Rule over Ming Dynasty

Gao Huan was originally the deputy envoy of the two Huaidus and an important leader of the Huaiyan interest group.

When the corruption case came to light, he chose to fake his death to escape, and then fled overseas with his family. After so many years, I never expected to be caught here.

"I am Gao Huan. Please, for my father's sake, let me go!" Gao Huan did not conceal his identity, but decided to play the emotional card.

Because his father Gao Gu was an out-and-out minister, even Liu Ji, the current chief minister of the cabinet, was his father's disciple, so his disciples and disciples had already spread all over the government and the public.

Although I don't know the origin of the official in front of me, he must be more or less related to his father, and maybe he is his father's disciple.

Weng Peng, the deputy envoy of the Lianghuai Capital, snorted coldly, but waved his hand and said: "Apart from his false reputation, what has your father done for us in China? Come here, take this man back. We will take the absconding person tonight." The capture of the imperial convict is a great achievement!"

"Damn it, you will definitely regret it. The waters in this officialdom are deeper than you think!" Gao Heng gritted his teeth when he saw how unkind the other party was.

Weng Peng, the deputy envoy of the two Huaidu capitals, shook his head slightly, but he directly exposed the other party's fantasy: "Do you think Jiangnan is still Jiangnan under your control? I tell you the truth, today, the two elders are in charge of Jiangnan. Those of you who harm the country for your own personal gain will all be punished, and I am loyal to the emperor and loves the people, and I am inseparable from you!"

Originally, the imperial court opened the sea to allow Jiangnan merchants to take Ming Dynasty goods overseas in exchange for their resources. However, this group of Jiangnan officials and gentry actually helped Japan mine silver mines and plundered the fruits of China's labor.

Now he is even ignoring the imperial decree and actually wants to secretly smuggle grain from the Ming Dynasty to Kyushu Island to help Japan. This is simply treason.

Not to mention that he doesn't respect Gao Gu, even if he is really Gao Gu's disciple and grandson, he cannot let this traitor go in the face of national justice.

As for his own future, today's Emperor Shengming is no longer able to confuse right and wrong with these Jiangnan factions. He will only have a bright future.

This……

Gao Huan had left the Ming Dynasty for many years, and he was still a little lucky in his heart. But seeing Weng Peng's righteous and awe-inspiring appearance, and especially thinking that the emperor was indeed not a pedantic monarch, he couldn't help but feel panic.

According to the crimes he had committed earlier, he was now preparing to smuggle food. If he is captured and interrogated, even if the current chief minister of the Ming Dynasty is his father's disciple, he will probably die.

Jiangnan is in a troubled autumn, and it is also the year of autumn, so the news now spreads very quickly.

"Lao Gao Ge has only been buried for a few years. I didn't expect that such an unscrupulous man would come out!"

"Not just Mr. Gaoge, how many promising descendants of Jiangnan officials are there?"

"If they have no future, just look at what bastard things they have done. They are betraying the country!"

……

Gao Huan was captured by the Huaidu transfer envoy Yamen. This was a very sensational thing, so it quickly aroused the anger of the people in Jiangnan, and even pointed the finger at the descendants of Jiangnan officials.

The reason why the Jiangnan Group can be so arrogant is that they have provided a steady stream of virtuous ministers to the court. As the descendants of virtuous ministers, they have also become officials and gentry through the political legacy of their fathers.

As one of the most beautiful descendants of the Jiangnan group, Gao Huan's actions this time undoubtedly tore the veil of some people.

It doesn’t matter how many practical things those virtuous ministers did, but their descendants are often egoistic, and there are even traitors like Gao Huan.

But the matter was not over yet, and the court's big stick was waved down again.

"It has been found that Jiangnan Company has continued to provide food to the Ouchi family this year!"

"Jiangnan Company transships grain and ironware to Japan via North Korea. This is a treasonous move!"

"From today on, all merchant ships from Jiangnan merchants will be suspended from going to sea and will be subject to inspection by the imperial court!"

……

As the imperial court successively discovered that Jiangnan merchants were smuggling grain, things soon changed. The imperial court decided to launch an investigation into Jiangnan, the largest business gang.

The imperial court only opened a case to investigate the Jiangnan business that had committed numerous crimes, which to a large extent showed that the Hongzhi Dynasty was a rule-based ruling power.

After so many years of operation, today's Hongzhi Dynasty has not only won the love of the general public, but also won the support of more and more lower-class scholars.

“Our female weavers who were trafficked overseas must be found!”

"Kiuzhou has taken away our Chinese women. Please send troops to Kyushu!"

"We are willing to abandon our writing and join the army, and invite the imperial troops to come out of Kyushu to strengthen our Chinese glory!"

……

Although Jiangnan officials and gentry thought it was an insignificant matter to deceive a group of female weavers to go overseas, these female weavers were related to hundreds of families and aroused the indignation of many scholars.

In particular, the "Ming" magazine has huge influence. As public opinion continues to ferment that a group of Chinese women were abducted and trafficked to Kyushu Island, the call for sending troops to Kyushu is getting louder and louder.

Ming Dynasty is not a warlike country, but it concerns its female compatriots, as well as the provocations of the Ouchi family and the Ouchi family, which also aroused their bloody nature.

Of course, whether and when the imperial court wants to use troops against Kyushu Island all depends on who is in the Forbidden City.

While the Ming Dynasty's crackdown on smuggling was in full swing, the food crisis on Kyushu Island in the East China Sea continued to worsen.

They waited patiently for more than half a month, but the Jiangnan Company's grain transport ship still disappeared.

Different from the advanced communication conditions of later generations, even if the Jiangnan Company's grain transport ship was sunk by the Ming Navy, they knew nothing about it.

Now they can only wait silently!

Every day they hope that merchant ships loaded with food from the south of the Yangtze River will arrive, and every day they hope that a batch of food from China or North Korea will save them from the food crisis.

but……

After waiting day after day, people's patience will eventually be exhausted.

Since Hou Haotian learned that Li Yi was going to be executed, he did not dare to return to the south of the Yangtze River. Now he seemed restless and asked: "Why can't the food be transported?"

Not to mention that the Ouchi family and the Otomo family kept reaching out to him for food, even the Jiangnan New City built by their Jiangnan Company was now in a food crisis.

"Normally, we would have arrived a long time ago, unless..."

"Unless what?"

"They encountered a shipwreck at sea, or maybe they encountered the Ming Dynasty's navy like a North Korean grain ship heading south!"

Hou Haotian has a counselor by his side. Originally, the counselor was inclined to wait, but now that the time has passed far beyond expectations, he knows that something happened to the grain transport ship.

Hou Haotian no longer had the suave temperament he had earlier, but he said bitterly: "Even if something happens to the grain transport ship, there are so many ways, it makes no sense that even a grain of grain can't come here!"

"That tyrant is so unpopular with the people. He really shouldn't be like this!" The counselor also felt that things were too strange and couldn't help but agree. Not to mention that it is not easy to search a grain ship in this vast sea, and Hongzhi has already been slandered as a tyrant by them, so there should be some ships delivering grain.

In particular, they cooperated with the Otomo family to mine a lot of silver on Kyushu Island, so they didn't need to worry about credit at all. As long as they shipped the grain, they would definitely make a lot of money.

While they were still irritated by the delay in the arrival of food, a bigger crisis quietly arrived.

On this day, mice come out of their holes in groups during the day or move around with mice in their mouths. Groups of bats appear in the sky, and fish in the water keep jumping out of the water.

On this mid-July night, an earthquake occurred without warning.

Countless houses, temples and bridges collapsed with deafening roars as the earth trembled and cracked. Dust and rubble were flying in the air, and on this bright moonlit night, there were only screams.

In the mountain city, panicked people were running around, their shouts and cries intertwined with the roar of the earthquake, forming a miserable picture of a moonlit night.

Matsumoto was originally preparing to play poker with his wife on the tatami. Suddenly, he found that the ground was shaking before he even moved.

The floor beneath his feet began to shake violently, and items in the room fell from the shelves and shattered into pieces.

The couple no longer cared about in-depth communication and were so scared that they hugged each other tightly, but Matsumoto soon realized that if he stayed here, he would die here.

As the shaking intensified, Matsumoto heard the terrifying sound of broken beams.

Matsumoto and his wife wanted to escape from here, but just after taking a few steps, he looked up thoughtfully. With the faint moonlight shining in from outside, I was horrified to see that the roof was beginning to collapse, and something had already fallen down.

Matsumoto was hit by a falling board, and the severe pain made him scream. His wife's legs were also pressed by the rubble, unable to move on the ground.

Fear and helplessness enveloped the hearts of the Matsumotos. They began to cry for help, hoping that someone could hear their voices, but who could save them?

There was chaos outside at this moment, and countless people were trying to escape.

The burial of Matsumoto and his wife was not an isolated case, but the people in the entire northern part of Kyushu Island suffered a sudden earthquake, and many people were buried in the ruins.

There is usually not just one earthquake, but there are often several to hundreds of aftershocks that last for varying lengths of time.

At noon the next day, aftershocks continued.

Dramatic changes in water levels in rivers and lakes caused horrific flooding. These floods destroyed farmland, submerged villages, and left countless people homeless.

In this day and age, there were no professional rescue teams at all.

The Ouchi family stationed in the northern part of Kyushu Island initially wanted to rescue, but they were facing severe food shortages. Not to mention that rescuing people requires a lot of food, and even if they rescue people, they will not have enough food to provide these refugees.

Fortunately, the houses of Japanese people are mainly made of wooden structures. Even if there is no rescue team, most people still survived the earthquake disaster.

Another month has passed, and the food crisis on Kyushu Island has become more serious.

Several Japanese forces could no longer wait for the grain from Jiangnan merchants, so they had already started searching for grain, hoping to find some accumulated grain from some wealthy families.

If you encounter a house with food, dig the ground and search for it.

People at that time recorded: The evil soldiers were fierce and took advantage of the opportunity to capture them. No one dared to cross the river. That is to say, a woman has a cup of cake in her arms, but she also takes it away from her arms. They are rampant and violent, and the people's injustice is not redressed.

When things came to September, the situation became even worse.

Ashin is a simple villager in a remote village in Hizen Country. He originally relied on farming to make a living.

However, after the earthquake, his hometown was hit by floods, which not only destroyed the village, but also flooded the farmland. The accumulated rations were also taken away by the samurai passing through the village.

Like other villagers, he had to choose to escape in search of a chance of survival.

However, the journey to escape was full of hardships and dangers.

They suffered from hunger, slept in the open, and people kept falling down along the way. Some old, weak, sick and disabled people could not keep up with the team and could only stay where they were and wait to die.

Ashin hadn't had a full meal for a long time, and he slowly fell behind among the people fleeing the famine.

His face was pale, his eyes were empty, and his steps were unsteady. When he sees the person in front of him finding food, he can't help but stare at the food in other people's hands in a daze, and his saliva will flow down unconsciously.

However, in this era of extreme food scarcity, no one was willing to give him a bite to eat.

That evening, Ashin couldn't walk anymore.

He leaned under a tree, breathed heavily for a while, then closed his eyes to rest.

He had a dream, in which there was fragrant white rice and delicious fish, and he ate greedily. It seemed that all the food could really fit into his stomach.

However, when Ashin woke up, he found that he was still leaning under the tree, surrounded by darkness. He touched his belly, feeling hungrier and his hope of survival becoming slimmer.

At this time, Ashin suddenly saw a faint firelight in the distance, and faintly smelled the fragrance drifting in the night wind.

He struggled to his feet and walked toward the fire. When he got closer, he found that it was a bonfire with a few sallow-looking people cooking something next to it.

Ashin's eyes suddenly lit up, and he walked over quickly, trying to get a bite from the meat pot. However, when he saw what those people were cooking, his stomach suddenly turned.

The stronger the smell of meat, the more uncomfortable his stomach became, but... he still wanted to live!

Food shortage has spread throughout the island, and the entire Kyushu is in chaos.

Originally, they had already reduced food production when they liberated the people and went to the battlefield. As a result, they suffered natural disasters and there was no hope for their lives.

As for their desire to go hunting at sea, it is now difficult to find a floating fishing boat under the powerful firepower of the Ming Dynasty fleet.

It can only be said that they fell into a huge trap from the beginning.

The Ouchi family also slowly realized that Daming was not a paper tiger. The reason why they had not taken action was because their ultimate move took time.

Now time has worked. The Ming Dynasty cut off the transportation lines of Chinese food and Korean food, and they were forced into a social state of cannibalism.

By mid-September, the last grain of food in the Ouchi family was gone, and the only source of support was the one million taels of silver mined from the Iwami Silver Mine.

However, silver is really not edible!

Fortunately, at this time, the head of the Ouchi family, Masahiro Ouchi, finally returned with the army. (End of chapter)