The Prosperous Era of Longwan

When Xu Jianglan returned home, she naturally moved into the Duke of Wei's mansion, even though Xu Jianglan's dowry included a large house in Nanjing and a villa outside the city.

However, Wei Guangde and the others' time to stay in Nanjing was limited. After all, the Chinese New Year was coming soon, and the young couple had to return to Jiujiang Prefecture. The entire trip had been planned before.

When Wei Guangde was at the Duke of Wei's residence in Nanjing, he also learned about the changes that had happened in Zhejiang, and was very puzzled that Wang Zhi threw himself into the trap of Hu Zongxian's governor-general's residence.

Without him, there are lessons learned from the past.

How did Xu Hai die back then? Wasn't it because he was tricked to death by Hu Zongxian?

At this time, the Six Ministries in Nanjing were the same as those in Beijing. Although Hu Zongxian's memorial was not sent to Nanjing, Nanjing officials still petitioned for severe punishment of the great pirate Wang Zhi. They just used this reason to send a memorial to the palace to let Jiajing The emperor knew that there was still a person like himself in Nanjing, and he was not sure of his luck in being transferred back to Beijing.

Earlier, news came from Beijing that Emperor Jiajing was looking for Ganoderma lucidum. Nanjing officials were busy for a while, asking around for news about Ganoderma lucidum. Officials who were lucky enough to find Ganoderma lucidum also hurried to the capital to report the news and pay tribute to Ganoderma lucidum for the palace. The purpose is self-evident. Metaphor.

Hu Zongxian obviously did not foresee such a trend in the officialdom. He really did not expect that officials from all over the country would submit petitions to punish Wang Zhi severely at this time, which was completely contrary to his original plan.

A Japanese pirate who was not handled well and was still stranded outside Cengang, Zhoushan, would stir up trouble again and invade the mainland at any time.

Under such circumstances, Hu Zongxian had no choice but to dispatch troops and horses to the coastal counties to prepare for possible uprisings by the Japanese. On the other hand, he once again wrote a letter and sent a horse to Beijing to hand over to Yan Ge's boss for lobbying.

At this time, although the public sentiment among the officials was raging, if he could get the support of Yan Song, the elder of Yange, then the probability of his memorial being approved by Emperor Jiajing would undoubtedly be very high.

However, Hu Zongxian had no idea that his plan had been rejected in the Yan Mansion. Yan Song accepted Yan Shifan's proposal and did not stand with him on the issue of dealing with Wang Zhi.

Wei Guangde really had nothing else to say except lamenting that Wang Zhi was really stupid.

However, the change in the officialdom still aroused his vigilance. Wang Zhi's life or death had nothing to do with him, but it did have something to do with the long-term stability of Jiangnan.

According to the few words he heard from Xu Bangrui, Wei Guangde also had his own judgment.

Officials can yell at Wang Zhi to kill him, but those in power, the senior officials in the empire, must not judge the problem in this way.

From the analysis of the pros and cons of killing Wang Zhi, it is obvious that leaving Wang Zhi alive is more beneficial to the court, especially since Wang Zhi is willing to lead his men to exterminate other Japanese pirates, thereby completely quelling the Japanese rebellion.

In fact, after Hu Zongxian's memorial was sent to the governor's residence, the main contents of his memorial had already spread in the Jiangnan official circles. From this, we can also know that the so-called governor's residence had already been planted by various forces, and the information was kept secret like a sieve.

In fact, this is not a microcosm of the Ming Dynasty, a true portrayal.

Wang Zhi, who was under house arrest in the governor's residence, gradually began to feel uneasy. Although he was entertained with good food and drinks every day, and officials took turns to sit with him, the things Hu Zongxian promised him were not fulfilled, which made him more and more anxious. .

Even though he found many reasons to leave, he was blocked by Hu Zongxian. He even wanted to see his subordinates but was rejected.

On the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the young couple's boat arrived in Jiujiang Prefecture. After docking at Jiujiang Wei Pier, the Wei family's carriage was driven to the riverside, picking up Wei Guangde and Xu Jianglan and speeding back home.

Going home should have been a happy thing, but when he was bored on the boat, Wei Guangde made some deductions about whether to kill or leave the Japanese pirate leader Wang Zhi behind, and the final results also worried him.

If Wang Zhi is left behind, the Ming Dynasty's war against Japanese pirates along the coast will basically be over, and Wang Zhi will deal with the remaining Japanese pirates.

And if Wang Zhi is executed in accordance with the opinions of hundreds of officials, the Japanese pirates under Wang Zhi will inevitably break out again and massively harass the coastal prefectures of the Ming Dynasty. At the same time, it will also eliminate the possibility of other Japanese pirates surrendering.

There are already precedents such as Xu Hai and Wang Zhi. It would be strange if there are still people who believe in Zhao An.

Before and after Wang Zhi was killed, some people with ulterior motives in Wang Zhi's old tribe would inevitably take advantage of the situation to rise up on their own, and loyal people would inevitably use very violent means to put pressure on the court. It's scary to think about it.

The future war against Japanese invaders will become increasingly difficult and complex, and the prospects are not optimistic. At least the next two years will be very chaotic.

Jiujiang Wei has been living a very happy life for more than a year due to its previous achievements in suppressing Japanese invaders and other reasons.

Although military pay and supplies still have to be lost, at least they can be received on time. Loss and arrears are two different concepts. This is something that other health posts in Jiangnan cannot do, even the Beijing Camp in Nanjing.

What Wei Guangde was worried about at this time was naturally whether Nanjing would transfer the Jiujiang Guards to Zhejiang to fight against the Japanese in the next two years. It would be to fight against the Japanese rather than to suppress them.

Once Wang Zhi dies, the huge force he commanded will inevitably disintegrate into several small forces. It seems that the threat is reduced, but it is actually the most troublesome.

Large groups of Japanese pirates have difficulty in advancing and retreating, and they still have the opportunity to mobilize official troops for encirclement and suppression. However, small groups of Japanese pirates who have been broken into pieces will choose to avoid the real situation and attack the weak ones, and attack prefectures and counties with weak coastal defenses. Because they know their weak points, they will naturally not The egg hits the stone.

In fact, Wei Guangde has already felt that the Japanese pirates do not seem to be as difficult to deal with as the Mongolian Tatars outside the pass.

They can use the convenience of sea ships to mobilize quickly on a large scale, making it difficult for the coastal officers and soldiers to guard against them. This is similar to the cavalry transfer of the Mongolian Tatars. It is difficult to deal with them. Under the premise that the individual quality of the officers and soldiers has no obvious advantage over the Japanese pirates, it will be very difficult. Danger.

When Wei Guangde returned to Jiujiang Mansion, he naturally did not pay attention to the changes in Jiujiang Guard's combat power in the past two years, but thinking about possible wars in the future, Wei Guangde still became concerned.

After getting off the ship, he couldn't wait to urge Xu Jianglan to get on the carriage and return home. Naturally, he wanted to know from his father what the current situation of Jiujiang Wei was. So whether it can be fought or not.

There was no words all the way. After returning home, she met Father Wei in the front yard. Xu Jianglan went straight back to Mother Wei in the backyard. As a new daughter-in-law, she would spend most of her time by Mother Wei's side.

Wei Guangde waited until Xu Jianglan left before asking where his eldest brother was.

"Your eldest brother went to your uncle's house. Is something okay?"

Seeing that Wei Guangde's face was not very good-looking, this was not his character. Father Wei didn't think that Wei Guangde was uncomfortable because he couldn't stand the fatigue of traveling and traveling. Something must have happened to him to be like this.

Wei Guangde had never been like this before when he came back from the capital. Seeing the changes in Wei Guangde naturally made Father Wei feel happy.

"Dad, what is the combat strength of the rear army you are commanding now? Is it higher or lower than the original Bengshan Fort soldiers?"

Wei Guangde asked directly.

"Why are you asking this? Is there any news from Nanjing that they want to mobilize our Jiujiang Guards to fight?"

Father Wei immediately thought that Wei Guangde would not be innocent. He must have learned something from his father-in-law when he went to Nanjing this time, so he did this.

In fact, when Xu Pengju and Wei Guangde were together, apart from drinking and chatting at court, they rarely talked about other things.

As for the war, Nanjing was not in charge of the war. Even the suppression of Japanese invaders in Jiangnan was directly under the control of Beijing. It was not his turn to dictate.

Now that Hu Zongxian had taken over most of the military posts in the south of the Yangtze River, the memorials were sent directly to the capital. He only reported a copy to the Nanjing Ministry of War afterwards, and some of the official documents were still forwarded to him through the Ministry of War.

As for the guard station that should have been commanded by him as the Grand Governor, the command had long been taken away by the Ministry of War, leaving only an empty Governor-General position there. At critical moments, the civil service group would pull him out to take the blame.

The governor of the rear army governor's office and the Nanjing garrison under his command had relatively greater rights in the Nanjing garrison. At least the garrison posts around Nanjing were under his command.

Wei Guangde had also heard about the affairs in the officialdom, and knew that the actual power of the current nobles was not as good as before. However, the Ministry of War still had more rights to confer military generals. In fact, they could only choose among military households like them. Leading soldiers and generals, but the connection between these people and the nobles of various families has never been severed.

Therefore, the so-called taking away the power of commanding troops from the nobles is only in name. In fact, the generals of various military towns still have a close relationship with the nobles.

This is also the reason why Father Wei thought that Wei Guangde knew from the Duke of Wei that there might be a major war in the south of the Yangtze River, and sent Jiujiang Guards to help.

Wei Guangde shook his head. His eldest brother was not at home, and he was too lazy to wait for him to come back, so he told Mr. Wei in detail the news from Zhejiang that he heard in Nanjing.

"Wang Zhi was caught?"

Hearing the news, Mr. Wei was pleasantly surprised at first, but then he thought of Wei Guangde's behavior after he came back and realized that there might be other hidden dangers.

"The news I heard is that Hu Zongxian used the same method he used to deal with Xu Hai to frame people, but unlike Xu Hai, the Japanese pirates under Wang Zhi did not carry out large-scale internal firefights like they did with Xu Hai. And, the strength is still there.”

Wei Guangde explained.

"Then this man can't be killed. One kill will cut off the survival of that group of Japanese pirates. They will only become dedicated to becoming pirates."

By this time, Mr. Wei also understood why Wei Guangde behaved so abnormally after saying that he had caught Wang Zhi and all the officials wanted to kill him to express the anger of the people.

It can be said that Wang Zhi's name was known to everyone in Jiangnan at this time. As the nominal leader of the Japanese pirates, he was also the strongest among all the Japanese pirates. It was related to his life and death, and even to the entire Jiangnan Japanese pirates. The chaotic situation will naturally have a huge impact.

"Officials from the six ministries in Nanjing went to court like crazy, asking the emperor to severely punish the Japanese pirate leader Wang Zhi, in order to appease the souls of thousands of Jiangnan people in heaven. The emperor practices Taoism. What do you think he will choose?"

Wei Guangde shook his head and said.

According to his guess, Wang Zhi's life or death may not be in the eyes of Emperor Jiajing, and it doesn't matter whether he kills him or not.

However, Emperor Jiajing, who believed in the theory of gods and ghosts, would naturally consider it carefully to kill Wang Zhi in order to express the grievances of the common people and to comfort the souls of the people who died unjustly.

If he didn't handle it well and caused public dissatisfaction, God might know that he was displeased, which would affect his hard work over the years.

Therefore, after hearing the contents of Baiguan's memorial, Wei Guangde intuitively felt that Wang Zhi was dead.

Emperor Jiajing would never risk angering God for the sake of a "little man". Killing Wang Zhi conforms to the people's will, not to mention the current turbulent official flow, and everyone wants the emperor to execute Wang Zhi.

Wei Guangde was well aware of the careful thinking of those officials. Couldn't they see the consequences of killing Wang Zhi?

not necessarily.

It's just that it would be more beneficial for them to kill Wang Zhi at Shangshu, not to mention that the relationships between people in the officialdom are intricate. Although Yan Song is very powerful and has many party members, he is still only a small minority compared to the relatively large team of officials.

Officials related to Hu Zongxian only held real power and shared most of the benefits, while other officials basically received little. Naturally, they did not want Hu Zongxian to have an easy time.

As mentioned before, killing Wang Zhi to comply with the people's will can also cause trouble for Hu Zongxian. Later generations will only say that Hu Zongxian is a capricious villain with no moral integrity. Why not do something that kills two birds with one stone?

As for Wei Guangde, he would naturally not follow the crowd and submit any memorial. Even if he was on marriage leave, in fact, if he wrote a memorial and submitted it to the prefect's Yamen, he could send it to the General Affairs Department of the capital. But what's the point?

Wei Guangde wanted to go to Shangshu to defend Hu Zongxian, but it didn't matter to him, so let's forget it. Anyway, as far as Wei Guangde had heard about Jiangnan, Hu Zongxian was indeed not a good person.

In today's Jiangnan, under the righteousness of suppressing Japanese invaders, it can be said that the people and gentry are being squeezed in every possible way, which has already far exceeded the amount of additional taxes and levies agreed by the court.

Naturally, Hu Zongxian could only receive the portion approved by the court, but imposing additional taxes and levies also required manpower and expenses. When the policy reached the local level, it was natural to increase miscellaneous taxes again. The final benefits fell into the hands of the lower-level officials and Hu Zongxian.

The gentry and the many officials in their families naturally resented Hu Zongxian very much. Jiangnan officials could be said to hate Hu Zongxian very much. As a result, a large number of people went bankrupt, became homeless, and became refugees.

Without him, he would not be able to pay the taxes and would have no choice but to flee his home.

What Wei Guangde saw inside and outside Nanjing was countless refugees. There were countless people begging in the streets of the city, and even the government was too lazy to pay attention to them.

In the past, refugees would have been arrested and prosecuted by the government, and most of them would have been exiled to border towns.

From this we can see what the scene in the south of the Ming Dynasty was like at this time. It was really shocking.

After learning the details, Wei Guangde realized how stupid the tax increase policy he wrote during the provincial examination was. He only thought about raising taxes but did not understand the practice. You must know that the policy will change during the implementation process, because the person who implements it must Get your own benefits from it.

If they want to increase business taxes, then officials will dare to drive merchants with no backing into desperation.

However, what makes Wei Guangde happy is that according to what Xu Bangrui said, some of the weaving mills he has entered in Susong, Hangzhou and other places over the years are doing very well. They are also expanding production at this time, and naturally choose to recruit some refugees, but this is not Only a few problems can be solved, and most of them can only survive by begging on the streets.