Zhenjiang is only more than 140 miles away from the southern capital. If you walk, you can get there in one day. If you can get there in a carriage for half a day, if you ride a horse, it will be faster.

Zhou Shixiang likes riding horses, which has something to do with his cavalry in his previous life, and nothing can better demonstrate the power of the army commander than riding a horse.

It’s a pity that the big green horse that he snatched from Youyunlong was killed in the battle under Yangzhou City. Although this horse is now a top-notch Mongolian horse, Zhou Shixiang always feels that it is not as good as the big green horse. Perhaps, in his heart, the big green horse is no longer just a horse, but his comrades-in-arms.

In the past, no matter which trip, Zhou Shixiang was a cavalry. But this time he went to Nanjing, Zhou Shixiang chose to ride a carriage. First, it was to keep a low profile to avoid "misunderstanding" from the outside world; second, it was to see the recovery of people's livelihood along the way.

Since Jiashen, not only has the population sharply decreased, but people's livelihood has also withered. Over the past 20 years, most of the original official roads have become incomplete and hidden among weeds. Now, except for the main roads (leading to provincial capitals and important transportation areas) in various places, most of the roads are still abandoned.

Guangdong, which has the best development, has also reached 70%. The Governor's Office of Guangdong and Guangxi has thought of organizing manpower and material resources to repair these abandoned roads, but due to population factors, it is impossible to organize enough road repair staff.

For example, when the Taiping Army started, Luodingzhou City was now a ghost city with no one inhabited. Where can the "Teacher" come from? This is true in Guangdong, let alone other provinces.

The latest population yellow lists of provinces have been reported, and the situation is better than two years ago, but the overall situation is still not optimistic.

The provinces actually controlled by the Taiping Army, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and Hunan have the largest population, including 4.7 million Dingkou, 5.12 million Dingkou, and 2.9 million Dingkou in Hunan. The remaining provinces include 1.69 million Dingkou in Guangdong (110,000 new), 1.04 million Guangxi (50,000 additional), 1.39 million Fujian and 1.43 million Jiangxi.

Because Guizhou and Yunnan have just occupied it, grassroots governments have not yet been fully established and effectively ruled. In addition, there are a large number of native people in the two provinces, so the population data has not been counted. It is optimistic that the Dingkou in the two provinces should be around 2 million, of which the Han population is probably less than half.

Hubei was nominally under the Dingwu regime, but Hubei Governor Yuan Zongdi was born in Zhongzhen Camp, and the relationship between Zhongzhen Camp and the Taiping Army was similar to the cooperative allies. Therefore, for the Dingwu Central Committee, Hubei was a bit obedient to the Xuanxuan but not the tutor, and it was very independent. Naturally, it was impossible to conduct a "census" according to Zhou Shixiang's requirements as other provinces.

In addition, Hubei and Hunan were originally Huguang provinces. After the Daxi Army headed north to fight against the Qing Dynasty, Huguang was the main battlefield of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Years of wars inevitably led to a decline in the population. After the Zhongzhen Camp left Kuidong, in order to grow rapidly, it forced the men in Hubei and plundered them, causing the production of Hubei to stop and the people to scatter. Therefore, even if Hubei is willing and capable of conducting a census, the number of people in the territory will never exceed that of Hunan.

Jiangsu was originally Nanzhili, with a population of 11.29 million in the early years of Hongwu. After more than two hundred years of development in the Ming Dynasty, the population reached more than 30 million, but now it is only more than 4.7 million, which is less than Zhejiang, which was half of its population. The main reason is that when the Qing army headed south, almost all counties in Jiangsu were slaughtered (especially in the south of the Yangtze River), and some places were slaughtered continuously, causing Jiangsu to become the province with the largest population loss, which is even more serious than Sichuan, which has become a "no man's land".

If other provinces have more or less natural disasters and the influence of bandits has led to a severe decline in population, then the decline in population in Jiangsu was completely caused by the Qing Dynasty massacre. At the same time, the extent of Jiangsu's resistance to the Qing Dynasty was also the most important among all provinces.

Although the character of each province has dropped sharply, even so, the Taiping Army actually controlled the population of each province to add up to about 21 million, which was already the most populous force in the Ming, Qing, and Wu families.

With a large population and a large force, the population is the cornerstone of a country's development and strength. Zhou Shi's attention to population recovery is no less than that of the Northern Expedition to destroy the entire Qing Dynasty. Therefore, after the riots in the south of the Yangtze River were quelled, Zhou Shixiang took the opportunity to vigorously promote the construction of villages and villages, and replaced the old system in Jiangnan with a new system, so as to stabilize the local area and resume production, so that the people suffering from war can have better conditions to reproduce their descendants.

Most of the Tonglu riots who participated in the riots in Jiangnan were uprooted by the whole family and even the clans. A large amount of land was stripped out from these gentry, and a large amount of "floating wealth" also became the government's financial resources to maintain the local government and the military expenditure of the Taiping Army.

Some gentry who did not have Tonglu but chose to be "neutral" after the riot began were also warned and were persuaded to donate and encourage food. They participated in Tonglu and participated in the riot, but after the riot, they woke up in time and helped the government suppress the religious people, and were more or less relieved of their crimes. Wang Shirong, who presided over the anti-rebellion movement, asked these gentry to invest in repairing houses for the victims, or raise funds to build orphanages, Jilaoyuan, etc., and those gentry who firmly stood on the side of the Taiping Army received their rewards.

According to Wang Shirong's report and Zhou Shi's blind date, about 200 children of enlightened gentry were recommended to the martial arts school in Nanjing and middle schools in Nandu, Suzhou and other places. Around the same number of children of enlightened gentry were recruited to six houses in prefectures, counties and government offices and rural offices, and were given glory to those gentry, thus allowing them to break away from the original gentry circle and become the most firm supporters of the Taiping Army.

On the carriage, Zhou Shixiang wrote down the memorials sent from various places while feeling the pastoral scenery outside the carriage. However, he always felt that the scenery outside was a bit awkward. The reason for the awkward was that the prefect of Zhenjiang didn't know what was wrong with his head, so he even asked someone to brush all the folks on both sides of the official road with white lime, which looked very dazzling.

Could this be a common problem for bureaucrats?

Perhaps, the starting point of the Zhenjiang Prefect is good. I don’t expect the Grand Marshal to see the houses that were too dilapidated along the way, but this kindness is obviously not bought by Zhou Shixiang. It’s just that Zhou Shixiang didn’t intend to trouble the Zhenjiang Prefect because in his previous life, local officials liked to do this. It seemed that when they used white lime to brush the broken houses, the atmosphere was refreshed.

Zhou Shixiang was still satisfied with the official road from Zhenjiang to Nandu. This road generally still maintained its appearance before Jiashen. The foundation was very flat along the way, and there were occasional damage. The people were also organized by Zhenjiang and Shuntian Prefectures to repair it.

Compared with other provinces, even Guangdong, which is now the best-developed, the road conditions in the Jiangnan area are better and the degree of perfection is much better. This is mainly due to the fact that when these official roads were built, stone slabs were basically used as roadbeds, and no matter how bad they were, they were paved with stones. Therefore, unlike other places where they were built due to financial resources, the official roads in Jiangnan could still bear the mission they deserved after 20 years of war.

The better the economy, the better the transportation facilities will be, because this is a commercial demand. With convenient transportation, it will naturally bring business, thereby improving the livelihood of local people. Zhou Shixiang understood this truth. When he was in Guangdong, he wrote a slogan to the Guangdong Governor's Office, saying, "If you want to get rich, build roads first."

Unfortunately, other places cannot be like Jiangnan. After all, regional economic development is different. Now the population is losing a lot, and it is probably not until decades that it will not return to the peak of the Ming Dynasty. Without enough manpower, no matter how good the idea is, it can only be a castle in the air.

Zhou Shixiang has ordered Hubei Governor Yuan Zongdi to find a way to bring King Han from Hao Yaoqi's hand. If the other party can do it, the matter of Hubei's entry into the central government can be slowed down. After all, the factor of the loyalty camp must also be taken into account.

If the Taiping Army had entered Hubei now, I was afraid that Li Laiheng and others who fought to the death in Kaifeng in Henan would really have no way out.

The peaceful solution to the Zhongzhen Camp and even Wu Sangui was Zhou Shixiang's wish. Compared with the Qing Dynasty, both were Han people, the former held high the banner of the Ming Dynasty, and although the latter helped the evildoer, they were now fighting with the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, from the perspective of restoring China, there was no need for Zhou Shixiang to fight them.

If Wu Sangui is willing to surrender, Zhou Shixiang would not mind letting him enjoy the treatment of a prince like Li Jin and Li Laiheng. He could even choose a piece of land for them in the future in the areas except for the two capitals and 18 provinces. It would be possible in Liaodong, northwest, or even overseas. But this does not depend on Zhou Shixiang, but on Wu Sangui and Li Laiheng himself.

Tang Sanshui, who was responsible for guarding Kaifeng by accident, sent someone to send a letter a few days ago. The letter was aggrieved by the Dadao, saying how Zhongzhen Camp fought to the death and almost broke the city several times. He really lived like a year in the city, begging Zhou Shixiang to send troops north because he had no contribution and hard work, and forced Zhongzhen Camp to retreat to the south of Henan and stayed honestly. Otherwise, he was really worried that he would not be able to fulfill the sacred mission entrusted by His Highness the King of Qi.

Zhou Shi was unable to help him. Brother Sanshui thought it was simple, but if Zhou Shi really wanted to send the Taiping Army to the north, Kaifeng would be really dangerous. Because Zhongzhen Camp would only treat the Taiping Army going north as reinforcements allies, rather than as enemies. As long as the news of the Taiping Army going north reached Kaifeng City, the old generals of Zhongzhen Camp would definitely be like being injected with chicken blood, and they would not have the capital to throw their cannon fodder under Kaifeng City. At that time, Brother Sanshui would be really dangerous.

Moreover, the Taiping Army is now rectifying and there is no way to send troops to the north. In view of Tang Sanshui's nature, Zhou Shixiang happily continued to draw a big cake for him. The letter said that the brother's hard work, did he not know that, so when the great things are accomplished, he will be rewarded with the prince.

Tang Sanshui wrote a letter to ask for help, and Wu Chongshan also wrote a letter, but the words were different from Tang Sanshui. Kaifeng was as solid as a soup and there was no danger of falling. In this way, Zhou Shixiang could not send troops north, but instead sent an order to Jiang He to raise a batch of military rations to send to Zhongzhen Camp so that they would not be able to hold on in Kaifeng.

In addition, something that Tang Sanshui said in his letter made Zhou Shixiang pay great attention to.

Tang Sanshui's letter said that Oboi sent a group of captured Wu army generals to Kaifeng, including Gao Dajie, a powerful general under Wu Sangui. When the person was sent, he was half dead and was detained in the Kaifeng prison. Henan Governor Jia Hanfu wanted to kill Gao Dajie and others directly, and then sent his head to Beijing, but was stopped by Tang Sanshui because he knew that Zhou Shixiang was buying and winning over Wu Sangui's subordinates, so he felt that if he could rescue these captured Wu army generals, it might be useful.

When Zhou Shixiang heard about the death of Wang Pingfan that day, he sighed and said that in his reply, he asked Tang Sanshui to save the captured Wu generals no matter what, and then find a way to send people out of the city and take them back to Jiangnan by the people from the Military Information Department. No matter what, these people were all generals who resisted the Qing Dynasty, and Zhou Shixiang really couldn't bear to see them executed by the Qing court.

Wu Sangui is still in a stalemate with Oboi.

Although Wu Sangui's troops were still stronger than Oboi, he suffered consecutive defeats, his morale was fluctuating, and the transportation of food and grass in the army was also difficult, and it was difficult to launch a major offensive again in the short term.

Now, in addition to busy transporting grain and grass from Shaanxi and Gansu to Henan to support the war, the Wu army also divided its troops into Shanxi, hoping to attract Oboi to divide its troops.

However, Oboi was not deceived. Sony and Suksaha, who were in charge of the government, went to the palace to meet the Empress Dowager together, and then asked Dunbai to lead troops to Shanxi to fight against the enemy without Dunbai's knowledge. Dunbai was furious, but did not dare to violate the order of the Empress Dowager, so he could only bring thousands of Eight Banners in Beijing to Shanxi.

Zhou Shixiang felt that Wu Sangui would not have any great gains in Shanxi because he was not Li Zicheng of the past.

It was only after Li Zicheng annihilated the Sun Chuanting troops, the last heavy army group of the Ming Dynasty, that it was truly smooth sailing. Wherever he went, the Ming army surrendered. Now, Wu Sangui has not been able to annihilate the last heavy army of Oboi, the Qing army. For the Qing court, they still have hope for those Qing generals, so it is impossible to turn towards Wu Sangui in batches like the Ming army that surrendered to Li Zicheng back then.

The premise for wanting to resolve Wu Sangui peacefully is that the Wu army will never win again on the battlefield, and may even face a crisis of internal collapse. Only in this way can Wu Sangui completely dispel his ambitions and admit defeat to Zhou Shi.

Therefore, of course, Zhou Shixiang didn't want Wu Sangui to win, otherwise he would not have dragged him down and sent troops to Yunnan and Guizhou. Now he ordered the third war zone to prepare to go out of Sichuan and Shaanxi to fight.

In Shandong, Yu Qi's uprising army had already reached a high point. Huang Wu, the governor of Shandong appointed by the Qing court, could not resist it at all, and could only put the hope of quelling the rebellion on Beile Tuntai. The troops of Tuntai have now arrived in Dezhou and will be pounced on Denglai at the end of the month at the latest.

The East China Sea navy Zheng Mingjun sent a war report that the navy had entered the waters of Laizhou, but was not attacked by the water camp in Chiang Raizhou, and there was not even resistance. After discovering the large ships of the Ming army were coming from the sea, the deputy general of the Laizhou water camp did not even want the ship, so he took his subordinates to flee from the water camp in a hurry.

The East China Sea Navy is now deploying a defense line in the Laizhou Water Camp and leveling the dock. At the same time, it also sends people to contact the Seven Rebel Army.

This is good news.

After retracting his eyes from the car window, the voice of the blind Li sounded outside: "Master, Nandu has arrived."

"Have you arrived?"

Zhou Shixiang poked his head out of the car window. In front of him was Zhongshan - the yellow mountain of Zhongshan with wind and rain.

Depressed, I was excited to catch cicadas for two days. Yesterday, 50 were 90 today, with a market price of 40 yuan, which is roughly equivalent to a 24-hour subscription income.
Chapter completed!