There is no such thing as the Kangxi and Qianlong eras

Chapter 115 Chain Reaction
(I listened to the advice and changed the previous chapter)

Almost at the same time that Bai Nan and his men captured Changde Prefecture, the Han army heading south from Changsha also captured Hengzhou City.

It was said that they had conquered the city, but in fact it was the Hengzhou prefect who had surrendered voluntarily.

Otherwise, given the solidity of Hengzhou City, the most important city in Hunan after Changsha, and the capital of the Great Zhou Emperor Wu Sangui, "Dingtianfu", it would not be so easy to take it down by force.

Unfortunately, the Han army easily captured Changsha City, which had a huge political impact.

For those gentry and wealthy families who know a lot and a little, it is hard to say whether the Han army has the mandate of heaven, but they are afraid that they have already begun to sweep across Hunan.

It is possible that it will be another situation like that of Wu Sangui, the Emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty!

You can look down on Wu Sangui as a traitor, but he did conquer half of the Qing Dynasty and was really just one step away from becoming a powerful figure.

Hengzhou Prefecture City.

The prefect, Tian Ji, brought many of his officials and knelt at the city gate to surrender: "The guilty official, Tian Ji, pays homage to the general!"

Nie Yu took a quick look and asked, "Are you the only ones here?"

Tian Ji said helplessly: "The Tongzhi and Tongpan have all fled. Of the two county magistrates, one is missing and the other has hanged himself. We are the only officials left in the city."

"Then why don't you run away as the prefect?" Nie Yu asked.

Tian Ji replied, "Hengzhou and Changsha are both important cities in Hunan. As the prefect of Hengzhou, I must do my utmost to defend the city. If I flee without permission, the court will not let me go."

This is the truth. Tian Ji was a very unlucky prefect. His predecessor took office in the 59th year of Qianlong's reign, but was dismissed from office last year because of excessive corruption and embezzlement.

It just happened to be his turn to take up the post of Hengzhou prefect. He had almost no time to be greedy for money. He had to support the money, food and supplies for the Miao campaign in western Hunan, and also had to clean up the mess left by his predecessor.

He managed to become the most honest prefect of Hengzhou, and now he is also the most unlucky.

Less than a year after taking office, the rebels arrived at his doorstep and even the provincial capital Changsha was lost!
There was even a student who claimed to be from Yuelu Academy. He brought a letter from the academy's principal and came to Hengzhou to persuade them to surrender.

This Prefect Tian really wanted to defend the city, but unfortunately he was not given any chance. Hengzhou did have high walls and thick walls, but it was useless without money. In order to support the suppression of the Miao people in western Hunan, the treasury was almost empty, and the gentry and wealthy families in the area did not listen to him at all.

Since everyone has started to fight, he might as well give up and surrender!

Nie Yu said, "You have contributed to the surrender of the city. I will not kill you, but it is unlikely that I will be promoted to a higher position. First, cooperate with my secretary to sort out the files of the government office and restore normal order in the city."

"Thank you, General, for your forgiveness!"

The officials in Hengzhou breathed a sigh of relief when Tian Ji was there.

Although he was not given an important position, at least he saved his life.

After taking over Hengzhou Prefecture, Nie Yu paid another special visit to Shigu Academy. This time, he wasn't there to engage in political stunts. Although Shigu Academy was one of the four great academies, Nie Yu simply visited to see what remained of it.

In the last year of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, this academy, along with many other buildings in Hengyang, was bombarded by Japanese artillery fire during the Battle of Hengyang. All of it was burned down, leaving only some stone carvings.

Compared to the time at Yuelu Academy, although it was less than a month later, the principal of Shigu Academy came out in person to greet Nie Yu.

Although both are one of the four major academies, there is still a big gap between Yuelu and Shigu.

The president of Yuelu Academy surrendered to the Han army. The political significance of this was no less than that of the retired prime minister of the Qing court, who came out of retirement specifically to assist the Han army in its anti-Qing campaign.

After all, even the retired prime minister of the Qing Dynasty may have studied at Yuelu Academy and was one of its students.

This is not bragging. Historical celebrities such as Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Cai E, and Cheng Qian all graduated from Yuelu Academy.

With the Shigu Academy's voluntary surrender, Nie Yu no longer lacked literate people at least for the time being. With Yuelu Academy as an example, those gentry and wealthy families obviously had less resistance to the Han army.

……

On the third day after the Han army entered Hengzhou City, Zuo Guanlan came to see Nie Yu with a sorted file.

Zuo Guanlan said, "General, you don't know until you see it. Once you see it, you will find that the finances of Hengzhou Prefecture have long been in dire straits. What the prefect Tian said is true. He is indeed an honest official, but he is also a complete unlucky guy."

"Why do you say that?" Nie Yu asked.

Zuo Guanlan said, "Because this guy was betrayed by his predecessor. His predecessor embezzled money and imposed heavy taxes in Hengzhou, causing serious financial deficits. Within a year, the Qing court discovered this, and the previous prefect was stripped of his official hat and punished. He then inherited this mess, and even the embezzled money has disappeared."

What's the point of it disappearing? It was simply given to high-ranking officials, and Qianlong was too lazy to investigate thoroughly because the silver would eventually return to him.

The silver for negotiating crimes was originally embezzled by corrupt officials, and Qianlong came to share the profits.

The Emperor takes the lion's share, the Manchu nobles take the smaller share, and the corrupt officials just have to get a little bit of the spoils.

This way, everyone would profit. The Hengzhou prefect was arrested because he was too tactless, too greedy, and didn't know how to manage his wealth. Nie Yu asked, "So, there's no money left in Hengzhou?"

Zuo Guanlan shook his head: "We don't have much silver or grain left. If we collect this year's taxes, we should be able to make some profit."

Nie Yu sighed inwardly and decided to contact those Huizhou merchants as soon as possible to start the modern private salt business.

Without doing business, and relying solely on wars and raiding the treasury, the money is simply not enough to spend.

The gentry did have money, but the Han army had already divided up their land, and to seize their floating wealth would be too shameful. It would also rapidly corrupt the internal administrative system and destroy the trust and support that the small and medium-sized landlords had worked so hard to build up.

In the next few days, Nie Yu stayed in Hengzhou Prefecture, and at the same time, remotely controlled the Han army and Han army territory in Hunan through the radio.

According to military intelligence, the Han army's territory has become quite large, not counting the Jingzhou base in Hubei.

Although this place is far away from the Han army's southward advance, it is the Han army's hometown after all and the Han army's only provincial base in Hubei. It also occupies the Jianghan Plain and a section of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Its strategic position is extremely important and its status as a base camp is unshakable.

The remaining territory of the Han army was concentrated in Hunan, with the Dongting Lake Plain as the center. Yuezhou Prefecture, Lizhou Prefecture, Changsha Prefecture, Changde Prefecture, and Hengzhou Prefecture were all under the control of the Han army.

This was the essence of most of Hunan Province, and now it has all been lost. The Qing government in Hunan Province is now dead in name only!

……

Early July, the first year of Jiaqing.

Zhao Yunian, a Yao ethnic group from Jintian Village, Jianghua County, Yongzhou Prefecture, gathered people to launch an anti-Qing uprising. They used red cloth to wrap their heads as a banner, called themselves the Red Yao Army, and quickly captured Lianghekou.

The Yao people in nine villages, including Nanmu Chong and Da Chong, had already been in contact. Seeing this, they responded to the uprising one after another. The size of the rebel army expanded rapidly, and soon grew from 500 to 600 people to 2,000 to 3,000 people.

The magistrate of Jianghua was killed, all the property in the city was looted, and the people were forced to join the rebel army.

The negative impact of the loss of Changsha and Hengzhou spread further.

Everyone knows that the people of the Qing Dynasty lived a miserable life. As the Yao people were of a lower class than the Han people (no offense), they belonged to the indigenous tribes and were not liked by the Qing government. They were regarded as second-class people and suffered discrimination.

If the Han people want to submit to harsh policies and mixed factions, they will have to pay double the tax and impose forced labor every now and then. This is how the Miao people rebelled, and these Yao people have also rebelled many times.

However, every time there was a rebellion, it was suppressed. At most, a corrupt official would be killed, but the next one to come would still be corrupt and exploit people as usual.

If the Han army had not reached Hengzhou, the Jianghua Yao people would have been able to endure for another thirty years before launching an anti-Qing uprising, and the uprising was so large that the Qing government mobilized heavy troops from five provinces to encircle and suppress it, and it took two years to suppress the Yao people.

But now, the Han army's capture of Changsha and Hengzhou has given the Yao people great confidence in rebellion.

It turns out that the Qing army has become so rotten, so who would be afraid of the three pounds of rotten nails on the Qing court's broken ship?

The rebel army marched northward, sweeping across Lanshan, Ningyuan and Xintian counties one after another. Ding Yunjin, the prefect of Yongzhou, was so frightened that he almost abandoned the city and fled. He quickly sealed off the prefectural city and sent messengers to Hengzhou for help.

That’s right, we didn’t go to Xiangxi for help, but to Hengzhou Prefecture for help.

The prefect of Yongzhou certainly knew that Hengzhou Prefecture had been annexed by Han soldiers, but even though he knew it, he had no choice. Xiangxi was too far away, and it was impossible for the imperial army to come here. Even if they wanted to come, there was no food.

On the contrary, Hengzhou Prefecture in the east is very close. It is said that the general of the Han army is stationed in Hengzhou. Yuelu Academy has come to surrender, and the respected old principal of the academy is willing to submit.

Asking him to rescue Yongzhou Prefecture is definitely better than letting the Yao people break into Yongzhou City and kill him as the prefect.

In order to save his life, the prefect of Yongzhou no longer cared about whether they were rebels or not. The Han army was about to sweep across Hunan, so how could they still be rebels?
The Yao people in Yongzhou Prefecture rebelled against the Qing Dynasty, which seemed to have triggered the rebellion of the local people in Hunan. The Yao people in the neighboring Baoqing Prefecture (Shaoyang), Xinning and Chengbu also rebelled.

Lan Jinlong, a native of Malindong, gathered more than 3000 people and not only launched an uprising in Jiulong Temple, but also arrogantly proclaimed himself "King Wei", openly changed the reign title to "Gangjian", appointed officials and generals, proclaimed the king's government, and sent troops to attack Wugangzhou City.

The Han army obviously did nothing but capture the city of Changsha, but this gave the gentry and wealthy families in Hengzhou the illusion that the Han army seemed to be swallowing up Hunan and sweeping across half of the southern part of the country!

This also scared away most of the Hengzhou officials, causing the Hengzhou City, which was difficult and time-consuming to conquer, to surrender voluntarily.

The fall of Changsha and Hengzhou, the two big brothers in Hunan, greatly encouraged other ambitious people who wanted to rebel.

It seems that rebelling is not that difficult!

While Nie Yu was still resting in Hengzhou, he received a letter from the general of Guiyang Prefecture.

This General Guiyang was actually just a miner in Linwu County, Guiyang. His real name was Chen Hong. After hearing that the Han army had broken through Changsha, he followed suit and instigated the workers in the government mines to join him in killing the officials and rebelling.

Nie Yu called himself the Grand General, and he followed suit and called himself the Grand General. Since they were both Grand Generals, they could be on equal footing.

The content of the letter was simple: "Brother Nie rebelled against the Qing Dynasty early on, so I will respectfully address him as Big Brother. I want to capture Guiyang. From now on, our two families will unite their territories and fight against the Qing army together. I will go to Guangdong and Guangxi to be the emperor, and Big Brother will be the emperor in Hunan. Isn't that wonderful?"

(Here’s a picture: the red part is the Han army, and the blue part is the area of ​​chaos caused by the White Lotus Sect)

(End of this chapter)