Upon hearing the bad news, Zhu Cijing felt that he was in a bad mood in an instant. He reluctantly kept smiling, looked at the amazement expressions of the officials, but he was thinking in his mind: "What's wrong? The Ming Dynasty is so good now, there is no sign of decline!"

He was not very clear about the internal causes of the decline of the Ming Dynasty, but the external causes were very clear, nothing more than the Invasion of the Later Jin Dynasty in the Northeast and the Peasant Uprising in the Northwest.

But in the northeast, Huang Taiji was defeated and was temporarily unable to organize a large-scale attack. Ningjin's defense line would not be broken in the near future.

In the northwest, Shaanxi and Sichuan have indeed had a severe drought this year, but the disaster relief silver has been allocated long ago. Now the national treasury is still abundant. Zhu Cijiong issued an order to allocate five million taels of silver to provide disaster relief at one time. It should be enough.

He couldn't think of any problem, so he had to put aside his worries and accompanied Sun Chengzong and the others to inspect around. Then he called Xu Guangqi and other confidants to a study room of the Ministry of Works Construction and the Qingli Department, drawing the drawings of the flintlock rifle one by one, and explained the functions of each part in detail to them.

Others may not be able to understand the principle of the flintlock rifle for a while, but Bi Maokang understood it at a glance and learned it. He had already started to develop the flintlock rifle, but he had been struggling to learn it, so he did not make any references, so he did not make it very fast. Now that there are ready-made drawings in front of him, he naturally quickly grasped the essence of it.

After explaining the Flintlock, the inspection was over successfully, and then we waited for Bi Maokang and others to make samples for testing. Zhu Cijiu hurriedly met officials at all levels of the Civil Service Office, and after a few simple encouragement, he returned to the palace.

He wanted to go back to the palace as soon as possible to read the recent memorials to see if there are any mistakes. Only by finding the problem can he solve it. He didn't know what the problem was. If he wanted to solve it, he would have nowhere to slap the turtle.

In fact, he was completely wrong. There was no problem with the memorial. Many things were not as simple as he thought. The Ming Dynasty is far from as calm as it appears. Many problems are on the verge of an outbreak. Decline is only a matter of time.

............

At noon on July 25, the first year of Chongzheng, Liaodong Metropolitan City.

The weather is clear and sunny this day, which is a rare and good day. It is so good that these border soldiers should be in a happy mood, but everyone is frowning and can't help but feel a little bit of energy. It's not that the Later Jin Dynasty has invaded, but that the salary has not been paid, and the salary has not been paid for four months!

Speaking of this salary, we have to talk about the income of the border army. In fact, the treatment of the border army in the Ming Dynasty was quite good. They usually had food, food, food, clothing, and rewards for winning, and compensation for losing, and even more security for resettlement if they were beaten to death.

After all, these soldiers are basically the main laborers of a big family. If you draw people here and try to defend the country, it is not enough to just let them eat full by themselves. He still has a family to raise. Many people who don’t know the situation at that time said that the soldiers on Ningjin Defense Line had no food to eat and couldn’t stand it anymore! These are nonsense. If you find someone to starve for a few months before going to fight with people, let alone waving weapons, whether they can climb or not is a problem.

If the salary is not paid, the soldiers in other places are better, and the soldiers in Sichuan and Shaanxi are a little unbearable. This is because Sichuan and Shaanxi have been drought for years and have no harvest. Most of the families of Sichuan and Shaanxi soldiers are waiting for this salary to live. If the salary is not paid, they will really starve to death.

On this day, Yang Zhengchao, a Sichuan veteran in Ningyuan's army, happened to receive a message from his family. The message was very simple. If he didn't send money, all five people in the family would starve to death! He naturally couldn't sit still when he heard the message. What should he do?

He thought for a long time, but couldn't think of a solution, so he could only find Zhang Sishun, a fellow villager in the same village. Zhang Sishun is a team leader and is considered a good fellow villager. Everyone goes to find him if they have any problems.

When he arrived at Zhang Sishun's camp, Zhang Sishun was resting. Yang Zhengchao walked over and asked anxiously: "Old Zhang, do you have money? I lend a few to my brothers. I really can't stand the family."

When Zhang Sishun heard this, he said frowningly: "Oh, where did I get the money? I just sent a little letter from my family last month. I have eaten up all the rice. I have been relying on digging wild vegetables for the past few months."

When Yang Zhengchao heard this, he said angrily: "When will this salary be paid? It's been four months since I didn't even say anything. Will you let someone live?"

Zhang Sishun was also angry and vented: "Yes, we are fighting hard for the Ming Dynasty here. The family members can't even afford to eat and don't pay any salary. These officials are not good. Why don't we organize everyone to surround the governor's office to ask for an explanation?"

Yang Zhengchao also took the initiative, and he replied loudly: "Okay, I'll call someone."

Zhang Sishun grabbed him and said angrily: "If you want to go, go together, and you can still take care of the matter by yourself!"

So the two of them ran to their familiar fellow villagers to stir up the agitation. This agitation was amazing. Who is not short of money at home? Not only the Sichuan soldiers and Shaanxi soldiers, but also the 14 camps of Ningyuan Guard, and tens of thousands of people were mobilized. Everyone ran out of the barracks and followed Yang Zhengchao and Zhang Sishun's thoughts on the governor's yamen in Ningyuan City.

This person is prone to chaos when there are too many people. Tens of thousands of people come to the governor's office in a mess. I don't know which bastard is the first to rush in. Everyone doesn't follow the rules and rushes in directly.

Governor Bi Zisu was convening a meeting of officials. Before he could figure out what was going on, he was surrounded by influx of chaos. Everyone had only one question: "Governor, when will the salary be paid? If you don't give it to your family, you will not be able to survive."

Bi Zisu became anxious when he saw this situation. He was honest and did not get the money from him. He could only explain patiently: "I have no money, I am asking the court for it. I will send it to you immediately when I arrive."

When these gangs of soldiers heard that they had no money, they became anxious. They caught Bi Zisu and beat them up. The clever official next to them ran away when they saw that the situation was not right. General Zhu Mei, General Zhang Shirong and Promoter Su Hanchun were quite conscientious, so they actually ran up to dissuade them. These gangs were already anxious and red-eyed. No matter who you are, you dare to come up to persuade them to fight and beat them up.

After beating for a long time, Bi Zisu was almost beaten to death, but he still said he had no money and no money. It seemed that he was really out of money. These soldiers were unable to do so for a while. I don’t know who came up with a bad idea, so I simply tied them all to the Bell and Drum Tower to show them to the public, and asked his relatives and friends to use money to redeem them.

As a result, a mutiny evolved into kidnapping. Governor Bi Zisu, general officer Zhu Mei, general judge Zhang Shirong and provocateur Su Hanchun were all tied to the bell and drum tower. The soldiers surrounded the bell and drum towers, threatening to not let anyone go if they didn't take the money.

Logically, even if their relatives and friends have money, they dare not redeem them, because there are tens of thousands of people here. If you have money, you can get hundreds of thousands of taels. Without hundreds of thousands of taels, you can't make up for the wages. Maybe the person won't redeem them and will pay them in.

But there is really someone who is not afraid of death. This man is Guo Guang, the deputy envoy of military preparation. He pieced together 20,000 taels of silver and ran to redeem the people.

The soldiers of the rebels naturally stopped doing it. There were 50,000 or 60,000 people in Ningyuanwei, how could it be enough to divide the 20,000 taels? Guo Guang gritted his teeth and simply went to the merchants in the county town to borrow from house to house. If the other party didn't borrow, they threatened: "You can see that there are riots everywhere. If you don't borrow, they will always be gathered in the city. If you rob them, you will not be able to receive the IOU."

In this way, he borrowed 50,000 taels of silver to redeem the man, but the soldiers said, "This matter is not over. If they don't pay them all the money, they will keep making trouble."

Governor Bi Zisu believed that supervision was not good, so he hurriedly wrote a memorial to explain Ning Yuan's situation, and then he hanged himself while the person was unprepared!
Chapter completed!