Cheng Lunying didn't believe Xu Wujiang, and Tang Pan and the others really didn't know Xu Huai's true intentions, but thinking about the dazzling and shocking news that came after the death of Emperor Jianji, Cheng Lunying could understand the complexity of the situation and felt a little secret.
At this time, perhaps only a very limited number of people in Chushan, such as Xu Wujiang and Tang Pan, knew about the matter. He suppressed his inner curiosity and deep confusion and said, "Ning Ci sent me here, more to inquire about some information. You guys
If you two don’t have time to see Ning Ci, I can tell you something..."
"Then I'll trouble you, Mr. Cheng..." Xu Wujiang said, cupping his hands.
The supply line needs to be deployed in the shortest possible time, especially the men, horses, and materials stationed in the camp must be in place as soon as possible. Xu Wujiang and Tang Pan really have no way to escape and go to Biyang City in person to entangle Ning Ci, Zhou Yunze and others.
Xu Wujiang immediately sent a person to accompany Cheng Lunying to Biyang City to meet with Ning Ci. Zhou Yunze and others stated that Chushan was recruited by the Privy Council to cooperate with Jinghu North Road and Jinghu South Road to suppress the Dongjing bandit army.
When they first heard the news that Xu Huai returned to Nancai on the day of Emperor Jianye's burial and personally led troops and horses to coordinate with the two lakes to suppress the bandit army, Ning Ci and Zhou Yunze were also shocked. However, after the people from Chushan retreated, Ning Ci,
Zhou Yunze also quickly figured out something unusual.
They are definitely not stupid to be able to sit in this position. Of course they know that marching and fighting and collecting grain and other materials on the spot will have the lowest losses.
Besides, Xu Huai holds the Privy Council's requisition order. In addition to being able to legitimately requisition supplies from Jinghu North Road, more importantly, after the suppression campaign is over, Chushan can pocket the remaining supplies and take away a bunch of supplies.
The bad debts were left to the Jinghu North Road Construction Department and the central government to settle the disputes.
If supplies are not requisitioned on the spot from Jinghu North Road, but are completely mobilized from within Chushan, even if a large amount of losses can be falsely reported to the court, the problem is that the court is so stretched, when will it be possible to fill the bill with Chushan?
?
If the imperial court could provide money and food, how could it have agreed to Chushan's establishment of Nancai County in northern Hubei last year?
There is another point that Cheng Lunying can think of, and Ning Ci and Zhou Yunze cannot fail to notice:
Why did Chushan not ask the prefectures and counties it passed to send troops to protect the supply line from Wuyang to the mouth of the Hualing River in Jingmen, but instead mobilized its elite troops to station at five or six material transfer stations along the line?
Are they really worried that the rebel army will be able to go around to Xiangyang and Nanyang to attack Chushan's supply line?
"Ning Fujun, Chu Shan's actions this time are unusual!" Zhou Yunze tapped his fingers lightly and said to Ning Ci.
Cheng Lunying sat down with a normal expression and looked at Ning Ci from the corner of her eye.
However, Ning Ci pondered for a while with a gloomy expression, and then made a decision: "If Chushan needs to be done, we will do our best to cooperate first. In addition, we will send people to Nancai to meet Marquis Jingsheng to ask for advice...
"
"Don't you need to send someone to Jianye to verify?" Zhou Yunze asked with some surprise.
Nanyang Prefecture has not received the official letter from the imperial court. If the attitude is tough, it can even refuse the Chushan soldiers and horses to enter. The next best thing is to send people to Jianye quickly to verify that there is no problem with Yichuan - just send people to see Xu Huai to confirm.
Whether the recruitment order exists or not, the attitude is too weak.
Ning Ci waved her hand and said, "There is no need to go to such trouble. I believe that Marquis Jingsheng will not forge the Privy Council letter."
Zhou Yunze, as the general judge, is not Ning Ci's staff. He even has the power to supervise and impeach Ning Ci for his political misconduct. However, Ning Ci's handling of this matter can only be said to be too weak, but there is nothing particularly inappropriate. Of course,
If Zhou Yunze felt it was necessary, he could directly send people to Jianye to inquire about the omissions in the writing.
Zhou Yunze hesitated for a while, and did not insist on anything. He just raised his hands towards Ning Ci and said, "Then everything will be arranged by Mr. Ning Fu."
After Zhou Yunze, Cheng Lunying and many officials left, Ning Ci walked back to the house behind the government office.
Ning Ci did not take his post with his family. His residence in Biyang was a quiet courtyard next to the residential area where the government and other officials concentrated. There were thirty or forty servants, slaves and two maids in Nanyang Xina in the courtyard.
The concubine took care of his daily life and said that he was as incorruptible among many officials.
Returning to the study and sitting in front of the desk, Ning Ci looked out the window and fell into deep thought.
Emperor Jianji ascended to Xiangyang
Before his death, Ning Ci had a good relationship with Gu Fan, who was then the envoy of the southwestern route of Beijing. Later, it was mainly because of Gu Fan's strong recommendation that he became the prefect of Nanyang.
Of course, at that time, Zhou He, Gao Chunnian and others also favored Ning Ci - Ning Ci was able to stand out among many scholars. In addition to his better understanding of Tang and Deng as a member of the group of scholars, it was mainly because of him.
He has long made no secret of his dissatisfaction with the people of Chushan who came from a humble background.
Xu Huai's rebelliousness, monopoly of power and dazzling military exploits make others look eclipsed and make people jealous. These are secondary. The real taboo is Xu Huai's tough methods of raising land rent in Rucai and Caizhou, and levying land rent at will.
Things such as the elimination of land and houses, the measurement of land and the equalization of land taxes, and the clearing up of households' encroachment on mountains, forests, rivers, and minerals.
This not only violated the ancestral system of "no land system and no suppression of annexation" since the founding of the Dai Viet Dynasty, but also touched upon the fundamental interests of scholar-bureaucrats above all living beings.
Ning Ci is a direct bachelor of Wenyuan Palace and an acquaintance of Nanyang Mansion. His annual salary is 1,200 guan, which can be said to be generous, but not to mention that he has a wife and children who are far away from his ancestral home. He himself has thirty or forty people in the Nanyang Mansion.
Servants, slaves and two concubines, the annual expenses are not enough to meet the needs of three or four thousand guan.
If a gentry's family does not have land and house, how can it establish a world?
If it is said that most of the gentry mainly do not want to see this trend spread in Dai Viet, there is no direct conflict of interest with Chushan for the time being, but there are too many gentry in Nanyang Prefecture and Xiangyang Prefecture who hate Chushan to the core.
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Huaiyuan used to belong to Biyang County. When the county was established in Chushan, or even earlier before and after the Tongbai Mountain Bandit Rebellion, families such as the Jin family had a large number of fields and houses in Tongbai Mountain. The mountains and forests were destroyed by Xu Huaizheng, or they were cheap.
How can there be no resentment in my heart when I redeem myself?
Before the Chihu people invaded the south, Xiangyang Prefecture was the seat of the Southwest Road Supervisory Department of Beijing. Not only did many subordinate officials come from Rucai, Ru and other places, but the gentry families from Rucai and other places mainly fled to Nanyang Prefecture or Xiangyang City for refuge.
Of course they hope to regain the Central Plains, but they also hope that after regaining the Central Plains, they can continue to occupy the fields and houses that were originally forced to abandon them.
But what kind of rules has Chushan set?
All households who fled south were deemed to have given up their old fields and houses and became official property.
Yang Lin, Liu Yan and others were stationed in Wuyang, Yexian, Liangxian and other places. Even if the gentry and large and small landowners in these places fled with their children and daughters to live in the safer Xiangyang city, they could only continue to arrange for their servants to stay behind and supervise the farming of the tenants.
, a harvest is still guaranteed every year.
However, after the Chushan camp included Rucai and Rucai prefectures, Xu Huai used strong methods to confiscate all these fields and houses. A total of hundreds of thousands of fields were used to resettle the generals who were still stranded in Rucai and Rucai prefectures.
of refugees.
Who would it be that I don’t hate so much in my heart?
Therefore, when Ning Ci went to Nanyang Mansion, everyone expected him to be able to resist Chu Shan from extending his tentacles to Nanyang Mansion.
After the great victory in Huainan, the Zheng family and the Shenwu Army were stationed on the east road of Huainan. The Zheng family and the Shenwu Army generals and soldiers gradually moved out of Nanyang to join the army or settled in Jianye. In order to better resist the red cavalry going south, the imperial court ordered the Sichuan Gorge states to
The county carried out new jurisdictional adjustments and established Xiqin Road and Dongchuan Road, with Gao Junyang and Gu Jiqian serving as appeasement envoys.
Hu Kai, Zhu Hang and others also proposed at that time to separate Nanyang Prefecture and the three states of Sui, Ru and Cai, re-establish the South Jingxi Road, and assign Xu Huai a major responsibility so that the Chushan Army could mobilize more resources and gain greater depth.
, resist and attack the enemy in the middle.
The most fierce opposition at that time was not from Zhou He, Gao Chunnian and other senior officials, but from Nanyang and Xiangyang who moved the capital to Jianye with Emperor Jian's successor. At one time, hundreds of people even gathered in front of the palace gate to kneel down to petition Jianye.
The emperor took back his life.
Emperor Jianji was also afraid of being too involved, so he finally gave up.
Ning Ci has been working in Nanyang for many years, and he can be said to be very familiar with all the places in Nanyang. As expected, Chushan's so-called supply line and several transfer stations in Nanyang Prefecture should be able to properly control the water and land strategic areas.
Ning Ci believed that Xu Huai would send troops to capture Zheng Huaizhong and Zheng Cong in the political affairs hall and eliminate the biggest hidden danger for King Huai, so he would not fail to seek rewards.
With everything in front of him, Ning Ci could only think that no matter how much resistance there was from the court, Xu Huai would forcefully include Nanyang Mansion under Chushan Xingyingye.
At this time, Chushan sent troops to Nanyang Prefecture to maintain and protect the supply line, simply to create an established fact and suppress possible opposition voices in the DPRK and even the local Nanyang Prefecture.
You must know that the Nanyang Prefecture's army is still composed of gentry and generals and military officials from large clans as the backbone. If there is no preparation method, the imperial court directly and forcibly puts Nanyang Prefecture into the jurisdiction of Chushan Camp, Nanyang may not be free of trouble.
Although he claims to have seen through it all, in the current complicated situation, Ning Ci does not think that he has the ability to change anything - King Huai's first priority is to deal with the Huaidong generals. Even if Xu Huai makes more excessive requests, King Huai will probably do it.
Let’s admit it for now, let alone Nanyang Prefecture?
Thinking of this, Ning Ci spread out his paper and pen and wrote a letter. After sealing it, he called two trustworthy servants to him and said, "Quickly lead a few fast horses to the capital and deliver this letter to Mr. Gu Fan."
