Chapter 288 The Only Path to Choose (IV)
The wine went into their stomachs, the spiciness went into their stomachs, and the Manchu men felt that their bodies were burning with heat, as if the heat was emitting from a stove.
The horses pulled the sleds on the temporary snow road trampled by the infantry, making the road a little more solid. The infantry following the sleds made the road pressed by the many sleds a little more solid. It is not known whether the chicken came first or the egg came first.
When the troops in front were tired, the troops behind that still had strength would clear the way. Ten thousand Shengjing troops crossed the deserted snowy land, bypassed the large Qing army strongholds, and raided and annihilated the small strongholds in Beijing. Then they marched westward along the main road and headed straight for the capital.
The capital city was still strictly managed. In the morning, only the convoys carrying water from Yuquan Mountain and the convoys carrying feces and urine from the imperial palace were allowed to enter and exit regularly.
On December 15, when the convoy left, several cars covered with straw mats quickly followed.
The battalion commander who was guarding the city saw this situation and immediately rushed down from the top of the city wall to stop it. The servant who followed the battalion commander saw that the battalion commander had no intention of stopping it and thought that it was probably an opportunity to make a fortune. Naturally, he had to speak for his master. The servant immediately went up to stop it, and his words and actions showed that those who knew the business would understand.
The man pushing the cart was also a minor officer, and his behavior showed that he understood. However, the minor officer did not intend to give him money, but instead shouted to the battalion officer, "Sir, this is what the official document says."
When I heard this, I became angry.
What does the official document say? Guarding the gate is so hard. If everyone listens to what the official document says, then we will all be left starving.
There is no need for the camp officer to say anything, I have already started scolding.
"Let me take a look." came the battalion officer's voice.
The slave immediately stopped cursing. Since the master has spoken, then the master should decide. Anyway, we have done what we should do before, and the slaves can say less and keep some hot air to warm their stomachs.
The officer did not say anything, but waited for the battalion officer to approach before lifting the neatly covered straw mat. The servant also went over to take a look, and when he saw what was in the car, he gasped.
The cars were full of corpses, covered tightly with straw mats. Looking back, there were seven or eight cars full of corpses. Judging from the number, there were at least a dozen corpses in one car . The small convoy must have carried a hundred or so.
Although the servant wanted to curse, he saw that the battalion officer said nothing, and he knew that things would not be simple. It was not the right time for him to curse, and he had to wait for the master to speak before he could start. Seeing that the battalion officer had no intention of taking action, the servant turned his face away, and saw from the corner of his eye that these bodies were all in rags, and they should be beggars.
Thinking of this, I suddenly remembered that in the past one or two months, the city has been very strict. The beggars who used to lean against the city gate were driven away. And no one was going in and out of the city gate, so naturally there was no charity. After the beggars left, they did not return to the city gate to continue begging.
I haven't seen any beggars in the past two months, and I have forgotten that there are such people in the capital.
Then the camp officer asked, "Mr. Wen said there are more people to be transported out. How long will it take you to transport them?"
"Two to three hundred people have died in the city, and many more have fallen ill. It's clear they can't hold out for much longer." The young official's tone was filled with helplessness.
"Take it away quickly! It's bad luck!" The battalion officer spat and turned away.
I know there is nothing to gain this time. It is obviously unrealistic to ask for benefits from the corpse in the car. If I force the little official to give benefits, he can just do his job and park the car directly at the city gate. Just as the battalion officer said, it's bad luck!
Although I followed the battalion officer, I still looked back and stared at the figure of the young official. In all these years, someone could leave the city gate without giving some benefits. I was really not used to it.
The young official left the city and headed straight for the mass grave in the south. The south of the capital was inhabited by poor people, who naturally could not afford to buy a cemetery. Originally, it was just to bury the dead, but later, as more and more people were buried, it became a mass grave.
When they arrived at the destination, someone was already digging a pit, and it was not small. The young official went forward to take a look, and saw that it was several feet long and wide, and seven or eight feet deep. He took out some money from his pocket and handed it to the man directing the digging.
The man took it, shook it, and said quickly, "Sir, this is too much."
The young official shook his head helplessly, "It was already deducted from me, so I only have this little left. I also want to accumulate some good karma. Brother, you really put in a lot of effort to dig such a big hole. Look, you even prepared a brazier and some incense, candles, and paper horses for these people. If I deduct from you again, I will feel uneasy."
Just as Xiao Jingguan said, although the person who dug the grave did not prepare funeral arrangements for each of the deceased, he did prepare for the entire funeral.
The man didn't say much, he took the silver and started to order people to work. The bodies were wrapped in straw mats, used as coffins, and put into the pit. Soon, they were piled up four or five feet deep, filling the pit completely.
Everyone swung their shovels and filled the ground back in. Before long, except for the ground covered with dirt and no snow, it was no longer possible to tell that there were hundreds of people buried underneath.
The man said to the young official, "Master Zhang, I live nearby. Why don't you go have a drink and warm yourself up?"
"Brother Li...that's fine too." Zhang Jingguan agreed.
Poor people's houses are just like that. They have a roof and walls. But they don't have to think about what the walls and roof look like.
There was a brazier in Brother Li's room, which was much warmer than outside. There was wine next to the brazier, and in addition to steamed yellow flour buns, there was also rabbit meat.
Zhang Jingguan sat down, and Brother Li asked Zhang Jingguan to stand up first, and put a tattered cotton pad on his stool. Zhang Jingguan felt that the pad was soft and warm, and when he touched it, he found that it was lining with Shandong rabbit fur.
As soon as the wine was opened, the sharp smell of alcohol proved that it was also from Shandong. Zhang Jingguan sighed. Although these were all shipped from Shandong along the canal, the price was cheaper than local products. More importantly, the local meat and wine supply had a time limit. Sometimes they were available, and sometimes they were not.
The goods from Shandong never stop coming all year round. Although the two sides have been at war for many years, the amount of goods from Shandong has not decreased, but has increased many times.
Zhang Jingguan took a sip of wine, and felt warm in his chest. He couldn't help but sigh: "Every time I buy a piece of Shandong lining, it is equivalent to giving the rebels money to make a lead bullet. The capital buys so many things every day to help the rebels make weapons. My Qing Dynasty did not perish because of firearms, but because of trade!"
Brother Li looked at Zhang Jingguan blankly, and could only blink his eyes to please him. Seeing Zhang Jingguan's bitter face, he drank another cup. Brother Li then asked, "Master Zhang, what did you just say?"
Zhang Jingguan sighed, "Alas, it is a memorial submitted by the officials in the court."
"What does this mean?" Brother Li asked.
"Someone in the court wants to strictly check the goods shipped from Shandong. No one is allowed to buy Shandong goods anymore."
Brother Li understood and immediately became anxious. Perhaps because of the alcohol, he said anxiously, "Master Zhang, if we are not allowed to buy the food shipped from Shandong, what will we eat? The grain is more expensive than rabbit meat now. The price of meat in Beijing is going through the roof. We are really going to starve to death."
Hearing this, Zhang Jingguan felt uncomfortable. He was in charge of civil affairs in the capital, which was too high a position. He was just a minor official who ran errands.
There was no food left in the place that housed these poor people. He had seen with his own eyes the mothers who could not even sell their children, looking emaciated, hugging their skinny children and begging for a meal.
But every household in the capital had nothing to eat, not to mention that the current control was so strict that these people were not allowed to beg on the streets. Even if they went to beg, there was nothing to eat.
Zhang Jingguan never thought that he would actually see someone starve to death in front of him. The bodies he had seen before were said to have died of starvation, and the direct cause of death could probably be attributed to illness. Starving to death alive was something he had never seen before.
When he thought of this, Zhang Jingguan felt so heavy in his heart that he could hardly breathe. He picked up the hot potato liquor and drank it in one gulp. In the past, he would get drunk quickly if he drank like this. However, today, for some reason, after three or four glasses of liquor, his mind became more active.
Even though the man in front of him knew nothing about state affairs, Zhang Jingguan couldn't help but speak his mind.
Perhaps it was because the man in front of him knew nothing that Zhang Jingguan dared to speak his mind.
The food supply of the capital of the Qing Dynasty could not be completely dependent on the transportation from Zhili or Zhili and surrounding provinces. In order to meet the food supply of the capital, the grain transport accounted for the majority .
Therefore, the grain tax was called "Tianyu Zhenggong". The imperial court collected grain tax from eight provinces, including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan, Hubei, Henan and Shandong, with a fixed amount of 4 million dan. Excluding the part that was levied at a discount or withheld for other purposes, the actual amount collected was generally around 3 million dan. The grain tax was the main source of food for the palace, princes, officials, and soldiers of the Eight Banners in the capital, so the collection and transportation of grain tax was highly valued by the Qing government.
The grain collected by the six provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan and Hubei was levied rice, which was the main part of the grain tax. It was used as the salary rice for the soldiers of the Eight Banners and the salaries of the princes and officials. Among them, 220,000 dan was glutinous rice, also known as white grain, which was collected from Suzhou, Songjiang, Changzhou and Taicang Prefecture in Jiangsu Province, and Jiaxing and Huzhou in Zhejiang Province to supply the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Guanglu Temple, and also as the salary rice for the soldiers, eunuchs and princes and officials in the palace and the Forbidden City.
Wheat was mainly collected from Henan Province to be used by the Imperial Household Department, and beans (black beans) were collected from Shandong and Henan Provinces as feed for the horses and camels raised by the officers and soldiers in the capital.
Every year, this large amount of grain was transported to Tongzhou by water, mainly the Grand Canal. After unloading in Tongzhou, part of it was transported to the capital and stored in warehouses. The part sent to the granary in the capital was called "regular rice", which was used to provide rice for the soldiers of the Eight Banners; the part stored in the Tongzhou warehouse was called "gaidui rice", which was used to provide rice for the salaries of the princes and officials. The princes and officials had to go to Tongzhou to collect their rice salaries. Among the above items, the amount of rice for the soldiers of the Eight Banners that entered the Beijing warehouse was the largest, about 2.4 million shi per year.
Since Huo Chong's rebellion, the supply of grain from Shandong to Beijing has been greatly affected. The imperial court had to provide grain and fodder for the imperial army that was besieging Huo Chong in Shandong, not to mention transporting grain from Shandong. This meant that grain from Henan also needed to be transported to Shandong.
This year's war was particularly brutal. Huo Chong of Shandong had occupied the entire territory of Shandong. He even sent troops to cause trouble in Zhili and Henan. Not only could the imperial court not count on the grain from Shandong and Henan, but also because the government in southern Zhili had been slaughtered by Huo Chong's troops, Zhili itself could not collect grain.
Huo Chong also cut off the canal transportation, and the grain transport was completely interrupted. Since the beginning of autumn, the granaries, which were not rich to begin with, have been facing the threat of being completely emptied.
Once the granary is emptied, it is not possible to fill it up. No matter how small the officials are, they are not ignorant. Zhang Jingguan is very clear about the threat at this time.
A major change in the grain transport in the Qing Dynasty compared to the Ming Dynasty was the change from the exchange between the military and civilians to the exchange between the government and the government. The exchange of grain paid to the transport troops was called "exchange". The so-called exchange between the military and civilians means that the households that pay the grain will transport the grain to the dock of their own prefecture or county and exchange it with the transport troops, who will then transport it to the north on their behalf. However, the households that pay the grain must pay the transport troops a subsidy for rice consumption.
This old system was also used in the early Qing Dynasty. Soon, the transport troops took the opportunity to extort grain from the taxpayers at will, and the cost increased greatly. The people could not bear the suffering, so in the ninth year of Shunzhi, it was changed to official collection and official redemption, that is, the taxpayers handed over the grain to the officials of the prefecture and county where they were located, and they had no contact with the transport troops from various provinces.
The imperial court's food supply was cut off, and in order to fight the Shengjing rebels, 120,000 Green Camp soldiers were mobilized from Henan to the capital. Not only did the consumption of food not decrease, but the food expenditure actually increased.
At this time, the capital was bordered by Shanxi. If you wanted to transport grain through the Eight Passes of Taihang Mountain in winter, you could probably just go to bed. You could have anything in your dream.
If someone could tell that the 90,000 Green Camp soldiers did not enter the capital to be stationed, and did not even go to Fengtai Camp to accept the unified management of the Beijing Camp. Hong Zhou decided to use this Green Camp soldier who had been tested by war as a knife that he could control at any time.
Although the imperial court did not lose tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of troops this year as in previous years, it was being pushed into a dead end step by step. Not being killed, but being starved to death.
After talking for a while, Zhang Jingguan looked at Brother Li. Brother Li was listening stupidly with a frown on his face.
It seems that these poor people cannot understand what happened. Zhang Jingguan felt relieved when he confided his true feelings, but also helpless that no one would help him. He took another sip of potato liquor and was about to take a bite of one of the last two rabbit legs when he heard Brother Li say, "Master Zhang, will more people die? I have to bury more people?"
Zhang Jingguan could hardly swallow a mouthful of meat. But it was not appropriate to spit it out, so he could only chew it a few times and swallow it.
Thinking about how he would have to carry corpses out like this every day, and not knowing when it would end, Zhang Jingguan really couldn't eat.
The last rabbit leg was packed up by Brother Li, and was forced to be given to Zhang Jingguan along with the half bottle of wine that was not finished. Zhang Jingguan pretended to refuse, but finally accepted it.
It was not only the common people who were short of food, but even the low-ranking officials in Beijing were facing such a situation. The lives of low-ranking officials in Beijing were already poor, and at this time, there was a self-deprecating saying among them that "they could only survive by eating dirt."
Although rabbit legs and half a bottle of wine may not be much, in the current situation, two or three sesame cakes and two rabbit legs are enough to support a "cocktail party" for three small Beijing officials.
After saying goodbye, Zhang Jingguan walked out for a while, then suddenly remembered something and came back. Brother Li didn't expect to meet again so soon, and was surprised. Zhang Jingguan lowered his voice and asked, "Can you give me some more..." As he spoke, he pointed to the paper bag in his hand.
Brother Li was embarrassed and hesitated. Zhang Jingguan said, "I will let you do all the work of burying corpses recently."
In the Forbidden City, Hong Zhou looked at the table with only two dishes on it, and felt very nervous. He was the one who ordered to reduce the emperor's food. If it was in the past, he would definitely not do this.
It is said that during the reign of Emperor Kangxi, a meal started with the presentation of dishes. The dishes on the table were appetizing, but not actually edible. The real dishes were prepared by the imperial chef according to the emperor's appetite. That is, there were four or five dishes, or at most seven or eight dishes.
However, as Uncle Thirteen said before he passed away, this is the difference between Grandfather Kangxi and Father Yongzheng. Kangxi was the emperor, and everyone had to be loyal to him in exchange for benefits. Yongzheng, on the other hand, needed to strike down his subordinates, kill those who were disobedient, and replace those who were obedient, in order to implement his decrees.
It was not a big deal for Kangxi to spend hundreds or even thousands of taels of silver on a meal, because the money would naturally go to his subordinates to make money. However, Yongzheng had to find ways to make money first, enrich the treasury, and then spend the money after making various careful calculations.
This is the difference between Kangxi and Yongzheng. If it weren't for Uncle Thirteen, no one would have told Hong Zhou about the problem from this perspective, and Hong Zhou himself probably wouldn't have considered it.
However, now that Hong Zhou knew all this, he realized that it was useless.
In theory, Hong Zhou was still the emperor of the world. Except for the fact that Shandong fell into the hands of Huo Chong and the areas outside the Great Wall fell into the hands of the rebels in Shengjing, the world still belonged to Hong Zhou. The territories owned by the rebels could not be compared with those owned by Hong Zhou.
But in reality, Huo Chong only destroyed the surrounding areas of the capital and cut off the canal. The Shengjing rebels only seized Shanhaiguan and Luanzhou, and they put a noose around Hong Zhou's neck, making Hong Zhou feel the pain of suffocation.
Before his death, Uncle Thirteen followed the rules and wrote a will and a secret letter. The will followed all the etiquette of a minister. In the secret letter, he told Hong Zhou from the bottom of his heart that if it didn't work, he should move west. Xi'an is surrounded by mountains and rivers, and is connected to Sichuan. The Qing army in the northwest has always been elite and extremely loyal. Defend Guanzhong and watch the fighting in Guandong and other places. Once there is a chance, fight through the Taihang Eight Xings and Heluo in Shanxi, and you can restore the world.
The Qing Dynasty conquered the world, and at most they would fight once more. If they were to suffer losses in the capital, then all would be lost.
Hong Zhou looked at the food, thinking about what his uncle Thirteenth Uncle had said in his secret letter. Although he absolutely did not want to do this, he found that the situation was developing in that direction.
The room was silent, until finally a eunuch carefully broke the silence, "Your Majesty, please eat. The dishes have been heated up once."
"Heat it up again." Hong Zhou ordered coldly.
On December 16, although it didn't snow, it was still cloudy. Zhang Jingguan directed ten carts to follow the vehicles coming out of the palace. While waiting for the gate to open, the drivers who were carrying feces and urine gathered together to keep warm. Zhang Jingguan heard the drivers whispering: "The imperial chefs in this palace are crying. They said they have heard of soldiers starving to death, but they have never heard of firemen starving to death. But they, the imperial chefs, are actually going to starve to death. I don't know if it's true."
"Tsk. It tastes like this. It doesn't taste like oil or water at all."
Hearing this strange statement, a driver immediately asked: "What does oily and watery mean? What does it smell like?"
