Wanli twenty-four years (1596), for Wanli, this year is not very easy, all over the Ming Dynasty are reaching out to him to ask for money, the battle of Ningxia was pacified, Banzhou Yang Yinglong's rebellion repeatedly, has not been completely resolved, outside to help Li's Korea deal with Japan, what is more terrible is that the palace is on fire and needs to be repaired, everywhere to silver, so that Wanli, who has finally lived a few years of rich life, is stretched thin again.
Wanli Emperor
Wanli complained all day long, distressed about the silver, naturally aroused the attention of people with a heart, the government army avant-garde deputy Qianhu Zhongchun saw that Wanli was worried about the silver things have lost weight, took the initiative to play, asked Wanli to open mines in various places, and then collect taxes, with mining taxes to make up for the internal money, for this proposal, Wanli was naturally full of joy, sent eunuchs to various places to open mines to collect taxes, this is the beginning of Wanli to collect mining taxes.
Over the years, Daming's military spending has been quite a lot
For a time, all parts of the Ming Dynasty set off a frenzy of mining and collecting taxes, and the tax supervisors sent by various expatriates also made a lot of money, plus they were doing things for the emperor, and they could be said to be the same in the local area, and the tax supervisors became the beauty of many eunuchs in the palace who wanted to do it.
For example, Gao Huai, the supervisor of Shangshan, is very excited, Gao Huai did not enter the palace since he was a child, on the contrary, he is still a person with a wife and children, but he doesn't know what happened, he is ruthless, and he directly castrated into the palace and became a eunuch.
Seeing that the eunuchs in the palace went to various places to become tax eunuchs, Gao Huai was also very jealous, and under his own operation, in March of the 27th year of Wanli (1599), he went to Liaodong to collect silver as a tax envoy of Liaodong mines.
Although Liaodong is one of the nine border towns of the Ming Dynasty, but in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the rule of the Ming Dynasty here has long been weak, not only the Mongolian tribes have been in the border for many years, but even the Jurchen tribes that have been bound to rule have also appeared from time to time to prickly out, and therefore, since Jiajing, the Liaodong General Army has not been able to serve for more than three years, and the Liaodong General Army has become an official position that many people do not want to hold.
Liaodong is one of the nine border towns of the Ming Dynasty
Later, Li Chengliang came, relying on his excellent ability, in just a few years to stabilize the situation in Liaodong, and many times suppressed the thorns of many girls, in order to make himself able to defend Liaodong for a long time, Li Chengliang adopted the fattening and killing mode, as long as there is a Jurchen tribe strong, Li Chengliang will secretly create conditions for it to rebel against the Ming, and even at the expense of forcing them, and then bring a large army to suppress it, one can get military merits, and the other can deter other Jurchen tribes, tried and tested.
In this way, Li Chengliang worked in the position of the general army of Liaodong for more than 20 years, giving the imperial court an illusion that the situation in Liaodong is not bad, in fact, the problem in this place has been very serious, since the Ming Dynasty, natural disasters and man-made disasters in Liaodong have continued, only Jiajing reigned for 45 years, Liaodong has 37 various disasters, almost once a year.
In addition to natural disasters, the imperial court was harsh and exploited, and under the heavy taxation, the people were already oppressed, and the resistance to the Japanese army, Liaodong, as a rear base, was requisitioned by the imperial court to transport a large number of people, and a large number of laborers were forced to leave production, leaving the old, weak, sick and disabled and unable to farm, and the entire land of Liaodong was barren.
Li Chengliang
In addition, there are the Mongolian army that used to be in Koubian for many years, the Jurchen tribe that constantly made trouble, the bandits who fished in troubled waters, etc., it can be said that by the middle of Wanli, Liaodong had reached the point of exhaustion, fortunately, with Li Chengliang in charge, the whole could handle the Mongols and Jurchens, so even if there are a lot of problems under the lid of Liaodong, it seems to be passable on the surface.
In the nineteenth year of Wanli (1591), Li Chengliang, who was in his sixties, was impeached and dismissed, and Liaodong once again ushered in the period of ten years and eight general soldiers, so chaotic, it stands to reason that Wanli should pay attention to it, but Wanli felt that these things were trivial things compared to having no money, even if someone advised Liaodong that it was not suitable for mining at that time, but Wanli did not listen, and still sent Gao Huai to collect mining taxes.
Therefore, the so-called national mining is actually not minerals in many places, but for the eunuchs, it is not important whether they can open minerals or not, and it is important to pay enough tribute to Wanli, so the eunuchs who are sent out to collect mining taxes must carry out all kinds of exploitation of the local area.
All of this requires money
To tell the truth, if it is a positive tax, it is fine, after all, there is a standard, but there is no strict system for mining tax, and it completely relies on the violent collection of eunuchs, so the mining tax is collected, Wanli actually did not make much money, but the people below suffered hundreds of times.
Gao Huai is the same, just came to Liaodong after presenting Wanli with five hundred taels of silver, and then took the opportunity to write a letter to request to change the Shanhaiguan Military Yamen to a tax shop, for the sake of silver, Wanli approved Gao Huai's recital, and even gave the name "Fuyang Store", so that Gao Huai was more unscrupulous, and began to use the identity of the tax supervisor to loot property in Liaodong by any means.
In the twenty-ninth year of Wanli (1601), Gaohuai paid tribute to 20,000 taels of silver;
In the thirty-first year of Wanli (1603), Gao Huai paid tribute to 30,000 taels of silver, 60 taels of gold, and at the same time there were all kinds of rare treasures, which did not include the money that entered Gao Huai's own embezzlement, according to He Erjian, the money that Gao Huai paid tribute to was only two-thirds of the income, and all the rest was privately swallowed by Gao Huai.
With money, Wanli was more satisfied with Gao Huai, and approved some of Gao Huai's recitals with his eyes closed, Gao Huai already had the power to mine and collect taxes in Liaodong, but he was not satisfied, and asked Wanli for the title of town guard, which was equivalent to seizing the military affairs of Liaodong, and in this way, Gao Huai served as the town guard of Liaodong again, and the power was amazing.
Relying on military power, Gao Huai began to unscrupulously oppress the people of Liaodong, as for the means of oppression is nothing more than extortion and coercion, in order to obtain enough money, Gao Huai will distribute the mining tax to every household, as little as ten or twenty taels, more than countable, must make the household bankrupt.
Liaodong Jurchen tribe
In addition, Gao Huai also deducted military rations, if the military rations were not enough, they would be apportioned to various places, and even led the family to set up checkpoints in various places, and charged silver taels to pedestrians along the way.
In the past few years, the entire eastern part of Liaodong has been in a comprehensive depression, and the people are sparse, so that the folk of eastern Liaodong have a popular folk song that "the Liao people have no brains, and they are all sucked out;
And in order to prevent the Liaodong General Army from interfering with him, Gao Huai took the means of framing and successively forced away the Liaodong General Army Sun Shoulian and Ma Lin, and the impeachment of Gao Huai's recital Wanli did not look at it at all, after all, Gao Huai paid a lot of tribute, just like that, Gao Huai has been in Liaodong for more than ten years, so that Liaodong, which is already full of problems, is completely paralyzed, and the military households are also in distress and do not look at it.
With the erosion of the situation in Liaodong, Li Chengliang, who was in his 70s, once again served as the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, but Li Chengliang was not for the sake of the military and people of Liaodong, his goal has always been to be prosperous and rich, and he worked hard to gain military merits in the past for his own wealth, so how could he offend Gao Huai now? Therefore, he chose to go along with Gao Huai.
Under the pressure of Gao Huai, Liaodong is withering day by day, and the military households can't live anymore, where does the combat effectiveness come from? And Li Chengliang, who served as the commander-in-chief of Liaodong for the second time, almost did not have any military action, after all, he knew the real situation of the Liaodong army, so he did not move anything, but could still use paper tigers to scare the Mongols and Jurchens, and once he started, the problem of insufficient combat effectiveness in Liaodong was exposed, and in this way, Nurhachi successfully unified the Jurchen tribe.
Nurhachi can be reunified, and Gao Huai "helps" a lot
In April of the thirty-sixth year of Wanli (1608), the oppressive Liaodong military households were allied with blood, ready to take refuge in the Jurchens, after Gao Huai learned about it, not only did not appease, but sent people to suppress it, causing the military households to hate Gao Huai even more, and then Jinzhou and Songshan also mutiny, and the soldiers who participated in the mutiny shouted the oath to kill Gao Huai.
As for the other people, they also organized one after another, surrounded Fuyangdian, and were about to be killed by the people, Gao Huai relied on the escort of the people around him to escape from Shanhaiguan, but he did not repent, and returned to continue to squeeze after the situation stabilized, and the anger of the people was ignited again, and finally under the pressure of Jiliao Governor Jian Da, Wanli ordered Gao Huai to return to Beijing, but did not deal with him, Gao Huai escaped instead.
Liaodong was originally a place where people's livelihood was difficult, but under the scourge of Gaohuai that lasted for more than ten years, Liaodong was completely weakened, and even watched Nurhachi fight in the south and north in these years, and successfully became bigger without any way.
Not only that, in the past ten years, a large number of Liaodong people have fled to Nurhachi because they can't get by, and Nurhachi also looked at them, and gave land and livestock to settle down, so that Jurchen agriculture has developed rapidly, in addition, some of the original military households in Liaodong have joined the army, and even many people have served as low-level officers of the Jurchen tribe, constantly increasing Nurhachi's strength.
The battle of Sarhu had far-reaching consequences
In the forty-third year of Wanli (1615), Nurhachi completely unified the Jurchens, followed by the far-reaching Battle of Sarhu.
As for Wanli, in fact, the money looted in Liaodong was not much, but the harm to the people was amazing, and the damage was huge, which directly affected the fate of the Ming Dynasty.