Chapter 169 Lingnan Chaos
Lingnan is in chaos!
Starting from the twelfth month of the third year of Chongzhen, the unrest quickly spread from Changxian County, where the resistance to grain and taxation first broke out, to the upper and lower reaches of the Lingqu Canal.
In Zhenjiang, Lechang, Shixing, Renhua, Wengyuan, and Xinfeng, there were reports of peasant uprisings against grain and taxation, and officials who went to the countryside to collect taxes were beaten to death from time to time.
The tax officials and landlords in the whole Lingnan were panicked, especially those who had tenants. Now they basically dared not go to the fields. What's more, some of them packed their bags and burned incense in the ancestral hall to confess their sins to their ancestors, and fled to various prefectures and counties with gold and silver to avoid this wave of civil unrest.
However, there was still good news that made officials at all levels in Lingnan feel a little more at ease. The rioters like Zhan Chenjiu and Gu Shengzhi only knew how to roam in the countryside and rob towns and villages, but they did not dare to touch the prefectures and counties at all.
Coincidentally, just when the officials in Lingnan were worried about the anti-tax and anti-grain trend, another bad news came.
One of the four major iron-casting towns in the world, Tieshan in Lingnan also broke out in a civil uprising.
For the villagers in the farm, the annual collection of land rent, money and tax silver is three sharp blades hanging over their heads, and for ordinary citizens living in the county and handicraftsmen such as blacksmiths and smelting workers, tax silver, donations, and apportionment are also three sharp blades.
Since it is a sharp blade, it is something that takes lives.
When the tax collectors took the tax silver book and asked the workers in the blacksmith shops to pay the eight cents tax according to the Liao salary levied in the 45th year of Wanli, and then pay the three-thirds and two-cents tax silver standard raised from the first year of Chongzhen, the blacksmiths in Tieshan were angry!
It was only eight cents ten years ago, but now it has increased four times. Isn't it going to kill them?
Even if they work day and night, they can't pay the extra two cents and four cents.
In addition, the dumping of Keelung ironware in the past two years has caused Tieshan's ironware business to decline.
Moreover, Tieshan uses charcoal as fuel to smelt pig iron and manufacture various ironware, which is originally more expensive than using blast furnaces in Keelung to use coke as fuel to smelt iron. At the same time, Keelung adopts a modern enterprise management system, forming an integrated industrial system from mining, transportation, and chain washing, which minimizes the consumption cost of intermediate links.
However, the smelting industry in Tieshan is just the opposite. One company buys ore and another company buys wood, and even transportation is not self-owned. A more shocking cost is the tribute and management of officials from all aspects of Tieshan.
In this way, the iron smelters in Tieshan have to pay 30 or 40 cents more for each pound of wrought iron than the Keelung wrought iron utensils sold in shops on the streets of Lingnan, and very few can be priced the same.
Of course, in addition to the high price, the blacksmiths in Tieshan also found a more helpless point, that is, no matter what craftsmanship they used, the tools they made were not as good as those produced in Keelung.
Their sickles began to crack, scratch and blunt after one year of use, while the sickles in Keelung were still shining and sharp even if they were used to cut rice for a whole year.
This led to a strange phenomenon.
No matter how hard the craftsmen in Tieshan tried, they could not make money!
This year, when they heard that taxes would be increased again, the blacksmiths could no longer hold back their anger and swung their sledgehammers and fire tongs to beat the tax collectors out.
Whoever asked them for taxes would starve their whole family to death.
When the tax collectors, who were beaten to pieces, tried to escape on the streets, the iron smelters who heard the news enthusiastically kept them here.
Under the leadership of Sun Blacksmith, the head of the guild who first swung the hammer, the blacksmiths in Tieshan began their own anti-tax and anti-donation uprising.
For a time, the blacksmiths holding their own weapons and the farmers holding various farm tools echoed from north to south, as if they were going to cause chaos in the entire southern border of the Ming Dynasty.
When people in the city were anxiously thinking about their houses, furniture and food hidden in the cellar, even worse news came from Lingxi.
There were not only civil uprisings against grain and taxes in Lingxi, but also military mutinies.
As a major feature of the local area, local officials such as the local governor also took advantage of the situation to start a rebellion and began to rob the prefecture and county, using their usual methods.
Since the rebellion of the chieftain of Bozhou in the Wanli period, the chieftains in the Lingxi area have been much more stable, but this uprising has reactivated their originally stable thoughts.
Their approach is much more tyrannical than those rioters. They are not only local county officials, but also the heads of major villages with swords, guns and armor.
When they came together, Lingxi was completely in chaos.
Such a situation made the officials in Guangdong and Guangxi have no thoughts of celebrating the New Year.
"Damn it! I originally wanted to collect some fire consumption as a benefit so that I could go to the provincial capital to deal with Governor Xiong and change my place, but now it's so bad!"
More than one local official jumped up and down in the mansion and cursed. With such a big chaos, not to mention whether they could be promoted, even whether they could keep their current positions became a big problem.
In order to prevent themselves from losing their jobs and livelihoods in the future, most officials took advantage of the current situation to make more money.
Their thoughts made the gentry hiding in the county complain bitterly. A defense tax took up most of their wealth.
However, there were also direct officials who began to summon military officers to discuss strategies to quell the rebellion.
"Sir, the brothers in our camp already have official positions. It is natural for them to go out and fight those rioters who resist taxes. Who told us to eat this mouthful of rice."
"That's great, and I hope you can send troops quickly!"
"But there is a problem. The Chinese New Year is coming soon, but the brothers have not received food and salary for more than half a year. The wives, children and children at home are all hungry. If it were not for the official position, the Sa family would also like to go out and cause trouble."
In the past, in front of the magistrates and other civil servants in various places, he behaved like a servant, but today he can't see it at all.
One by one, Ji sat in front of them, chatting and laughing loudly, just showing off their own difficulties, and even worse, saying in front of the magistrate that they would go out to rebel if they had no money or food.
^.^，
"The world is so cold!"
Seeing this group of rude warriors acting so presumptuously in front of the scholars made officials at all levels gnash their teeth and hate them. They wished they could eat these common men alive one by one to relieve their hatred.
They began to miss the glory of Emperor Jiajing when he was in power. No matter whether it was you, Qi Jiguang or Yu Dayou, even if a first-grade military officer met a third-grade civil servant, he would greet him from a distance and bow to each other.
But what is the current situation?
Even a small boss dares to sit on an equal footing in front of those of us who have passed the imperial examination!
What is it? !
But no matter how much I curse in my heart, I still have to settle the chaos in front of me first, otherwise when the higher authorities investigate, the first thing that will be unlucky is that this group of civil servants are not managing the place well.
So both parties started to get along (bargain).
"I'll make up for half a year's salary arrears, and then give you half a year's military salary. One month's salary."
"In addition to military pay, isn't it almost the Chinese New Year? I don't have much cotton cloth at home, so I would like to ask you all to send some. I don't have much. Each brother will be given a set of cotton-padded clothes and three pairs of straw sandals. But the cotton cloth must be from Keelung. It’s produced, so don’t use it to fool people like Jiangnan.”
"By the way, sir, please allocate funds to purchase a batch of weapons. It is said that thieves from all over the country have robbed big houses everywhere, and the weapons in their hands are quite sophisticated. The weapons in our hands have long been out of use. "
Hearing the conditions put forward by this group of officers on different occasions, the adults who have read the books of sages raised their eyebrows and said, "The lion is opening its mouth!"
But now that the situation is like this, there is nothing to do but collect money and food. After some bargaining, the civil servants and military attachés finally reached an agreement to supplement the military pay and all their requirements.
The civil servants have only one request, which is to put down the rebellion within one month. If this cannot be accomplished, not only the civil servants in Lingnan, but also the general military attachés will not be able to escape.
Removal is a trivial matter, but beheading would be an unjust death.
Since then, the counter-insurgency campaign in Lingnan has been in full swing.