Chapter 291 290 The Current Situation in Jiangnan

Xu Jianglan naturally lived in the Duke of Wei's mansion when she returned home, even though her dowry included a mansion in Nanjing and a separate courtyard outside the city.

However, Wei Guangde and his friends had limited time to stay in Nanjing. After all, the New Year was coming soon, and the couple had to return to Jiujiang Prefecture. The entire itinerary had been planned before.

When Wei Guangde was in the Duke of Wei's mansion in Nanjing, he also learned about the changes in Zhejiang. He was puzzled by Wang Zhi's self-entry into Hu Zongxian's governor's office.

There was no other reason, there was a lesson from the past.

How did Xu Hai die back then? Wasn't he killed by Hu Zongxian?

The six ministries in Nanjing were the same as those in Beijing at this time. Although Hu Zongxian's memorial was not sent to Nanjing, Nanjing officials still submitted memorials requesting severe punishment for the pirate Wang Zhi. They just took this opportunity to send a memorial to the palace to let Emperor Jiajing know that there was such a person in Nanjing. It was unknown if he was lucky enough to be transferred back to Beijing.

Before, news came from Beijing that Emperor Jiajing was looking for Lingzhi. Officials in Nanjing were busy for a while, asking around for news about Lingzhi. The officials who were lucky enough to find Lingzhi also hurried to report to the capital and presented Lingzhi to the palace. The purpose was self-evident.

Hu Zongxian obviously did not foresee such a trend in the officialdom. He really did not expect that officials from all over the country would submit memorials at this time to request a severe punishment for Wang Zhi, which was completely contrary to his original plan.

If the Japanese pirates who were not handled properly and were still stranded outside Cengang, Zhoushan, might cause turmoil again and invade the mainland.

In this case, Hu Zongxian had to draw troops to station in coastal prefectures and counties to guard against possible riots by the Japanese, and at the same time write another letter and send a fast horse to Beijing to lobby for Yan Ge Lao.

At this time, although the officials were in a turmoil, if he could get the support of Yan Song and Yan Ge Lao, then the probability of his memorial being approved by Emperor Jiajing would undoubtedly become very high.

However, Hu Zongxian had no idea that his plan had been rejected by Yan's government. Yan Song accepted Yan Shifan's proposal and did not stand with him on the issue of dealing with Wang Zhi.

And Wei Guangde had nothing to say except sighing that Wang Zhi was really stupid.

However, the change in the officialdom still aroused his vigilance. Whether Wang Zhi lived or died had nothing to do with him, but it was related to the long-term stability of Jiangnan.

According to the few words he heard from Xu Bangrui, Wei Guangde also had his own judgment.

Officials could shout and kill Wang Zhi, but the high-ranking officials of the empire who held power could never judge the problem in this way.

From the analysis of the pros and cons of killing Wang Zhi, it is obvious that leaving Wang Zhi alive is more beneficial to the court, especially Wang Zhi is willing to lead his men to wipe out other Japanese pirates, thus completely quelling the Japanese chaos.

In fact, after Hu Zongxian sent the memorial to the Governor's Office, the main content of his memorial had already spread in the Jiangnan officialdom. From this, it can be seen that the so-called Governor's Office had already been planted with spies by various forces, and the confidentiality of the news was like a sieve.

In fact, this is not a microcosm of the Ming Dynasty court, a true portrayal.

Wang Zhi, who was under house arrest in the governor's office, gradually began to feel uneasy. Although he was treated to delicious food and drinks every day and officials took turns to accompany him, Hu Zongxian had not yet fulfilled what he promised him, which made him more and more anxious.

Even if he found many reasons to leave, he was blocked by Hu Zongxian. Even his desire to see his subordinates was rejected.

On the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, the couple's boat arrived at Jiujiang Prefecture. After docking at Jiujiangwei Wharf, the Wei family's carriage was driven to the riverside, picked up Wei Guangde and Xu Jianglan and rushed back home.

Going home should have been a happy thing, but when he was bored on the boat, Wei Guangde made some deductions on whether to kill or keep the Japanese pirate leader Wang Zhi, and the final results also worried him.

If Wang Zhi was left behind, the Ming Dynasty's official army's anti-Japanese war along the coast would basically be over, and the remaining Japanese pirates would be dealt with by Wang Zhi.

If Wang Zhi is executed according to the opinions of the officials, the Japanese pirates under Wang Zhi will inevitably break out again and harass the coastal prefectures of the Ming Dynasty. At the same time, it will also eliminate the possibility of other Japanese pirates surrendering.

There are already precedents of Xu Hai and Wang Zhi. It would be strange if there are still people who believe in the amnesty.

Before and after the killing of Wang Zhi, some of Wang Zhi's old subordinates with ulterior motives will inevitably take advantage of the situation to rise up and set up their own factions, and loyal people will inevitably take very violent means to put pressure on the court. It's chilling to think about it.

The future war against the Japanese will become more difficult and complicated, and the prospects are not optimistic. At least the next two years will be very chaotic.

Jiujiang Wei has lived a very comfortable life for more than a year because of its previous military exploits against the Japanese and other reasons.

Although military pay and supplies will still be confiscated, at least they can be received on time. Confiscating and arrears are two different concepts. This is something that other guards in Jiangnan cannot do at all, even the Beijing Camp in Nanjing.

What Wei Guangde was worried about at this time was whether Nanjing would transfer Jiujiang Guard to Zhejiang to fight against the Japanese pirates again in the next two years, but not to suppress them.

Once Wang Zhi died, the huge force he led would inevitably disintegrate into several small forces. Although the threat seemed to be reduced, it was actually the most troublesome.

The large group of Japanese pirates would have difficulty in advancing and retreating, and there was still a chance to mobilize the government troops to encircle and suppress them. However, the small group of Japanese pirates would choose to avoid the strong and attack the weak, and attack the prefectures and counties with weak defenses along the coast, because they knew their own strengths and weaknesses, and naturally would not fight against the strong with the strong.

In fact, Wei Guangde had already felt that the difficulty of the Japanese pirates seemed to be no less than that of the Mongolian Tartars outside the Great Wall.

They can use the convenience of sea ships to mobilize quickly on a large scale, making it difficult for the coastal officers and soldiers to guard against them. This is similar to the cavalry transfer of the Mongolian Tatars. It is very difficult to deal with. Under the premise that the individual qualities of the officers and soldiers have no obvious advantage over the Japanese pirates, it will be very difficult. Danger.

When Wei Guangde returned to Jiujiang Mansion, he naturally did not pay attention to the changes in Jiujiang Guards' combat power in the past two years, but thinking about possible wars in the future, Wei Guangde still became concerned.

After getting off the ship, he couldn't wait to urge Xu Jianglan to get on the carriage and return home. Naturally, he wanted to know from his father what the current situation of Jiujiang Wei was. So whether it can be fought or not.

There was no words all the way. After returning home, she met Father Wei in the front yard. Xu Jianglan went straight back to Mother Wei in the backyard. As a new daughter-in-law, she would spend most of her time by Mother Wei's side.

Wei Guangde waited until Xu Jianglan left before asking where his eldest brother was.

"Your eldest brother went to your uncle's house. Is there something wrong?"

Seeing that Wei Guangde's face was not very good-looking, this was not his character. Dad Wei didn't think that Wei Guangde was uncomfortable because he couldn't stand the fatigue of traveling and traveling. Something must have happened to him to be like this.

Wei Guangde had never been like this before when he came back from the capital. Seeing the changes in Wei Guangde naturally made Father Wei feel happy.

"Dad, what is the combat strength of the rear army you are commanding now? Is it higher or lower than the original Bengshan Fort soldiers?"

Wei Guangde asked directly.

"Why are you asking this? Is there any news from Nanjing that they want to mobilize our Jiujiang Guards to fight?"

Father Wei immediately thought that Wei Guangde would not be innocent. He must have learned something from his father-in-law when he went to Nanjing this time, so he did this.

In fact, when Xu Pengju and Wei Guangde were together, apart from drinking and chatting at court, they rarely talked about other things.

As for the war, Nanjing was not in charge of the war. Even the suppression of Japanese invaders in Jiangnan was under the direct control of Beijing. It was not his turn to dictate.

Now that Hu Zongxian had taken over most of the military posts in the south of the Yangtze River, the memorials were sent directly to the capital. He only reported a copy to the Nanjing Ministry of War afterwards, and some of the official documents were still forwarded to him through the Ministry of War.

As for the guard station that should have been commanded by him as the Commander-in-Chief, the Ministry of War had long since taken away the command, leaving only an empty post of Commander-in-Chief there. At critical moments, the civil service group would pull him out to take the blame.

The governor of the rear army governor's office and the Nanjing garrison under his command had relatively greater rights in the Nanjing garrison. At least the garrison posts around Nanjing were under his command.

Wei Guangde had also heard about the affairs in the officialdom, and knew that the actual power of the current nobles was not as good as before. However, the Ministry of War still had more rights to confer military generals. In fact, they could only choose among military households like them. Leading soldiers and generals, but the connection between these people and the nobles of various families has never been severed.

Therefore, the so-called taking away the power of commanding troops from the nobles is only in name. In fact, the generals of various military towns still have a close relationship with the nobles.

This is also the reason why Father Wei thought that Wei Guangde knew from the Duke of Wei that there might be a big war in the south of the Yangtze River, and sent Jiujiang Guards to help.

Wei Guangde shook his head. His eldest brother was not at home, and he was too lazy to wait for him to come back, so he told Mr. Wei in detail the news from Zhejiang that he heard in Nanjing.

"Wang Zhi was caught?"

Hearing the news, Mr. Wei was pleasantly surprised at first, but then he thought of Wei Guangde's behavior after he came back and realized that there might be other hidden dangers.

"The news I heard is that Hu Zongxian used the same method he used to deal with Xu Hai to frame people, but unlike Xu Hai, the Japanese pirates under Wang Zhi did not carry out large-scale internal firefights like they did against Xu Hai. And, the strength is still there.”

Wei Guangde explained.

"Then this man can't be killed. Once killed, the group of Japanese pirates will have no way of survival. They will just become pirates with all their heart."

By this time, Father Wei also understood why Wei Guangde behaved so abnormally when he said that he had caught Wang Zhi and all the officials wanted to kill him to express the anger of the people.

It can be said that Wang Zhi's name was known to everyone in Jiangnan at this time. As the nominal leader of the Japanese pirates, his own strength was also the strongest among all the Japanese pirates. It was related to his life and death, and even to the entire Jiangnan Japanese pirates. The chaotic situation will naturally have a huge impact.

"Officials from the six ministries in Nanjing went to court like crazy, asking the emperor to severely punish the Japanese pirate leader Wang Zhi, in order to appease the souls of the thousands of Jiangnan people who are wronged in heaven. The emperor practices Taoism. What do you think he will choose?"

Wei Guangde shook his head and said.

According to his guess, Wang Zhi's life or death may not be in the eyes of Emperor Jiajing, and it doesn't matter whether he kills him or not.

However, Emperor Jiajing, who believed in the theory of gods and ghosts, would naturally consider it carefully to kill Wang Zhi in order to express the grievances of the people and to comfort the souls of the people who died unjustly.

If he didn't handle it well and caused public dissatisfaction, God might know that he was displeased, which would affect his hard work over the years.

Therefore, after hearing the contents of Baiguan Memorial, Wei Guangde intuitively felt that Wang Zhi was dead.

Emperor Jiajing would never risk angering God for the sake of a "little man". Killing Wang Zhi conforms to the people's will, not to mention the current turbulent official flow, and everyone wants the emperor to execute Wang Zhi.

Wei Guangde was well aware of the careful thinking of those officials. Couldn't they see the consequences of killing Wang Zhi?

not necessarily.

It's just that it would be more beneficial for them to kill Wang Zhi at Shangshu, not to mention that the relationships between people in the officialdom are intricate. Although Yan Song is very powerful and has many party members, he is still only a small minority compared to the relatively large team of officials.

Officials of the same faction as Hu Zongxian only held real power and divided up most of the benefits, while other officials basically got little, so naturally they didn't want Hu Zongxian to have an easy life.

As mentioned before, killing Wang Zhi would conform to the will of the people and also cause trouble for Hu Zongxian. Later generations would only say that Hu Zongxian was an erratic and untrustworthy villain, so why not do something that would kill two birds with one stone.

As for Wei Guangde, he would naturally not follow the crowd to submit any memorials. Even if he was on his wedding leave, he could actually submit a memorial to the prefectural government office and send it to the Tongzhengshisi in the capital, but what was the point?

Wei Guangde wanted to submit a memorial to defend Hu Zongxian, but it was none of his business, so he gave up. Anyway, based on what Wei Guangde had heard about Jiangnan, Hu Zongxian was indeed not a good person.

In the current Jiangnan, under the righteousness of suppressing the Japanese, the people and gentry are being exploited in every possible way, and the amount of taxes and labor service agreed by the court has long exceeded the amount of additional taxes and labor service agreed by the court.

Hu Zongxian could only receive the part agreed by the court, but the additional taxes and labor service also required manpower and expenses. When the policy reached the local level, it was natural to impose miscellaneous taxes again. The final benefits fell into the hands of the lower-level officials and Hu Zongxian.

The gentry and their families were many officials, so they naturally resented Hu Zongxian. The officials from Jiangnan hated Hu Zongxian very much, and the people also went bankrupt, displaced, and became refugees.

There was no other reason, they could not pay the taxes and labor service, so they had to flee their homes.

What Wei Guangde saw inside and outside Nanjing was countless refugees. There were countless beggars on the streets in the city, and even the government was too lazy to pay attention to them.

In the past, refugees would be arrested and questioned by the government, and most of them would be exiled to the border towns.

This shows what the scene of Jiangnan in the Ming Dynasty was like at this time, which was really shocking.

After learning the details, Wei Guangde realized how stupid the tax increase policy he wrote when he was in the provincial examination was. He only thought about increasing taxes but didn't understand the practical situation. You should know that policies will change during implementation after they are formulated, because the people who implement them want to gain their own interests.

If they want to increase business taxes, then the officials will dare to force the merchants who have no backing into a desperate situation.

However, what makes Wei Guangde happy is that according to Xu Bangrui, the weaving workshops he has entered in Suzhou, Songjiang, Hangzhou and other places have been doing very well in recent years. Now they are also expanding production and naturally choose to recruit some refugees. However, this can only solve a little problem. Most of them can only beg on the street to make a living.