Late Ming Dynasty: Starting with the overthrow of the county magistrate, a rebellion was launched to

The next morning, Zhang Da, dressed in light armor, stood before five hundred elite cavalrymen and led over a hundred officials and gentry out of Shaoyang City, heading straight for Xinhua.

Xinhua County is only about 100 li (50 kilometers) from Shaoyang. The mountain roads are rugged, and the further north you go, the more difficult the road becomes.

Along both sides of the official road, the fields were cracked, the rice seedlings withered, and vast stretches of fertile land lay barren, overgrown with weeds, showing no trace of cultivation. This was a stark contrast to the lush, green rice paddies outside Shaoyang city.

After traveling several miles, a village appeared by the roadside, but it was almost deserted, with broken walls and collapsed houses, overgrown with thorns, and no sounds of chickens crowing or dogs barking could be heard. There was no sign of human habitation, only a few crows perched on withered trees, emitting hoarse cries, which added to the desolation.

"Magistrate Zhou, where have those families from this village gone?"

"Reporting to the Vice Commissioner, some members of these families have risen in rank, so they moved to Xiangyang."

"hehe"

Zhang Da sneered and continued walking several hundred steps. A ditch ran alongside the road, where corpses of the starved could be seen scattered about, uncollected, and the stench of decay was nauseating.

"Ugh~"

Zhang Da reined in his horse and stopped. The stench initially made him nauseous, then he felt a sharp pain in his chest. Enraged, he pointed to the starving corpses by the roadside, looked at Zhou Tingchen, the magistrate of Xinhua County, and asked again...

"Magistrate Zhou, what's the explanation for this? Did those families move here? Or is this the Xinhua under your jurisdiction? You've done a good job as a local official!"

Seeing this, Zhou Tingchen could no longer pretend and could only kneel down and kowtow resignedly, drenched in cold sweat.

"My lord, this year Xinhua suffered a severe drought and was ravaged by insects, resulting in a complete crop failure. It is not due to my incompetence, but rather the cruelty of nature... I have done my utmost to provide relief, but alas, our granaries are insufficient, and we are powerless to reverse the situation..."

"A natural disaster?" Zhang Da sneered, pointing his whip at a vast expanse of fertile farmland in the distance. The field ridges were neat, and the seedlings were lush. "There are thousands of acres of fertile land over there. Why are the crops growing so well? I suppose the owner of that land has something to do with you, Zhou Tingchen? Why do natural disasters only harm the common people and not the powerful?"

Zhou Tingchen turned pale and was speechless.

This was the main problem at the end of the Ming Dynasty!

Landlords and powerful families colluded with officials to seize fertile land and conceal the acreage of the land. Poor people, owning only small plots of land, had to bear the full tax burden, plus additional levies and official exploitation. When disaster struck, they were forced to abandon their homes and land, becoming refugees or starving to death by the roadside. These fertile fields, owned by local gentry and powerful families, were naturally carefully managed, while the poor, no matter how they cultivated them, could not feed themselves. How could they not flee? How could the land not lie fallow?

Zhang Da sentenced Zhou Tingchen to death in his heart and continued on his way.

When they finally arrived at a more populated market town, the scene was even more shocking.

The streets were filled with refugees, the elderly and children, all emaciated and begging, their cries of despair echoing through the air. Many were selling their children, parents tearfully binding their young offspring to the roadside, marking them with straw, hoping to exchange them for even half a piece of bran cake to survive.

There were even vegetable vendors... selling them for only thirteen coins a pound...

Zhang Da arrived at the entrance of a grain store and went up to check today's grain prices:

One dou of rice was priced at two taels of silver.

It was comparable to gold. Inside the grain stores, the granaries were piled high with grain, but they were closed and not for sale, waiting to be sold to wealthy merchants and powerful people at high prices, while the common people starved to death in the streets.

No, it can't be said that the government didn't do anything. The government officials, wielding sticks, drove away the displaced people, shouting and beating them like livestock, all to keep the streets clean…

Witnessing this scene, Zhang Da clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white, his chest heaved violently, and his anger almost burst forth.

"Someone come here!"

Zhang Da gently called out, summoning some armored soldiers forward.

"Arrest the owner of this grain store, but don't interrogate him yet. Torture him severely for a day and then force him to reveal his accomplices who like to raise grain prices."

Zhou Tingchen witnessed firsthand the shop owner screaming in alarm, then fighting desperately, and finally being dragged out of the shop like a dead dog, paraded through the streets as a public spectacle. Bags of grain from the shop were also publicly distributed to the starving people.

Magistrate Zhou

After finishing all that, Zhang Da's call was as cold as the King of Hell calling his men.

"I just tried it. Disaster relief isn't difficult. It's just a matter of killing some opportunists. How come when it came to you, the people became homeless, starving, selling their children, and even resorting to cannibalism? Moreover, as the county magistrate, you condoned your yamen runners driving away the people and covering up the disaster! How do you explain this?"

Zhou Tingchen collapsed to the ground, kowtowing repeatedly and begging for mercy.

"This humble servant knows his guilt! This humble servant knows his guilt! I beg Your Excellency to spare my life! This humble servant had no choice but to act. The local gentry and powerful families are very influential, and this humble servant dares not offend them... The imperial court is pressing for the payment of the three taxes, and it is truly urgent. This humble servant had no other choice..."

"well"

Zhang Da said no more and continued on his way. After leaving the market, he traveled for another ten miles or so and arrived outside Xinhua County.

The county town walls were low and dilapidated, the city gates were tightly closed, and there were very few soldiers guarding the city walls... no, there were none at all.

However, there were several county yamen runners and local gentry servants colluding near the city gate to set up checkpoints and forcibly collect tolls. When ordinary people carried loads to the market, even if they only had a few pounds of wild vegetables or a few feet of coarse cloth, they would be robbed of everything. If they resisted, they would be beaten, kicked, and shackled as a public spectacle.

Zhang Da ordered those who blocked the road to be killed in public, and then sent men to the residences of local gentry to confiscate their property.

The group entered the city

The scenery inside the county town is much better.

The mansions were lavishly decorated with carved beams and painted rafters, pavilions and towers, high walls and large courtyards, teeming with servants, and filled with fine clothes, sumptuous food, and singing and dancing. This starkly contrasted with the desolate scene of refugees and starving corpses scattered across the countryside outside the city. The only drawback was that such a scene was only found in the mansions of local gentry...

Inside the county government office, the warehouses were empty, and the grain bins were nearly empty, with only a small amount of stale, moldy, and rotten rice remaining, rendering it inedible. Meanwhile, the magistrate's residence was filled with mountains of gold and silver jewels, and countless silks and satins—all acquired through embezzlement of public funds and extortion of the people.

Little Zhuge pointed to the county government's storeroom and the magistrate's residence, and whispered to Zhang Da, "Brother, this Xinhua County is very wealthy. I just checked, and they have all sorts of taxes—tolls, gate taxes, firewood taxes, farm tool taxes—it's impossible not to confiscate them."

Zhang Da listened silently to Zhou Wenqu's suggestion. He then had his guards bring out pen, ink, paper, and inkstone, and recorded everything he had seen and heard, signing and affixing his seal as evidence of his crime.

Subsequently, Zhang Da and his group left Xinhua and headed to Xinning, Chengbu and Wugang counties.

Everywhere they went, the scenes were exactly the same, or even more tragic.

Chengbu County is located in a mountainous area where Yao and Han ethnic groups live together. The officials there are cruel and inhumane, discriminating against ethnic minorities, levying exorbitant taxes, killing innocent people, instigating ethnic conflicts, and taking the opportunity to extort money.

The people, unable to bear the oppression, once rose up in resistance, but were brutally suppressed by the government troops. They burned, killed, looted, and left no one alive, turning villages into ashes and causing countless deaths.

Wugang Prefecture was the fiefdom of the King of Min. The prince and his relatives were arrogant, extravagant, and licentious. They seized fertile land, abducted women, oppressed the people, and committed all sorts of evil deeds.

Local officials, sycophantic and accomplices to the powerful, allowed the princes and their relatives to run rampant and commit crimes. The common people dared not speak out against them; any slight dissent was met with fabricated charges, confiscation of property, and extermination of the entire family. Even the state granaries were seized by the princes…

However, they all treated the refugees the same way:

Displaced people were forcibly driven into deep mountains and forests, roads were blocked, and people were prohibited from leaving, all in order to maintain the prosperity and stability of the towns.

They planted temporary seedlings in barren fields, whitewashed walls, and created the illusion of a prosperous village, all to prepare for an inspection by higher authorities—a deception that fooled the imperial court.

He embezzled all the disaster relief funds allocated by the imperial court, but reported that the disaster relief was effective and the people were living in peace and prosperity, thus deceiving the imperial court into rewarding him and promoting him to higher positions.

In the end, in order to meet the quota of the imperial court's additional taxes, they did not hesitate to use torture, torment the people, demolish houses and confiscate property, sell the people's wives and daughters to raise the tax, and completely disregard the lives of the people.

Zhang Da suddenly felt like a beast, because when these officials and gentry gave him gifts, he knew it was the hard-earned money of the people, but he never expected it to be this serious...

The officials and gentry from the four counties who accompanied Zhang Da were pale-faced and trembling all the way, as if they had lost their parents. At first, they were able to ride horses and inspect the area with Zhang Da, but later they could only walk, with several soldiers surrounding them to prevent them from running away...

On the fourth day of their inspection, Zhang Da and his group arrived at a village in Wugang Prefecture that had been reduced to ashes. Amidst the ruins, corpses littered the ground—men, women, and children—their deaths gruesome. Some had been hacked to death, others burned to death, and blood flowed like rivers, soaking the soil.

Zhang Da rescued the villagers who were still alive.

Inquiries revealed that the village had gathered in rebellion due to unbearable exorbitant taxes levied by the government and oppression by the local lord, and refused to pay taxes.

Upon hearing the news, the prefect of Wugang personally led his troops and retainers from the prince's residence to besiege the village. They burned, killed, looted, and plundered, leaving no one alive. All several hundred people in the village were killed, their houses were reduced to ashes, and all their belongings were looted...

Standing atop a scorched earth, Zhang Da surveyed the corpses scattered everywhere. His pent-up rage, accumulated over several days, finally erupted. He abruptly turned, his gaze fixed on the officials from the four counties accompanying him. Of all the officials' stares, those of Zhou Tingchen, the magistrate of Xinhua County, were the most piercing.

This person was the most greedy and cruel. The people under his rule starved to death the most, there were the most displaced people, he embezzled the most, and his crimes were the most serious.

"Guards! Execute all the officials of these four counties to appease the spirits of the people!"