Dominate the Country

[Thanks to the book friend ‘Mus Shenming’ for the 588 reward]

In Beijing.

The Eight Banners in the city of Sijiu are still boasting about the invincibility of the Eight Banners New Army. The afterglow of the military parade at Wumen Gate that inspired the Qing Dynasty is still burning. They seem to have forgotten that this Eight Banners New Army was trained in the image of the Fu Han Army. It’s just that the Qing Dynasty is big and powerful, and Emperor Qianlong waved his hand to decide on 5,000 flintlock rifles, which is no less than the "efforts" that the Fu Han Army has been working on for several years. Although it takes time and people are needed to wait for the guns.

But the Qing Dynasty Military Academy, which is fully operational, really can’t be underestimated.

Among the muskets used in the training of the Eight Banners New Army, only one out of ten is real, and the rest are fake guns made of solid wood. But by the end of August at most, the remaining flintlock rifles will all be distributed to the Eight Banners New Army. That’s a real 5,000 guns!

The Eight Banners children in Beijing were chattering that in September, the army would go south, and then they would first pacify the White Lotus bandits in western Shandong, then clean up Chen Ni's old nest in Henan, and then clean up Jiujiang, Anqing, Jiangnan, Fujian, Taiwan, etc., sort out the mountains and rivers, and clean up the north and south. This world is still the world of the Qing Dynasty!

Each one is full of arrogance, ambition, and big mouth. They are very much like the "keyboard z governance" in later generations.

The secret camp can get some useful information from the big mouths of those Eight Banners children. With the connections made by the Henan Guild Hall, and the public reports of the Qing Dynasty, the news is continuously sent to the south. Of course, the appearance of the Qing Dynasty's sticking pole also made the secret camp lurking in Beijing more cautious.

Since Fujian and Zhejiang used sea vessels to transport grain, the grain prices in the Beijing-Tianjin area fell, and the grain prices in the entire Zhili Governor's District [Hebei, Henan, Shandong] also fell a lot. Beijing City has food, silk and local products from the south of the Yangtze River, as if it had returned to the 30th year of Emperor Qianlong's reign overnight, and has become as prosperous and wealthy as before.

The Anying who settled in Beijing understood that the Qing court had no money. Emperor Qianlong could not hide the fact that he borrowed tens of millions of taels of silver from the local rich man in Shanxi, and the crops of the Eight Banners were also affected, and the distribution of money and grain was not as smooth as before. The Qing Dynasty had no money, which was good news for the entire Fu Han Army. Without money, the larger the area controlled by the Qing Dynasty, the heavier the burden they would bear, just like in the late Ming Dynasty, the vast land and resources that they were once proud of would become the poison that would kill them.

At present, a large number of officials in the Qing Dynasty court also wrote to "open donations" and set up military camp grain stations and fund-raising bureaus in local areas, all for the purpose of money.

The Qing court relied on the money from Shanxi merchants to finance the war in the north, while the southern provinces, with their own relatively solid assets and the money from Guangdong, also covered the expenses of more than 100,000 troops. But this year is not over yet. The summer tax was just collected and it was gone. The autumn tax will have to wait for some time, and it is still a harsh winter...

Can the Qing Dynasty suppress all the rebels in the rest of this year? If it fails this year, where will the money and food come from next year? Will the court continue to borrow money from a group of merchants? And how much money do those merchants have left for the court to borrow?

Silver. If enough silver is raised, this is already the most pressing problem facing the Qing court.

In the half month since the Tiandihui uprising in Fujian, Emperor Qianlong ordered Kyakhta to resume trade with the Russians. This was because Gao Silei and Yang Dewang, who worked in the artillery factory, were called by Emperor Qianlong to ask about their experiences in Europe. They mentioned that Russia and the Ottoman Empire, a great power in the Near East, were mortal enemies. The Beijing Jesuits received a letter from Macau saying that the fifth Russo-Turkish War had broken out.

The relationship between the Qing Dynasty and Russia was definitely not harmonious. Whether it was the small-scale war in the Northeast or the Russians' repeated intervention in the Xinjiang issue, the Qing emperor was deeply wary of Russia. As a result, Gao Silei and Yang Dewang said that Russia was going to start the fifth national war with its mortal enemy in the south, and according to the scale of the previous four Russo-Turkish wars, the two countries would not stop fighting without three to five years. This made Emperor Qianlong completely relieved about Russia. After three to five years, the Russians might be able to end their war with the Ottoman Empire, but the Qing Dynasty at that time must have quelled the civil strife early. The Russians had no chance to take advantage of it!

Kyakhta, which had been opened, closed, and reopened, became a window that pointed to the good and evil of the Qing-Russia relationship. On the other hand, this was also Qianlong's praise for Shanxi merchants. No matter how much financial power these Shanxi merchants had in silver and money houses, Kyakhta's trade with the Russians was vital to them.

Then the imperial censor Jiang Yuelun reported that the "big selection" lasted too long [four subjects were selected], so that the selected people were not without old age, and it was difficult for them to serve the country in the long run. The four subjects should be changed to two subjects, and the six-year session should be shortened to three-year session, so as to recruit talents for the country!

I won't talk about the first item, but the purpose of the second item is too obvious. The Qing Dynasty was trying to win over scholars and expand the small mouth that was opened before. Three-year selection, this is comparable to the imperial examination.

It takes too long to be selected in four subjects, and you are qualified if you are selected in two subjects. Look at all the Jinshi in the world, how many people can pass the gold list in one subject? Even people like Ji Xiaolan [regardless of their character, only their literary talent], there are two provincial examinations and two imperial examinations. There are not too many successful candidates in both subjects all over the world. The weight and prestige of the successful candidates in the local area are not much higher than those of the scholars. They are the backbone of the gentry!

The Qing Dynasty introduced a "favorable" policy to win over the Juren, which was to win over the Han gentry. Coupled with the implementation of the militia policy, the "Great Qing Dynasty" became less and less like the "Kangxi and Qianlong prosperity". This is definitely the atmosphere of the late Qing Dynasty.

A penny can make a hero fall. No matter how wise and powerful you are, without silver as a foundation, you are nothing. Qianlong was like this.

He never worried about silver in his life. When he took over his father's job, Yongzheng left him a family fortune of 80 million taels of silver. Moreover, the policies of equalizing the land tax, officials and gentry serving as officials and paying taxes together, and the fire consumption being returned to the public, etc., also made Qianlong have no shortage of money to spend. So he was fond of ostentation and hit this and that because he had money in his hands. With money, what was the life of the Green Camp Han soldiers?

The soldiers had no shortage of food and wages, and they were given pensions when they died in battle. This was the best emperor in the world. Therefore, Qianlong continued to build and renovate the Old Summer Palace with great generosity, spent lavishly, went to the south of the Yangtze River, visited Mulan, and the Chengde Mountain Resort was built until the 57th year of Qianlong's reign.

This was a very blessed emperor. Like his mother, he was a blessed person in Chinese history.

He lived a long life, was in power for a long time, ate, drank, played with women, shouted and killed to earn fame, and lived a life of ease and freedom. Even in his later years, the White Lotus Rebellion, which was so powerful, was also blamed by his son Jiaqing for his "decline".

Look at the entire history of Chinese feudal emperors, you can't find another such a blessed person.

…

The Qianlong Emperor in history was very blessed, and the middle of Qianlong was the peak period of his play, but everything has changed in this time and space. The existence of the Fu Han Army made Qianlong's head hurt. Now the Hunyuan Sect in Shandong, the Tiandihui in Fujian and Taiwan, and the foreign bandits, need money to clean up the country. Qianlong had the ambition to rebuild the country. When the Eight Banners Army was trained, he made the final decision on the rules and issued a strict order to let the selected Eight Banners military officers follow the training of the captives and train the soldiers directly with the Fu Han Army. Qianlong had both ambition and ability. But he really had no money now.

Qianlong now wanted to melt all the gold and silver objects in the palace. The northeast needed silver, the northwest needed silver, and the front lines of Shandong, Henan and Anhui also needed silver. The southern provinces were relatively good, and they could take care of money and food. The problem was in the north, in Beijing. Because there were still millions of bannermen in Beijing, where could Qianlong find the iron-clad crops of the entire Eight Banners?

And, and...

When Qianlong thought of the anti-book ban cases reported from various places, and the occasional time when Chen Ni secretly killed officials and burned warehouses, he felt that his forehead was really painful. Now the Qing Dynasty still has a lot of military forces to use. For example, the green camps in the southwest, Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi are still capable of fighting. Sichuan has already mobilized more than 10,000 green camps, which are probably the elite of the military towns in Sichuan, but if they squeeze in, they can still send out another 10,000 or 20,000. Qianlong has already mobilized the army in the southwest, but Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi are not wealthy places. Sichuan is okay. The money and food for the mobilization of the army must be paid by Guangdong, and can Guangdong alone support it?

Qianlong is most fortunate now that after Chen Ming defeated the Fujian and Zhejiang Lu Yong in Changzhou, he did not turn south to eat Suzhou. The troops entered Hangzhou and the money bag of Zhejiang can still be kept. Otherwise, the south would also be worried.

The cavalry in the north can no longer be dispatched. If they are dispatched again, let alone what the Mongolian reaction will be, the money and food alone will be a huge expense. Moreover, the cavalry in those places are lax in military discipline, and they often disturb the people, rob villages and towns, and burn, kill and plunder frequently. That was all to supplement the rebels and lose the support of the people in the court; the bannermen in Beijing could also be mobilized, but the family knew their own business. There were many bannermen in Beijing, but there were very few elite soldiers like the Xishan Jianrui Battalion and the Eight Banner New Army.

The Firearm Battalion, the Cavalry Battalion, the Vanguard Battalion, the Guard Battalion, the Infantry Battalion, the Shenji Battalion, the Tiger Spear Battalion, the Shanpu Battalion, etc., had all been dispatched to the battlefields of Henan and Shandong. The troops of each battalion were strong, but there were few elite soldiers. Moreover, the Beijing Bannermen were his lifeblood. For example, the Xishan Jianrui Battalion, except for the first time when 500 people were mobilized to Henan, Qianlong never used them again. It was not that the Jianrui Battalion was also corrupt and could not fight, but that Qianlong wanted to hold them in his hands. Such elite soldiers could not be lost easily!

Silver is the fuel of this era. Without "fuel", even the most powerful "aircraft tanks" are just a pile of scrap iron and copper. Qianlong even had to guard against the backlash of these "aircraft tanks". When the situation in Shandong was tense before, Qianlong transferred a large number of patrol camps to Shandong, and did not use a few banner soldiers in Beijing. Because the cost of losing a banner soldier is much higher than the cost of losing a Han soldier in the patrol camp.

"Your Majesty, to ease the crisis of silver and money, we can only open a donation bureau and raise funds. I think that we can try to open a land donation in the six provinces of Hunan, Sichuan, Shanxi, Zhili, Zhejiang, and Guangdong. According to the fertility of the land and the amount of land, the land tax silver will be collected separately, and the donation per mu ranges from 20 to 50 wen. At the same time, the rice shops in Beijing, Tianjin, Zhejiang, and Guangdong will be implemented. It is stipulated that 50 wen will be donated for every stone of rice to help with the military expenditure. It can solve the urgent needs of the court."

"If the effect is different, the restrictions can be relaxed, and the shops of all industries will be equal. All donations will be collected, and the value will be collected at about one hundred." Fuheng talked to Qianlong calmly. If Chen Ming heard what he said, he would definitely sigh that "great minds think alike". Isn't this policy the "lijin system" introduced by the Qing Dynasty when it suppressed the Taiping Rebellion? This strategy has caused endless harm in modern Chinese history, but it is also an important reason for the formation of important local armed forces in the late Qing Dynasty, such as the Hunan Army, Huai Army, and Chu Army.

Do local militias need to fight against the imperial court when they have money and food? Just like in the late period of the original time and space, if Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang and others had not been old-fashioned and conservative, if they had raised anti-Qing forces, why would they have delayed the solution to the Qing Dynasty until 1912? Why did they leave such a mess behind? [Note: This mess does not refer to the humiliation suffered by modern China, but to the preferential treatment of the Qing Dynasty, including the royal family, princes and nobles, and no one has settled it]

Qianlong was hesitant. He really had no silver in his hands, but once the lijin thing was opened, it would be difficult to stop it. This would cause the central financial power to fall and the local financial power to expand. This would threaten the rule of the Qing Dynasty, which is the most direct and obvious hidden danger.

Moreover, in the war, it is difficult to ensure the integrity of the government. Once the lijin is opened, will the local private levies and levies be rampant? Will it make the court lose more people's hearts, and ultimately lead to the gradual loss of the Qing Dynasty's ability to control the overall situation as the financial situation deteriorates?

"If the local government has financial power and is supported by militia training, won't it become a vassal state in the Tang Dynasty?" Qianlong was angry.

Fuheng was not a fool, how could he not know the serious cause and effect, but the court had no money. The Fu Han army had already killed Yancheng, and Qianlong had ordered Yin Jishan, the new governor-general of Liangjiang and imperial commissioner, to urge the troops immediately. No matter how bad the troops in Suzhou and Songjiang were, they must march to Nanjing and must send Chen Ming back to Jiangnan from Jiangbei.

Fujian was in chaos, and Zhejiang and Guangdong had to take back part of their energy. Duan Xiulin, the land admiral of Fujian, even wrote to Beijing, saying that the soldiers in the army were confused, homesick, and had no fighting spirit. But Duan Xiulin's Fujian Lu Yong was the top main force of the Songjiang Qing army. How could the local government let them leave like this?

Songjiang changed its previous practices, and the money and food rewards continued. Although they were swept by the Fu Han Army once before, Songjiang is really rich. Duan Xiulin's army has less than 10,000 people at most. They have suffered heavy losses after losing battles. Songjiang Prefecture can completely cover them.

Moreover, the Qing Dynasty started to donate, which was the "donation" when Kang Mazi fought against the Three Feudatories. You can donate directly to become an official.

In the first three years of Kang Mazi's time, more than 500 county magistrates donated money across the country. As long as you take the money, you will immediately become an official. You can use it first and then use it. And taking advantage of the donation, students and tribute students who donated money all over the country emerged in an endless stream. China in the middle of Qianlong was much richer than Kang Mazi's time. Gu Cong, the imperial censor during the reign of Emperor Yongzheng, once pointed out sharply: "Regardless of talent, ability, or good knowledge of literature and science, a commoner in the morning can pay 1,700 taels, and in the evening he can become a county magistrate. Another 1,000 taels can be used first, and another 1,000 taels can be used immediately. The total is only 3,700 taels, and he can be appointed to a small county with thousands of households, and it is extremely glorious to be in charge of the government."

At that time, Kang Mazi could be the head of a county with 1,700 taels, but now Emperor Qianlong has increased it to 5,000 taels, and the positions are mostly along the Yangtze River, Fujian, Shandong and Henan. If the county magistrate can take a militia to the county to take office, or follow the government army to attack the rebels [the position is still controlled by the rebels], he will be even more loyal to our Qing Dynasty.

China has never lacked official fans, and there are more rich official fans. So only half a month after the issuance of the order, Qianlong received more than one million taels of silver to buy official positions. This is an astronomical figure for an individual, but for a country, it is just a way to fill the gaps between teeth.

Qianlong was so shameless that he started the tax collection. Even if he tried to clear his name in history books, it would still be a stain. He did this for the sake of the Qing Dynasty. So could he agree to start the tax collection?