prosperous age

Chapter 291 290 Jiangnan Status Quo
Xu Jianglan naturally lived in Wei Guogong's mansion after returning home, even though Xu Jianglan's dowry included a big house in Nanjing city and a courtyard outside the city.

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

When Wei Guangde was in Duke Wei's mansion in Nanjing, he also knew about the changes in Zhejiang.

Without him, there are lessons learned from the past.

How did Xu Hai die back then, wasn't it because he was cheated to death by Hu Zongxian?

Nanjing Six Departments was the same as Beijing at this time. Although Hu Zongxian’s memorial had not been sent to Nanjing, Nanjing officials still went to the edict to request strict punishment of the great pirate Wang Zhi. The emperor knew that there was still a number one person like himself in Nanjing, and it was unknown if he was lucky enough to be transferred back to Beijing.

Earlier, there was news from Beijing that Emperor Jiajing was looking for Ganoderma lucidum. Nanjing officials were busy for a while, asking around for news about Ganoderma lucidum. Those officials who were lucky enough to find Ganoderma lucidum hurriedly reported to the capital and offered Ganoderma lucidum to the palace. The purpose is self-evident. Metaphor.

Hu Zongxian obviously didn't foresee such a trend in the officialdom. He really didn't expect that officials from all over the country would petition to punish Wang Zhi, which was completely contrary to his original plan.

A Japanese pirate who is still stranded on the outskirts of Cengang, Zhoushan, if it is not handled well, may cause another commotion and invade the mainland.

Under such circumstances, Hu Zongxian had no choice but to deploy troops and horses to the coastal prefectures and counties to defend against possible Japanese riots, and on the other hand, he wrote another letter and sent the horses to Beijing to hand over to Yan Ge's old office to lobby.

At this time, although the officials were raging, if they could get the support of the elder Yan Songyan, then the probability of his memorial being approved by Emperor Jiajing would undoubtedly become very high.

It's just that Hu Zongxian didn't know at all 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.

And Wei Guangde really has nothing else to say besides lamenting that Wang Zhi is really stupid.

However, the change in the direction of the officialdom still aroused his vigilance. Wang Zhi's life or death has nothing to do with him, but it has 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 the king to beat and kill, but those who hold power, the high-level people in the empire, absolutely cannot judge the problem like this.

From the analysis of the pros and cons of killing Wang Zhi, it is obvious that keeping Wang Zhi's life is more beneficial to the court, especially Wang Zhi is willing to lead his men to destroy other Japanese pirates, so as to completely quell the Japanese rebellion.

In fact, after Hu Zongxian's memorial was sent to Governor Xingyuan, the main content of his memorial has already spread in the Jiangnan official circles. From this, it can be seen that the so-called Governor Xingyuan has already been planted by various forces, and the secrecy of the news is like a sieve.

In fact, this is not the epitome of the Ming court, a true portrayal.

And Wang Zhi, who was under house arrest in the Governor's Xingyuan, gradually began to feel uneasy. Although the food and drinks were served every day, and the officials took turns to sit with him, Hu Zongxian's promise to himself was delayed, which made him more and more anxious. .

Even though he found many reasons to leave, Hu Zongxian blocked them all, and even refused to see his subordinates.

On the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, the young couple's boat arrived at Jiujiang Mansion, and after arriving at Jiujiangwei Wharf, the Wei family's carriage was driven to the riverside, where they picked up Wei Guangde and Xu Jianglan and drove all the way back home.

Going home should be a happy thing, but when he was bored on the boat, Wei Guangde made some deduction about killing or keeping the pirate leader Wang Zhi, and the final results also worried him.

If Wang Zhi is left behind, then the war against Japanese pirates by the Ming government and army is basically over, and the remaining Japanese pirates will be dealt with by Wang Zhi.

And if Wang Zhi was executed according to the opinions of the officials, then the Japanese pirates under Wang Zhi would inevitably break out again and harass the coastal prefecture of Daming, and at the same time eliminate the possibility of other Japanese pirates surrendering.

There are already precedents of Xu Hai and Wang Zhi, it would be strange if people still believe in Zhao An.

And before and after killing Wang Zhi, some of Wang Zhi's former ministries with ulterior motives must take advantage of the situation to rise up and stand on their own, and the loyal people will inevitably adopt very violent means to put pressure on the court, which makes people shudder to think about it.

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

Because of the previous achievements in the suppression of Japanese wars and other reasons, Jiujiangwei has been very prosperous for more than a year.

Although the military supplies still have to be lost, at least they can be received on time. Lost and arrears are two concepts. This is beyond the reach of other guards in the south of the Yangtze River, even the Beijing camp in Nanjing.

Wei Guangde's worry at this time is naturally whether Nanjing will transfer Jiujiangwei to Zhejiang to fight against the Japanese in the next two years, to fight against the Japanese instead of suppressing the Japanese.

Once Wang Zhi died, the huge power of his commander would inevitably disintegrate into several small powers, which seemed to be the most troublesome when the threat seemed to be reduced.

It is inconvenient for a large group of Japanese pirates to advance and retreat, and they still have the opportunity to mobilize officers and troops to carry out encirclement and suppression, while small groups of Japanese pirates will choose to avoid the real and attack the weak, and attack the coastal prefectures and counties with weak defenses, because they know their own reality, so naturally they will not Eggs hit rocks.

In fact, Wei Guangde already felt that the difficulty of the Japanese pirates seems to be no less than that of the Mongolian Tartars outside the pass.

Using the convenience of sea-going ships, they can move quickly on a large scale, making coastal officials and troops hard to defend. This is similar to the transfer of cavalry from the Mongolian Tartars, and it is very difficult to deal with it. Danger.

When Wei Guangde returned to Jiujiang Mansion, he naturally didn't pay attention to the changes in Jiujiang Guard's combat power in the past two years, but thinking of possible future wars, Wei Guangde still raised his heart.

After disembarking, he could not wait to urge Xu Jianglan to get on the carriage and go back home. Naturally, he wanted to know from his father what is going on in Jiujiangwei today. So in the end can not fight.

There was nothing to say all the way, and after returning home to meet Wei's father in the front yard, Xu Jianglan went straight back to Wei's mother in the backyard. As a new daughter-in-law, she will be by Wei's mother most of the time in the future.

And Wei Guangde waited for Xu Jianglan to leave before he asked where his elder brother had gone.

"Your elder brother went to your uncle's house, is there anything wrong?"

Seeing that Wei Guangde's face is not very good-looking, it's not his character. Father Wei doesn't think that it's because Wei Guangde couldn't bear the fatigue of the journey, and he felt uncomfortable. Something must have happened to him to be like this.

Wei Guangde was not like this when he came back from the capital before, seeing the changes in Wei Guangde naturally made Wei's father feel better.

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

Wei Guangde asked directly.

"Why do you ask this? Is there any news from Nanjing that they want to transfer our Jiujiang Guard to fight?"

Father Wei immediately thought that Wei Guangde would not be aimless, he must have learned something from his father-in-law when he went to Nanjing this time, that's why he was like this.

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

As for the war, Nanjing is in charge of the war. Even the suppression of Japanese in the south of the Yangtze River is directly managed by Beijing, so it is his turn to dictate.

Now Hu Zongxian has taken over most of the guards in the south of the Yangtze River, and sent the memorials directly to the capital, but reported a copy to the Nanjing Ministry of War afterwards, and some of the official documents were still transferred to him through the Ministry of War.

And the guards that should have been commanded by him, the chief inspector, had long been taken away by the Ministry of War, leaving only an empty post of inspector general there, and at critical times, they would be pulled out by the civil servants to take the blame.

The governor of the post-military governor's mansion and the Nanjing garrison he hung on, relatively speaking, the Nanjing garrison has more power, at least the guards around Nanjing are under his command.

Wei Guangde has also heard about the affairs in the officialdom. He knows that the real power of the nobles is not as good as before, but the Ministry of War still has the right to appoint military generals. Leaders 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 Xungui is only in name. In fact, the generals of the military towns are still closely related to Xungui.

This is also the reason why Father Wei thought that Wei Guangde knew from Wei Guogong's mansion that there might be a big war in the south of the Yangtze River, so he called Jiujiang Wei to help.

Wei Guangde shook his head, his eldest brother was not at home, and he didn't bother to wait for him to come back to talk about it, so he told his father in detail about the news from Zhejiang that he had heard in Nanjing.

"Wang Zhi was caught?"

Hearing this news, Father Wei was pleasantly surprised at first, but then thinking of Wei Guangde's performance after he came back, he knew that there might be other hidden dangers.

"The news I heard is that Hu Zongxian used the method of dealing with Xu Hai to deceive people, but unlike Xu Hai, the Japanese pirates under Wang Zhi did not have a large-scale internal fire like they did with Xu Hai. And, the strength is still there."

Wei Guangde explained.

"Then this person can't be killed. Once killed, the gang of Japanese pirates will have no way of life. They will only be pirates with all their hearts."

By this time, Father Wei also understood why Wei Guangde's behavior would be so abnormal when Wang Zhi was captured and all the officials wanted to kill him to avenge the anger of the people.

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

"Officials from the six ministries in Nanjing went crazy, asking the emperor to severely punish the Japanese pirate leader Wang Zhi, so as to comfort the souls of thousands of innocent people in the south of the Yangtze River. The emperor cultivates Taoism. How do you think he will choose?"

Wei Guangde shook his head and said.

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

However, it is said in the Hundred Officials Memorial that they want to kill the king and complain to the common people, and comfort the souls of the unjustly dead people in heaven. For Emperor Jiajing, who believed in the theory of gods and ghosts, he would naturally consider it carefully.

If it is not handled properly and the public complains, it may be known to the heavens that they don't like it, which will affect his penance for these years.

So after hearing the content of the Hundred Officials Memorial, Wei Guangde intuitively felt that Wang Zhi was doomed.

Emperor Jiajing would never risk angering the heavens for a "little person". Killing Wang Zhi conforms to the people's will, not to mention the current turmoil of officials, and the emperor is eager for the emperor to execute Wang Zhi.

Wei Guangde still knew the careful thinking of those officials. Did they not see the consequences of killing Wang Zhi?

not necessarily.

It's just that Shangshu's killing of Wang Zhi is of greater benefit to them, not to mention that the relationship between people in the officialdom is intricate. Although Yan Song is very powerful and has many party members, he is still only a minority compared to the huge team of officials.

Officials in the same line as Hu Zongxian only held real power and shared most of the benefits, while other officials basically didn't get much. Naturally, they didn't want Hu Zongxian to have a good time.

As I said before, killing Wang Zhi conforms to the will of the people and can also add obstacles to Hu Zongxian. Later generations will only say that Hu Zongxian is a capricious and untrustworthy villain. Why not do things that kill two birds with one stone.

As for Wei Guangde, naturally he would not follow the crowd to submit any memorials. Even if he was on his wedding leave, he could actually write a memorial and hand it over to the magistrate's yamen, but it could be sent to the Beijing Tongzheng Envoy, but what's the point?
Wei Guangde wanted to defend Hu Zongxian in Shangshu, but let's forget about it, anyway, since Wei Guangde heard about Jiangnan, Hu Zongxian is indeed not a good person.

Today's Jiangnan, under the great righteousness to suppress the Japanese, can be said to be squeezing the common people and gentry in every possible way, which has already far exceeded the amount of additional taxes and labor agreed by the imperial court.

Naturally, Hu Zongxian could only receive the part approved by the court, but the collection of these taxes also required manpower and expenses. When the policy reached the local level, it would naturally increase miscellaneous taxes again, and the final benefits fell to the bottom officials and Hu Zongxian.

However, there are many gentry and officials in their families, so they naturally resent Hu Zongxian very much. It can be said that officials from the south of the Yangtze River hate Hu Zongxian very much.

Without him, he could not afford to pay taxes and labor, so he could only flee from his homeland.

As far as Wei Guangde saw inside and outside the city of Nanjing, there were countless refugees, and there were countless beggars in the streets and markets in the city, and even the government didn't bother to pay attention to them.

In the past, refugees would have been apprehended by the government for questioning, and most of them would have been exiled to border towns.

From this we can see what kind of scene Daming Jiangnan is at this time, it is really shocking.

Knowing the details, Wei Guangde realized how stupid the tax increase policy theory he wrote during the provincial examination. derive their own benefit from it.

If you want to increase the business tax, the officials will dare to force the merchants who have no backing to a dead end.

However, Wei Guangde is gratified that, according to Xu Bangrui, some of the weaving workshops he has entered in Susong, Hangzhou and other places over the years have done very well, and now he is expanding production, so naturally he also chooses to recruit some refugees, but this is also It can only solve a little problem, and most of them can only beg along the street to survive.

(End of this chapter)