Today I will talk to you about Shaanxi at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
A total of five vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty took control of Shaanxi, and with the continuous reproduction of the sons and grandsons of the Zhu family, the population increased dramatically. The population of King Qin's mansion alone exceeded 10,000 by the time of the Jiajing period.
To add insult to injury, in the seventh year of the Apocalypse, Zhu Changhao, the son of Emperor Wanli, was in Hanzhong, and the emperor waved his pen and asked Shaanxi to take out 2 million acres of fertile land to King Rui. It should be noted that this is 2 million acres of fertile land, not land.
Shaanxi, which is waiting to be fed, can get so much fertile land, and finally after multi-party coordination, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, and Sichuan provinces jointly bear this heavy burden, and the part borne by Shaanxi is 11250,000 acres.
What about Shaanxi?
Shaanxi was already a poor place in the Ming Dynasty, and not only that, but Shaanxi also faced a huge problem, that is, serious border troubles. The Ming Dynasty set up nine important towns to defend against the threat of the north, and Shaanxi alone had three sides: Yansui, Gansu, and Ningxia, so the governor of Shaanxi was also called the governor of the three sides.
The heavy food and salary of the border army weighed down Shaanxi.
In March of the first year of Chongzhen (1628), a total of more than 150 taels of grain and wages were owed to Yansui Town, and the arrears of military salaries from all walks of life were as long as 27 months.
If that's all there is to it, that's it.
The Ming Dynasty also had to raise taxes at this time.
At the beginning of the forty-sixth year of Wanli (1618), the Liao salary was increased by 5.2 million taels in three times;
In the fourth year of Chongzhen (1631), additional levies were levied, with a total of 2.8 million taels;
In the twelfth year of Chongzhen (1639), the salary was 7.3 million taels.
These three salaries are added, and the Ming Dynasty will never recover.
The people could not bear such a heavy burden, and some people began to flee. But the Ming Dynasty had a very ** tax policy called: indemnity grain, that is, the total amount of taxes collected is unchanged, if someone flees, the tax he should pay will be borne by all the remaining peasant households.
This has led to more people fleeing.
Ma Maocai of the Ming Dynasty talked about this problem in "Preparing for the Chen Disaster and Sparseness" to Chongzhen:
The lawsuit was bound by the strictness of the merit order, and it had to be strictly urged. If there are only one or two people in a household, they will inevitably lose the money and food of one household. There are only one or two households in the first class, and it is bound to make these one or two households lose the money and grain of the first class. The same is true for a mile and a county. Seeing that the people in the area had a grudge and fled, drifting in a different place, they had no place to live. The constant property is dead, and the capital is easy to run out. Dream of breaking the road of the hometown, and filling the soul of the ravine. And the thief is not in peace?There is a sentence in Ma Maocai's article: Dream of breaking the road to the hometown, and filling the soul of the ravine. Reading it so far, it makes people sigh and sigh!
The house leak coincided with overnight rain, and at this time, the famine continued. The reason is very simple, the population has fled, there is no food, who will build water conservancy and exterminate locusts?
Famine and disasters first came with the skyrocketing price of food, which was even 20 times higher than usual, and finally there was no money to buy rice.
In October of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the price of millet surged, the day was expensive, and the rice was three dollars. By the spring of the following year, it was ten times its value, and the market was never closed. "Shaanxi Tongzhi".Many people starved to death because they had no food to eat, and too many people starved to death, which caused a plague, and seventy or eighty percent of the people died. People had to sell their children, and some even exchanged their wives for a meal.
Chongzhen.Under the famine, even the wolves had nothing to eat, and the hungry wolves went directly to the towns to eat people.Ten. In the third and fourth years of the epidemic, the price of wheat and rice was 2245 yuan per bucket, and there was no grain in the towns and towns, and the people died 78 out of 10. There are ** people in Yixiguan, and the price is less than a thousand dollars. Those who have a meal and a meal are easy to be a wife, and a liter of rice is easy to be a maid. "Weinan County Chronicle".
Six years of Guiyou, seven years of Jiaxu, eight years, Yihai is a great drought, thousands of miles of red land, one or two dollars of fighting millet, nine out of ten people die of hunger, cannibalism, cannibalism between parents and children, husband and wife. Wolves eat people, in groups of three or five, roaming the city during the day, often grabbing people and eating them in the crowd. "Jingbian County Chronicles".And the tragedy is still happening, because there are so many people who have died, many of the bodies are left unburied.
The people of the time said: "When a dog sees a dog's bones, it must be buried in the mine." Cover the shirt of its kind also. However, those who see people's bones and do not do it are ashamed of dogs. ”When Chongzhen was in the seventh year, because there were too many dead people in Xing'an Prefecture, the county guard dug a pit outside the south gate of the city and buried it, dug a pit first, and soon filled it up, and then dug a big ditch, and soon filled it again, so it was called ten thousand people keng.
Seven years, the great hunger, the corpses are all over the field, the county guards the purity of the golden prince, digging the wall outside the south gate, burying the corpse, one is full, and then digging a trench is also full, the name is ten thousand keng. The rest of the scattered dead are not counted. For eight years, nine to seventeen years, there was a great hunger, and the mountains were full of thieves and murder. "Chronicles of Hung Yen Prefecture".And some of the people who survived, many of them joined the rogues, or robbed houses, and they did all kinds of evil in order to grab food. In the eighth year of Chongzhen, the Liukou besieged Fufeng County for more than 40 days, and on September 20, the city was broken, the Liukou carried out a massacre, the officials and the people burned and plundered, and after the Liukou went, the whole city was empty.
At that time, no one cared about the lives of the people, whether it was the rebel army or the official army, and the thieves made a living by robbing the people, and the officials and soldiers even risked the military with the heads of the people.
When it was, the people did not know the soldiers, heard about it, and gathered to watch. Kou Zong's plundering and killing began to be scattered. After that, there were many fierce years, and there were many thieves, and the people began to discuss Biju. Kou Zhiqu is still killed. In the ninth year, Tu Bodhi Town and Tu Lijiazhuang. A total of 10,000 people died. Officers and soldiers ......To, Kou escaped. The soldier is the first to take the people, and it is ...... to meritWhen it was, the soldiers fought each other, and the people were greatly ruined. "Luochuan Chronicles".How many people were affected and how many died?
According to the statistics of the "Shaanxi Tongzhi" of the Jiajing period, the number of households in Shanyang County was 4,354, and in the Kangxi period, the "First Chronicles of Shanyang County" recorded that there were only more than 810 households in Shanyang County in the early Qing Dynasty, which means that 82% of the population disappeared.
In the face of such a tragic situation, the ** in various places at that time gave Emperor Chongzhen a sparse and asked for money to come out for disaster relief as soon as possible. Hou Sui was also one of them at that time, and his affection was sincere.
There is no end, but the emperor is sorry to send internal coins and send more than 100,000 gold to the household and the two soldiers, such as Chongzhen's four-year grand event of sending officials to give relief. One point of Gaido can save a person's life, and a flea can die in one day.What is the result of Hou Xun's upward sparseness?Emperor Chongzhen did not take money out for disaster relief, Chongzhen was not without money, he used the money to recruit troops and horses, and wanted to suppress the uprising.
The death of the Ming Dynasty is not unjust at all!
In today's Xi'an Forest of Steles Museum, there is a piece of unearthed "sentimental sadness and sadness tablet", the inscription records the Ming Chongzhen thirteen to fourteen years (1640-1641), the Guanzhong area of the famine, soaring prices, the tragic situation of the people's livelihood, someone recorded the situation at that time, carved the tablet to tell the descendants, the inscription is as follows:
Since the ti dynasty, the famine years have stopped seeing three coins of cattle and rice. Those who multiply the seven coins, the rest of the pain is this, and it is still a rare thing to encounter. Unexpectedly, Chongzhen.
In the past eight or nine years, locusts and droughts have increased, and they have been soaked to the end.
Ten. In three or four years, there was a great hunger. Shangluo and other places are a little better. There are countless men and women who run around to eat, carry them, carry them, and die on the road. All kinds of diseases are endless. The rest of the vegetable sacs and bran are fortunate to be alive. Out of this catastrophe, looking back on the bitter state, it can be sad and terrible, and it will be unforgettable day and night. Therefore, the crowd is gathered together, and the stone is carefully determined by the concentricity, and the archaeological gentleman who is the latter is looking at it.
Song said:Ask to pay a stone, record the sorrow of the ages. Those who see it in the afterlife will not shed tears.
When it was calculated, the value of rice and corn was two or three dollars per bucket; wheat one bucket two taels one penny; barley is a bucket of one or two or four dollars; buckwheat is a bucket and nine coins; Kou Dou is a bucket of one two or eight dollars; Wheat is a bucket and five coins; One bucket of grain bran and one penny; Persimmon fruit is a bucket and a penny and five cents; A liter of nuclear dates is a penny; nine cents of silver for a liter of salt; Clear oil is six cents a pound and a penny; Pork is worth eight cents a pound; Red and white rapus are one pound and one point; cotton is three dollars and two cents per catty; hemp is a pound and a penny; Shuttle cloth is one foot five minutes.