nucmednet Chapter 59 The Situation Has Changed
Chapter 59 The Situation Has Changed
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Upon exiting the governor's office, Lin San and the others who were waiting surrounded him. Liu Ye proudly waved Sun Yuanhua's name card in his hand—with this, he could basically move freely within the three eastern prefectures, and mining and transporting coal would be a piece of cake; the only remaining task was to find a coal mine.
Official matters proceeded smoothly, but the search for the Longkou Coal Mine encountered some setbacks. According to Liang Xiaoming, the Longkou Coal Mine was located in Longkou City, Shandong Province, southwest of Penglai City. However, both of them overlooked the fact that this was a later administrative division, and in this timeline, there was no such name as Longkou.
Despite their best efforts, the group couldn't find any information about Longkou. Liu Ye suddenly recalled a time when he and Liang Xiaoming were searching for the Shilu iron mine. The locals didn't know the name Shilu, only Yayu Ridge. He changed his strategy and directly inquired about the county southwest of Penglai—that is, Dengzhou Prefecture. He quickly found out the place name; it turned out that in the Ming Dynasty, the area where Longkou City was located was called Huang County.
The group headed straight for Huang County. Huang County was very close to Dengzhou Prefecture, only about ten miles away.
Liang Xiaoming remembered correctly; there was indeed a coal mine here, and people were already mining it. However, the daily output was small, mainly sold to neighboring prefectures and counties for heating. The mine owner, surnamed Li, was a wealthy local family. His clan had produced a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations), making them a prominent family in Dengzhou. He had unintentionally discovered the local coal production and hired people to mine it, thus opening up a small source of income.
At the time, aside from spending a few dozen taels of silver to bribe the government, Mine Owner Li had no other expenses. The government only valued gold, silver, copper, and iron mines, and didn't pay much attention to coal mines. However, after deducting the miners' wages, the coal mine's profits were quite modest. In addition, coal prices had been low in recent years, and someone was willing to buy it outright. Mine Owner Li was happy to get rid of it and tried to offer an "astronomical" price of two hundred taels. Unexpectedly, Liu Ye didn't even try to bargain and immediately took out two hundred taels of silver, wrote a contract, and bought it along with several thousand kilograms of stored coal, making Mine Owner Li regret that he had offered too low a price.
After signing the contract, Liu Ye increased the wages of the remaining miners by 30% and recruited new miners at the same price to expand the scale and increase production. Shandong had been unstable since the Wanli era. Ten years ago, the White Lotus Rebellion led by Xu Hongru broke out, affecting most of Shandong. In recent years, it had also suffered from repeated floods. The government's land tax was increasing day by day, and many people could no longer make a living by farming. As soon as someone offered high prices to recruit miners, many people came to work there, and the coal mining output quickly doubled.
With Sun Yuanhua's visiting card paving the way and his willingness to spend money, Liu Ye smoothly opened up a route from Huangxian to Dengzhou, from where the goods were loaded onto ships and transported to Guangdong. Dengzhou had many merchants who helped the government transport grain, supplies, and equipment; some even traveled between Beizhili and Liaodong to resell contraband, so transporting several ships of coal was naturally no problem.
In order to mine more coal before the mutiny, Liu Ye went all out, staying in Huang County for two months. The total amount of coal mined, including the original stockpile and the newly mined coal, reached more than 30,000 jin. Under extremely rudimentary technical conditions, this output was already quite good.
It was late October, and the situation suddenly became tense. Rumors circulated that Kong Youde's troops, sent by General Sun to Liaodong to fight the Tartars, were running low on supplies and were secretly harassing civilians to procure provisions, causing unrest and a potential mutiny. Upon hearing this, Liu Ye knew a mutiny was imminent and would soon affect Huang County. He immediately loaded the 30,000-plus catties of coal onto a ship and transported it to Lingao. To avoid attracting unwanted attention, the Yuanhang (Flying Voyage) could not remain docked in Dengzhou for long and temporarily returned to Lingao.
Liu Ye himself remained at the coal mine, intending to seize and stockpile a final batch of coal before the mutiny, to be transported away after the rebellion subsided. If Dengzhou descended into chaos, coal mining would likely be impossible for a long time; stockpiling as much as possible was wise. Besides, even if Kong Youde were to instigate a rebellion now, it would likely take some time before he could reach Dengzhou.
He vaguely remembered that the mutiny started in Wuqiao. Wuqiao County is located in the northwest of Shandong Province and the southeastern edge of Hebei Province. It was under the jurisdiction of the later Cangzhou City. It was quite far from Dengzhou. Even if the rebels attacked one prefecture and one county at a time, it would probably take a long time.
What Liu Ye didn't expect was that this sliver of hope would plunge him into an unexpected crisis.
Liu Ye, after all, wasn't a humanoid computer like Liang Xiaoming; his memory of history couldn't be accurate to the month. By the time Kong Youde's news reached Huang County, it was already outdated. By then, he had already launched a mutiny at the instigation of Li Jiucheng, who was also a former resident of Dongjiang Town.
Kong Youde initially had no intention of rebelling, but he harbored resentment towards being sent to Liaodong. Later, the Later Jin Khan Huang Taiji personally led a large army to attack Dalinghe, and Zu Dashou was besieged in Dalinghe City. Sun Yuanhua ordered Kong Youde to lead his troops to reinforce him.
Kong Youde reluctantly led his troops out, only to encounter a supply shortage along the way. The Shandong region was hostile to this Liaodong army, and counties along the route refused to provide provisions. The soldiers began to spontaneously solicit provisions from the local people, a practice Kong Youde turned a blind eye to. The people suffered greatly, closing their shops and businesses, avoiding the area at all costs, further straining relations between the Liaodong troops and the people of Shandong.
If being ordered to reinforce Dalinghe had already made Kong Youde furious, then the fact that the counties along the way not only failed to provide him with provisions but also closed their gates and made sarcastic remarks when he was ordered to go north ignited his anger.
The trigger for the conflict was a chicken, which some scholars later claimed led to the downfall of the Ming Dynasty. However, more accurately, it was a chicken that halted the military reforms initiated by Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua, and others. In the original historical timeline, with the surrender of Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, and others to the Later Jin, they took all the artillery, craftsmen, and technicians painstakingly built by Sun Yuanhua in Dengzhou, altering the balance of weaponry between the Ming and Qing dynasties and accelerating the Ming Dynasty's demise.
When Kong Youde's troops arrived at Wuqiao, a place on the border of Shandong and Hebei, his soldiers began to scavenge for food and supplies. Unexpectedly, this time they ran into trouble. One soldier stole a family's laying hen, only to discover that the man was a servant of Wang Xiangchun, a prominent family in Shandong.
Wang Xiangchun came from a family of officials. His great-grandfather, Wang Lin, was posthumously awarded the titles of Grand Master of the Palace and Minister of War. His grandfather, Wang Chongguang, served as Vice Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices and Assistant Minister of Revenue. His father, Wang Zhiyou, held various positions, including Military Commissioner of Huaiyang and Provincial Surveillance Commissioner of Zhejiang. His elder brother, Wang Xiangjin, rose to the position of Provincial Treasurer of Zhejiang. Five generations of his family had produced Jinshi (successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations). Wang Xiangchun himself was the second-highest scorer in the imperial examinations in the 38th year of the Wanli Emperor's reign, the same year as the renowned Qian Qianyi, and rose to the position of Assistant Minister of Personnel in Nanjing. Such a powerful family commanded respect even from governors and viceroys; how could a mere military officer like Wang Xiangchun afford to offend them? Furthermore, the Ming Dynasty had a long tradition of valuing civil officials over military ones and using civil officials to control military forces.
Under the strong insistence of the servants, Kong Youde swallowed his anger and had the soldier who stole the chicken pierced through the ear with an arrow, parading him around the camp as a public spectacle. This is what is known as the "arrow-pierced parade through the camp".
In the military, this kind of military law was second only to beheading in its severity and humiliation. The soldiers responded with silence, their long-accumulated discontent on the verge of exploding. Kong Youde himself was no different, but he was only held back by the last shred of reason, preventing his impulsive actions from causing a major disaster.
Seeing the arrogant soldiers make such a fool of themselves, the servant was extremely pleased and laughed heartily. This laughter was so grating to the ears of all the soldiers that all the humiliation and resentment in their hearts finally erupted, and one soldier swung his sword and beheaded the man.
The disaster was already done and could not be undone. Wang Xiangchun's son was no pushover; he was relentless, determined to find out the truth and demanding that Kong Youde hand over the murderer. How could Kong Youde hand over the culprit? Morale was already low; handing over the person would likely lead to a mutiny. But he couldn't afford to offend the Wang family; he was caught in a dilemma.
At this moment, Li Jiucheng stepped forward and said, "Why make such a fuss? If you're going to be a soldier like this, you might as well quit. Not only do they embezzle your pay, but they also don't give you any food. Even if you go to Liaodong to die, they won't give you enough to eat. With our numbers, we won't have to worry about food even if we become outlaws. Many deserters from Shanxi Town have become bosses, living freely and enjoying good food and drink. It's much more comfortable than being a soldier in this camp."