Nearly 100 imperial historians and other officials knocked on the door of the noon, and finally all of them were arrested in the prison of Jinyiwei, and even a few cabinet elders could not change this result. Immediately, the court shook.

Since Chongzhen's accession to the throne, although the cabinet elders have changed year after year, and there have been a lot of Shangshu supervisors who have been killed, but they have never arrested so many officials at once on a large scale.

After Princess Kunxing was in charge of the country, she showed consistent weakness and was very conniving at the officials, which made many people think that the prison country could be bullied and that the court was in charge. Now this illusion has been pierced all at once, and they know who is the master of the Ming Dynasty.

And shock is shock, everyone knows that the prison country is angry, and no one dares to stand up and touch the head at this time. The most courageous people had already been arrested, and the rest of the people did not dare to stand up at the time, and only dared to slander afterwards.

In this situation, the measures for raising salaries through the sale of land were proposed by the cabinet and approved by the supervising state.

First of all, there is no clear data on the number of ownerless fields, but according to the number of clansmen in the northern provinces and the rough estimation of the fields they occupy, there are as many as four or five million acres of land in this batch alone. Then after years of war, many villages have been empty, and even many places are uninhabited for dozens of miles, even if the fields here have owners, they can't find the owners to exist, so they can naturally be sold. According to rough estimates, the fields that can be sold are at least 10 million mu, which can certainly be guaranteed.

The north has experienced years of war, the population has decreased sharply, but the south of the Ming Dynasty is less land and more people, such as Jiangdong, the average per capita land is only two or three acres, plus the planting of mulberry cotton, the annual grain is not even enough to eat, need to buy from other places. Moreover, the price of land in the south is very high, taking the Susong and Song Prefectures in Jiangdong as an example, the price per mu of land is usually more than ten taels of silver.

If you can buy land at a cheap price, some people are willing to buy hundreds or thousands of acres of land to build a manor and send a steward to manage it. Field, in the eyes of the Ming people, is the most important thing, and it is the best wealth left by the heirloom to the children and grandchildren!

Of course, the north has not yet been completely pacified, and whether it can drive away Manchu is still two theories, so many people will hesitate to sell land at this time.

Therefore, after the cabinet discussed, a method was introduced, which was to pre-sell, according to the price of two taels of land, all those who paid two taels of silver can buy fields in the north that has been recovered, and the specific places can be selected according to the order of purchase.

Buying an acre of land for two taels of silver is very cheap at any time, and it is a price that is impossible to obtain in ordinary times. So even if the Northern Expeditionary Army has not completely defeated the Manchus now, it is worth taking a gamble.

Now spend some silver to buy some fields, if the Northern Expeditionary Army defeats Manchu and completely recovers the north, these fields can change hands several times.

Even if you can't defeat Manchu, if you can maintain the current defensive line, the fields in the area of Shandong and Henan are worth buying.

In order to raise food and wages for the Northern Expedition as soon as possible, the imperial court announced that 2 million mu of Henan fields would be sold first, and that they would be temporarily sold at the price of two taels of silver per mu, on a first-come, first-served basis, until sold out. The possibility of price increases is not ruled out in the future.

The household department uniformly prints and issues the land deed marked with the number of acres, and takes the land deed to Henan to find the local government to measure the field and fill in the specific location.

The sales work was carried out in Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Yangzhou at the same time, and the imperial court sent a special person to take charge of the matter, and the number of fields was limited, until the sale was out, on a first-come, first-served basis.

As soon as the imperial court's decree to sell the land was issued, it immediately caused a great sensation in the government and the opposition, and the impact of the official knocking on the palace immediately disappeared, and not many people cared about it anymore.

"Two taels of silver a mu, it's really cheap! The cultivated land in my hometown Taiping Mansion costs eight taels of silver per acre! “

"Hehe, eight taels is a fart, I have a distant cousin who is from Suzhou, according to him, the fields in Suzhou are generally thirteen taels and one acres, but even at this price it is difficult to buy."

"Yes, it's too difficult to buy land, and they all regard the field as the root of their life, so the loser will sell the land casually!"

"It's just that there is some chaos in the north, and it's too troublesome to leave my hometown and go there, otherwise I really want to buy dozens of acres!"

"Hey, if it weren't messy, would it be so cheap? I don't have money, if I have money, I will buy hundreds of acres, and after the king of Qi completely drives away Manchu and pacifies the north, the whole family will move over and be a landlord happily! ”

There are many people talking about this in Nanjing, but not many actually spend money to buy land. Because for ordinary people, they can't buy a lot of land with too much silver. And for those who can really afford it, they are worried that the north will be unstable, and the silver will be wasted.

However, it didn't take long for news to come suddenly, Zhu Guobi, the Duke of Baoguo, took out 20,000 taels of silver and pre-purchased 10,000 acres of fertile land in Nanyang Mansion.

As soon as the news came out, it immediately made other families in Nanjing want to move, the Nanjing area is already densely populated, there are few people in the land, and there are many large families, but the lack of land resources makes many children have little income. It would be a good thing to buy land in the north and send the children out of the family to spread the branches.

The Manchu Qing were defeated in succession, and even if the king of Qi could not recover Beijing, it would not be a problem to keep Shandong and Henan, so buying land now was a sure-fire deal.

Soon, the purchase of land became hot, and some well-informed sources revealed that it was even more popular in Suzhou and Hangzhou, and the rich people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang went to the government to subscribe, and it is said that many people wanted to go to Henan to buy land and grow cotton.

Immediately afterwards, the imperial court promulgated a three-year tax exemption policy for all newly purchased fields, which made the enthusiasm for purchase flourish.

"If all the ownerless fields in the north can be cleared and measured, it is enough to sell more than 10 million taels of silver, which is the income of the national treasury for five or six years, not only will the grain and salary of the Northern Expedition be available, but the life of the imperial court will be much better. Compared to this, what is the tax exemption for three years? Moreover, after more than 10 years of continuous wars in the north, many places have barren land, and there is not much income, so if these fields are sold without the urging of the government, the land buyers themselves will gather the displaced people to cultivate, and the north will soon be able to stabilize and prosper. It's a few. ”

In the cabinet, Pavilion Elder Wang Yin said with a smile, and several other Pavilion Elders also nodded again and again.

"The matter is a good thing, that is, it is difficult to clear the acres of land, and the workload is too great, so we must strictly prevent the collusion of officials and gentry to do things that harm the common people. I suggest that a special minister be sent to the north, with the cooperation of the Northern Expeditionary Army under the command of the King of Qi, plus the original local government, to do this work together.

Didn't those imperial historians jump all day long and shout that they had nothing to do, but they could go to the north to be responsible for picketing this matter, and if they did well, they could be exonerated from their crimes, and if they didn't do well, they would be dismissed from office! Ge Lao Qian Qianyi followed Wang Yin's words.

"What Mu Zhai Gong said is very true, these officials are from noble backgrounds, and many of them have not experienced many things, so they can be used to experience it, and it can be regarded as a meritorious service." Shoufu Shi Kefa's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly agreed. This is the best time to exonerate those officials.

Wang Yin and Lu Zhenfei glanced at each other, and when Wang Yin was about to step forward to speak, he was stopped by Lu Zhenfei.

"What Yuan Fu and Mu Zhai Gong said is very true, but this matter should be reported to the prison country, and it is up to her to decide."

……

"Seeing Brother Bai, how can we let go of these imperial histories so easily?" After the meeting returned to the duty room, Wang Yin said to Lu Zhenfei unhappily.

"Spare them?" Lu Zhenfei smiled and said: "Then it depends on their cooperation, Brother Hengshan, how many of these imperial historians do you think will agree to do what they have always opposed?" ”

Wang Yin thought about it carefully, this is the reason, these imperial histories were originally for the purpose of selling land to raise money, gathering people to make trouble, and now let them personally supervise the sale of land, if they do it, it is equivalent to slapping themselves in the face.

But not necessarily, after suffering hardships, many people will change and compromise, there will be many people who obey the arrangements of the imperial court, and if they go to the north, it is the territory of the Northern Expeditionary Army, and if they make trouble, there will be a hundred ways to clean them up.

Moreover, most of these imperial histories are young, and many of them are tenacious, not as cunning as those old officials and oils, and they can be regarded as making the best use of this kind of thing to supervise and picket.

Sure enough, except for Qiao Kepin and Guo Weijing, the other imperial history officials who were put in prison all said that they would accept the arrangements of the imperial court.

The next day, the princess of the prison country issued an order that Qiao Kepin, Guo Weijing and other criminals rebelled against the prison country and plotted against the prison country, dismissed the official position and beat him as a commoner, and exiled to Dongfan Island and never returned! Dozens of other convicts pleaded guilty, and they were demoted to the eighth rank and then sent to various prefectures and counties in Henan and Shandong to supervise the picketing of the re-measurement and sale of fields.

These officials are not chased, they only have the power of supervision but not the power to deal with them, and after the picketing problems occur, they can report them to the provincial prosecutors and even the governors of the provinces.

On the same day, the princess of Jianguo issued an edict to Yue Qifei as the governor of Henan and Wang Yongji as the governor of Shandong, with full responsibility for measuring the fields. As for the candidates for the newly recovered local officials, because military management is now in place during the war, the local garrison officers stationed by Chen Yue, the king of Qi, will be appointed for the time being, and they will be selected later.

……

Yangzhou City is often closed, hundreds of people are busy, bags after bags of grain are loaded onto carriages, each cart is loaded with 2,000 loads of grain, equipped with two mules and horses and two grooms. Hundreds of carts lined up in a long line, from the granary to the outside of the city.

The person responsible for supervising the transportation of grain is none other than Chen Zilong, who was given by the former military department. Not long ago, he wrote to the imperial court that he was willing to go to the north where the war was going to war, and he was appointed by the Ministry of War to be an errand of supervising grain, responsible for escorting 200,000 loads of grain to Shandong, accompanied by 300 people and 500 soldiers.

After the grain was loaded, Chen Zilong went to the prefect's yamen to go through the handover procedures, and when he left the yamen, he saw a large number of people gathered outside the yamen, and he was looking at the notices posted on the wall, Chen Zilong suddenly smiled bitterly.

The matter of selling land to raise money has finally been completed, but it is a pity that hundreds of imperial history officials knocked on the palace to force the palace, but they still can't change this result.

If he was in Nanjing at the time, would he follow Qiao Ke to hire them to knock together? Even Chen Zilong himself didn't know. Most likely, after all, he used to be one of these imperial historians, and he was as pretentious as them.

But in that case, he will serve as an overseer as a prisoner like them. Instead of being promoted to one level now, he became the head of the six products of the Ministry of War, responsible for the supervision of grain and grass!

Outside the city, the grain truck was already ready, and the officer in charge of escorting the grain and grass was a thousand-household officer, who asked Chen Zilong for instructions on whether to set off. Chen Zilong nodded, and then the horsewhip sounded, the mules and horses took steps, and the convoy began to move towards the north.

At the end of the first month of Yangzhou, the weather is still very cold, and the ground is frozen hard, which is conducive to travel. The convoy traveled all the way to Shandong via Huai'an, Suqian, and Xuzhou, and arrived in Liaocheng, which is likely to be the end of February.

Chen Zilong's grain team was still walking in Yangzhou Prefecture, while Zhang Huangyan had already entered Shandong and encountered the most dangerous moment of their lives.

Three hundred and fifty students of the Wubei Academy were ordered to go to Shandong, and it took less than 20 days to enter Shandong.

The training of the past half a year was not given in vain, and these martial arts students were originally selected from heroes from all over the world, and their original physical fitness was good.

From Nanjing to Yanzhou for more than 1,000 miles, they marched 80 miles a day, and it took less than half a month to reach Shandong.

Wearing a standard cotton suit, covered with leather armor, carrying a futon behind him, carrying a fried noodles weighing 20 catties on his shoulders as dry food, and carrying a water bottle on the other side, plus the spears, steel knives, bows, crossbows and muskets and other weapons he carried, each person carried more than 30 catties.

Armed in full uniform, carrying a weight of thirty pounds, and marching on foot at a speed of eighty miles a day, no one was left behind in half a month, and only those who came out of the Martial Arts Academy could do it, because in the past few months, their training intensity has always been so great.

In a few months, they didn't learn much about the specific martial arts and tactics, they only learned cooperation and obedience and a strong will.

Along the way, except for passing through towns and cities, they would enter a little rest to replenish their food, and most of the time it was a silent and boring march.

The general who led the team was named Deng Bingzhen, who was born in the Pingnan Army, and is now a professor at the Armed Forces Academy with the rank of deputy general.

On the 25th day of the first month, the team passed through Yanzhou Mansion and entered the territory of Dongping Mansion, which was not far from Liaocheng.

There were endless plains everywhere, and the march was fast along the official road not far from the canal, but at noon suddenly the sound of horses' hooves sounded in the distance.

At first, I thought it was a cavalry sentry for the army to transmit military information, but when he saw the high lightning rod above the head of the cavalry running in the distance, and the armor with a style completely different from that of the Northern Expeditionary Army, Deng Bingzhen's heart suddenly lifted up, full of tears!

The official army in the entire Shandong is only the Northern Expeditionary Army under the command of King Qi, and the Northern Expeditionary Army generally wears standard military uniforms, even the armor will be dyed red, while the opposite side is running black and white armor, which can be distinguished at a glance.

"Enemy attack, line up to meet it!" Deng Bingzhen shouted. The walking team was stunned for a moment, and the marching columns immediately dispersed and began to face the distance.

Zhang Huangyan quickly put down the salute food he was carrying, took off the longbow he was carrying, and began to meet the first battle in his life!