Daming pirates

There are no less than a hundred refugee armies that have risen throughout Shaanxi, and the large-scale refugee armies have reached dozens. These refugee armies, who are fighting for their lives, are like locusts in the early years of Chongzhen, sweeping across a large area, and their momentum is growing. Not only

messed up the whole

Shaanxi, and also entered Shanxi, turning the land of Shanxi and Shaanxi into a smog. In the fourth year of Chongzhen, the refugee army, under the attack of the official army, even entered Henan. The situation in the entire hinterland of the Central Plains also changed.

They all fell into complete chaos.

Of course, these refugee armies have their reasons for rebellion. I cannot blame them for this. It can only be said that the Ming Dynasty has completely entered the last years of troubled times, and the vicious cycle can no longer be reversed. Although Chongzhen has been working hard and diligently all day long in the past few years, trying his best to get what he wants.

He tried to turn the situation around, but he already showed a state of helplessness.

As more and more troops are used everywhere, the financial situation of the Ming Dynasty becomes more and more overwhelmed. The war in Liaodong is ruined, and refugee armies are everywhere in several provinces in the Central Plains. It can be said that the entire northern part of the Ming Dynasty has begun to be at war. Press the gourd and start the ladle.

Even some frontier soldiers joined the rebellion because of lack of pay. Many former frontier soldiers simply joined the refugee army and stood on the opposite side of the Ming Dynasty.

In these troubled times, even cults such as the White Lotus Sect, which had been exterminated, began to rise again and became popular among the prefectures and counties at the junction of Henan, Shandong and Hebei, and there was a faint tendency to start a prairie fire.

In order to solve the problem of food and wages, Chongzhen had to increase wages continuously. At the beginning of the third year of Chongzhen, he even ordered all regions to increase land tax, adding an additional three cents per mu of land. This would increase the country's land tax by 1.6 million taels.

In this way, on the surface, it is only an increase of three cents per acre, which is not much. However, in this era of large-scale land annexation, the burden on the people everywhere is already very heavy. In fact, it will be apportioned to every common person.

When the amount was on the head, it was no longer as much as three centimeters, but several times as much, which forced many people to no longer be able to live.

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty has completely reached a dead end. Increased taxes and salaries have caused more and more people to become refugees. When there are more refugees, the refugee army will naturally become stronger and more numerous. There will be more and more refugee armies.

, it is necessary to increase troops and horses to carry out suppression. It costs money to mobilize troops and horses. If the money is not enough, they will increase their wages. The increase in wages will cause more people to be dissatisfied, unable to survive, and become refugees...

If this continues, Ming Dynasty will naturally reach a dead end...

Such an increase in land tax has affected even Fujian to a certain extent. Fortunately, Fujian itself has a small land area and the impact is not too wide. Although the people are dissatisfied, the weather in Fujian has been normal in the past two years and there has been no further damage.

There was a severe drought, and Yu Xiaotian was in charge in Fujian and suppressed them vigorously. Once a wave of refugees formed, they were immediately moved out of Fujian and shipped to the island of Taiwan.

Even if some stronger bandits appeared, they would immediately disintegrate under Yu Xiaotian's troops. Therefore, the Fujian side was only slightly affected, but it did not lead to a big chaos. This can be regarded as

In these troubled times, each province stands out.

On the contrary, Yu Xiaotian took this opportunity to recruit many hungry people from various places, which could be regarded as making the country difficult to make money.

In fact, the Ming Dynasty is not at the end of its rope now. It is not that the Ming Dynasty has no financial resources to tap. First of all, after more than two hundred years of accumulation, the wealth accumulated by the Ming Dynasty is so huge that outsiders cannot even imagine it.

Although the Ming Dynasty has been pursuing a policy of closing the country and sealing off the sea since the founding of the country, it has never completely prevented the merchants of the Ming Dynasty from doing private sea trade. Especially after Westerners appeared in Asia and discovered these exquisite specialties of the Ming Dynasty, they even more

They are eager for many products from the Ming Dynasty.

Whether it was the Portuguese who came first, the Spanish who came soon after, or the Dutch who came later, or even the British who just started to extend their tentacles to Asia, they all tried their best to buy various goods from the Ming Dynasty and ship them back.

Selling at high prices in Europe.

Almost all European aristocrats are proud to have several pieces of Ming Dynasty porcelain or other things in their homes. If someone's home does not have a few decent Ming Dynasty porcelains, they will be embarrassed to say hello to others and say that they are nobles when they go out.

In addition, the tea of ​​the Ming Dynasty was gradually accepted by Europeans. Many nobles fell in love with this mysterious leaf from the East and felt uncomfortable if they did not drink a cup every day.

In addition, for those noble ladies in Europe, it would be embarrassing to go out on the street without wearing a skirt made of exquisite silk produced in the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, for various commodities of the Ming Dynasty, Europe is simply like a bottomless pit. It can absorb as much as it has. It will never be unsalable and will always be sought after.

In order to obtain the goods of the Ming Dynasty, these European countries tried their best to get the goods of the Ming Dynasty. They first shipped European things to the Ming Dynasty, but they found that their things rarely included the things that the Ming Dynasty needed, except for a few luxury goods.

Besides, they had almost nothing to sell to the people of Ming Dynasty.

So they could only find ways to ship the gold and silver they finally got from other places to the Ming Dynasty in ships in exchange for these commodities from the Ming Dynasty. For a long time, the Ming Dynasty was completely a net exporter, except for silver and a small amount.

Except for jewelry and spices produced elsewhere, the Ming Dynasty had almost no need for anything.

Hundreds of years of huge trade surplus caused a large amount of silver from all over the world to flow into the Ming Dynasty, so that the south of the Ming Dynasty saw a slow depreciation of silver, including a large amount of silver and brass produced in Japan, most of which flowed into the Ming Dynasty.

among.

Almost all of this huge amount of silver was deposited in the hands of the rich, gentry and powerful people of the Ming Dynasty, and was stored in cellars and left to moldy.

Therefore, the amount of silver accumulated by the people in the Ming Dynasty is almost an astronomical figure. The most conservative estimate is that at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the amount of silver accumulated by the people in the Ming Dynasty was at least hundreds of millions of taels or even billions of taels.

This situation lasted until the Qing Dynasty was defeated in the Opium War, and then it was reversed. A large amount of silver that flowed into China during the Ming and Qing dynasties gradually returned to the hands of the European powers because of the huge war indemnities.

Before that, China had definitely the largest amount of precious metals in the world, and no other country in the world.

So if Chongzhen was ruthless enough to pick some powerful people to find some crimes and uproot them, confiscating their property alone would probably be enough to raise tens of millions of soldiers, without any problem.

But it is obviously impossible for Chongzhen to do this kind of thing, because among these powerful and wealthy people, whose relationship is not intricate? Who has no spokesperson in the court, and who is not a person with hands and eyes? If Chongzhen wanted to do this

If he does, it is estimated that the corrupt officials under him will be the first to quit, because no one knows who will be next, and they will definitely fight against Chongzhen with their enemies.

Obviously Chongzhen did not dare to do this, was embarrassed to do it, and would not do it shamelessly. After all, these rich and powerful people were all regarded by him as the pillars of the country.

But when the Ming Dynasty was about to perish, how many of these pillars of the country were willing to spend all their wealth to fight for the country? Not to mention spending all their wealth, few were willing to even part with it. Everyone thought that

, If the country has no money, that is the emperor’s business. If they do whatever they want, they have managed to get their own money. If the country has no money, the emperor can only find a way.

As for whether additional troops and taxes would cause anger and resentment, few people cared. If there was no money to raise troops, the country would be doomed. However, it was still the emperor's business. Everyone watched Chongzhen indifferently as he struggled until the Ming Dynasty.

Play it to the end.

If Yu Xiaotian remembers correctly, in the last years of Chongzhen's reign, he repeatedly appealed to wealthy people and officials in the capital to contribute money to help pay, but there were not many people who were really willing to pay, even his father-in-law.

People are determined not to pull out a single hair. They cry to the sky and wipe away their tears. They would rather put a knife to their necks than to pull out a single hair.

Later, Li Zicheng entered the capital and conducted a citywide search. Some so-called bullshit historians said that when Li Zicheng fled Beijing, he took away 37 million taels of silver from the city. Most of this silver came from the imperial palace.

Confiscated from internal funds.

In fact, this is nonsense. Did Chongzhen have money in his own money? There must be, but it can be said that it is definitely not much, because Chongzhen was not a miser. If he had more than 30 million taels of silver and millions of taels of gold in his money,

If so, it would definitely not lead to such a turmoil in the world that even the dragon throne of the Zhu family would be snatched away by others.

However, it is debatable whether Li Zicheng took away 37 million taels of silver and millions of taels of gold from Beijing. However, Yu Xiaotian believes that this is possible because Li Zicheng entered

After Beijing, military discipline deteriorated, and his subordinates were ordered to extort money from the entire city, forcing the old ministers of the Ming Dynasty and the dignitaries in the city to buy their lives with money. A lot of money should have been made from these people.

And it is certain that Li Zicheng did not take away most of the money in Beijing at that time, because later after the Manchu Tatars entered Beijing, they also made a lot of money.

This is only the amount of silver accumulated in the city of Beijing, but there were so many cities in the Ming Dynasty and so many rich people. I am afraid no one can give an accurate answer to how much silver has been accumulated.

Therefore, it is not that the Ming Dynasty has no money, but that the money is in the hands of a few people, and these few people do not care about the survival of the Ming Dynasty. They are just like misers, holding their money bags until they are defeated by the refugee army or the slave Tatars.

They were crushed into powder and burned together with their silver and jade.

(Let me explain, these chapters are considered to be the foreshadowing. I don’t dare to thank you too much. They are all mentioned in one stroke. I want to explain that there is no idea of ​​cheating on the word count. I have compressed it as much as possible. Please understand! In addition, I would like to express my special thanks to Baiyun Guoxia, gzg1972, and Coke.

The reward from the three Bing brothers! Thank you very much! Haha!)