Outside the Dasheng Fort in Northwest Jinzhou.△↗,

A team of Qing soldiers pushed a group of ragged women and children into the pit. The officers led the team looked at the people of the Ming Dynasty coldly, swung the whip in their hands, and whipped a prisoner who had dug a little slower.

A woman holding a baby tightly held the child in her arms, and her haggard face showed deep fear.

"You are just a bunch of waste, excess waste!" The officer shouted loudly, "You always want to ride on our Jurchens as a might and blessing. For the ambition and selfish desire of your emperor, you have launched an invasion of our Qing Dynasty again and again, resulting in countless innocent people outside the pass, for those brothers and sisters who are still in the war in Liaodong, and for those Manchu and Mongolian brothers who are still working hard in Taiwan, I, Fengshen'er! On behalf of all Manchu and Mongolian people who are oppressed by the barbaric Ming Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty, you will be executed!"

After saying that, he waved his hand and ordered the Qing army to push the elderly, weak, women and children into deep pits, so that the Ming army prisoners who had just dug the pits began to fill the soil.

For a moment, crying sounds were everywhere, and some women struggled to rush to him, kowtowing and begging for mercy, hoping that he could be very compassionate and at least let go of the children who were still breastfeeding.

"Let these children go? So that they can invade and kill my Qing people when they grow up?" Feng Shen'er shouted loudly, "Have you ever thought about our children? My children were not weaned before they died, but your husband rushed into my village and broke into my home, and threw my son who was crying aside into the fire in the stove. My wife was later captured and taken back to Ningyuan. Your husband sold it to slave traders for twenty yuan and transported it to Taiwan. I will never see her again in my life. My family is thanks to you, the hateful Nanman, and the family is destroyed."

He turned around and shouted at the soldier Zaijiu, "Buried, no one is allowed to fall behind, all are buried alive!"

Zhao Xiaosi hid not far away and witnessed the tragedy with his own eyes. He watched dozens of captured Ming army prisoners dig a big pit. Then he buried the Ming army women and children who were captured by the Qing army from nearby villages. The prisoners of war who buried their compatriots and children alive were finally taken away and became the Qing army's coat slaves.

Seeing all this, he was powerless, just like he watched his family be killed by the Qing army with his own eyes.

"Beast!" Zhao Xiaosi cursed secretly, forcing himself to close his eyes and plug his ears, but the waves of despair pierced deeply into his mind. After the Qing army took the prisoners of war away, Zhao Xiaosi walked out. Standing in front of the filled pit, stood there, and kowtowed to the more than 100 compatriots buried alive here, "I swear, I will definitely avenge you!"

After kowtowing, Zhao Xiaosi headed westward without stopping.

On November 9th, the 13th year of Chongzhen.

Yesterday, news of the defeat in western Liaoning reached Huguang, and the rice price in Wuchang had soared to ten silver dollars per stone.

Since the Duke of Chu was transferred from Huguang and transferred to the admiral of Liaodong. At the same time, the Chu army in the eighth and ninth towns was also transferred from Huguang to Liaodong, the food prices in Huguang have been rising sharply without control.

This year, there was a drought and then a locust plague. The summer grain harvest in Huguang was less than half, and the autumn harvest was even worse. In many places, there was no grain harvest, and the grain harvest in the two provinces was less than 30% per year. In many places adjacent to Henan and Shaanxi provinces, there were almost no grain harvest. A big famine was just around the corner.

At this time, the imperial court drew all the elite troops in the Central Plains to fight outside the pass, and the already quiet Central Plains region began to move again. Li Zicheng in Shangluo Mountain, Luo Rucai in Daba Mountain, and two bandits began to take advantage of the famine and famine years to fan the flames everywhere and rekindle, hoping to make a comeback.

Now the two bandits have re-emphasized their banners and are active in Shangluo and Hanzhong areas.

When this famine occurred, although the court had waived three taxes this year, some local officials were still collecting these additional taxes. Some officials were simple and crude when cleaning up the garrison stations and rectifying the military farms in accordance with the imperial decree, taking the opportunity to fish and make people complain, causing the public to be resentful.

Huangzhou, Times News Agency.

Zhang Dai, editor-in-chief of the Times, stared at many articles on the table, closed his eyes and thought for a moment, then opened it again, shook his head and sighed, "It's time, but the place is getting worse. How can state affairs be good?"

The articles in front of him were all written by editors of Times and written by current affairs collected by Times reporters.

Since the separation of the Jiangnan Money House, the Times hired Zhang Dai, a famous scholar in Jiangnan, as editor-in-chief. Although Zhang Dai's reputation was mixed, his scholarly family background was from a scholarly family and his family background. He was also proficient in history, classics, science, science, elementary school, and geology.

Zhang Dai is well-versed in many knowledgeable classics, history, and collections of classics, history, and literature. He is not allowed to learn about astronomy and geography. Although he has no fame, he has ambition to write about it. Moreover, Zhang Dai is not only talented, but also has a wide range of knowledge, especially when he travels around the world, travels all over the world, and has a very broad vision.

Li Chunjiang introduced him to Liu Jun, but later Liu Jun met Zhang Dai in Nanjing. After talking, Liu Jun felt that Zhang Dai was very suitable for the candidate for Ming Pao Editor-in-Chief.

When Liu Jun proposed to Zhang Dai the direction of running the Times himself, Zhang Dai was very interested in the novel publication of the Times. Unlike ordinary books, magazines and poems, the Times is published every five days, and it includes current affairs, both politics, military, economics and people's livelihood. Zhang Dai was very interested in this novel thing.

Liu Jun doubted that he didn't need anyone, and he didn't doubt his employer. Once he selected Zhang Dai, he had a detailed discussion with Zhang Dai about the purpose and direction of the Times' newspaper, and handed the Times completely to Zhang Dai.

According to the newspaper-run policy described by Liu Jun, Zhang Dai quickly expanded the Times with the original lottery team. The Times General Office was established in Huangzhou, and then set up branches in seven provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Henan, and southern Zhili, Shandong and Sichuan. He personally recruited a group of editors and a large number of reporters. In addition, he also used his connections in Shilin to invite many famous scholars as special correspondents to write articles to the newspaper.

In order to expand the influence of the Times as much as possible, he divided the newspaper into eight sections according to what Liu Jun said, and set up an editor in chief for each page. Several editors under them brought many reporters and special correspondents to organize the content. Then he checked it layer by layer, and finally Zhang Dai made a unified decision.

The five-day newspapers will arrange the plates the day before the publication. Then they will be distributed to various branches in seven provinces by fast horses. The branches will print half a day in advance in the printing factory in the province, and then distribute them to several major prefectures and cities in the province. By the day of distribution, they will be spread out quickly.

Because Zhang Dai strictly follows Liu Jun's newspaper handling policy, the content of the Times is closely related to current affairs, and all major affairs in the world are included, so that the report is in hand. All major affairs in the world are known. Moreover, the Times also pays great attention to advertising, publishes a lot of content about people's livelihood and economy, and there are advertising locations in the cracks and other places.

This newspaper is suitable for both young and old. Whether it is an official, a scholar, a scholar, or an ordinary businessman, he can see what he wants to see.

It turned out that the newspaper was sold at a maximum of 5,000 copies. Now, after the name change, the Times has been reprinted, the scale of the Times has expanded rapidly. Branches were established in seven provinces, and the issuance covers almost half of the Ming Dynasty, with sales of more than 10,000 copies per issue.

This sales volume is constantly increasing.

"Henan General Zuo Liangyu forcibly issued bonuses for the salary in Henan, and distributed bonuses to various prefectures and counties, plundering people's wealth in disguise, and the public was full of grievances."

"Shaanxi officials cleaned up military farms in Shaanxi, and there were serious problems. During the cleaning of military farms in the garrison, officials embezzled the fields of the garrison. The fields of the former military farms were taken away, but they were not resettled. The military officers and officers of Shaanxi garrison were all dissatisfied and the situation was tense."

"Henan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Shandong, Shandong, Hebei, Southern Zhili provinces have found that grain merchants are stepping up their stockpiling of grain. Grain prices in various places are rising steadily. Shaanxi rice costs 16 silver dollars per stone, and Henan rice costs up to 15 yuan per stone. Although the grain prices in the two lakes are low, they have also risen to 10 silver dollars, and it is difficult for various places to buy grain even if they have money."

"The thief Li Zicheng came out of the mountain again and had attacked several towns. Many hungry people responded, and many officers and military households from the former garrison also defected to the thieves."

"Cao Cao Luo Rucai also began to operate in the Hanzhong area and robbed everywhere."

Zhang Dai glanced at the newsletters, sighed a long time, and spit out words that shocked several editors, "The world is going to be in chaos again!"

"As soon as the news of the defeat in western Liaoning came back, the bandits became more and more happy." One editor sighed.

"It happened to be a disaster year and the army was defeated outside the pass. Originally, the elites from all over the country had been transferred outside the pass. Now that they were defeated outside the pass, the emperor urgently transferred elites from all over the country to outside the pass. His heart was empty, and I was afraid that the spark would be a prairie fire in a blink of an eye."

"The Tenth Town is about to be transferred outside the pass, and the stability of the two lakes will not be maintained."

Zhang Dai shook his head, "The Tenth Town is gone, and there will be no big changes in the two lakes for a while. Our two lakes are different from other provinces, and there are many militia townsmen. If we add the security team of Sihai Bank, small groups of bandits will not be afraid. I am afraid that Li Zicheng, Luo Rucai and other big bandits will take advantage of the momentum to grow and invade Chu land at that time."

The good scriptures were obtained by the monk Crooked Mouth, so how could I recite the good scriptures? It turned out that cleaning up and rectifying the garrisons and military farms was a great thing. Now, the garrisons are useless. They cannot protect the country and protect the people, but they still occupy a large amount of fields. These fields are still occupied by military officers.

Seeing this, Liu Jun proposed to train the new army, remove the garrisons and clean up the military fields. He cleared out the military fields occupied by the officers of the garrisons, and distributed them to the military households to rent the output to support the new army. This is an excellent plan, and it has a good effect in the trial operation in the two lakes, but once he arrived in another province, it changed immediately.

Especially in Henan, Shaanxi and other places, officials and local tyrants colluded with each other to transfer the military fields cleared from military officers in the garrison. The military officers in the garrison were cleared and taken away, but the military households still did not divide the fields, but just transferred the fields from the military officers in the garrison to the hands of local officials and local tyrants.

Officials and local tyrants were full of food, but those military officers in the garrison were the biggest losers. Even the tenants of the officers, who had to rent out land from the new landlords, had to be exploited.

The imperial court did not get any real benefits in the rectification and cleaning of these places. Instead, it made the military officers and military households in the garrison office become dangerous because they were not properly resettled.

There are also prize tickets. The prize tickets from the Two Lakes provided a lot of military pay, money and food for the new army at that time. But now in other places, prize tickets have become a tool for making money. Even the always domineering generals such as Zuo Liangyu and He Renlong have used this to forcibly allocate prizes to the gentry and people of various prefectures and counties, which has become a disguised additional tax.

Originally, the court had stopped collecting three wages, but now many places are still collecting these three wages. Wherever the money is collected, it naturally falls into the hands of those corrupt officials.

In the eyes of Zhang Dai and others, the Ming Dynasty's officialdom was too serious and was at its root. No matter how good the policies were, they would be seriously distorted when they came down. The situation in the two lakes was better, but elsewhere they were completely out of control.

State affairs have come to this point, and it is no longer just a matter of a certain issue.

But from the inside out, from the top to the bottom, everything went wrong.

"I hope that the Duke of Chu can defeat the Qing army and lift the siege of Jinzhou, and the troops and horses of the towns that aided Liao can return as soon as possible. Otherwise, the situation in the Central Plains would be out of control."

Liaodong, Haizhou.

In just a few days, the capital had issued three imperial edicts to Liu Jun.

"As the position of governor of the Beijing camp, Zhu Ciye's rank of governor, governor of the troops in Liaodong and Liaoxi towns, and control the troops and horses in all towns in Liaoning, and fully command the troops to lift the siege of Jinzhou. All the governors and generals outside the pass will be obeyed and controlled!"

"My minister Zhu Ciye received the order!"

After receiving the imperial edict, Liu Jun immediately became the commander of Liaodong troops, and even directly became the boss of Fu Zonglong and Fan Zhiwan. This time, he was the real boss, and the emperor announced the order. Before, Liu Jun was nominally under the two. But now, Liu Jun, a military general, has been given the title of Supervisor, and is truly above the Governor.

"Meet the Supervisor!"

Fu Zonglong took the lead and bowed to Liu Jun to worship. Fan Zhiwan had to come forward and follow him to pay homage. Fu Shan and Zhang Shan and other Chu generals came forward happily and greeted him loudly.

"Everyone is free from gifts." Liu Jun stretched out his hand to help him.

After seeing the ceremony again, Liu Jun was officially established as the commander.

Fu Zonglong sat back on his seat, "Rescue soldiers are like putting out fires. I wonder when we will send troops to rescue Jinzhou?"

Liu Jun's words were astonishing, "The Qing army gathered in Jinzhou City, and it was not the best way to rush to rescue. The general thought that the defense in Shenyang is empty at present, so we should continue our previous plan and continue to go north to attack Liaoyang."

"Ambassing Wei and asking Zhao?" Fu Zonglong asked in surprise.

"That's right, instead of attacking the Qing army in Jinzhou, which is crowded with heavy troops, it is better to attack the empty Liaoyang. We will rescue us when we attack them. The siege of Jinzhou will be resolved!" (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!