Chapter 74: It’s hard to disobey your father’s orders
Just as Zhu Tong was about to take the letter from Su Qiucheng to check his identity, Zhu Zhi coughed lightly and broke his outstretched hand.
Zhu Zhi looked at Su Qiucheng with a gloomy face and said in a deep voice: "What exactly does Jingxiang want to do? We won't talk too much, but we don't have any intention to be concerned. Please forgive me, Mr. Su."
"Zhu Sihu's words are serious. Zhufengtang has set up a pavilion diagonally opposite the post house. At present, there are not many manpower, but Zhu Sihu wants to mobilize one or two hundred good people and tens of thousands of dollars of money.
, just ask someone to come over and give instructions. If I am not in Jiazhou, Wang Xingyuan should stay here to take charge. Wang Xingyuan is the son of Wang Mingqi, and Zhu Sihu and the second young master must recognize him. Wang Xingyuan has been in the mountains these days, otherwise
I will also come to see the eldest and second young masters." Su Qiucheng saw that Zhu Zhi refused to go thousands of miles away, so he stood up, said goodbye and left without saying much.
After signaling Lu Jing to send Su Qiucheng out, Zhu Zhi stood in front of the window, staring at the lush green maple in the yard in trance.
Zhu Tong crossed his legs, picked up the tea cup, took a sip, and said:
"You said Xu Huai is really good at stalking him. We clearly didn't promise him anything in Jingzhou, but before we got to Jiazhou to take a breath, he started to pester us again. But, then again
, if the remnants of the Khitan have really settled west of Qionglai Mountain, it is indeed a top priority for Beijing and Xiangzhou to open up contacts with Sichuan and Shu through Lizhou. If we don’t want to have anything to do with this matter, we should find a way to transfer out of Lizhou as soon as possible.
The state is the one. Otherwise, if we still want to avoid being involved, we can only report this matter to the court in secret so that we can stay out of it..."
"..." Seeing the troubled look on Zhu Zhi's face, Zhu Tong waved his hand and said, "Forget it, I can't sit still in the post house. Just drink tea in the yard and think slowly. I'll get Lu Jing and the others to come."
Let’s go to a restaurant in the city to have a drink and get some news. We’re not familiar with the place and we’re going to Lizhou in the dark. We don’t know how many bugs are waiting for us..."
When Zhu Tong left the small courtyard where he stayed, he called Lu Jing and walked out of the official post to the bustling long street.
When Zhu Tong set out from Jianye, he thought Jiazhou was a remote place, but he didn't want to abandon the ship and go ashore. He found that the commercial port in Jiazhou city was prosperous, and people came and went in the streets and alleys. The population was denser than the ordinary towns in the south of the Yangtze River, but the weather was also bad.
It is much cooler than Jiangnan.
"Second Young Master..."
Su Qiucheng emerged from an inconspicuous alley and saluted Zhu Tong.
Zhu Tong looked at Su Qiucheng and was a little hesitant.
Su Qiucheng said: "The tall building in front is the Huichuan Tower, a famous place in Jiazhou. The building is six feet high. When you climb up and have a drink, you can see the tower in the distance. The field of vision is very wide. Let's go and have a drink together to enjoy the city view?"
"It's okay to drink two cups!" Zhu Tong said with a laugh.
At that time, most of the cities were single-story buildings, and two-story wooden buildings were quite rare. Huichuan Tower was six feet high and four-story wooden. It was located in the west part of Jiazhou City and stood out like a flock of chickens. Comparable to it,
A taller pagoda in the east city.
Although it was not yet time for the banquet, the Huichuan Tower was still bustling with people. Many merchants passed by and climbed up to look at the river.
Su Qiucheng's entourage had already arrived at Huichuan Building and wanted to go down to a private room on the third floor.
Zhu Tong walked in and opened the window to look out, and saw the city of Jiazhou stretching six miles across, and the river flowing mightily from the south of the city. At the time when the water was vast, the distant mountains were green and shrouded in lavender mist.
.
"Countless able men and women from Beijing and Xiang have fought bloody battles. I only hope that these great rivers and mountains will not be trampled by the barbarians. The second young master and Zhu Sihu have traveled north and south these years and tried their best to control the barbarians. They don't want to fall short of their achievements, right?"
Su Qiucheng stood behind Zhu Tong and asked.
Zhu Tong turned around, sat in front of the case, looked at Su Qiucheng, who looked unattractive but had an indescribable spirit, and asked:
"How long has it been since Mr. Su settled in Jiazhou? I have never seen Mr. Su in Chushan before?"
The Zhu family has been too closely involved with Chushan over the years, otherwise they would not have been deeply suspicious of Emperor Shaolong, and the Zhu family would not have to be so cautious in their words and deeds.
Zhu Tong basically recognized all the important people in Chushan, but he had never met Su Qiucheng before. He was curious about why Xu Huai randomly sent unimportant people to take charge of such an important matter.
"I have only been in Jiazhou for half a year. I was a little-known official in the Chief Registrar Department of the Production Department. I only know a little bit about Qionglai Mountain. I made you fall in love with me and sent me to Jiazhou as Zhu Sihu, the second son.
Efficacy..." Su Qiucheng said.
"When did you receive the order from Jingxiang that you must obey our orders in everything?" Zhu Tong asked curiously, "We met with Xu Huai in Jingzhou half a month ago, but we didn't agree to anything.
, is there any misunderstanding, or maybe Xu Huai has changed his mind long ago, but the latest order letter has not been sent to you yet?"
"There has indeed been no new order letter recently. The order letter I received before was written by the envoy himself a month ago. Of course, I just learned about Zhu Si's release to Lizhou."
Su Qiucheng took out the commander's letter from his sleeve pocket again, handed it to Zhu Tong for inspection, and said,
"Your Majesty ordered me to wait in Jiazhou before, but Zhu Sihu followed suit and speculated that the Second Young Master might accompany Zhu Sihu to the west. As for why there was no new order letter, I beg your Majesty for your early warning."
It is expected that Zhu Sihu and the second young master are people who understand the righteousness well. Whether we agree verbally or not will not prevent us from obeying the orders of Zhu Sihu and the second young master."
Zhu Tong could not verify the authenticity of the seal stamped by the Jingxiang Production Department, but he could still read Xu Huai's handwriting.
He opened the order letter that Su Qiucheng handed over, glanced at it, and said with a wry smile: "Do you want to dominate us?"
"The Second Young Master's words are serious," Su Qiucheng said. "When I was serving in the Zhisi Department, I had long heard that the Second Young Master did not stick to trivial matters in order to reward his ambitions, and he and the envoy were on the same path. Qiucheng thought that this was a sign of gratitude to the Second Young Master.
recognition, approval..."
Zhu Tong waved his hand, indicating that he could not defeat Su Qiucheng, and asked: "What is the situation in Lizhou now? You should know that Lizhou has thousands of mountains and rivers, and many barbarians live together. If you really want to achieve something big, I'm afraid there will only be one or two hundred people."
What’s the point of it?”
After Su Qiucheng led his team to make contact with the Khitan explorers, he stayed in Jia, Li and other places without leaving. On the one hand, he conducted more detailed explorations of Qionglai Mountain, Dadu River and other places, and initially contacted the Qingqiang and Wuman tribes.
He also tried to contact the local government in Jiazhou to collect more intelligence information. On the one hand, he established a warehouse in Jiazhou and established a preliminary business network.
When Zhu Tong asked about this, Su Qiucheng also told the truth:
"The Qiongbu River, which was originally south of Jiazhou, belonged to the Dali Kingdom, but was blocked by mountains and rivers. The Qiongbu barbarians had always been disobedient to the Dali Kingdom and had closer contacts with Shu. During the Jiabao period, they gradually surrendered to Dayue and were included in it.
Lizhou is the land of Jisi, and to the west of Jiazhou is the place where the Qingqiang tribes have lived - in general, the larger tribes in Lizhou can be divided into twelve surnames, and five surnames are distributed along the Dadu River. Although the leaders of the tribes are hereditary
The prefectures do not control each other internally, but they have close business contacts with Jiazhou. There are occasional barbaric disturbances, and the imperial court also orders tribes who inherit the prefectures to conquer. In recent decades, there have been generally no major changes. As far as the current situation is concerned,
Zhu Sihu and the Second Young Master do not need to take any big action when entering Qionglai Mountain. The most urgent task is to build a postal post along the Dadu River..."
The rapids and dangerous shoals in the Dadu River are unfavorable for trading. After half a year of exploration, the passage currently determined to cross the mountains at the southern foot of Qionglai Mountain and connect to Dajianlu in the west starts from Longyou County, Jiazhou, and proceeds westward along the north bank of the Dadu River.
After arriving at Jiuli Town, we then go northwest over the mountains until we reach Dajianlu. The whole journey is about 500 miles, mostly on remote trails.
For a caravan of more than a hundred people to complete the journey, it would take about ten days no matter how smoothly it went. It would be impossible to sleep in the open air and be exposed to the wild mountains day and night - even if we did not take into account bandits and plundering.
The barbarian tribes encountered along the way became greedy, and neither humans nor animals could bear it.
Therefore, the first step, which is actually the most critical step, is to set up eight to twelve large and small inns along the road.
Only by establishing a complete postal system, not only can people and horses rest and recuperate midway, so as not to be overly consumed, but also they will have a better grasp of the distribution of bandits along the way. They can conduct reconnaissance in advance, and if bandits are dispatched, they can avoid entering the post station in time.
Resistance can also establish a good relationship with the nearby barbarian tribes.
Only by establishing a postal system first can it be possible to proceed with the subsequent construction of larger-scale plank roads.
There is no way for Jingxiang to do this directly. The Qingqiang tribes will not pay attention to Jingxiang at all, and they don’t know which vegetables Jingxiang sells.
Only brothers Zhu Zhi and Zhu Tong promoted it in the name of the imperial court, and Jingxiang provided the necessary manpower and material support, and actually took control after the postal system was established.
"The Qingqiang tribes have close business relations with Jiazhou, and tribute and other matters are also controlled by Jiazhou," Zhu Tong asked, "How could Jiazhou turn a blind eye and pretend not to know about the post office?"
"Although Zhufengtang has built a shop in Jiazhou City, it has not made any big announcement yet," Su Qiucheng said. "The second young master runs Fengyue Tower in Jianye. His fine wines are well-known in Beijing. He was impeached for hurting people and had to
It is a pity to give Fengyue Real Estate to others. However, Qionglai Mountain is rich in cinnabar, nectar, tung oil, copper, iron, and rock salt. In addition to merchants meeting, Jiazhou was also famous for iron smelting and rock salt as early as a thousand years ago.
In the name of Fengyue Tower, the young master followed Zhu Sihu to Qionglai Mountain to run various businesses. Qian Langjun only needs to take care of it..."
Jiazhou is already in a corner on Xichuan Road, and it is not taken seriously by the court. Even if the Gao family intends to operate Xichuan Road as their own private land, they currently mainly extend their tentacles to Chengdu Prefecture where Xichuan Supervisor is located.
Therefore, since Zhizhou Qian Yunshu, on the one hand, Jiazhou officials have not had close ties with the DPRK and China, and are not very sensitive to the affairs of the DPRK and China. On the other hand, they themselves are relatively slack.
Zhu Zhi is currently exiled to Lizhou, but there are only a few members of the Dayue clan left. Princess Rongle is after all his majesty's cousin, and King Wuwei Zhao Yi is Zhu Zhi's uncle. Zhu Hang is no longer welcome in the court.
He is still serving as the Minister of Honglu Temple. Who knows that one day the Zhu family will be turbulent again and take a step forward?
Now the Zhu brothers want to do something in Qionglai Mountain. As long as they don't offend Qian Yunshu and their own interests, can they stop them?
"You mean, we told the Qingqiang people to build a post station in the name of the imperial court, but for Jiazhou, we pretended to build a warehouse in the mountains in the name of Fengyue Tower?" Zhu Tong said with a headache, "It's just that this matter can
I was able to hide it for a while, but a year or two later when the postal post was completed and the news spread to the court, I was afraid that my two brothers would be expelled from the Zhu family!"
"I don't know whether in the heart of the second young master, it is more important to save all the people from fire and water, or whether it is more important to never disobey his father's orders..." Su Qiucheng stared at Zhu Tong and asked.
