Chapter 2816 2818【Falling Flowers and Flowing Water】
The Qianlong Envoy was transferred to the Jin Yiwei. After turning from darkness to light, his strength expanded rapidly.
The number of people was only 3,000 before, but then the number expanded rapidly to more than 20,000.
Once the 20,000 well-trained elite soldiers are dispatched, those officials will naturally be no match.
?So they were soon in prison, unable to resist.
?However, those wealthy families still refused to give in.
?In the first year of Tianshou, the gentry in the Jiangnan area supported the fourth prince Li Chengyuan, and used Xiang Nan''s "scheming to usurp the throne and steal the throne" as an excuse to raise troops to rebel.
Within ten days, more than a dozen state capitals were captured, and the momentum was quite terrifying.
At the same time, the noble families of Hedong Road supported the third prince Li Chengwen and also launched a rebellion in the name of "crueling the rebels and restoring orthodoxy".
?In a short period of time, more than a dozen state capitals in Hedong Road were captured, and even Hebei Road and Henan Road were affected.
The situation was extremely critical for a while.
All ministers wrote to Xiang Nan, asking him to stop implementing the New Deal in order to calm the people.
Xiang Nan didn''t care, so he sent Pei Zhao with 30,000 troops to the south of the Yangtze River to quell the rebellion; he transferred Zhao Jingyu to the Pass and led 50,000 troops to Hedong Road to quell the rebellion.
?Seeing Xiang Nan sending so few troops, the ministers thought they would lose.
Because the number of rebels in Jiangnan has reached more than 100,000, and the number of rebels in Hedong Road has also reached 90,000.
??Their backbone is the private soldiers raised by the noble families. Each of them is well-equipped, brave and good at fighting, and is even better than the elite of the imperial court.
Therefore, they believed that Xiang Nan was overconfident in sending only these troops to quell the rebellion.
??For this reason, the rebels did not take the imperial army seriously and concentrated their superior troops to start a decisive battle with the imperial army.
Prepare to defeat the imperial army in one fell swoop, and then become famous throughout the country.
…
March of the first year of Tianshou. The two rebel armies from Jiangnan and Hedong gathered their superior forces and launched a decisive battle with the imperial army.
Among them, there were 150,000 Jiangnan troops and 160,000 Hedong troops. Pei Zhao only brought 30,000 soldiers and horses, and Zhao Jingyu only brought 50,000. The difference seems quite large.
Therefore, as soon as the war began, the armies from Jiangnan and Hedong made great efforts to launch a general attack on the imperial army.
Unexpectedly, at this moment, nearly a hundred thunderous sounds suddenly broke out, followed by a violent explosion in the rebel ranks, killing thousands of people at once.
??The war horses were frightened and fled in all directions, and the soldiers were also stunned by the explosion. After two volleys, the rebels completely lost their morale and fled.
??Pei Zhao and Zhao Jingyu commanded the army to cover up and kill the rebels all the way, killing the rebels to pieces and leaving no trace of armor behind.
In less than half a month, all rebellions were eliminated.
?The third and fourth princes, various noble families, noble families, corrupt officials, and local tyrants who participated in the rebellion were all wiped out.
Such results surprised everyone.
They originally thought that the foundation of the new emperor Xiang Nan''s accession to the throne was unstable, and the rebels were powerful. It would not be unusual for the suppression of the rebellion to take several years.
I never expected that it would end so simply and neatly.
How did they know that Xiang Nan had already known that he was going to fight against the nobles and nobles, so he cast a large number of artillery pieces in advance, which were very powerful, comparable to European howitzers in the 18th century.
Comparatively, the wealthy nobles still use cold weapons. Under the salvo of hundreds of cannons, they were completely defeated before they even got close.
?Hence, Xiang Nan defeated him easily.
“How will the emperor deal with King Rong and King Yun?” the Queen Mother asked Xiang Nandao.
“Although the third and fourth brothers have conspired against each other, we are brothers after all.” Xiang Nan said to the Empress Dowager, “I already have my eldest and second brothers dead, and I don’t want to fight against each other again.
I am going to deprive them of their titles and place them under house arrest in their original palaces. Grandma, do you think I can do this? "
The Queen Mother nodded.
?Li Chengwen and Li Chengyuan committed the serious crime of treason, so it was a great blessing to be able to survive, and she did not dare to expect too much.
"In that case, it''s settled." Xiang Nan nodded.
Subsequently, Li Chengwen and Li Chengyuan were taken to the capital together with their families, and then placed under house arrest in the former residences of King Rong and King Yun respectively.
The imperial court allocated 20,000 taels of silver every year to support their family. In addition, after they reduced their titles to the people, their descendants would no longer take the title, but they could participate in the imperial examination.
? Xiang Nan is not afraid that Li Chengwen and Li Chengyuan will rebel again.
To be honest, they have little value anymore.
??Those noble families have been completely defeated, and the remaining local powerful, princes and ministers have no confidence to rebel.
?What''s more, even if they want to rebel, Xiang Nan can beat them down again.
When the time comes, he will no longer be so lenient.
…
Easily wiped out the rebels, bringing Xiang Nan''s prestige to its peak.
??Whether it was the court ministers or local powerful men, no one dared to challenge Xiang Nan''s authority and try the power of cannons.
?Hence, the new policy of "dividing a small person into an acre" and "officials and gentry working together as errands and paying grain in one package" were successfully implemented.
?This move greatly reduced the burden on the people, and therefore made countless people burst into tears of gratitude.
?? And "sharing the land between the peasants and the acres" and "the officials and gentry working as errands and paying grain as one body" also greatly increased the court''s taxes.
Before the Toyo Dynasty, the tax revenue for the year was only 30 million guan. After the taxes were divided into acres, the tax exceeded 50 million guan.
Xiang Nan later introduced the system of "returning envy to the public" and "raising honest silver".
?The so-called consumption and envy refers to the fact that when local officials collect money and taxes, they will levy more money and silver on the grounds of wastage, which is also called Huoyu or consumption envy.
However, the scope of consumption is larger than that of fire consumption, and consumption also includes bird consumption, mouse consumption, etc. The rice collected for Yunjing was eaten by birds and rats, which was called bird and mouse consumption.
During the Han Dynasty, for every one stone of grain paid, the cost of the grain increased by two dou. During the reign of Emperor Yin of the Later Han Dynasty, the cost of sparrows and mice increased from one stone of grain plus two dou of grain to four dou. For farmers, it is naturally a huge burden.
?After Hu Xian returned to the government, he levied the tax as a normal government tax, kept it in the vassal treasury, and gave it to civil officials in the province to support their integrity.
This reform measure centralized taxation power, reduced the people''s extra burden, increased the salary of foreign officials, and had a positive effect on rectifying officialdom and reducing corruption.
In addition, Xiang Nan also introduced the "secret report" system, which stipulated that all central and local officials of fourth rank or above should directly submit the secret report.
The secret fold has special paper, special boxes, special locks, and special keys, which are difficult for ordinary people to open, ensuring the confidentiality and safety of the memorial.
In this way, various officials supervise each other and restrain each other, which is a restriction for everyone; secondly, the secrets directly reach the heaven, which also helps to improve administrative efficiency; thirdly, the public can speak widely, so as to prevent the emperor from sitting in the capital and becoming a blind man. …
Through a series of means, Xiang Nan''s imperial power was greatly strengthened, which further consolidated his rule.
Even Gao Yuming was afraid of this, worried that Xiang Nan would have to settle accounts with him at some point, so he proposed to retire and return home early.
(End of this chapter)