How much wealth is the wealth of the eight kings - Jiangkou Shenyin (Zhang Xianzhong's secret) (2)
Nie Zuoping
Zhang Xianzhong reserved a back road for himself, that is, to lead a very small number of cronies to transport the wealth accumulated over the years out of Sichuan, and to become a rich man incognito in the Lianghu or Jiangnan area.
Zhang Xianzhong wants to go out of Sichuan, there are two roads to choose from, one is the land route to the north, which is commonly known as the Shu Road. However, this road is rugged and precipitous, and Li Zicheng's troops will occupy the area around Boryeong, and a large amount of gold and silver is very cumbersome, which is inconvenient to transport; Therefore, the waterway to the south is the best choice.
Originating from the Minjiang River at the southern foot of Minshan, when it flows to the west of Chengdu, because Dujiangyan is divided into the inner river and the outer river, the two branches of the inner river bypass from Chengdu City, respectively named Fu River, South River, Fu and South two rivers meet in the Hejiang Pavilion in the city, and are called Jinjiang at the beginning. The Jinjiang River flows 60 kilometers south, enters the territory of Pengshan, and flows into the Waijiang River (that is, the main stream of the Minjiang River) at the mouth of the Pengshan River. After that, the Minjiang River flows into the Yangtze River in Yibin after passing through Meishan and Leshan.
In other words, Zhang Xianzhong, who lives in the Shu Palace in Chengdu, has a natural golden waterway that leads to the Jiangnan flower world that he dreams of sustenance in the second half of his life.
However, Zhang Xianzhong encountered a hard bone that could not be gnawed at the mouth of the river, and this hard bone was Yang Zhan. Yang Zhan, a native of Leshan, was born as a martial artist and served as a general at the time. Qing Dynasty scholar Peng Zunsi, is close to Peng Shan Ling, Danling people, and Yang Zhan is a native of Leshan, his grandfather and maternal grandfather and a large number of relatives are Zhang Xianzhong's personal witnesses, Peng Zunsi later wrote a record of Sichuan suffered Zhang Xianzhong's disaster "Zhibi". In "Shu Bi", Peng Zunsi gives a detailed account of two battles that took place in Jiangkou:
At first, Zhang Xianzhong sent a vanguard force to the south along the river, and Yang Zhan set up an ambush at the mouth of the river, defeating Zhang's department, and a large number of Zhang's boats and ships were burned. When Zhang Xianzhong heard the news, he was extremely frightened, and personally led the main force of more than 100,000 people, carrying a huge amount of gold and silver treasures looted from Hubei to Sichuan, and went down the river to fight a decisive battle with Yang Zhan.
Yang Zhan once again successfully used fire to attack him, dividing the army into left and right wings, and sending some light boats to carry flammable materials to Zhang Xianzhong's fleet. Due to the narrowness of the Minjiang River, Zhang Xianzhong's big boat has thousands of heads and tails. Unable to retreat suddenly, coupled with Yang Zhan's troops hitting them with guns from both sides of the strait, Zhang Xianzhong's huge fleet was almost burned to the ground, "the plundered gold, jade, jewelry, and silver sheaths were all sunk to the bottom."
Zhang Xianzhong led the remnants back to Chengdu, and he had to take the northern Sichuan land route instead. The remaining gold and silver were not easy to carry, so he recruited a large number of craftsmen and built a large embankment on the Jinjiang River, which cut off the flow of the Jinjiang River. After that, the embankment was opened, and the Jinjiang River flowed again. As a result, a large amount of gold and silver treasures sank into the river. As for the craftsmen involved in the project, they were all put to death. Zhang Xianzhong's meaning is very clear, I can't take it away, and others don't want to get it. He called this practice "golden". That is to say, not only Jiangkou has Zhang Xianzhong Shenyin, but also Jinjiang in Chengdu has Zhang Xianzhong Shenyin. It's just that the location of the sinking silver in the estuary is roughly accurate, but the sinking silver in the Jinjiang River is unknown.
How much wealth does Zhang Xianzhong have? The records in the history books are all vague words, such as the "History of the Ming Dynasty" said that he sank into the Jinjiang River wealth "Jinbao billions": "Shu Disaster Documentary" recorded his wealth sinking into the Minjiang River: "Hundreds of millions, carrying hundreds of ships." Previously, some media quoted expert estimates that Zhang Xianzhong's wealth was equivalent to about 3 billion yuan now. In fact, this is a very rough and unreliable projection, which may be far from the real history.
So where does Zhang Xianzhong's wealth come from? Examining the historical materials, it is found that there are three sources, one is that he obtained it from the treasury of the Ming government or the vassal king of the Ming Dynasty after conquering the city, the second is from the territory he occupied, and the third is from the people to loot and loot.
Of the three sources, the largest should be the third. The reason is that the government was very poor at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the finances were in an unsustainable collapse, and there was not much silver in the treasury everywhere. The vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty were relatively wealthy, but after all, the number of vassal kings was limited (there were three vassal kings captured and executed by Zhang Xianzhong, namely King Xiang, King Chu, and King Rui, and one vassal king committed suicide because of Zhang Xianzhong's soldiers coming to the city, that is, the King of Shu who was sealed in Chengdu); As for collecting taxes from the territory he occupied, Zhang Xianzhong except that in less than two years in Sichuan, the area of "national land" was relatively large (but it was only relative, and his "orders were carried out, but they were close to provinces, prefectures, and counties, and their orders were not thousands of miles"), and at other times they were just rogues who rushed to the prefecture and ran into the government, and even if they wanted to sit on the land to collect taxes, there was not much tax to collect.
After conquering a city, robbing and even slaughtering civilians was almost a common practice for peasant armies in the late Ming Dynasty. For example, at the Xingyang meeting attended by the leaders of the 13 72nd battalions, Li Zicheng suggested that all peasant armies should work together, "The cities that are destroyed, the children are the only ones." Li Zicheng's suggestion was implemented: "Everyone is like their own words. Later, Li Zicheng adopted the advice of Li Yan, Niu Jinxing and other literati, and gradually transformed from a rogue, "slaughtering to reduce, and scattering the looted property to help the victims", before turning the chrysalis into a butterfly; And Zhang Xianzhong has never changed his reckless nature from beginning to end. In the later period of his reign in Shu, it even developed to the point where "every person who gets it, he will get the money".
In addition, Zhang Xianzhong's vicious greed in accumulating money was not comparable to other peasant army leaders. According to "Shu Bi", Zhang Xianzhong stipulated that he was not allowed to hide gold and silver privately, and if he hid one or two, he would kill the whole family; Hide ten taels and skin them raw. Whistleblowers were also encouraged, and whoever informed and found guilty should give the informant's wife and concubine and horse to the informant. "So the slaves and slaves fought against their masters." Some people secretly had a chance and hid the silver taels in a well or a dark room, and after being found out, "they also sat in accordance with the method". Under such terrifying pressure, a huge amount of wealth has been continuously gathered into Zhang Xianzhong's private pocket. Therefore, it is estimated that Zhang Xianzhong is only 3 billion, which is equivalent to 1/70 of Wang Jianlin or 1/50 of Ma Yun, and even the conditions for entering the 2015 Hurun Rich List are not enough.