kvmb Chapter 179 Expansion and Development
Chapter 179 Expansion and Development
11
In early 1627, just after the New Year, news came from the hometown of Confucius in Shandong that the hometown was occupied by the roving rebels and the Confucius family suffered misfortune. Once the news came out, many scholars were deeply saddened.
However, now is a time of chaos, and so many aristocratic families have been destroyed by the rebels. Who would care about Confucius' family?
In the spring of 1627, all areas north of the Yellow River and the Yangtze and Huaihe River basins were occupied by the Liaodong Army under Lu Cheng's command. Fujian, Guangdong provinces and southern Hunan and Jiangxi were also occupied by Lu Cheng's expeditionary force. The rebel forces in various places were successively eliminated and incorporated.
Throughout the Ming Dynasty, except for the Western Regions and Southwest China, most of the areas were under the flag of the Liaodong Army and under the banner of the Left Generalissimo Lu Cheng.
At the same time, the arsenal in Liaodong was further expanded to produce various guns, bullets and artillery shells.
New arsenals were also built near the capital to step up the production of new weapons such as rifles and mortars.
Lu Cheng sat in Kyoto, reading the battle reports from various places every day, making marks and dots on the map, issuing various orders to the front-line troops, and controlling the entire overall situation.
Not long ago, war reports came from the Northwest that the rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, Gao Yingxiang and others in northern Shaanxi had been suppressed and incorporated. The Northwest Army was split into two groups, one heading towards the Western Regions and the other heading towards Hanzhong.
In the Central Plains, He Shixian has led his troops to clear all parts of the Central Plains and is marching towards the land of Jingchu.
Tong Zhongkui from Shandong is about to meet with the expeditionary force from the south in Jiangnan.
Lu Cheng never had to worry about war-related matters, as he had capable generals, brave soldiers and advanced weapons and equipment under his command.
What gives Lu Cheng the most headache is the governance work.
After a series of purges by the rebel forces in various places, the Donglin Party members, wealthy merchants, and aristocratic families were almost all cleared out. Most of the officials and scholars in various places were killed or injured, and many places were in a state of no governance.
To this end, many places have implemented the simplest and most brutal military control. The army is responsible for guarding an area, maintaining public order, and handling all matters that can be handled, and the logistics personnel provide assistance.
Of course, this is not a long-term solution. After discussing with some of his civil and military officials, Lu Cheng posted recruitment notices in various places, calling on all scholars to step forward, start as minor officials, solve people's problems, and take charge of local work.
Those who have outstanding performance will be quickly promoted and appointed to become grassroots officials to govern the area well.
At the same time, Lu Cheng also sent people to invite Xiong Tingbi, Sun Chengzong and others, asking these old ministers to step forward and make use of their remaining energy.
Although Lu Cheng did not like the Donglin Party, he was still willing to use those old Ming Dynasty officials who had practical talents and good moral character.
While being busy with war and government affairs, Lu Cheng also paid great attention to the development of people's livelihood.
When the spring ploughing season came, Lu Cheng issued a series of decrees, asking civil and military officials from all over the country to actively organize the people to carry out spring ploughing and not let the land go to waste.
In some places, due to the war, people were displaced and the land was barren. Lu Cheng also ordered the reorganized rebel army to cultivate the land on the spot.
After the beginning of spring, the weather gradually became warmer, and Ding Xian returned to Liaodong with his men. He escorted Lu Cheng's women to the capital and temporarily placed them in a royal palace in the capital.
Moreover, the focus of future development will gradually shift from Liaodong to the capital, and the road between Liaodong and the capital is also under construction.
All kinds of messy things require Lu Cheng to take care of them personally.
After all, the territory suddenly changed from Liaodong to the entire Ming Dynasty. Lu Cheng was really a little uncomfortable for a while, and the talents under his command were not enough.
When it comes to fighting wars, Lu Cheng is indeed professional, but when it comes to governing a country, Lu Cheng also needs to keep learning and improving.
In the summer of 1627, Xiong Tingbi came to the capital with some students and provided great help to Lu Cheng.
After Xiong Tingbi, some other famous ministers and generals of the late Ming Dynasty were also assigned to various positions by Lu Cheng, such as Sun Chuanting, Lu Xiangsheng and others.
In fact, some talented people emerged among the rebel forces in various places, such as Li Yan, who was Li Zicheng's strategist in history.
Lu Cheng is short of people at the moment. As long as one has no major moral problems and has talent, there will be a chance for him to come to the fore.
Of course, as the orphans trained by Lu Cheng grow up, they will gradually move into various positions and replace some unsuitable talents.
However, all this requires a process.
Lu Cheng was busy from morning to night almost every day with foreign and domestic wars, people's livelihood management in various places, recovery and development of agriculture and commerce, selection and training of talents, management of various infrastructure projects, etc. Even the women in the back house felt distressed for him.
Fortunately, everything is moving in a good direction, work in all aspects is gradually getting on track, and Lu Cheng is becoming more and more relaxed.
By the time Lu Cheng could finally breathe a sigh of relief, it was already autumn.
Lu Cheng also went to various places to inspect in person to ensure the smooth progress of the autumn harvest.
In recent years, the Ming Dynasty has experienced various natural and man-made disasters. The people were starving and cold, and had no choice but to rebel.
Now that Lu Cheng has occupied such a large territory, he naturally cannot let the people suffer from hunger and cold anymore.
While the autumn harvest was proceeding smoothly in various places, grain from Southeast Asia was also being transported to the north in a steady stream to ensure the grain reserves of the imperial court and various places. Not to mention ensuring that all the people could have enough to eat, at least they would not be starved to death again.
To this end, Lu Cheng specially promulgated various policies to help the people recuperate and rejuvenate. For areas with poor harvests, tax reductions or even tax exemptions were implemented. For those people who could not afford to eat, the government directly lent them food to help them tide over the difficulties.
Taking advantage of the opportunity that wealthy merchants and powerful families in various places were destroyed by the rebels, Lu Cheng directly took coercive measures to nationalize all the land, prohibit private transactions, and only distribute it to the people for cultivation. The people directly paid grain taxes to the government according to the proportion.
The implementation of this policy certainly encountered considerable resistance, but military control was being implemented everywhere at the moment, and everything was decided by Lu Cheng, the army and the guns, so the voices of opposition were quickly suppressed.
If 1626 was a turbulent year, it was also the year when the Ming Dynasty came to an end.
So, 1627 was the year of recovery, a year of good things and stability.
In order to stabilize the situation more quickly, the overseas expansion of the expeditionary force was even suspended, and the recovery of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and the Western Regions was also slowed down a lot.
In the winter of 1627, although the world was temporarily without an emperor, the lives of ordinary people began to return to normal, and were even much better than before.
Throughout the winter, Lu Cheng rarely stayed in the capital. He was always traveling around, visiting various places to understand the people's sentiments and find out whether the people in various places really had food to eat and clothes to wear.
Whenever he encountered officials who were ineffective or even corrupt, Lu Cheng would order them to be dealt with on the spot and would never show leniency.
In order to understand the true situation in various places, Lu Cheng often took his personal guards, disguised as ordinary businessmen and civilians, to various places for open and secret investigations and to care about the people.
As a result, General Lu soon gained widespread prestige among the people and won the support of the masses.
As the Spring Festival approached, Lu Cheng sent greetings to the troops in various places, New Year gifts to generals at all levels, and gave all the soldiers an extra month's food and wages.
After ransacking so many homes and looting the entire Jiangnan and Kyoto, Lu Cheng had hundreds of millions of silver under his command, and the gold and jewelry filled the warehouses in Kyoto City. Only by spending this money could its greatest value be reflected.
Lu Cheng was not very good at winning people's hearts at first, but after staying in Liaodong for so many years, he had already mastered it.
Moreover, Lu Cheng not only did it himself, but also asked the personnel of the Intelligence Department to do a good job of publicity, and arranged storytellers in various places to widely spread the glorious deeds of General Lu's development history, praising General Lu as someone rare in heaven and nowhere to be found on earth, and saying that he was a great sage that God could not bear the suffering of the people and specially sent down to save all living beings.
Of course, this may be a bit exaggerated, but the people at that time just believed it.
By the time winter passed and spring arrived in 1628, Lu Cheng's prestige among the people had accumulated high enough, paving the way for him to become emperor.
Indeed, Lu Cheng had no choice but to proclaim himself emperor.
Lu Cheng controlled 3/4 of the entire Ming Dynasty's territory. Together with Liaodong, Jianzhou, the Korean Peninsula, the Mongolian grasslands, and various parts of Southeast Asia outside the Great Wall, the combined territory could be said to far exceed that of the Han and Tang Dynasties.
If he didn't declare himself emperor, how could his subordinates make progress? How could the soldiers who had fought for many years bring honor to their family?