The wind rises at the end of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 46 Flesh

The night wind was getting stronger, and the flames in the illuminated brazier were constantly swaying under the night wind.

There was a light crackling sound from the burning firewood, and the sound of insects came to Chen Wang's ears.

Chen Wang was wearing a red arrow jacket, and was holding a wooden stick to fiddle with the bonfire that had already been extinguished in front of him.

There was still that extremely unpleasant smell of blood in the air. There were thousands of casualties outside Tingkou Town, and the blood almost stained the two waters.

Daytime strife and bloody scenes still flashed in Chen Wang's mind from time to time.

For so long, he has been deliberately ignoring some, so that he will not think too much.

But what he saw during the day made it difficult for him to calm down and think about it.

It is said that the end of the Qing Dynasty was a major change unseen in thousands of years, but at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming court had to face the same dilemma.

There are disasters from the northern captives outside, and natural disasters and civil uprisings on the inside. Although the pirate rebellion along the coast has disappeared, there are still pirates from Xiyi in many places.

Recalling the Ming Dynasty in my memory, I can never avoid a topic.

This topic is natural disasters.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, it was the coldest and most influential period of the Little Ice Age.

During this period, the annual average temperature was low, and severe droughts and floods appeared one after another in summer, while winter was extremely cold, and even places close to the tropics, such as Guangdong, experienced blizzards.

The precursors of the catastrophe can be traced back to the early Jiajing period. It gradually became obvious from the 13th year of Wanli, and suddenly began to intensify around the 28th year of Wanli.

During the 48 years of Wanli, there were records of famines for 25 years, and the later the time, the more frequent and severe the famines became.

After Chongzhen ascended the throne, the catastrophe reached its peak.

Chongzhen had a total of 17 years. During the 17 years, there were successive years of famines without stopping for a moment.

The ensuing natural disasters, continuous increase of dispatches, raging rogues, and decadent bureaucrats finally completely destroyed the already fragile finances of the Ming Dynasty.

Even in the later generations with advanced technology, natural disasters can still cause huge damage, not to mention in this world where even communication has to be transmitted quickly.

It is precisely because of natural disasters that the rebel army at the end of Ming Dynasty is different from the rebel army in other dynasties.

Whether it was Chen Sheng and Wu Guang at the end of the Qin Dynasty, or the green forest and red eyebrows in the Western Han Dynasty, and the Yellow Turban Heishan in the Eastern Han Dynasty, etc.

It was Du Fuwei Wagang at the end of the Sui Dynasty, Pang Xun Wang Xianzhi at the end of the Tang Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, Chen Youliang and others at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.

After they have accumulated a certain amount of strength after launching the uprising, they will immediately separate one side, and then fight against the government and the court.

But at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Shaanxi, Shanxi and other places were already riddled with holes due to successive years of natural and man-made disasters.

What's more serious is that although the Ming Dynasty was weak and decayed at this time, its strength was still strong.

Although Zhang Juzheng's reform has many disadvantages in the eyes of later generations, it has caused many other problems.

But no one can deny that it is precisely because of Zhang Juzheng's reform that this big Ming empire has been reinvigorated with fresh blood, making it stronger again.

The three major Wanli expeditions consumed a large amount of money and food from the Ming treasury, although it made the Ming court weaker.

But at the same time, it also raised a group of famous generals and a large number of elite soldiers who dared to fight.

The combat power of the Ming army was not bad. In many cases, it was because of the incompetence of one general that the three armies were exhausted.

For example, Yang Gao, who first led the victorious army of the Ming Dynasty to besiege Ulsan in North Korea, was under a huge advantage, but because of the arrival of enemy reinforcements, he was frightened and fled before the battle.

Then he served as the commander-in-chief in Sarhu, and buried more than [-] elites and hundreds of generals of the northern Ming army. The offensive and defensive trend between the Ming Dynasty and the Hou Jin changed.

But even with repeated defeats and constant consumption, Daming is still a colossal creature, a majestic building.

The Ming army still has a large number of elites. Although the Ming army on the Nine Sides has gone downhill, it still has a certain combat effectiveness.

Although Shaanxi and Shanxi are chaotic, the five major towns on the nine borders, Yansui Town, Datong Town, Ningxia Town, Guyuan Town, and Shanxi Town, are all located in these two places.

The military strength of the Ming army was at its peak. Compared with the rebels who lacked armor, their combat power could not be said to be less tyrannical.

Separatism is a dead end. Not only is there no danger to defend, but Shanxi and Shaanxi have already been corrupted, and it is useless to occupy them.

Therefore, in order to survive and find food, in order to avoid the officers and soldiers, the peasant uprising army at the end of Ming Dynasty could only constantly move to fight, wandering around and looting places.

In order to fight against the officers and soldiers, they can only constantly coerce the local people, use the crowd tactics to fight, and use the method of raising Gu to train the soldiers.

And precisely because of such a vicious cycle, after their power gradually became stronger, even after the Ming Dynasty was destroyed, they still hadn't changed from the old thinking of running around and fighting, which laid the root of their own demise.

The so-called rogues were just hungry people who didn’t want to eat bark, grass roots, or go hungry any more, and wanted to have a full meal. They didn’t even think about eating rice noodles.

But those high and pampered lords above those temples don't care about their lives at all.

When the civil uprising broke out, they gathered together, opened the official warehouse, ate rice noodles, and fought against the officers and soldiers all the way, just for a way to survive.

You can't blame them. They were not wrong in the first place, because they just wanted to fight for a way out.

It's just that the situation gradually got out of control and changed constantly. Some people not only ate rice, but also ate meat. They tasted the taste of flesh and blood.

The taste of flesh and blood is too delicious, so delicious that they forgot why they rose up in the first place, and forgot the original promise.

They don't want to eat rice, noodles, grass roots and bark anymore.

Those law-abiding Ming troops who were mobilized to suppress the rebellion were not wrong at the beginning. They just obeyed the orders of the country and the military orders of the superiors, and came to suppress the looting bandits and maintain the stability and order of the country.

They were at the bottom of the society, and many battalion soldiers were starving, and their lives were even worse than those of the rogues.

They were nothing more than a group of ordinary people, they were powerless to control their own destiny, and what they wanted was to live.

Living is the easiest thing, but it is also the hardest thing...

Chen Wang put down the wooden stick in his hand, looked at the extinguished bonfire in front of him, and stared at a piece of charcoal that was about to burn out in the fire.

The survival of Cao Wenzhao caused a lot of changes in the situation in Shaanxi, and many things behind were covered in a layer of fog.

　The situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty was very complicated. Personally, I feel that this chapter is too long, and there are a lot of information, but I can't find a good place to insert it.

　　The most important thing is that time is not allowed, too many things are piled up together, it is really limited energy, readers forgive me.

　　There will never be such a long narrative in the chapters after today.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)