Shouyang, Shanxi, Qi family compound.

Inside the flower hall, the air was dreary. The newly built flower hall is very spacious, and it is also very stylishly fitted with floor-to-ceiling glass windows that offer an unobstructed view of the white snow of the garden outside. Coupled with an exquisite wine banquet, this scene seems to be drinking and appreciating the snow and talking about elegance. But these people in the room had gloomy faces, which made the whole atmosphere a little cold and damp. But looking at these people who are all dressed in elaborate robes, coats, melon skin hats, and gray hair, we know that they must be very dissatisfied with this world. These people are all gentry and celebrities in Xinzhou Mansion, Sun Mansion and other places in Shanxi. At the time of the former Qing Dynasty, all of them were famous and famous, and they were all characters who stomped their feet and trembled on the ground.

And now, these characters are also great people. is different from those gentry in the south, these people, all of them are armed with regimental training, and they can be regarded as local tyrants and inferior gentry who grew up in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement! Shanxi Province is probably the province with the weakest control of the Ming court, this province is derived from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but before the Ming Dynasty came in, the rule of the Heavenly Kingdom in Shanxi was also limited to Datong, Xinzhou, Taiyuan, Linfen, Shouyang and other large cities, and the vast rural areas and small and medium-sized counties were controlled by these regimental training and armed leaders. After Miao Peilin led his troops into Shanxi, he only took over some big cities, and he could only turn a blind eye to the places that he could not fully control, and sometimes he threw out a few official hats to pull them together, and finally hung the sun and moon with the Huihui flag on the head of the county towns of the province. As for the real power in the locality, it is still in the hands of these local snakes.

But such a good life will not last long after all, with the consolidation of the Ming Dynasty's rule in the country. The edict to clean up the local regiments and train their armaments was finally issued at the beginning of the fourth year of the liberation. and the edict of the imperial examination reform can be regarded as one after the other. The local tyrants and inferior gentry can still endure the reform of the imperial examination. Anyway, they are no longer gentry of peace, and the basis of property power is no longer the imperial examination, but the barrel of the gun and the handle of the knife in their hands! However, the edict to clean up the local regimental training stepped on the tiger tail of these people.

The host of today's banquet is Qi Suzao, he is the former minister of the Qing Dynasty, the sixth brother of the university scholar Qi Liaozao, the 18th year of Daoguang Jinshi, when Zhu Jishi raised troops in Guangdong, he was the Guangdong salt transport envoy. Before the recovery of Guangzhou, he went north with Saishan'a, and then stayed in Beijing to serve, and after the Taiping Army's northern expedition to Henan, he was ordered to return to his hometown with Xu Jishe to run a group training. Relying on the prestige of the Qi family in Shouyang County, he quickly pulled up a team of soldiers and horses, and fought a few battles with the Taiping army in Shouyang County. The Qing Dynasty lost the world! However, Qi Suzao was still not discouraged, after all, Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty in history, also fell into the hands of thieves twice. The most were taken back.

But in 1850, even worse news kept coming, first Emperor Daoguang surrendered to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and was named King Gongshun! Immediately afterwards, Emperor Tiande of the Qing Dynasty, who retreated outside the Guan, was defeated by Zhu Jishi, surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, and was awarded the title of Duke of Bohai. This kind of thing is almost equivalent to nailing a few more coffin nails to the Qing Dynasty that has been lying in the coffin, and it is really difficult to come up with it again. However, the most disheartening news is that Yang Xiuqing, the eastern king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was defeated in Henan and ascended to heaven, and the east of Tongguan, including Shanxi, was ruled by the Ming Dynasty! At this time, Qi Suzao's heart was finally extremely cold, and he rejected his brother Qi Liaozao's suggestion, and did not go to Xi'an with his family, but stayed in Shouyang as his local tyrant and inferior gentry. Because of the relationship with Qi Liaozao, he did not become a Ming scholar, but continued to practice in the township as a cloth cloth, holding thousands of strong men in his hands, saying nothing in Shouyang County, the county official sent by Miao Peilin is simply a tablet, without his Qi Sixth Master nodding, nothing can be done. Although it is not as beautiful as the previous official in the court, it is also a strong party. There are many local tyrants in Shanxi who are in a similar situation to him, and this is basically the case in every county.

Zhu Jishi's policy of wooing the gentry is actually constantly changing, roughly taking the two rivers as a watershed, before Emperor Zhu was in the gentry, as long as they are willing to take refuge, they can generally get preferential treatment, and the sooner they take refuge, the higher the treatment. After taking the two rivers, Emperor Zhu treated the gentry more and more coldly, and after defeating Yang Xiuqing and seizing the Central Plains, the gentry almost became the target of Emperor Zhu's rectification.

In Emperor Zhu's view, the rich and bad people in China's rural areas are divided into two categories: one is the small landlords and rich peasants who make their fortunes by managing the land, these people are the main productive forces in the countryside, and the construction of capitalist rural areas depends on them, so they are the objects of protection; Second, the gentry who made their fortune by relying on the doors and privileges of officialdom, they did not promote rural production, and they also monopolized most of the power and wealth in the countryside.

At this time, the gentry of the Ming Dynasty were also divided into two categories, one was those who "participated in the revolution" earlier, such as the gentry of Xianghu, Guangdong and Jiangnan. Some of the most energetic among them were either eliminated or joined the Zhu Ming group as officials. Many also received knighthoods and became members of the Ming nobility. Zhu Jishi's previous inventory and rectification of land and land in the eight southeastern provinces was to curb this part of the population, trying to shift their wealth and attention from the countryside to the cities.

The second category was the gentry outside the eight provinces, who "joined the revolution" late, or did not participate at all, and became figures on the fringes of Zhu Ming's ruling clique. The purpose of setting age and reference limits for the imperial examination and adding Western studies is to rectify this part of the population. Because the gentry all have to be famous, and if they don't get fame for a long time, there is no way to stay in the gentry group. The landlords, who lost their gentry status, were either converted into ordinary landlords and agricultural capitalists, or they entered the cities to start a new life. However, there is also a special type of situation, that is, the local heroes who have risen in the troubled times and hold the armed forces, and the two parties of the Kuomintang and G in later generations have pressed a hat on these people, called "local tyrants and inferior gentry".

The Miao Peilin group, which now rules Shanxi, and the leaders of the Shanxi regiment represented by Qi Suzao, both belong to the "local tyrants and inferior gentry", but the former supports Emperor Zhu, and the latter does not support Zhu Jishi. Therefore, Emperor Zhu's attitude towards them was completely different. At present, the main official positions in Shanxi's prefectures and counties are monopolized by the pro-Zhu Miao Party. The local tyrants and inferior gentry in Shanxi are basically in the opposition faction, and if they lose the group training in their hands, there is really no way to control the place anymore.

Originally, these local tyrants in Shanxi still had some expectations for the imperial examination and constitutionalism, thinking that they could squeeze out the foreign Miao Party through the examination and realize the "Jin people governing the Jin", that is, they could be replaced as officials, at least they could take down the county officials in Shanxi. However, Emperor Zhu used an edict to exclude all Shanxi tyrants over the age of 28 from the imperial examination, if this is the case, these Shanxi people can probably bear it, but at the same time, Emperor Zhu issued an order to dismiss the regimental training in their hands! What's even more hateful is that news came out from Taiyuan that Miao Peilin and his officials and generals have moved their household registration from Anhui, Henan, Jiangsu, Shandong and other places to Shanxi!

"What is the truth of this? Everywhere else, locals are local officials (only to county officials), why did they change to Huai people to govern Jin when they arrived in Shanxi? Zhao Hongyou, a gentleman from Pingyao, Shanxi, suddenly complained, he is a man of Daoguangnian, and he is young, less than 30 years old, he can go to the Shanxi imperial examination as usual, as long as he is in high school, there should be no problem in being a Pingyao county magistrate. However, Miao Peilin gave an order to naturalize himself and his 70,000 or 80,000 officers and soldiers in Shanxi and became "Jin people", which means that the local county officials in Shanxi will not leave their posts after the imperial examination at all. Even if Zhao Hongyou can go to high school, he will be a petty official of eight or nine grades, and if he can't do it, he will be pressed by a bunch of Huai people for a lifetime! (To be continued......)