Although the seizure of the capital had a huge impact on society and the people of the world, they gradually calmed down after a few days. Life was not easy for ordinary people. Daily necessities were the most important. Some people had to think about how to survive.
On the night the city was conquered, the Jin merchants in the city were terrified. Zhang Rushen, the master of the Jin merchants who went to Liu Fucheng for a solution, was especially flustered. He was an old Liaodong merchant who had been doing business in the north before Fushun was conquered by the Kennu. After Fushun was conquered, he was even released by Nurhachi himself. The chieftain even asked him to gather information in the Central Plains and transport goods to Liaodong.
After the Kennu conquered Liaodong, they were even more ruthless than the Revolutionary Army. The barbarians were draining the pond to catch the fish. Even though Liaoyang was emptied by Zhou Qingfeng, they still obtained more than 20 million taels of silver from Liaodong and Liaoxi. This was the wealth of millions of Han people in the north.
With this money, the Jurchens could attract merchants from all over the world. It was the Ming Army who gave them the goods. Among them, the Jin merchants that Zhang Rushen belonged to were the most hardworking. They often bought goods from Datong and the capital, passing through Zhangjiakou and the Mongolian territory to reach Shenyang. They sold everything from food and tea to guns and firearms without any scruples.
Zhang Rushen always felt that he could do whatever he wanted as long as he settled the bureaucracy. However, he soon discovered that a more terrifying person was eyeing him. The Revolutionary Army's newspaper reported on the Jin merchants' business activities from the very beginning. It described in detail the routes they used to transport goods and the impact they brought. It also called them traitors and traitors.
At first, the Jin merchants did not take it seriously. They all felt that the Revolutionary Army was just a group of traitors trapped in the Liaonan peninsula. They actually published a newspaper accusing them of treason. Wasn't this a pain in the ass? Moreover, they felt that 'I want to betray the country and become a traitor'. What can you do about it? Come and bite me!
The Revolutionary Army really did not want to let the Jin merchants go.
With the expansion of the Revolutionary Army's power, the influence of the Revolutionary Army's propaganda department increased rapidly. When Zhou Qingfeng conquered Tianjin, the officials and people of Daming were only curious about the news from the Revolutionary Army, but they soon found that reading the newspaper was a necessity in life.
The Revolutionary Army's information dissemination method that surpassed the times soon conquered the minds of the masses. As the Revolutionary Army expanded again and again, people paid more and more attention to it. Naturally, the newspaper spread further and further, becoming stronger and stronger. The opinions in the newspaper were also becoming more and more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
As for traitors and traitors, even Daming's officials and gentry disliked them. After the Shanxi merchants were labeled as such, they were pointed at wherever they went because they spoke Shanxi dialect. Even the people of Shanxi were criticized.
As time passed, the business channels of Jin merchants gradually withered under the intense public opinion. Even the Shanxi people themselves hated these traitorous merchants. Only then did Zhang Rushen's group understand what 'public opinion can melt gold' and 'public opinion pressure' meant. Only then did they know how much damage the sharp words in the newspaper could do to them.
Although the Jin merchants continued to do business with Kennu, they became more and more careful, and it became more and more troublesome. Especially after the establishment of the Revolutionary Army's Special Operations Command, they cooperated with the Ministry of State Security to carry out targeted elimination of the Jin merchants and behead the traitors. After every successful operation, the Revolutionary Army's newspaper would also publicly announce the results of the operation, saying that certain traitors had been executed.
The people naturally applauded when they saw this. After all, since ancient times, the Chinese civilization had praised Yue Fei, a loyal and patriotic hero, while nailing traitors like Qin Hui to the pillar of shame and scolding them for hundreds of years. When his colleagues were killed one after another, Zhang Rushen knew that he was afraid. He felt that he did not provoke the Grand Marshal of the Revolutionary Army, but the latter just wanted to kill him.
Zhang Rushen ran all over the capital and even sent people to Tianjin to beg for mercy, but the Revolutionary Army did not talk to him at all. Zhou Qingfeng hated this group of unscrupulous merchants who profited from the calamity of the country and earned money from the blood and flesh of the Han people to the bone. The degree of his hatred was even greater than his hatred for the Great Ming officials. He swore to kill them all.
On the night when the capital was breached, Zhang Rushen knew that he was going to be in big trouble. He escaped from the Jin merchants' guild with a small number of trusted aides. Not long after, the Revolutionary Army's Ministry of State Security brought soldiers to arrest them and interrogate them about the whereabouts of the guild members. This ruthless method scared Zhang Rushen out of his wits. It turned out that there were people in this world who did not care about money and only wanted their lives.
On the night when the city was breached, the Revolutionary Army took out the list that they had prepared and started to arrest people. More than 20,000 soldiers were stationed everywhere, and thousands of mobile troops could be deployed to search the whole city. When a large number of militia and workers arrived two days later, the inside and outside of the city would be blocked. Even a fly would not be able to fly out.
Fortunately, Zhang Rushen was prepared for the worst situation. He brought his trusted aides to bribe the head of a small temple in the city. All the people ran to the temple to be monks. Even their identity certificates were complete. A normal search would not be able to find anything. However, after staying in the temple for a few days, he still wanted to escape. Naturally, he came out to inquire about the news.
Once he inquired, he found that the entire capital had changed.
The Revolutionary Army's Ministry of Internal Affairs was reorganized into the State Council. The office was located in the original Imperial Palace of the Six Ministries. Xu Bing officially took the position of Premier. The first thing she did was to check the population and fields of the capital and the surrounding towns. Due to the complete distrust of the officials and data from the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Personnel of the Ming Court, the Revolutionary Army decided to rely on its own personnel to do the population and fields statistics.
The cadres trained by the Blessed Enclave were put to good use. Every day, there were 30 students with high school diplomas who were quickly trained into junior high school students in the Blessed Enclave. There were already more than 1,000 junior high school students in the State Council. Xu Bing formed a working group with 10 junior high school students. They would be led by a senior high school student with 100 elite militia to check the entire city.
The efficient and independent investigation work cleared out the people and properties that had been hidden in the past one by one. Even a large number of social miscellaneous people were all exposed. All kinds of local hooligans, thugs, and evil organizations were constantly attacked and cleaned up. Many forces with deep backgrounds that no one dared to provoke in the past were suddenly uprooted and turned into ashes.
In half a month, thousands of people died in the entire capital. Every day, there were people who wanted to escape from the city. Every day, there were people who were arrested and interrogated. Every day, there were people who were publicly executed. At dawn outside the Meridian Gate, there were people who went to watch the fun. At noon, there were people who were beheaded one after another. That piece of land was covered with blood like a river. No matter how it was washed, it could not be cleaned.
The cruel methods of the Revolutionary Army were terrifying. It was not something that the Great Ming Dynasty's people who had lived peacefully for a long time could imagine. But with so many people dead, the market immediately became a lot more relaxed.
The people no longer had to worry about being entangled by ruffians. Many people even didn't have to pay back the usury. They didn't have to worry too much when they went out in the middle of the night because the Revolutionary Army soldiers were everywhere on the streets. As long as they didn't commit crimes, everyone's life immediately became a lot more relaxed.
However, Zhang Rushen found that all the friends he could contact in the past were all dead. No one could help him anymore. The bigwigs in the officialdom were either arrested and liquidated, put under house arrest to repent, or gathered together to rebuild. No one could help Zhang Rushen get through. At this moment, he felt that it was difficult to move an inch, as if he was blind.
In the past, it was as difficult as climbing up to the sky for the Ming court to punish these people. Now, the Revolutionary Army wiped them all out in one breath.
Zhang Rushen complained incessantly about this situation, and it caused him to tremble with fear. Because recently, the newspaper was publishing the list of executions. He was familiar with many of the names on it. Among them, there were Jin merchants who had been arrested and interrogated. The crime was very simple — treason.
Because there were too many dead people in the city, the Revolutionary Army followed the psychological needs of the people and also found some monks and Taoist priests to expiate the souls. Zhang Rushen pretended to be a monk and was also asked to go everywhere to chant scriptures and perform rituals. He had been doing business outside the Great Wall all year round. His weather-beaten appearance made him look like a natural old man. When he wore a shabby monk robe, he really looked like a monk.
The first family that Zhang Rushen expiated was an official. The head of the family was an assistant minister of the Ministry of Revenue. He was under house arrest in the palace and hanged himself that night. When the body was sent back, it couldn't even enter the house because the house had been sealed. The body could only be left outside the house. A bunch of relatives who were driven out were crying bitterly on the street.
The whole family was crying miserably, but the soldiers of the Revolutionary Army guarded the door and didn't allow them to go in to collect their clothes. The working group responsible for checking the population was also very rude. They ordered all the servants to go home on the spot and the homeless to go to the shelter run by the government of the Revolutionary Army to wait for resettlement.
This family was considered to be broken up. The wife and children were separated. In an instant, the whole family could only go their separate ways. Zhang Rushen was chanting scriptures to expiate the souls while watching this scene with sorrow. However, he didn't expiate for long. The impatient working group called for the corpse collection team to drag the body to be cremated. At the same time, they counted the belongings in the house.
The assistant minister of the Ministry of Revenue was in charge of money and grain. This kind of official position couldn't be promoted without some evil intentions. Zhang Rushen saw the working group send people to carry out boxes of silver ingots from the yard. It was said that they were found in the cellar.
A box of silver was extremely heavy. It weighed at least eight thousand, if not ten thousand. It needed four militiamen to carry it. The counting staff had to take out the silver one by one and weigh it. When the silver was spread out at the scene, it was really a dazzling white.
"Sigh … if I knew this would happen, what's the use of being so greedy?" Zhang Rushen sighed not only for the assistant minister but also for himself. The Jin merchants also worked hard and risked the world's condemnation to make money. Now, not only did they not make money, they were also going to lose their lives. "Why does the Revolutionary Army have such a monster in this world? It makes me restless. "
Before he finished lamenting, Zhang Rushen was sent to another place to expiate the souls. This time, it happened to be the Jin Merchant Guild Hall. The hall was filled with dirty blood. It was obvious that on the day the city was breached, there was a big battle here. When he returned, he didn't see any acquaintances. Instead, a few odd-job workers were sent to clean up the place. They said, "These Shanxi guys aren't easy to deal with. They even have cultivators helping them. It's a pity …"
What's a pity?
It's a pity that the Revolutionary Army is stronger.
So what if the cultivators know spells? They'll be blown up even if they throw a few grenades over. The guards in charge of cleaning up the place didn't even call for help. They just fired a volley of guns and the Jin Shang cultivators were beaten to a pulp. Zhang Rushen thought that his colleagues were quite capable and some of them would be able to escape. Now, it seemed that it was hard to say whether they would survive or not.
Zhang Rushen didn't feel comfortable staying in this place. He recited some scriptures to expiate the souls. Just as he was about to leave, he saw a odd-job worker suddenly approaching him. He took a closer look and immediately exclaimed, "Liu Fucheng, you actually didn't run away."
Although the odd-job worker was in disguise, Zhang Rushen recognized him at a glance. The odd-job worker secretly raised his finger and hissed. He lowered his voice and asked, "Brother Zhang, how have you been? It seems like you're doing well. I want to rely on you. "
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