Rule the Ming Dynasty Alone

While the undercurrent was surging in the south, the sky in the north was already covered with dark clouds.

In this agricultural era, the rise and fall of a feudal dynasty not only depended on the quality of human governance, but was also closely related to heaven.

The ancient country of Loulan was also very prosperous in history. However, due to climate reasons, it encountered numerous predicted plagues, and eventually the entire ancient country was reduced to ruins under the desert.

Not only China, but civilizations around the world have also suffered various tests.

Take Easter Island as an example. This is the most remote island in the world, located more than 3,000 kilometers west of South America. Its population was once close to 20,000 people.

Due to the decrease in food and fresh water on the island, their nation eventually suffered from internal strife, and encountered English explorers who were short of food. In the end, it could only become a "tragic and strange land."

Although Chinese civilization relied on the Yellow River Basin, it also suffered various disasters, which also led feudal rulers to fear and fear Heaven from ancient times to the present.

The first disaster in Hongzhi's five years came as expected.

"The locusts are really here again!"

"This thing is really indestructible!"

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu My crops didn't come out this year again!"

"I couldn't kill the locusts earlier, but some people just refused to listen!"

…

Facing the dense and overwhelming locusts, the crops that had just grown into ears became their rations, while the green crops seemed to become bare in the blink of an eye.

For people who rely on crop harvests to feed their families, even if there is no summer harvest, it will be a fatal blow to their family.

Now that the locust plague has appeared, some people have already knelt on the field stems, and some gentry who pride themselves on being highly knowledgeable took the opportunity to criticize the court's locust control measures last year.

“There is a locust plague in Shandong!”

As was the case last year, the locust plague first started in Shandong, and Shandong officials immediately reported the disaster here to the court.

Disasters never change based on human will. Although the court has done a lot of work in preventing locusts, what is supposed to come will eventually come.

The locust plague in Shandong has returned again, and dense swarms of locusts have swept across Shandong. The persistence of the locust plague seems to have been strongly confirmed.

"There is a reward for killing locusts!"

"Kill for this county, this county must keep Wushamao!"

"We must not let a locust fly out of our Yanzhou Prefecture!"

…

Although the resurgence of locusts cannot be contained, the imperial government's locust prevention and locust control systems have been distributed to local governments, and locust eradication operations are in full swing in various places.

Due to the official accountability mechanism, local officials have chosen to take action.

Although locusts are not edible, burying them in the ground is a good natural fertilizer, not to mention that the court will reward them.

Just like this, although locusts swept across the entire Shandong region with lightning speed, all prefectures and counties in Shandong organized locust extermination brigades one after another.

"Did you notice it?"

"Don't be pretentious, what did you find?"

"The imperial court's efforts to exterminate locusts are not useless. At least the scale of the locusts has obviously become smaller!"

…

Faced with this sudden locust plague, some elderly people looked at their crops that had been gnawed to the point where some were left, and they slowly saw some clues.

Although the imperial court failed to prevent the locust plague from returning, a large amount of advance planning still achieved good results. Due to the large-scale hunting organized last year and the court's implementation of an accountability mechanism for local officials this year, the scale of the locusts has significantly decreased.

The most intuitive reflection is on our own crops. In the past, when there was a locust plague, no grass could grow, and the cattle and sheep would become bald, but now there are still some crops left.

"Our great emperor is the Ming Ming!"

Although only 23/10 of the crops were left, it undoubtedly gave them some hope and made them realize how wise today's world is.

It is worth mentioning that when the current emperor was implementing the locust extermination plan, the scholar-officials headed by the Kong family clearly opposed it and even obstructed it.

In particular, the hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land owned by the Confucius Mansion did not follow the imperial government's locust extermination order, and still implemented the theory of "cannot fight, the more we fight, the more we fight".

It's just that now they are actively exterminating locusts and have achieved good results. The theory of "if you can't fight, the more you fight, the more you fight" cannot be established, and it also proves that the current approach of the court is correct.

Although it is impossible to kill all the locusts in one prefecture and county, if everyone unites, they can slowly consume them all.

Especially this year, the imperial court promoted the large-scale raising of ducks. The ducks eat both adult locusts and larvae. Their stomachs are bloated after eating, but they have made great achievements in the battle against locusts.

As for crops, since the imperial court promoted the planting of cotton in places such as Beizhili and Shandong, these locusts did not cause damage to cotton and naturally would not affect the cotton harvest.

Of course, the grain harvest will inevitably be negatively affected, and the reduction in grain production in the north is an established fact.

The Ming court had already been psychologically prepared for this, not to mention having supplies of food from the south and Korean rice, and its own food reserves were sufficient.

Regardless of whether it is Shandong or the Northern Zhili region, there is actually no panic over food. Today, the imperial court has enough food to provide disaster relief and stabilize rice prices.

"The locust plague has arrived in Beizhili!"

"Haha...all I grow is cotton!"

"My ducks have been eating so much these days!"

…

Although the locust plague still spread from Shandong to the North Zhili region, the scale of the locust plague is obviously not comparable to last year, and the work of eradicating locusts is in full swing.

Since they already had experience in organizing locust extermination, most people planted cotton and raised ducks, so the locusts did not cause much damage when they came to the northern district of Beizhili.

On the contrary, a large number of locusts became the duck's meal. Some active duck farmers even asked around where the locusts were, and then drove the flocks of ducks there to feast.

After years of suggestions on clean government, the government in Beizhili appears to be very clean, so the reward mechanism is in place and greatly stimulates the people's enthusiasm to eradicate locusts.

Previous locust plagues not only swept through most of the northern region, but also devastated areas such as Shanxi and Northern Zhili, but this time they could not even leave the northern part of Northern Zhili.

Time quietly came to mid-April, and the locust plague had calmed down.

"The court's method is really feasible!"

"If we didn't believe in what our ancestors said, we wouldn't have suffered so much over the years!"

"My neighbor took out a loan shark because of the locust plague, and his family was ruined in the end!"

…

After the local people saw the effectiveness of the imperial court's locust extermination, they completely dispelled their earlier suspicions about the imperial court's locust extermination methods, and felt more with emotion.

Everyone knows that loan sharking is harmful to people, and we are warned not to borrow money from loan sharks.

As everyone knows, living in this era of natural disasters, just a very ordinary natural disaster can only get a chance to breathe through loan sharking.

Fortunately, they now meet the Holy Emperor Hongzhi. If the people who suffer from the locust plague can get relief from the court, the people who have not suffered from the locust plague can continue to live their lives.

"Fortunately, we are planting cotton this year!"

Zhao Laosi was proud of his foresight. Although he did not understand why the locusts did not eat cotton, his family's harvest was saved.

As for his younger son's marriage, it seems that it has been settled.

In April, the capital seemed to be in bloom, and the business atmosphere became increasingly intense.

Xiyuan, Yangxin Hall.

Zhu Youtang was sitting on the dragon throne and was seriously processing the memorials from the two capitals and thirteen provinces.

His body was warm, and he had now returned to the good life of a hook fish man. Every day he handles government affairs in Yangxin Hall, goes to Tingchao Pavilion in the evening to fish alone in the 800 acres of water, and finally returns to the Forbidden City to enjoy the nightlife.

The life of an emperor was originally very beautiful, but the problems he faced made people angry.

There are two main sources of anger: one is Jiangnan, the most prosperous area of ​​the Ming Dynasty, and the other is Japan, which is located on the coast of the East China Sea.

Jiangnan's problem is naturally still a problem with the government and gentry groups. This extremely self-interested group is becoming more and more like a clown.

It was obviously for his own benefit to block the imperial decree, but in the end he had to find various excuses to put money on his face, but in turn spread rumors that there was a villain in the imperial court, so he had to raise the flag to "clear the emperor's side".

Zhu Youtang knew that this vested group only wanted an emperor who ruled from the top down in the court. The emperor they were loyal to was also the "virtuous emperor" they hoped for, not an emperor like himself who was dedicated to leading China to prosperity.

They keep longing for a prosperous age, maybe it's just that Lord Ye loves dragons, or maybe their prosperous age is the prosperous age of scholar-bureaucrats. They have endless glory and wealth, while the people at the bottom have to work for them.

It’s just that what I did did changed history, and it also ushered in unprecedented challenges.

Because he abolished the silver standard and implemented new currencies, this move touched the fundamental interests of the entire Jiangnan official and gentry group, causing them to form a tightrope and oppose the imperial court.

For example, of the two imperial envoys he sent to govern Jiangnan, one was injured by a hidden arrow, and the other was poisoned and almost died.

Originally, he was regretting why Chongzhen didn't move south, but after seeing the true face of the Jiangnan official and gentry group, he realized that it would be useless for Chongzhen to move south.

They can enjoy the peace given to them by the court, but if they need to use their own money to support the court, that is simply a fantasy.

The imperial court's abolition of the silver standard was destined to have a long way to go, and the biggest obstacle was the Jiangnan official and gentry group that controlled most of the society's wealth.

The problem in Japan is much simpler. The Ouchi family chose to break with Ming Dynasty.

The Tokai Governor's Office was not in a hurry to attack the Ouchi family. Instead, it relied on the powerful maritime power of the Tokai Governor's Office to directly block the Kanmon Strait.

Although it was impossible to completely block the exchange of intelligence between the Ouchi family, it prevented the exchange of resources between Kyushu Island and Honshu Island.

Originally it only blocked the Ouchi family, but now it has completely blocked all daimyo's ship traffic, turning Kyushu Island into an isolated island.

According to the plan of the East China Sea Governor's Mansion, this time the territorial connection between the Ouchi family and the two islands will be directly cut off. They will definitely surrender to the Ming Dynasty again.

It's just that this plan has gone wrong somewhere. Even though it has been blocked for more than two months, the Ouchi family still has no sign of surrendering to the Ming Dynasty.

On the contrary, the Ming Dynasty's action of blocking the Guanshan Strait aroused the anger of some Japanese daimyo, which caused the Ming Dynasty's maritime trade to be affected to a certain extent.

"Your Majesty, this is the memorial that has just been sent. Please approve it!" Liu Jin said softly and politely as he brought the latest batch of memorials.

Zhu Youtang opened the top memorial and found that it was a memorial from Southern Zhili. He couldn't help but smile bitterly when he saw another memorial to impeach Song Cheng.

Since Song Cheng took office, especially when he was in charge of Suzhou Prefecture, it can be said that the city was full of troubles.

Song Cheng chose to give up following Wang Yue's latent approach, and instead used his professional skills to handle unfair cases and solve murders.

In the past month alone, the number of evil gentry killed by Song Cheng's sword has reached double digits, causing panic among the entire Jiangnan gentry group.

The Jiangnan officials and gentry group naturally wanted to fight back immediately, but they did not choose to use despicable methods, but prepared to pull out Ningbo Cheng's pigtails and kill him.

After nearly a month of hard work, and even raising the bribery chips again and again, it turned out that Song Cheng was indeed a truly upright official and was not tempted at all.

Although they have been staring at Song Cheng with a microscope, Song Cheng has been as clean as water since he took office, not to mention being greedy for a lot of money, and he also used his own salary to pay for others.

Even though Song Cheng had no flaws, they didn't intend to give up.

Didn’t you go straight to the brothel? Then give you a "prostitute" hat. Aren’t you helping people redress their grievances? Then I’ll slap you with the label of “protecting traitors”. Aren't you attacking the officials and gentry? Then I'll give you the title of "a fishy gentleman".

"With the unity of monarch and ministers, great rule will be achieved in the world. In the Song Dynasty, the scholar-bureaucrats jointly governed the world, and only then could the rule of Renzong flourish. Now there is peace in the south of the Yangtze River, and the people are in peace and contentment. However, Song Cheng ignored the early signs of a prosperous era of great rule, and valued the treacherous people and underestimated the virtuous gentry. The local people are not at peace, but the country sages are not at peace... I would like to ask your majesty, Li An, the sage of Suzhou, and more than 300 people to remove Song Cheng from his post and restore peace to Songjiang. The squires and people of Songjiang will remember your majesty as the sage!"

To a certain extent, this memorial was a compromise with Zhu Youtang. He only hoped that Zhu Youtang would transfer Song Cheng away, so that more than 300 squires in Songjiang Prefecture would support Hongzhi as the emperor.

The corners of Zhu Youtang's mouth raised slightly, and he calmly ordered: "Leave it to the cabinet to vote! Reward rather than praise, praise rather than praise, take this sentence with you!"

For the officials and gentry in Jiangnan, the best way is not to send troops to suppress them forcefully, but to give them a little hope and then slowly deal with them one by one.

As for Song Cheng, he would definitely not be able to dismiss him because of their impeachment, but would still leave it to Song Cheng to cleanse the smoky Jiangnan.

"According to the order!" Liu Jin didn't understand Zhu Youtang's intention, but he still said politely.

"Traitor?"

Zhu Youtang looked at Liu Jin's leaving figure and couldn't help but have a look of ridicule on his face.

The more people do things, the easier it is for others to find excuses. But they didn't expect that when they were short of words, they would be shameless and label the people they said they wanted to suffer as traitors.

Perhaps, all those who disobey are traitors.

But the good mood did not last long, and he happened to open the memorial sent by Xu Hong, the prefect of Songjiang.

With the strong support of Song Cheng, he finally completed the rectification work of the Shanghai Shipping Department, and unexpectedly uncovered the root cause of the Ouchi family's delay in surrendering to the Ming Dynasty.

After reading the contents of the memorial, Zhu Youtang gritted his teeth and said: "Send an order to the Governor-General of the East China Sea to immediately seal all merchant ships from North Korea to Japan!" (End of this chapter)