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

"So that's how it is! No wonder we can't eat, it's all because of those Donglin Party members who took away all our food!"

"Brother Li, you are a student, what does this worldly revision of the surrender mean?"

"What else could it mean? Isn't it written on it? They surrendered to the Jin and Yuan dynasties first and the Qing dynasty later. This means that the Kong family claims to be loyal to the emperor and patriotic, but they have been writing letters of surrender to the enemy for generations. How shameless!"

"That's right, no wonder the Kong family existed in every dynasty, and every dynasty was rich and powerful, it turns out they relied on surrendering to the enemy!

Those scholars still regard the Kong family as virtuous people. Don’t they feel any pain in their conscience?”

"Yes, it is said that they made nearly 10 million taels of silver alone. It is said that last year, our imperial treasury only had 200,000 taels left."

"No wonder the court is so poor. We are so poor too. It turns out that all the money was hidden by the Donglin Party and the Kong family!"

"The Grand Marshal is still so majestic!"

"The Grand Marshal has given us his land, which is like giving us a second life!"

"With the Grand Marshal here, we will have a good life in the future!"

……

The situation in Julu County is just a microcosm of several northern provinces of the Ming Dynasty. In recent years, natural disasters and man-made disasters have occurred in the northern Zhili, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, and Shandong provinces of the capital.

After the bandits wreaked havoc and the Shanxi merchants were eliminated, the Prince of Lu and the Duke of Yansheng in Shandong, and the Prince of Fu in Henan surrendered one after another, the other clan members were kept silent, and several provinces in the north were no longer constrained.

Twelve thousand Dongchang guards and nearly ten thousand Jinyiwei cavalry were deployed in several northern provinces.

Officials at the provincial governments, prefectures, states, and counties in several northern provinces who had a good reputation were retained in their posts, while those who had colluded with the Donglin clan and had huge assets, or had committed many illegal acts, or had been corrupt and accepted bribes, were all arrested and their property confiscated.

With the lessons learned from the cases of Duke Yansheng, Prince Lu and Prince Fu, merchants in northern regions no longer dared to raise prices at will. Not only did they pay the labor and commercial taxes they were supposed to pay, but prices also dropped to the level before the tax reform.

Under the general trend, most of the landlords who honestly handed over their land and waited for their fate were able to keep their property.

In comparison, the stubborn landlords were much more unlucky. Not only were their lands taken back, but their property was also confiscated. In order to improve efficiency and serve as a warning to others, many landlords were killed.

Although the entire north was extremely noisy, it was not turbulent at all. The three imperial edicts from the court had already explained everything.

With the help of the Ming Daily, the ragged people in the north took to the streets, praising His Majesty and the grace of the Grand Marshal.

The county school students in the north who had taken to the streets before had long since disappeared, and many students had been thrown into jail for writing articles that denigrated the Grand Marshal.

But this is not the main reason why students stay away from the streets. They dare not go out because they are afraid of being beaten.

Now all parts of the north are re-measuring the land. In order not to delay the farming season, all the people know that the distribution of land will be a matter of the next month.

For this reason, anyone who dares to obstruct the imperial court from distributing land to them is their enemy, a mortal enemy!

In order to speed up the process, many people who were literate or knew some math went to the officials sent by the Ministry of Revenue to help.

It took just over two months for the entire north to go from the initial panic to the current order and prosperity.

However, the manpower of the Imperial Household Department and the Ministry of Revenue is limited. In order to reduce resistance, the court can only cover the northern provinces for all the above actions for the time being.

In comparison, both sides of the Huai River and the entire country are still in a state of panic.

Moreover, the news from Shandong, Henan and other places was first known to the upper class such as the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River, and then spread to the ears of landlords, merchants and Donglin Party members in various places.

These people became even more crazy after learning about the experiences of their colleagues in the northern provinces. They all understood that there was no way out.

To this end, they paid huge amounts of money and grain, and continued to provide support even though they knew that Song Laosan and other refugees who had become powerful had already developed disloyal ideas.

In addition, under the planning of Zhang Shenyan and Qian Qianyi, all the soldiers of the Jiangnan Garrison were mobilized.

After spending a large amount of money and grain, Duke of Wei Xu Hongji actually assembled 180,000 garrison troops in just two months. Together with the three troops stationed in Southern Zhili by Gao Jie, Liu Zeqing and Liu Liangzuo, the actual number of troops was nearly 300,000.

At the same time, in order to deceive the people, these people deliberately concealed what happened in Shandong, Henan and other places, and instead took things out of context and exaggeratedly attributed the price increases to the chaotic government of the imperial court and the traitor Zhang Shikang.

Although they gathered their troops and stationed them south of the Yangtze River, they were unwilling to completely give up the areas north and south of the Huai River.

In addition to vigorously funding new bandit forces such as Song Laosan, they also used the unjust cases of Donglin and Yanshenggong as an excuse to instigate students to continue taking to the streets.

These students from the county and prefectural schools were at an upright and full-blooded age. When they heard about the descendants of Confucius who had died unjustly, they became furious. With the endorsement of great Donglin scholars such as Zhang Shenyan and Qian Qianyi, they all seemed to have become the embodiment of justice.

They took to the streets to denounce the traitor Zhang Shikang. They not only wrote articles and distributed them everywhere, but also had propaganda slogans.

But students are students after all, especially those on both sides of the Huai River. Since they are close to Shandong and Henan, they are not unaware of the real situation there, but the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River have given them too much.

But as Zhang Shikang's army gradually approached, their slogans kept changing under the butcher's knife.

When Zhang Shikang led tens of thousands of troops out of the capital, they shouted:

"Zhang Shikang, the beast from the British government, has left the capital..."

When Zhang Shikang led his army to Jinan Prefecture, they shouted again:

"The murderer who brought disaster to the country and the people is approaching Tai'an Prefecture."

"The heretic traitor Zhang Shikang has arrived in Yanzhou."

"Zhang Shikang has led his army to occupy Xuzhou."

"Grand Marshal Zhang Shikang is approaching the Zhongdu Fengyang."

On the sixth day of the fifth month of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, when Zhang Shikang led an army of 60,000 to the outskirts of Fengyang City.

The scholars in Fengyang City were already shouting:

"The wise and powerful Grand Marshal Zhang Shikang will arrive in his loyal Fengyang today.

Anyone who dares to obstruct the national policy will be crushed by your majesty!"

The gate of Fengyang City was open, and a few officials standing sparsely outside the gate to greet the guests had their heads lowered, and behind them were students from the prefectural and county schools kneeling on the ground.

The wealthy families in the city, including members of the Donglin Party and corrupt officials, had already fled, taking their assets with them.

Most of the students who stayed behind came from poor backgrounds, and their fathers were tenants or slaves of the powerful and wealthy, so they had no way of escaping.

The 60,000-strong army, with flags fluttering in the wind, stretched for several miles from the gate of Fengyang City, with no end in sight.

Zhang Shikang, wearing silver armor, sat astride a pirate horse. Lao Wu snorted. He stretched out his right hand and raised it above his eyebrows, squinting at the sun.

murmured:

"It's so damn hot, I'm almost getting sunburned!"

……