gnovel Chapter 54 Liu Yingyu
Chapter 54 Liu Yingyu
Suhe came with only two attendants, but returned with a group of eight.
Li Chengye sent Li Luo with four capable brothers to return with Su He.
As instructed by Li Chengye, Su He quietly placed these five people in the Yichuan County government office.
When Yu Shideng pressed for grain supplies, these men's task was to set fire to the granary and try to escape.
In addition, these five men also had another important task entrusted to them by Li Chengye—to find out Liu Yingyu's backup plan.
Li Chengye remained unconvinced that Liu Yingyu would dare to act in this way without any backing.
In the current situation in northern Shaanxi, apart from ordinary small groups of bandits and Li Chengye's troops, Wang Er is causing trouble near Hancheng with considerable momentum; Wang Zuo is gathering people and building a stronghold in Longzuigou, and the local county government can only carefully appease him, daring not to take any drastic actions for fear of provoking him to rebel; Wang Jiayin of Fugu was discovered by the local constables when he plotted to start a rebellion, and he fled into a coal mine to hide, but he is still secretly contacting people and raising funds, preparing to act when the opportunity arises.
Li Chengye had great faith in the abilities of this first leader of the rebel army, who was known in history as the "King of the Horizontal One-Character Army," and was certain that he would cause a great incident sooner or later.
These are just the ones with names; as for the unknown bandits, they are countless.
In fact, at the end of the seventh year of the Tianqi reign, the court would have been better able to quell the bandits by directly issuing an order to exempt them from taxes and provide disaster relief, rather than by using military force to suppress them.
The only problem is that the imperial court has no money, which is an unsolvable problem.
In Li Chengye's view, not only northern Shaanxi, but the entire Shaanxi province was already a tinderbox. If the disaster worsened or some other unexpected event occurred, fires would break out everywhere.
If Liu Yingyu, the Shaanxi Military Commissioner, were to hear Li Chengye's view, he would certainly agree wholeheartedly.
Liu Yingyu is fifty-six years old this year, well past the age of knowing one's destiny.
His hometown is Xiaogan, Huguang. He passed the provincial examination at a young age and was praised by his fellow villagers as a talented person. However, he failed the metropolitan examination for seven consecutive years.
It wasn't until he was forty that he managed to secure a teaching position in Qi County, Shandong Province, as a successful candidate in the imperial examinations.
Normally, his official career would end at most with a bestowed official title.
After sitting on the sidelines for four years, he was surprisingly promoted to county magistrate.
The transition from an academic post to a people-friendly official was a difficult hurdle to overcome in the Ming Dynasty's official system, with only one in ten ordinary people succeeding, but he managed to cross it.
He was able to overcome this hurdle not because he was good at currying favor or because he had influential connections, but because he was assigned to Yongning, Henan.
This is similar to how Hai Rui was promoted from instructor in Nanping to magistrate of Chun'an during the Jiajing era. It wasn't because he had connections, but because Chun'an, which had suffered disaster, needed upright and courageous people to take the blame and shoulder the responsibility.
This was exactly the situation when Liu Yingyu was sent to Yongning.
In Yongning during the thirty-second year of the Wanli reign, a popular uprising was imminent.
Yongning is located in the Yuxi mountainous area of western Henan, bordering Shaanxi and Shanxi, and is a vital passage from the Central Plains to the Northwest.
The area had numerous post stations and relay stations, and the corvée labor borne by the people was already heavy, especially the corvée labor related to the transportation of goods through the post stations.
Moreover, there were already many princes in the Henan region. When the Prince of Fu was conferred the title in the eleventh year of the Wanli reign, it was intended to grant him 40,000 hectares of farmland in Henan.
Because there was simply no land available in Henan, the allocation was eventually changed to 20,000 hectares, part of which was located in the Yongning area.
There was a branch of the Zhou royal family in Yongning, and much of the land within its territory had been seized by the Zhou king and local powerful families.
Now, with the addition of Fuwangzhuang land, the local people actually own less than 30% of the land.
However, with less than 30% of the land, the people had to bear the full tax burden, plus various levies and corvée labor.
The local people have been driven to desperation, and unrest is imminent.
Seeing that things were not going well, the former magistrate resigned and fled.
At that time, Liu Yingyu had offended his superior and was transferred from Shandong to this dangerous place.
On his first day in office, he rode alone into Yongning and managed to quell a popular uprising that was on the verge of breaking out.
From passing the imperial examination to becoming the magistrate of Yongning County at the age of forty-four, he spent twenty-one years in the lower and middle classes of the Ming Dynasty, deeply understanding the hardships of the people and knowing what they wanted.
The biggest problems facing Shanxi and Shaanxi today are food shortages and lack of relief.
The so-called "bandits" rose up not because the people were inherently evil, but because they had no food to survive.
He understood this perfectly, yet he was powerless to solve it.
In addition, since the mid-Ming Dynasty, the "open market" system, which involved exchanging grain for salt permits in border areas, had completely deteriorated. Prices around military towns soared, and with the intense fighting in Liaodong, the imperial court's grain and salary were mostly used for the Guan-Ning defense line, resulting in a shortage of grain and salary for the armies in Shaanxi and a decline in morale.
Former Governor Qiao Yingjia and current Governor Hu Tingyan are both mediocre officials who follow the rules and regulations, only good at adding icing on the cake, and never do anything that is not profitable.
The disaster in Shaanxi was already so severe that they petitioned for exemptions as usual, but as soon as they sensed that the court's tone was not right, they immediately withdrew their petition, showing no sense of responsibility.
Under such circumstances, chaos in Shaanxi was inevitable, something he had foreseen; the only difference was the scale.
After Wang Er rebelled and killed Zhang Douyao, the magistrate of Chengcheng County, Liu Yingyu was very nervous, fearing that others would follow suit.
However, subsequent events proved that although there were many bandits, few were like Wang Er who directly killed officials and rebelled.
Although news of other bandits killing wealthy households and robbing gentry continued to arrive, no one was able to conquer any prefectures or counties.
In fact, the actions of those bandits who killed a few wealthy households, plundered some grain, and punished some rich and unkind gentry were exactly what Liu Yingyu wanted.
He believed that only by making these wealthy and powerful families pay the price and feel afraid would they obediently pay taxes and tribute.
With grain and provisions in hand, the government could provide relief to disaster victims and send troops to suppress bandits.
If we can eliminate those ringleaders like Wang Er, we can appease the displaced people who follow us.
In this way, the overall situation in the disaster area can be stabilized, and the unrest can naturally be quelled.
Back in Yongning, it was this very tactic that forced grain from the terrified gentry and wealthy families, thus pacifying the people on the verge of revolt.
Moreover, his strategy was supported by his superior, Shi Weiping, the Provincial Surveillance Commissioner of Shaanxi.
Shi Weiping and Liu Yingyu were both successful candidates in the imperial examinations and started from the bottom. They were both mild-mannered and honest officials. During their 32 years in office, their family's land holdings did not increase by a single acre. They were praised by their contemporaries as "honest officials".
He was well aware of the severe disaster in Shaanxi and the impending unrest, but due to a lack of money and food, he had no choice but to agree to Liu Yingyu's strategy for suppressing bandits.
Thanks to their petitions, the imperial court issued an order to the Grand Secretariat, and officials from Tongguan Guard and border towns were ordered to send troops to suppress Wang Er. The initial battle was a success, but unfortunately, Wang Er could not be completely wiped out.
Furthermore, due to the delayed arrival of the imperial court's compensation, the soldiers of Tongguan Guard simply ceased their duties and returned to their camp.
Afterwards, Wang Er revived and became active in Luochuan, Hancheng and other places. He even cooperated with the salt merchants who had originally started the uprising in Yichuan, stirring up trouble again. At the same time, the remnants of Wang Er's scattered forces also began to move around. Among them, the one whom the government feared the most was Li Chengye, who was known as the "Iron-Faced Judge".
In Liu Yingyu's view, although Wang Er was the initiator, his subordinate Li Chengye was the real threat.
Li Chengye entrenched himself in the deep mountains of Huanglong, where he diligently trained his troops. When he came out of the mountains, he would target wealthy households to seize their grain, but he would also distribute grain to the common people. As a result, he became famous in northern Shaanxi and was even known as "Timely Rain".
Liu Yingyu repeatedly deployed troops to pursue and encircle Li Chengye, but all his efforts failed because someone in the area tipped him off. In the most recent encirclement, Li Chengye took advantage of the government troops' encirclement to defeat the patrolmen on the left flank and escape safely.
However, looking at the troops training in front of the Shangluo Military Commissioner's Office, Liu Yingyu felt that the time was coming to completely wipe out the bandits in northern Shaanxi.
The people in front of him were dark-skinned, with large hands and feet, each carrying a short knife and a crossbow, and some even had javelins on their backs.
Moreover, their clothing was mostly decorated or lined with fur, giving them a fierce and valiant appearance.