Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

"If you have the guts, don't hide away. I respect you as a man!"

In order to ensure safety, the fuse of Ming Dynasty's artillery was relatively long. But before Zhang Shikang could finish his words, Zhu Changxun had already fallen to the ground.

Zhang Shikang didn't realize that this was a flexible fat man.

Seeing that the gate of the palace was open, an artilleryman was about to extinguish the fire wick, but was stopped by Zhang Shikang.

"After all this trouble, why not just listen to the noise?"

Just as he finished speaking, there was a loud bang, and black smoke came out of the French cannon. The shell flew over the gate and hit the screen wall inside the courtyard directly.

The huge relief carved out of granite collapsed backwards under the impact of the shells.

Zhu Changxun in the yard was holding his head and trembling, and all the guards and servants around him were also very frightened.

"Charge in, capture Zhu Changxun alive, and kill anyone who dares to resist on the spot!"

Zhang Shikang didn't have time to waste and gave the order immediately.

In a moment, groups of soldiers rushed into Prince Fu's palace. Zhu Changxun reacted and wanted to stand up, but he was too fat. He was so frightened that he tried several times but failed.

Finally, he stood up with the help of two soldiers from the Beijing camp.

"I'll ask you again, are you going to return the occupied land or not?" Zhang Shikang asked kindly.

His expression was not fake; he was truly kind, fearing that he would appear too arrogant and scare the old man into surrendering immediately.

Then he would be too embarrassed to tamper with the granary of the palace, after all, he was Chongzhen's uncle.

However, Zhu Changxun remained very tough. Even though his legs were shaking with fear, he still shouted and greeted Zhang Shikang's eighteen generations of ancestors.

"Leave it to your mother, Zhang Shikang, I will never coexist with you! I will go to the capital to see His Majesty later!

This king will definitely punish you, definitely punish you!"

Zhu Changxun was breathing heavily as he spoke, and it was obvious that he was angry this time.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness, I'm afraid you can't go.

Do you understand why we should kill a chicken to scare the monkey?

Next you can be a prostitute, maybe it can save me a lot of trouble!" Zhang Shikang said with a smile.

Although the chicken of Prince Lu is not bad, he is too distantly related to Brother Chongzhen after all. If Chongzhen's uncle is pulled out to be the chicken, the effect will definitely be much better than that of Prince Lu.

"You...you dare!"

"What am I afraid of?

Okay, just save your breath. It’s no use shouting at the top of your lungs.

You are short-sighted. You are of no use to me except being a chicken." Zhang Shikang said, and then ignored the fat old man.

A quarter of an hour later, some subordinates found the granary of Prince Fu's Mansion. What was shocking was that the granary alone occupied several courtyards.

According to rough statistics, Prince Fu's Palace owned more than a dozen granaries, with a total grain storage capacity of more than 400,000 shi.

What is this concept?

According to the Ming Dynasty regulations, one shi weighed 150 jin, and more than 400,000 shi was nearly 70 million jin of grain.

According to the current food rations for Ming soldiers, the annual food consumption of 10,000 infantrymen is approximately 90,000 dan.

Four hundred thousand dan of rice is enough to supply 50,000 troops with food for a year.

But how poor has Henan become?

The grain in several granaries had even begun to mold, but Zhu Changxun would rather let the grain at home mold than release it to help the victims.

This made Zhang Shikang furious, and he slapped Zhu Changxun several times in front of everyone.

Zhu Changxun's fat face became even fatter.

Zhang Shikang ordered the prefect of Luoyang to collect all the donkey carts in the city and start transporting grain in front of Zhu Changxun.

The Yellow River is outside the city of Luoyang. After calculations, Fan Chengren found that it was more cost-effective to transport grain eastward along the Yellow River.

It just so happened that the Maritime Customs had more than 20 grain ships here, and Zhang Shikang, with the order of the Marshal of the Army, forcibly requisitioned all the usable ships from the merchants here, totaling more than 220 ships.

This is the total shipping force of the entire riverside area of Luoyang City. The grain ships are better, as one ship can carry more than 400 stones of grain.

Merchants' ships are smaller than grain ships, and even with an additional gear, they can only transport less than 100,000 dan of grain at a time.

Although the Yellow River connects the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, due to the change of its course, the fleet had to first go northeast along the river, and then go southeast when it reached Shandong, making a big inverted V-shaped detour.

It’s a pity that the Tongji Canal has long been blocked and abandoned, otherwise it could lead directly to Nanjing without having to take such a long detour.

But even so, the loss of canal transportation is much lower than that of land transportation, although it is time-consuming and labor-intensive.

While transporting grain, more than 300 guards of Prince Fu's mansion had all surrendered, and even the prince's family members knelt on the ground.

Zhu Changxun, a fat man in his fifties, actually had more than forty women, and more than one hundred and thirty sons and daughters, not including those who died young.

Except for the eldest son who inherited the prince title, the rest of the princes were given the title of county princes. In other words, Zhu Changxun alone made the Ming Dynasty have 70 more county princes.

The key point is that the title of Prince is also hereditary, although there are restrictions, but not many.

Except for the crown prince who inherited the title of prince, the rest of the prince's sons were generals guarding the country, and the title was still hereditary.

What a concept! The financial collapse of the Ming Dynasty had a lot to do with this group of royal family members.

Although Brother Chongzhen had long stopped paying salaries to members of the royal family, that was only because the court had no money.

Thinking of this, Zhang Shikang immediately found a place in Prince Fu's Mansion to write a letter to his brother Chongzhen.

He was afraid that if he was not in the capital, Brother Chongzhen would just start distributing salaries on impulse.

The silver in the national treasury did not fall from the sky. It was all copied piece by piece by Zhang Shikang from the homes of corrupt officials.

He would not give silver to the common people, but to the royal family, a group of pigs that could only give birth to piglets.

There is no doubt that once the chaos in Jiangnan is resolved, the household registration system and the clan system will have to be reformed.

It can only be said that the Ming Dynasty had too many bad policies, and Zhang Shikang got a headache whenever he thought about them.

Whenever Zhang Shikang has a headache, someone will suffer.

After handing the letter to the Jinyiwei in the city to deliver it, Zhang Shikang gave an order and all 376 guards in the palace, from the guard commander to the lowest-ranking guard, were beheaded.

As the Grand Marshal of the Army appointed by the Emperor himself, he could theoretically mobilize all the troops in the world.

The guards in the palace were all registered by the Ministry of War and maintained by the imperial court. Now that his immediate superior has arrived, these damned people not only refuse to surrender, but also dare to fight with them. They are simply rebelling against the Heavenly Powers!

In addition to the palace's personal guards, all the palace's servants who had a bad reputation for oppressing the people were beheaded.

In the end, there were only more than a hundred servants left in the entire Prince Fu's Mansion. This was the only security force that Zhang Shikang retained for the family members of Prince Fu's Mansion.

The execution of the palace's personal guards and vicious slaves took place on the street outside the palace, in front of the common people of Luoyang City.

At the beginning, there were only a hundred or so people gathered, but by the time the group of evil slaves in the palace were killed, hundreds of people had gathered, and the number was still increasing.

Many people who had been bullied by the slaves in the palace finally got their revenge and kowtowed to Zhang Shikang to express their gratitude. Zhang Shikang just smiled and waved his hand, telling them not to do so.

Zhang Shikang thought about it and called the Luoyang prefect to his side again.

"Your name is Chu Hanchen, right?"

"My Lord, yes." Prefect Chu bowed quickly. He was very thin and seemed to be malnourished.

"Hanchen, Hanchen, you have a good name, I will remember you.

But what's wrong with you, the prefect? You look malnourished. What's the matter? Can't I even support a prefect with my salary in the Ming Dynasty?"

Zhang Shikang knew that the salaries in the Ming Dynasty were low, and corrupt officials were not so bad as they did not have to rely on salaries to make a living. However, he had only heard that it would be difficult for a county magistrate to live if he relied solely on salaries, but he did not expect that the prefect would be the same.

At this time, a mother and son suddenly emerged from the crowd, bowed their heads, and shouted:

"My Lord, the prefect is a good official and has saved many people!"

For a moment, many people around were talking one after another, praising Chu Hanchen.

Zhang Shikang even dared to kill people from the royal palace. Even a fool would know that Zhang Shikang must be a high-ranking official in the court.

Prefect Chu used his salary to help the poor. The poor could not repay him, so of course they wanted the court to know about their savior.

Zhang Shikang felt sympathetic, glanced at the people around him, and said to Chu Hanchen:

"If I remember correctly, there shouldn't be many people left in Henan Provincial Government, right?"

"Reporting to the Marquis, they were all captured by the Royal Guards."

Chu Hanchen didn't know why Zhang Shikang asked this, but the senior officials of the provincial government were indeed arrested by the Jinyiwei, leaving only one left councilor and one right councilor.

The prefect of Luoyang was even more miserable, as he was the only one left without any troops.

Rich local officials are corrupt, and poor local officials are even more corrupt.

"I will recommend you to Your Majesty as the governor of Henan Province.

You are also allowed to recommend county-level officials in this province. I only hope that you will not forget your original intention and restore production in various parts of Henan as soon as possible, and do not disappoint this marquis. "

After saying this, he once again looked around at the eager eyes around him and said:

"I will leave 500 cavalrymen behind, and you will be in charge of transporting the military rations stored in Prince Fu's Palace.

The Prince Fu's Palace has 460,000 shi of grain. This Marquis only wants 300,000 shi of it. As for the remaining 160,000 shi, except for 1,000 shi left for the Prince Fu's Palace, the rest will be used by you to provide disaster relief, porridge, and help the people.

Can you do it?"

……