I

The imperial palace in Nanjing is already in ruins.

During the Zhengtong period, lightning struck and caught fire, burning Jinshen, Huagai and other palaces. Then there were storms and floods, and only the walls of the imperial city were left standing, while the rest of the wooden buildings were rotten.

Even the Nanjing Imperial Ancestral Temple was burned down!

Zhao Han took his wife, children and sister and temporarily moved into the Nanjing Inner Defense Mansion.

The Ming Dynasty had three sets of teams in Nanjing. The inner garrison was where eunuchs and civil servants worked, and the outer garrison was where military generals worked.

When Nanjing was occupied last time, all the eunuch chiefs were killed, while ordinary eunuchs remained and were hired by the government to clean up.

Now, the sign of the Inner Guards Palace has been taken down and replaced with a new one: Governor's Palace.

"Ah, this is much bigger than the Ji'an General Military Mansion!" Zhao Zhenfang ran around in the back house.

Pan Qimei also ran after her. The yard was larger than she imagined, and it seemed inappropriate for feeding chickens.

With a smile on her face, Fei Rulan directed everyone to move things, and some rooms had to be re-cleaned.

The relocation of the ruling center from Ji'an to Nanjing was not only due to the issue of status.

Another important reason is that Ji'an Fucheng is too small. As Zhao Han's territory expanded, more and more institutions were established, and the Ji'an General Military Mansion could not accommodate them.

"Headquarters, there are many eunuchs petitioning outside!" The guards hurried over to report.

Although the government offices and honor gardens in Nanjing are not in use for the time being, they will definitely be useful in the future. The surviving eunuchs were thrown around to work as handymen, cleaning and maintaining buildings with a meager salary.

When these eunuchs heard that Zhao Han had moved in, they secretly contacted each other and came to petition.

Zhao Han walked to the gate of the Governor's Mansion and saw a lot of people kneeling in the dark outside. He frowned and shouted: "Get out of here!"

An eunuch knelt and climbed up, kowtowed and said, "I am a slave to the commander-in-chief. The commander-in-chief will be the emperor in the future. It is inconvenient for the guards to do things in the palace, so they have to use eunuchs. We are all disabled people. Please ask for help." The commander-in-chief has mercy on me, and I will stay and serve him in his daily life."

"Are you the leader?" Zhao Han asked.

The eunuch thought he had an opportunity and quickly replied: "My name is Yuan En."

"Take this guy and sweep the streets. He will be fined for three months. No salary, just food!" After Zhao Han finished speaking, he turned around and left.

A group of eunuchs knelt there, looking at each other, not knowing what to do.

Even if Zhao Han really wanted to use eunuchs one day, he would order the summons himself instead of a group of eunuchs coming to encourage them.

…

Jeju Island.

Hu Dinggui, Wang Yaochen, Lu Xiangguan, and Chen Tangong looked at the more than 400 horses in front of them, and their hearts were filled with unspeakable shock.

"Isn't this a Tianma?" Lu Xiangguan exclaimed.

Hu Dinggui looked at his mount and then at the newly delivered horses, like a man who had been eating chaff for a long time and suddenly encountered delicacies from the mountains and the sea.

Of the 500 horses that were shipped from India, more than 30 died in Shanghai, and more than 60 were sick and temporarily stayed in Shanghai for recuperation and treatment. Only 402 good horses were actually transported to Jeju Island.

These horses were bought from the Mughal Empire, and they were all Marwari horses.

The average shoulder height of male horses is close to 1.55 meters, and the average shoulder height of females is close to 1.53 meters, while the average shoulder height on Jeju Island is only 1.22 meters.

A total difference of 30 centimeters!

These were most likely hybrid descendants of Arabian and Turkmen horses, brought to northwest India by invaders.

When the Mughal Empire expanded, several princely states that owned such war horses fought back and forth with the Mughal army. Finally, relying on internal divisions and political marriages, the Mughal Empire annexed those princely states and granted these princely states a high degree of autonomy.

After a long journey, everyone was reluctant to ride it and sent it to the pasture to recuperate.

It wasn't until ten days later that Hu Dinggui took a cautious test drive.

It feels like a tractor replaced by a top-notch sports car!

"drive!"

Hu Dinggui was sitting on the horse, and he seemed to be flying in the clouds while galloping.

Lu Xiangguan also chose one, and suddenly he became so heroic that he rode up to catch up with Hu Dinggui and said, "General Hu, with this amazing horse, we can sweep across Mobei!"

Hu Dinggui stopped after running two laps and said: "Let this kind of Tianzhu horse be bred by itself first. If the male horse still has some strength left, then the best Jeju mare will be selected for breeding. It will give birth to a horse in ten months, and the pony will be born again when it is one and a half years old. If you can breed them, you can produce many good horses in five years!”

Chen Tangong caught up and asked, "How much does a horse like this cost?"

Wang Yaochen replied: "150 taels per horse, guaranteed to be transported from Tianzhu to Macau, and no money will be paid if it dies on the way. Zheng Zhilong sent a ship to transfer it and paid another sum of money. It is estimated that each horse cost 160 taels."

"That's tens of thousands of taels of silver, and I bought hundreds of horse breeds." Chen Tangong said with a sigh.

The reason why it is so expensive is mainly due to transportation issues.

When Portugal purchases horses and transports them to Macau, they have to bear the risk of the horses dying on the way. They also hired professional horse breeders to take good care of them all the way, so that the mortality rate was reduced.

Hu Dinggui was afraid that the horse would be tired, so he turned over and kept petting it. He wanted to hold the horse to sleep.

The ears of the Marwari horse are very cute. The ears stand up high and the tips of the ears are rolled inwards as if "showing their hearts". With its muscular body and shiny fur, this is the best war horse in South Asia!

Zhao Han gave Jeju Island a cavalry establishment with a quota of 2,000.

Among them, 1,800 cavalrymen were all transferred from Datong soldiers. The remaining 200 people were asked to be recruited by Hu Dinggui from the island, which was considered one of the steps to assimilate the islanders.

The race of Jeju Island is very complex, including Koreans, Mongolians, and Hans. After two or three hundred years of intermarriage, they have become completely mixed, and due to poor treatment, many of them are still criminals. Their sense of identification with North Korea is not very high.

As long as we give them equal treatment and teach them to speak Chinese and write Chinese characters, they can assimilate and become our own people in the future.

Even if Zhao Han wanted to colonize, he would not engage in an extermination policy.

The Chinese nation has such an incredible talent for assimilation, so why should we imitate the brutal and bloody ways of Westerners?

Of course, if there are stubborn people, they must still use guns to speak.

…

"Boom!"

With a burst of thunder, heavy rain poured down.

Lu Xiangsheng studied behind closed doors in his hometown in Yixing, taking a break to recuperate.

After several years of military career and one year in prison, Lu Xiangsheng's health was somewhat poor.

When I woke up in the morning, it was still raining heavily.

This rain has been going on all day and night.

Lu Xiangsheng felt something was not good, so he immediately held an umbrella and went out. When he came to the small river in the village, the water level had already exceeded the warning line.

He went home and took his brother Lu Xiangjin with him to the county government on foot to report the situation.

Before leaving the village, I saw several officials wearing raincoats coming from house to house, knocking on doors and delivering orders.

“Brothers from the Peasant Association, gather at the ancestral hall at the entrance of the village immediately!”

"Datong peasants and soldiers, all gather! Gather the troops, gather the troops!"

"..."

Lu Xiangsheng looked at all this blankly. The peasant association and the peasant soldiers were all the same old losers.

They were allocated the land for just over half a year.

The peasant-soldier policy has been adjusted. Not every family can contribute, and only children can be employed as peasant-soldiers. After the family is separated, if there is only one strong laborer in the family, he may not be drafted to serve as a peasant soldier.

Therefore, the number of peasant soldiers in each village and town has dropped by at least one-third compared to when Zhao Han first launched his army.

During the off-farm days, the training only lasts for half a day, and only one lunch is provided in the town. The training level and treatment are also lower than before.

At least the peasants and soldiers have to take care of the food, but the peasant association brings its own dry food to work!

If you don't get paid and bring your own dry food, isn't it just like the old government corvee? The people should be deeply disgusted.

But Lu Xiangsheng soon saw an unforgettable scene. A large number of farmers' association members not only went out wearing raincoats, but also brought their families and even teenagers with them.

They walked through the rain and gradually gathered into a team, singing songs and fighting in high spirits.

Lu Xiangsheng and Lu Xiangjin followed them, but saw two flags erected at the entrance of the village, one was the flag of the peasant association and the other was the flag of the peasant soldiers.

Wherever we passed along the way, wealthy people were lying behind the doors to peek, with fear in their eyes.

Last year, when the village was divided into fields, there were still troops at the beginning. After the farmers' association was established, the troops immediately withdrew. Some large landowners still wanted to resist the policy, so the Peasants' Association gave an order, and countless grassroots men carried hoes to arrest the landlords and their entire families for public trial.

Dare to resist with force?

Killed on the spot!

"Brother, they are trying to fight the flood." Lu Xiangjin said.

Lu Xiangsheng nodded and said, "I know, I just... feel a little emotional for no reason."

Lu Xiangjin said: “It’s really disappointing.”

Lu Xiangsheng sighed: "When I was commanding troops in the north, I often heard the name of King Zhao Tian. He defeated the local governors several times. I just felt that those governors were incompetent. If I were to lead the troops myself, I would definitely destroy the Zhao thieves. But this situation and this scene , it made me realize that none of the civil servants and generals of the Ming Dynasty could be Zhao Han's opponent."

"What the people want," Lu Xiangjin said.

Lu Xiangsheng said: "In the past, the hearts of the people were the hearts of the scholars and the people. The heads of Guizhou were ignorant, did not distinguish between right and wrong, and did not know the interests and harms, so they could not gather their hearts. Haha, this is a big mistake. The heads of Guizhou were not ignorant, but had nothing to do with them. Zhao Han Tian Zheng's desire to gather the heads of Guizhou is what the people really want. After the flood, we brothers should also go to Nanjing and see if we can find any jobs."

The various armies being mobilized were delayed by heavy rains throughout the Yangtze River Basin.

Heavy rains fell across Jiangxi, Hunan, and Jiangnan, eventually forming a major flood peak in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. All major tax-paying offices such as Susong and Changhu Lake were hit by floods, and countless farmlands along Taihu Lake were submerged.

Floods in the south and drought in the north!

Shandong not only suffers from drought, but also suffers from locust plague. The whole province is filled with migratory locusts.

Puzhou Prefecture was the worst affected, with all vegetation eaten away. The government dug pits directly outside the city gate to bury the corpses, and the hungry people dug the pits to dig up the corpses, cut the corpses and eat their flesh. There are also family members who starve to death. In the morgue, many fathers, sons, and couples eat each other.

Fortunately, Zhang Guowei was appointed as the Jiangnan Water Conservancy Envoy. Since last summer, he has been building Jiangnan Water Conservancy. They also provided work-for-relief services to help many hungry people survive the famine.

The damage caused by this year's floods is far less than that in history.

"Instructions are being sent to all garrison troops in various places to postpone the dispatch of troops and all rush to the disaster areas to rescue the people!"

This was the first military order issued by Zhao Han himself after moving to Nanjing.

There are floods in all provinces, how can we fight across the river?