Ancestors, please don't crawl out again.

Chapter 181 The Day of Hasty Departure from the Temple
The poor Duke Yansheng finally experienced the power of having the final say.

He thought that Yang Feng's claim of being friends with Confucius was a good thing for him.

After all, his family is recognized as descendants of Confucius. Since Yang Feng was a friend of their ancestor, they could say that Yang Feng was equivalent to their ancestor...

After all, they had only seen one living ancestor friend in two thousand years.

Seeing the immortal is like seeing one's ancestors.

Ancestors, you must protect us!
In this way, the Kong family's hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land, the hereditary position of Qufu magistrate, the hereditary Qufu commercial tax, and the hereditary Duke Yansheng can all be retained. In fact, the Kong family's status will be even more stable. When the Immortal Venerable returns to the Heavenly Realm, they, as the descendants of the Immortal Venerable's friend, will be even more transcendent than before. But unfortunately, his dream was good, but he forgot that the final interpretation of such matters rests with the other party.

Yang Xianzun was indeed a friend of Confucius, but Confucius also said that more than two thousand years have passed, and he still doesn't know whether the Kong family members are actually his bloodline.

It requires personal verification.

So please trouble Immortal Yang to send them all to heaven!
Anyone who claims to be a descendant of Confucius will be sent to heaven for Confucius to personally verify. If they don't want to go to heaven...

You have to go, whether you want to or not.

If your ancestors summon you and you dare not go, you are considered disobedient and unfilial, and according to the law, you will be executed by slow slicing.

Don't worry, if the identification proves it's genuine, Confucius will send you back.

In short, the heavenly army that conquered Jining, amidst the cheers of the people of Yanzhou, Qufu, and other places, immediately escorted Kong Yuqi and his son to Qufu. They then stuffed all the officials and scholars of the Kong clan into nooses and sent them to Confucius for personal verification. Before the verification results were available, the status of Confucius's descendants within the Kong family remained undetermined; they were treated as ordinary gentry families. Furthermore, their corpses could not be buried, since even if they were truly dead, they could not be resurrected!
In short, you'll have to figure out how to preserve it yourselves. If it gets damaged and can't be recovered, that's your own responsibility.

The same applies to other families in Qufu. Those with official positions and titles were sent to heaven to be judged by their ancestors. Before the results were announced, they were allowed to use their old surnames, but were treated as ordinary people.

The same applies to the Meng family, who are not in Qufu.

This move was met with cheers in southern Shandong, and the people were completely reassured about the Heavenly Army. After all, they were afraid that, like those dynasties that changed, the Heavenly Army would still acknowledge these families that had long become a local scourge.

As for Zhao Shixian, the captured River Conservancy Commissioner, he was taken to Yangzhou and executed by slow slicing.

After the Heavenly Army captured Jining and other places, the people in other parts of southern Shandong rose up in droves, so there was basically no need to trouble the Heavenly Army. Li Shude, the Shandong Governor who was originally in Dongchang and was a member of the Plain Yellow Banner Han Army, hurriedly returned to defend Jinan, but his Green Standard Army troops collapsed halfway there, and the Eight Banners fled to Qingzhou.

As for him...

disappeared.

Of course, in reality, they just disguised themselves and ran away.

After all, the situation in Shandong had already collapsed. Even if he went back to defend Jinan, it would be useless. This guy should be a member of Li Chengliang's clan, and his ancestral home is Tieling.

Disguised escape and then finding an opportunity to flee back to Liaodong would be the wise choice.

Similarly, the collapse of the situation in Shandong also led to the capture of Cangzhou and other places that had previously barely held on thanks to Shandong by the rise of unruly people.

When Ma Ge finally arrived in Tianjin with his troops, even Jinghai had already been captured by the treacherous people.

Moreover, they couldn't even hold Tianjin. The boatmen on the canal, the saltworkers, and even the poor of Sanjiaodian combined to form a massive wave that swept through Tianjin. Faced with this situation, the Qing army ultimately fled in panic. They then stormed into Tianjin, ransacking the city's official granaries and salt merchants. The poor emperor sat in the Qianqing Palace, cursing the demon that had destroyed his golden age like a distraught old woman, watching helplessly as his empire crumbled.

The famine in the capital was out of control.

The Han Chinese in the outer city had already begun to flee, since as long as they went south and crossed the Daqing River, they could enter the militia's controlled area.

Of course, some die-hard farmers secretly cut off their queues and mixed in with them. In the face of hunger, such things were inevitable. Because they had to supply the front lines, the die-hard farmers in the city could only keep reducing their food supply. Now, food was already scarce and expensive. The only food that could flow in from outside was that unscrupulous merchants transported it from Shanxi or smuggled it from the militia-controlled areas.

The price...

Just tell me, would you rather eat money or steamed buns?

We risked being caught and shot to transport the grain out of the militia-controlled area, so it's not unreasonable to sell it to you at ten times the price, is it?

Too expensive?

If I sell it for twenty times the price, wouldn't you think ten times the price isn't expensive?

One by one, the starving farmers had no choice but to use the gold and silver their ancestors had plundered to exchange for food.

Under these circumstances, Yin Tai, along with Su Keji, the governor of Shanxi who was said to have embezzled as much as four million, and Nian Gengyao, the governor of Sichuan, finally jointly petitioned the emperor to allow Ma Ge to visit Xi'an.

Nian Gengyao even stated in his memorial that he had already raised one million shi of grain, ready to be transported north from Sichuan at any time. Furthermore, Sichuan's tax revenue was ample, and he was capable of raising two million shi of grain annually for the Ming Dynasty. While transporting this grain from Sichuan to Xi'an was manageable, transporting it to the capital was impossible. In fact, he also secretly advised the Ming Dynasty to prepare for a move similar to Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, suggesting a retreat to Chengdu if necessary. Although Sichuan currently had a small population, its land was fertile, and because of its smaller population, there was enough space for its loyal farmers. Of course, he didn't consider that these farmers currently lacked farming skills, but realistically, no place was more suitable for them than Sichuan. As for the idea of ​​withdrawing to Liaodong, let's forget about it!
Can not go back.

It's hard to go from extravagance to frugality!

You're sending those hardcore farmers who're used to receiving handouts back to Liaodong to suffer; it would be better to just kill them.

Beijing.

The spring chill was still in the air.

In the cold rain and wind.

Ma Ge sat on his dragon carriage, his face as dark as the clouds in the sky.

Behind him were countless loyal farmers with the same expression, following him with the old and young, like refugees in a famine in the drizzle.

He's going on a western tour...

Of course, it's definitely not because people in the capital have started starving to death.

In reality, people had been starving to death in the capital for some time now; in fact, it was a recurring phenomenon. There were always winter mornings with collapsed streets. The problem, however, was that the starving was now spreading to the landed farmers. Accustomed to a life of luxury, these farmers hadn't initially grasped the horror of famine, as they hadn't experienced anything like it in seventy years. Before the famine struck, they continued their extravagant lifestyles without any awareness, and then suddenly found themselves starving. Even so, they continued their habitual lavish lifestyles, as they had become accustomed to it.

They still want to eat meat, drink alcohol, hold banquets, engage in cockfighting and dog racing, and continue their old way of life.

I was born to enjoy life. My ancestors had already endured all the hardships when they entered the Central Plains.

If the rationed grain was insufficient, they would spend money to buy more on the black market; if the cattle and sheep offered by the banner village ran out, they would slaughter the family's old horse.

In short, the quality of life cannot be lowered, so even if it means pretentious behavior in teahouses, it must continue.

But soon they panicked. The gold and silver their ancestors had plundered were gradually emptied, and they slaughtered everything they could in their homes. The rations of food dwindled, and soon even rice ran out, followed by millet and wheat. The beans that were originally used to feed horses also became their rations. As a result, fishing in the ponds became a scramble among the households. In fact, Ma Ge himself was now eating fish. To demonstrate his benevolence in sharing the hardships with his subjects, he had already slaughtered all sorts of rare birds and animals in the palace and even fished out fish from the three seas to provide daily food for the concubines in the palace.

He's already eating sweet potatoes.

He even issued an edict to his loyal farmers, saying that sweet potatoes were nutritious and that they should all eat them.

Of course, the main reason is that due to the natural conditions in the Shuntian Prefecture area, not much surplus grain can be found during this season, except for the sweet potatoes that the poor eat.

The deteriorating situation around the capital exacerbated the famine. Not only did unruly people rebel, but the gentry also began to resist the court. There were even clashes between gentry servants and the Eight Banners army over the requisition of grain. Some officials in the capital even fled. The Qing Dynasty was like a sinking ship, with everyone trying to jump ship.

Eventually, the capital's loyal farmers, who had been living off their savings, began to starve to death in large numbers. More accurately, after realizing the reality, the old tradition of killing those without food was revived.

There's no need to waste food on the old, weak, and useless; just let them starve to death.

Especially the elderly and weak among the bondservants, these should be the first to share the burden of their masters, and automatically stop eating to save food for their masters.

A servant should cherish his master!

But the problem is that they won't sit idly by and wait to die. So, when pushed to the limit, the bondservants also started to become wicked and bully their masters. In the end, when pushed to the limit, even the master is no match for them. So what if they are bondservants? Bondservants can fight too, and now they are even more capable of fighting than their masters.

This obvious dead end finally brought Ma Ge to his senses. In the end, it wasn't that he didn't understand, but that he couldn't accept this reality emotionally. He was just having an emotional breakdown, but he didn't not know what to do. If he continued to drag it out, he wouldn't even be able to complete the Western Hunt. After all, the loyal farmers were already starving and had to slaughter a large number of horses to survive. Even the Eight Banners army at the front had started slaughtering horses, otherwise they would also be starving.

The capital city is now a prison.

He can't be trapped here; he has to jump out.

"Your Majesty, the Fourth Prince didn't come along. Someone saw him heading north."

The old eunuch knelt down in front of him and whispered something.

"Hmph, does he want to be like Li Heng?"

Ma Ge sneered.

During his western expedition, he left Yinreng, the previously deposed crown prince, to guard the capital. He has still not appointed a crown prince, thus giving Yinreng hope...

Let's keep him hanging on.

Otherwise, how could Yinreng have been made to defend the capital to the death?
But his other sons followed him, and Yinzhi continued to lead troops at the front line. They would gradually retreat towards Shanxi.

It was obvious that the Fourth Prince did not want to flee to Xi'an with him.

"Fine, let him go if he wants. Issue an imperial decree ordering the Fourth Prince to go to Shengjing to perform the ancestral rites at the imperial mausoleum on my behalf. All areas outside the Great Wall will be under his control."

"Brother Ma sighed and said."

Then his westward hunting party continued forward, passing through the outer city which was now like a ghost town, and leaving the city that they had occupied for nearly seventy years. Outside Yongding Gate, Ma Ge looked back sadly at the capital city under the dark clouds.

The day I hastily left the temple was the most memorable...

No, his ancestral temple has already been demolished by Yang Feng.

However, their moods should still be similar, especially since the prosperity of Ma Ge's era has faded so quickly. From the glorious golden age to this state, it has only been half a year. No wonder he suffered a mental breakdown. To be more accurate, he really does resemble Li Longji. That dog Nian Gengyao is just talking without thinking!
In the end, Ma Ge could only sadly lower the curtain of his imperial carriage.

"southward."

He said it from inside.

Next, he had to go through Zijing Pass. Although the West Mountain Avenue could also lead to Zijing Pass, it required traveling a long distance through the mountains. His hunting party consisted of more than 400,000 men, women, children, and the elderly. With so many people, the supplies they carried were limited, and they needed to eat along the way. Even if they took the main road, they would have to swarm around like locusts and devour everything.

If we go into the mountains, we'll probably have to eat people who have no food.

The only option is to head south.

They really were like locusts, first sweeping Zhuozhou clean.

Not to mention grain, they even ate all the cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks of the common people. When the local officials tried to dissuade them, Ma Ge directly ordered them to be executed on the grounds of communicating with demons.

Several prominent families in Zhuozhou, such as the Feng family, were also directly accused of corruption and had their property confiscated by Ma Ge. The poor Feng family had even presented him with the "Snowfall Suspension Letter," yet he still wanted to confiscate their property. However, the Feng family was also disloyal. Despite having thousands of bushels of grain in their warehouse, they lied to Ma Ge, saying that they were already eating porridge every meal. This was clearly deceiving the emperor.

The house must be searched; it must be searched.

After sweeping through Zhuozhou, they headed straight for Yi County, where they also ravaged the area. The poor gentry of Yi County, who had been doing everything in their power to capture able-bodied men for the Qing army and drive them to the front lines to serve as laborers, and some even offering their daughters to General Wang and his officers to demonstrate their loyalty, were still slaughtered by Ma Ge. Their grain, livestock, and even their people became provisions for Ma Ge's westward hunt. After all, reaching the next stop, Laiyuan, was still over two hundred li of mountain road, a journey that would take at least three or four days, and there were no cities along the way to raid.

Before heading into the mountains, Ma Ge had to stock up on as much food as possible. Since they claimed to be loyal subjects of the Qing Dynasty, let's give them a chance to show their loyalty!
It's like offering a piece of your own flesh to your lord!
This is what you wanted!
Ma Ge summoned Yin Zhen and others in Yi County and gave them instructions in person.

Of course, what they were really telling them was that they must hold the line and cover the westward hunt until the 400,000-strong westward-hunting army had left.

There's not much pressure on that, since the opposing heavenly soldiers don't actually have the ability to march north.

The Heavenly Army's formation was primarily defensive and not suited for offense. As for the upcoming advance towards the capital, it was actually a joint operation involving the Heavenly Army's Second Army, which had already moved north along the Grand Canal. They were also leading hundreds of thousands of militiamen who had followed them north from Shandong, ultimately advancing from both the east and west. Therefore, Yinzhen's defenses were not under much pressure for the time being.

After summoning his beloved son and entrusting him with the task of providing cover, Ma Ge finally set off on the mountain road that traverses the Taihang Mountains with satisfaction.

Unbeknownst to him, on the same day, a troop of heavenly soldiers also entered the Taihang Mountains.

(End of this chapter)