fists and said with a burning look in his eyes: "My Lord, why don't we go south to Wuchang Prefecture as our next stop?"

"No, I think we should go east through Anqing Prefecture. Jiangsu and Zhejiang are the richest. If we enter Zhejiang, we can go north to occupy Yingtian Prefecture. We can get more money and food, and we can also take advantage of the natural barrier of the Yangtze River and occupy the Ming court's troops."

"Yingtian Prefecture has a large number of troops. In my opinion, we should go south and occupy Jiujiang Prefecture. We can also rely on the natural barrier of the Yangtze River..."

"Wuchang Prefecture!"

“Anqing…”

Everyone was arguing until their faces turned red. Chongzhen raised his hand and stopped everyone, "Let's go to Jiujiang Prefecture."

Yingtian Prefecture was the capital of the Ming Dynasty and the capital conquered by our ancestor Emperor Hongwu. Naturally, he could not go there. Compared with Wuchang Prefecture and Jiujiang Prefecture.

The reason why Chongzhen chose Jiujiang Prefecture was that it was not far away and there would be fewer people involved along the way.

Another is that the core areas where bandits roam must be densely agricultural areas. The contradiction between population and land is serious. The denser the population, the easier it is to engulf the young and middle-aged labor force. Areas dominated by animal husbandry and fishing find it difficult to provide sufficient population density.

Jiujiang Prefecture is next to the Yangtze River and there are many fishermen.

Just when everyone was still discussing, someone outside the tent suddenly came to report, "My lord, there is a man named Sun Kewang outside, who claims to be your disciple."

Chongzhen suddenly raised his head, "Sun Kewang? Why is he here?"

"Bring him in."

……

"Sir!" Sun Kewang entered the tent, put his left hand on his right hand, hid his hands in his sleeves, raised his hands to his forehead, bowed ninety degrees, then stood up, and at the same time, raised his hands to his eyebrows again, and then put his hands down, a standard student's bow to the teacher.

Chongzhen quickly stopped him, "Didn't I tell you before that I'm not your husband?"

"Once a teacher, always a father. Whether the teacher is willing or not, I must pay homage to him," said Sun Kewang.

He had never worshipped before because Chongzhen forbade him to do so, and also because of Zhang Xianzhong.

But it’s different now. I come here to seek refuge, all relying on this teacher-student relationship.

"Sir, I brought 10,000 men with me this time."

"Why are there so many people?" Chongzhen's face stiffened for a moment.

"After the death of the Eighth King, the original troops fled in all directions. I gathered the best among them, but fate was unfortunate. We were besieged twice by the government troops. Now we only have less than 10,000 troops. In these difficult times, I heard about your reputation and came to join you."

Chongzhen: "I..."

(End of this chapter)