1635 Han style rises again

August 1684, 8, Mo State (Katiawa Peninsula), Tongan (Surendra Nagar).

For Qi to establish and maintain maritime hegemony in the Indian Ocean region, the Indian Peninsula is definitely the most critical and important link.The State of Qi not only draws a steady stream of nutrients from this rich area to nourish and promote the rapid development of domestic industry and commerce, but also establishes a series of The sea base provided a solid material foundation and human resources for Qi's expansion in the Indian Ocean region.

From Nanding Fort at the southernmost tip of the peninsula (now Gumari City, India, where Cape Comorin is located), to Anfeng Fort (now Cochin City in Southwest India) and Xinyang Fort (now on the southwestern coast of India) on the southwest coast City Kollam), and the newly controlled Yunchuan Fort (now Kozhikode City), together with the vassal state of Qi State - the Kingdom of Cochin, Qi State has completely controlled the entire Malabar Coast (Southwest India Coast), became the supreme "king" of the region.

On the northwest coast of India, Jinmen (today's Karachi) and Shanghai (today's Mumbai) are two important sea ports, which respectively strangled the sea passages of the Mughal Empire and the nascent Maratha Kingdom. Controls the trade dominance of northern India.

From the sixth year of Hanxing to the seventh year of Hanxing (1676-1677), a war broke out between the Qi State and the Mughal Empire. The Mughals suffered the worst defeat since the founding of the country for a hundred years. Emperor Aurangzeb died in battle Among them, the army lost more than [-], and more than ten important towns such as Surat, Baroda, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Baonagar, and Jamnagar were captured by the Qi army. Almost the entire province fell.

The unbearable Mughal Empire finally chose to stop the war and make peace. The new emperor Shah Alam I paid [-] million rupees in compensation and ceded several coastal areas (Jiangda, Dhaka, and Jiangling (Kolkata, India)) ) port, and the entire Kathiawa peninsula to Qi, in exchange for a "decent" end to the war on both sides.

This war not only completely established Qi's dominant position in the entire Indian peninsula, but also caused the de facto split of the Mughal Empire.Prince Azam in Lahore, Prince Akbar in Sindh, and Prince Kam Bakhsh in Malwa, several powerful reserve heirs, after hearing that His Majesty the Emperor had encountered an accident in the war, decided to Just around the corner, preparing to stage the traditional script of the heir to the throne of the imperial family, and start a tragic battle for the throne of the emperor.

However, seven years later, the melee is still inconclusive.Faced with Shah Alam I, who was superior in strength and had a righteous name, Prince Azam and Prince Akbar formed a military alliance to fight against their elder brother.

In order to protect himself, Prince Kam Bakhsh completely threw himself into the arms of Qi State, and "sold" all the economic sovereignty and various commercial interests of the Malwa region to Qi State in exchange for Qi State's protection of him.At the same time, in order to relieve worries and avoid enemies, Prince Bakhsh also ceded a large area of ​​territory to the nascent Maratha Kingdom in order to seek temporary peace.

Shah Alam I in Delhi, although far superior to the three rebel brothers, was not enough to form an overwhelming advantage.With the death of Aurangzeb, the power of the local governor who lost his coercion began to expand, which also caused many constraints to Shah Alam I's counter-insurgency operations, and he was still unable to fight with all his strength.

Shortly after Aurangzeb's death, the rebellious Sikhs, under the leadership of Banda Bahadur, launched a more intense military campaign against the Punjab province of the Mughal Empire, which also greatly involved The energy of Shah Alam I.

What Sha Alam I hated even more was that the wealthy Bengal region, under the leadership of Governor Shaista Khan, declared "glorious neutrality", claiming that it would not be involved in the battle for the throne, and that it would preserve a trace of the empire for the empire. vitality.

Forming an army, quelling rebellions, and deterring the increasingly powerful governors of various places are inseparable from continuous tax revenue.And Bengal's taxes accounted for more than [-]% of the entire empire's revenue. Once cut off, the financial impact on the empire would be enormous.Not to mention, the Gujarat province, which used to be prosperous in trade, was beaten (looted) by the Qi people after the war, and it was temporarily unable to contribute more fiscal revenue to the empire in a short period of time.

Faced with many difficulties, the emperor Shah Alam I hoped to inherit Aurangzeb's last wish and revive and restore the glory of the former empire. However, he was constrained by financial difficulties and constrained by many parties.In the Red Fort in Delhi, he cursed the shameless war launched by the Qi State countless times, denounced the rebellion of several brothers regardless of righteousness, and gritted his teeth at the behavior of the governors of various places.

Facing the empire that was in fact divided, Shah Alam I felt pain deep in his heart. After several generations of emperors pioneered and made progress, in the hands of his father Aurangzeb, the glory of the Mughal Empire reached To the extreme, the territory has expanded to the frontiers that the ancestors have never reached.However, now the empire will fall into fragments, how sad and painful it is for an emperor.

As an ordinary small officer in the Indian garrison, Yashasvi Jaiswar could not understand the sorrow and pain of the Mughal emperor at all. When the Mughal refugees in the state were stuck outside the border, they felt a deep sense of helplessness and a trace of sadness.

Since February this year, several regions including Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Sindh have experienced droughts that have not been encountered in decades. Until August, although there were a few light rains during the period, there was no response to the severe drought. Provides little relief.Under such circumstances, there will be a high probability that large-scale crops will experience reduced or even no harvests, and a huge famine will come unsurprisingly.

After the summer harvest in June, the wheat harvests in various places were terrible, and the output was less than one-tenth of the normal year.Not to mention the impossibility of completing the taxes and land rents of local governments and Chamindar (the name for a kind of landowner in India), even the food for ordinary people to survive is a drop in the bucket, and there is very little left.

Fleeing from famine and looking for a place where they can beg for food has become the only choice for the people in the disaster area.Dozens of millions of hungry victims flocked to Delhi, Malwa, Haryana, Punjab and other areas where there was no disaster or the disaster was relatively light.In the endless wilderness, there are refugees everywhere.They were destitute, without anything, and under the scorching sun, dragging their weak and exhausted bodies, they rushed to places of hope one after another.

As the Kathiawa Peninsula, which had been ceded to Qi, also suffered from severe drought.But a few years ago, the Qi people drove a large number of Mughal prisoners and the many water conservancy facilities built by the local people, but they played a positive role in this drought.Although the severe drought has affected the total grain output, the overall harvest is at least [-]% of the normal year, barely starving to death.

It may be to show the superiority of the Qi State’s rule, but also to attract the hearts of the locals. The governor of the Qi State not only took out the accumulated grain from the treasury to relieve the disaster-stricken people, but also transported a large amount of rice and corn from the south. , adopting the method of work-for-relief to provide food subsidies to the affected people.Excavate reservoirs, build diversion ditches, build port terminals, build bridges, build roads..., and even carry out large-scale public construction in many towns within the territory.

The people of Qi turned the entire Kathiawa Peninsula into a huge construction site, almost leaving the more than 40 people in the territory free for a moment, squeezing their last ounce of energy.However, through this large-scale food-for-work activity, the people here miraculously did not starve to death—of course, those who died of illness due to overwork were not included in the statistics.

After hearing the news, the nearby Gujarat and Sindh victims turned around and rushed towards the Kathiawa Peninsula.

In July, the local Mozhou Governor's Mansion didn't take the thousands of disaster victims who poured in one after another. local construction.

Unexpectedly, in August, the flock of hungry people was increasing day by day, with a scale of more than 10 people. Counties and towns near the border, such as Tong'an, Yongdeng (now Morvi City, India), Shiquan (now Linbudi City, India) and other counties and towns were crowded everywhere. It was full of victims, and the local government's grain stocks were almost exhausted.

Luo Shiyu, the governor of Mozhou, immediately ordered to dispatch the garrison troops to block the border and prevent the Mughal disaster victims from continuing to flow into the territory of Qi State.

What a joke, the Mughal Empire was hit by a disaster, and the local government didn't want to provide relief and appeasement, but asked me, Qi State, to help you take in the refugees.In addition to local construction, the Governor's Mansion of Mozhou also has to support more than 3000 Indian troops stationed in India. How can there be extra spare money to help the victims?
That's right, in order to save military expenses, the Qi military allocated all the expenses of the Indian troops stationed in Mozhou, Cochin, and Bangladesh to the various local colonial territories.The Indian garrison was established five years ago, consisting of two cavalry battalions, three dragoon battalions, three infantry battalions, and one artillery battalion. The number of troops is 200, all of which are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War.

The establishment of the Indian garrison led to the rapid expansion of the Qi army to 6000 people, which is considered to have initially achieved the small goal of army expansion that the army had in mind.

In addition, the local township regiments and servant armies established in various colonial territories of India were also taken from the hands of the trading companies, and all were placed under the jurisdiction of the garrison troops.At the same time, in order to better conduct military dispatch and training planning, the more than [-] troops belonging to the Kingdom of Cochin are also under the unified management of the garrison troops.

As a result, in addition to deploying two powerful naval fleets (Bangladesh Squadron and Indian Squadron) on the east and west coasts of India, Qi State also has nearly 2 land troops in the entire peninsula area. Several Tubang kingdoms in the south formed a strong military deterrent.

As the garrison of the Indian garrison, at the request of the governor of Mozhou, the border was blocked to prevent more Mughal refugees from pouring into the territory of Qi. The first mobilization was places such as Yashasvi Jaiswar Servants, let them be at the forefront of the frontier.

The border between Mozhou and the Mughal Empire is more than 200 kilometers long. Although Qi State tried to choose natural barriers such as mountains, rivers, and lakes as the boundary between the two sides when demarcating the border, there are always large sections of the border. Unobstructed terrain such as plains and deserts can allow people on both sides to move freely.

In response to the large-scale influx of disaster victims, several counties and towns on the border of Mozhou urgently mobilized tens of thousands of people, and temporarily dug a shallow trench at the border for interception.

The servants waved sticks and pushed all the victims who climbed the trench and tried to cross the border.Behind them, dozens of cavalrymen galloped back and forth, overturning those victims who escaped across the border to the ground, then put on horse ropes, and dragged them back to the border.

Yashasvi Jaiswal looked at the crying compatriots on the side of the border line, and felt some sympathy in his heart.But he and the dozen or so soldiers under him did not dare to make any act of favoritism and indulge the influx of these disaster victims.

He knew that although the Governor of Qi State was trying his best to transport food from the south, the food shortage was increasing due to the influx of disaster victims in the country, and there was not much food in Mozhou.If more disaster victims are brought in, maybe the families and relatives behind them will also face the plight of starvation.

Compared with Mozhou, those compatriots who are still in the Mughal territory are undoubtedly in extreme misery and helplessness.Not only did they have to endure layers of exploitation by the imperial government, but they were also extremely oppressed by the local Chamindar.

At the time of Emperor Akbar, the tax paid by farmers was set at one-third of the total harvest of the land.However, this kind of good governance has never been seriously observed in the empire. Under the manipulation of greedy taxpayers, the tax paid by farmers is generally more than half of the land harvest.

The great Alamgir (the conqueror of the world, that is, Aurangzeb) died in the battle with Qi, and several princes once again staged a drama of fighting for the throne.In order to raise military expenses and carry out anti-insurgency military operations, the taxation of farmers in the empire has been further increased. It is said that the tax amount in some places has reached as much as [-]% of the total land harvest.In normal years, farmers would struggle to hold their breath in the midst of poverty and illness, and endured difficult times.And in times of famine, when the imperial government did not reduce or exempt taxes, how could ordinary people survive!
On the other hand, in Mozhou, after the Qi State ceded this piece of territory that originally belonged to the empire, it announced that all the land in the territory must be re-registered and confirmed in the established Governor's Mansion.Any land with unclear property rights or unregistered land shall be owned by the Governor's Mansion.

After a war, a large number of Chai Mingdar who owned fields fled to the inland areas, but the Qi people only gave them half a month to register.As a result, in the end, almost [-]% of the land in Mozhou became unclaimed land, and all of them were taken back to the Governor's Mansion.

The people of Qi distributed the land they controlled to every landless farmer free of charge, with a limit of [-] mu, and stipulated that within five years, land taxation would collect [-]% of the total income, and after five years, the collection amount would be reduced to [-]% .Payment in kind and in cash is acceptable, and the evil tax package system has been cancelled, and local officials appointed by the Governor's Mansion will instead collect taxes to prevent intermediate exploitation.

As for the pilgrimage donations, pilgrim tax, and poll tax for people who are not true religions that were required to be paid by Hindus during the Aurangzeb period, the Qi people also abolished them.And those Mukhtasib (public morality prosecutors) who strictly inspected the observance of the teachings of the true God and prayer ceremonies were also banned, and the control of the people was further relaxed.

In Yashasvi Jaiswar's view, the control of the Qi people was obviously much more relaxed than that of the empire, and a more relaxed policy was also given in terms of religion.Compared with the lives of the people in the dire straits of the empire, the people in Mozhou are undoubtedly extremely lucky.They own the fields granted by the Qi people, enjoy easier taxation, and then get more land harvests.

That being the case, it is not unacceptable for these ordinary people to be placed under the rule of the Qi people.