When Huang Li left the Qianqing Palace with a heavy heart, Chongzhen asked people to remove the pastries in front of him, and took out a blank piece of paper from the side and put it in front of him.

He took a sharpened pencil from the pen holder and ran it around his hand as he pondered what to write. This battle on the Fengchuan grassland certainly made the Ming Dynasty quite proud of it, and the cabinet ministers were not stingy with the compensation of the fallen soldiers and the rewards of meritorious personnel.

But Chongzhen always felt that something was missing, so that the people of Daming would associate this victory with themselves. It's not that he's thinking too much, it's that he's becoming more and more aware of this era.

The Ming army was defeated by Jiannu several times in Liaodong, and lost most of Liaodong, not to mention. There were tens of thousands of soldiers of the Ming army, and hundreds of thousands of Liaodong people died at the hands of Jiannu. Hundreds of thousands of Liaodong people were also displaced, and hundreds of thousands of Liaodong people became slaves under Jiannu.

However, in the Ming Dynasty outside Liaodong, except for some literati who ridiculed the incompetence of the Ming army in Liaodong and demanded that officials be held accountable for these failures, the people everywhere felt nothing but sympathy for the suffering of the people in Liaodong, and went to a normal life without feeling, as if the stories they heard were all other people's affairs.

Because of this, when the imperial court increased the salary, the officials and people everywhere not only did not think that this was a shared responsibility to defend the country, but the boss was unhappy to think that he was paying for those refugees from Liaodong who could not even defend their homes.

It is precisely because of this thought in their hearts that the Liaodong refugees who fled into the Guannai have become the targets of discrimination against the people in the Guannai, and the Jiangnan officials regard the arrears of Liaodong salaries as a good governance to fight for the welfare of the local people.

In Chongzhen's eyes, the Ming he faced did not look like a country, but like a loose alliance of bureaucrats and gentry. The bureaucratic gentry of each region had only a general degree of zeal for the public affairs of their region. It is indifferent to matters outside the region.

For example, in the records he has read, when a locust plague occurred in a county in Henan, the county officials adopted the method of calling on the villagers to drive the locusts to Linxian County. The county magistrate of Linxian held him accountable for this, and the county magistrate actually laughed at the other party for driving the locusts back.

This kind of beggar-thy-neighbor thing is simply taken for granted in the eyes of the Ming people, and it doesn't feel that there is anything wrong. For Chongzhen alone, this is simply unimaginable in the future.

When one side is in trouble, all sides support, which is a myth in this era. "Everyone sweeps the snow in front of the door, and doesn't care about the frost on the tiles of others." It is a normal phenomenon in the Ming society.

Chongzhen was once very surprised by this social phenomenon, a Confucian and Mencian way on his lips, almost every literati would read a sentence, "The old man, and the old man; In the country of "the young, the young, and the young", why is there such a narrow concept of region, clan, and township party?

It is necessary to know that the public elites of later generations are still advocating from time to time to learn from this era and restore the traditional culture of governing the country by rural sages. Could it be that the so-called village sages are extreme egoists?

Chongzhen, who was puzzled, chose the most common method for later generations to understand, that is, to send people down to a county to conduct a comprehensive economic and social survey.

In this social survey, nearly 100 people were mobilized and nearly 100,000 pages of survey materials were obtained in more than half a year. Let Chongzhen finally have a more intuitive understanding of an ordinary county in Daming.

Although these survey data are complicated, if we use the perspective of political economy that he has learned, 70% of the land in a county is in the hands of 10% of the people in the county, 20% of the people in the county control 20% of the land, 35% of the people in the county control 10% of the land, and the remaining 35% of the population does not exist at all.

Whether it is the township party, the clan, or local public affairs, it is in the hands of the top 10% of the population. And the leader of these people is called the gentry.

For these gentry, the place where their family lived was a huge estate, and the population of the county was the object of enslavement in this estate.

Whether they are repairing bridges and roads in their manor or providing disaster relief and medicine, the ultimate goal is to keep the manor afloat. As long as this manor can survive, everything they have invested will be reclaimed into their hands in various forms.

But leaving this manor, that's someone else's territory. When others are in trouble, they will not get anything in return for their support. On the contrary, it is normal for people to take advantage of other people's difficulties, or to buy land, or to attract people, and to expand their own estates.

It is precisely because of this that restricting the movement of population and advocating a social order of etiquette and regularity are the system of the holy king that these village sages strongly advocate.

To put it simply, the superior will always be the superior and the inferior will always be inferior. The purpose of the existence of the inferior people is to serve the life of the superior people, and if the inferior people accidentally reproduce too much, they should stay at home and starve to death, instead of thinking about escaping the manor to find their own way of life.

Therefore, whether it is morality or law, it is nothing more than a shackle established by the ruler in order to consolidate his dominance, the former is a spiritual shackle, and the latter is **.

For the time being, if we cannot change the distribution of land, the most basic means of production, we will not be able to carry out a reasonable and effective distribution of the social wealth of the Ming Dynasty. In an era of fierce social contradictions, such as the end of the Ming Dynasty, the people would eventually arm themselves and violently plunder the land in the hands of the upper bureaucratic landlords and redistribute the land according to their will.

For Chongzhen, with his current ability, it is obvious that he cannot redistribute the country's land in a moderate way to alleviate the current fierce social contradictions. Let the people of the Ming Dynasty slowly transform into the identity of the country by agreeing with the policies of the imperial court.

However, it is still necessary to use propaganda to let the people know what they want to do, so as to attract a group of people who want to change the status quo to gather around them.

Zhu Youzhen stared at the smoke emitted by the incense burner in front of the case, and thought quietly for a long time before he stopped the small movement around the pen and began to write on the white paper in front of him.

“… A real warrior, dare to face the bleak life, dare to face the dripping blood. Although Yu Tong Wang Jun has never met, but he has also heard of Wang Jun's trivial matters in the past, Wang Jun is usually simple, colleagues or invited Ye You, replied: There is a widowed mother at home, a brother and a sister, and they still need support, and they dare not let themselves go...

However, when he was on the battlefield, he had no fear in the face of a strong enemy, he was surrounded and fought unremittingly, covered with dozens of wounds, and refused to fall down with blood. This sincerity is also a great warrior.

What is Wang Jun fighting for, defending the country and defending the people's ears. In this battle of Toyokawa, the martyrs of the Ming Dynasty withered like a king can be said to be endless... Yu would like to commemorate Wang Jun and his comrades-in-arms with this small article. ”

After putting down the pencil in his hand, Zhu Youzhen read the text carefully again, corrected a few typos, and then called Lu Qi over.

He picked up the text he had just written, handed it to him and said, "Give this article to Ruan Yuanhai, and let him retouch it and publish it in the daily newspaper." By the way, tell him that in the past few days, I have organized people to write a few more articles about this war and praise our Ming troops participating in the war. ”

Lu Qi carefully took the paper handed over by Chongzhen before replying: "The minister will go to handle this matter, please rest assured Your Majesty." ”

Seeing Lu Qi withdraw from the upper study, Zhu Youzhen turned his head to Wang Chengen and said, "You notify the General Staff Headquarters on behalf of me, first, let them count the list of the war dead as soon as possible; 2. Determine the cemetery where the martyrs are buried, and if the funds are insufficient, they can be allocated from the palace in advance; 3. Collect the relics of the martyrs and draw up a notice of the war victims, which I will personally sign and hand over to the bereaved families of the martyrs at that time.

Let the General Staff set up an office to deal with the bereaved families of martyrs, and if the bereaved families of these martyrs have any requirements, they can meet them as much as possible. If you can't be satisfied, you should also explain it in detail, and don't snub them..."

Wang Chengen accepted them one by one, and when he saw that Chongzhen was still thinking about whether there was anything missing, he couldn't help but say carefully: "When the minister just went out to convey His Majesty's will, he received a report.

It is said that Xu Xinsu has already entered Beijing with a Spanish captive, and I don't know when you want to meet him, Your Majesty. ”

Zhu Youzhen suddenly put down his thoughts, looked up at Wang Chengen, and said with some joy: "Xu Xinsu has arrived in the capital." This time he did a good job in Taipei, not only completely defeated the Spanish power in Taiwan, but also brought the aboriginal leaders of Taipei to the capital.

I don't need to pick any more times, it looks like it's going to be dusk. You let Guanglu Temple prepare a banquet, and we will go to meet him quietly. I would love to hear about the whole war, and how the Spaniards and the Dutch did in the war..."

In less than a day, the news that the Ming army defeated Lin Dan Khan's 100,000 army in the field battle outside Datong Pass was officially released by the imperial court. And almost at the same time, the dignitaries and nobles in the capital have already received the news.

In the back house of the British Mansion, Zhang Weixian, the British Princess, is leaning against the window of the small building near the pond.

He held a porcelain jar that had rained blue in one hand, and pinched out some rice grains from the jar from time to time with the other hand, and gently rubbed them into the pool under the window.

With his movements, dozens of koi fish with red bodies and no variegated colors in the pool below gathered over, pushing the quiet pool water into layers of ripples.

Zhang Weixian stared at these smart fish for a long time before putting down the porcelain jar and standing up straight. He glanced at Zhang Zhiji, who was standing aside and reported the news to him, and said with a sigh.

"This victory is good news for Daming. But for my family, not necessarily.

When His Majesty insisted on sending troops to fight, all the nobles in Beijing thought that the enemy was outnumbered, and the trip must be more auspicious, so everyone shirked and did not want to go.

Now that people have risked their lives to win the war, you want to ask the old man to intercede with His Majesty and share some of the credit to the children of each family. Do you think Your Majesty will agree? ”

Although Zhang Weixian's tone is flat, it still has great oppressive power for Zhang Zhiji, who has always accumulated great power.

However, thinking of the interests behind this matter, he had to reply stubbornly: "Father, it's not that the child doesn't know the reason.

But after all, our noble family is based on military merits, and now although the children are not filial and cannot go to the battlefield, they have nothing to say about the loyalty of His Majesty.

Now His Majesty has rectified the border army in Beijing and built a new army in Beijing, and no family is allowed to interfere in the General Staff. In the long run, what is the use of waiting for us in the eyes of His Majesty?

Although His Majesty treats my British Mansion differently from other families, a good man still needs three helpers. If only my British government is left in Beijing, will we be able to maintain our current position in the future? ”