Lin Xuhong described in detail the devastation in Haozhou and other places after the Battle of Haozhou. Everyone listened with heavy hearts.
Although there are righteous bandits in the world, in these troubled times, there are even more cruel and unkind bandits. Even the most timid and honest people have a cruel side in their hearts. Once they lose restraint, anyone can completely destroy his cruel side.
was exposed and turned into an unrecognizable ferocious beast, a poisonous snake.
Lin Fu breathed a sigh of relief, temporarily suppressing the anger in his heart, and looked at the situation map of Jiangdong spread out on the desk. Liu An'er's movement situation was clearly marked on the map. Although Liu An'er rose in Hongzepu
At the beginning, the incident was supported by the She family, but at this time, Liu An'er moved the hundreds of thousands of bandits gathered under his command to the upper reaches of the Huaihe River in batches. At least it was certain that Chen Han's three tribes and Liu An'er's men and horses with a little fighting ability were all
Entered Huaishang Mansion.
I have to admit that Liu An'er still has some strategic vision. He did not rashly lead his troops to attack Weiyang or Jiangning in the southeast just because the Donghai bandits, who were directly supported by the She family behind the scenes, were actively coordinating the Changguo Islands in the southeast.
Jiangdong County was the heartland of the Dai Viet Dynasty. Liu An'er led his troops to move to the southeast. This not only meant that most of the King Qin Division stranded in Yannan and Gyeonggi areas would go south to join the war, but the local ethnic groups were also very powerful, making it difficult for Liu An'er to overcome when he went south.
huge resistance.
However, Huaishang has been a place of banditry for decades. Although the bandits have been cleared out many times, the banditry seems to have calmed down in the past year. In fact, there are still a large number of remaining bandits entrenched in the rugged mountainous areas that are difficult to clear out. Besides, Huaishang
Years of drought have made the people's lives miserable, but the exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes have not diminished at all. The strong folk customs are like firewood exposed to the sun.
At present, not only Liu An'er's troops are moving to Huaishang, but also powerful bandits such as Luo Xiancheng and Gong Yucai of Jingchu are also moving to Huaishang. This shows that these groups of people had secret contacts a few months ago.
Even if it is unlikely to form a larger force, the coordinated movement of several rogue forces will be more destructive to the local area.
Liu An'er led his troops to move to Huaishang, which actually relieved the pressure on Yue Lengqiu. On the surface, it looked like Yue Lengqiu led his troops to Huai'an Mansion, and the bandit Liu An'er could not resist the pressure and fled westward.
On the map, in addition to the movements of Liu An'er's tribe, the Changguo Islands in the southeast also drew a large circle with burnt charcoal sticks drawn by Lin Buna, which was obvious and somewhat dazzling.
The Donghai bandits, who She Feixiong directly exerted influence behind the scenes, have captured Changguo Island. Although the use of troops against Mingzhou Prefecture at the beginning of the month was frustrated, it also shows that the Donghai bandits at this time have the ability to attack large cities with heavy defenses.
This is a very fatal thing.
Last year when the East China Sea invaded the prefectures and counties along Taihu Lake, it can only be said that Pingjiang Prefecture and other places had no experience in coastal defense and easily tore through the defense line. In fact, the power of the East China Sea invaders was not strong, otherwise they would not have been frustrated.
At the foot of Jiyang City, the East China Sea bandit forces, which had obviously been integrated after being frustrated, became even more aggressive.
"Perhaps we will return to Chongzhou at the end of this month..." Lin Fu said to Cao Ziang and others.
Gu Wuchen was also supervising Xiangying at this time, and had already requested the court to transfer Jiangdong Zuoying back to Jiangdong County to participate in the suppression of bandits. The court would give a reply at the end of the month at the latest. As long as Jinhai can be temporarily stabilized, Jiangdong Zuoying will not
Reasons to stay in Jinhai.
At this time, it was no longer a matter of whether the court would give Lin Fu the honor of summoning him to Beijing to meet the saint. It was that Lin Fu himself could not spare the time to make this trip to Beijing. Meeting the saint involves extremely complicated etiquette, and it is not a matter of riding.
It can be completed by rushing to Beijing in one day.
*************
Before noon, Lin Xuwen sent someone to invite them to have a meal in the north. Lin Xuwen wanted to personally clean up Lin Xuhong and other Lin family members who came from Jiangning. He hoped that Lin Fu and Lin Mengde would participate together. Lin Fu asked Lin Mengde to go to the north first, and he also
There are some things that I need to discuss with Cao Ziang again.
Lin Fu took his escort through the temporary river-blocking dam to the Tianjin-Haidu Water Transport Department Office in the north in time for dinner. He saw Lin Mengde being pulled by Ma Chao towards Tang Haoxin's residence. Lin Mengde was squeezed by him.
With two glances, Lin Fu was confused for a moment and did not understand the meaning of Lin Mengde's glance, so he went directly to Lin Xuwen to talk about the private food.
Lin Fu wanted to bypass the Jinhai warehouse and transport the private grain to Gyeonggi for sale, bypassing the household department. It was easy to hide it from Tang Haoxin. After all, Tang Haoxin had no informants in Jinhai, but it was difficult to hide it from Lin Xuwen.
In addition to Lin Xuwen's actual control of the local power in Hejian Prefecture, Lin Fu wanted to transport a large amount of grain and grass from Jiangdong to Jinhai, which was inseparable from the cooperation of Lin Ji Warehouse. It was difficult to hide this from Lin Xuwen, and there was no need to hide it from Lin Xuwen.
Lin Fu even thought that after the situation in Jinhai temporarily stabilized, he would pull out all the Jiyun Society's ships and sail south to form an elite water camp, and leave the sale of private grain entirely to the Lin family's fleet.
The power of the East China Sea pirates has become strong enough to seize cities and territories in Zhejiang and Zhejiang. Lin Fu can no longer slow down the pace of forming a navy. His first step is to transform all the sturdy ships under Jiyunshe into warships.
The ships were all taken out.
Private food matters cannot be discussed openly. Lin Fu walked into the back house of the government office and saw Lin Xuwen and Lin Xuhong chatting and laughing in the hall, so he directly invited him to the secret room to discuss matters.
"Brother, maybe you can't imagine what Liu Zhi said to me this morning?" Lin Fu said.
"What happened?" Lin Xuwen asked.
Important bureaucracies, including the Jinhai Water Transport Department and the Jinhai Salt and Iron Department, are all gathering in Wokou New City. The imperial court has just agreed to move the capital of Hejian Prefecture here, which means reorganizing an army based on the remnants of Jinzhong.
The deployment of an elite military force to defend Jinhai is also in line with Li Zhuoping's three-pronged strategic plan - Liu Zhi is likely to serve as the military observer of the Tianjin Navy to exercise the power to supervise the troops stationed in Tianjin and Hainan.
Lin Xuwen knew that his military prestige was far inferior to that of Lin Fu, so his personal control over the soon-to-be-established Tianjin Navy was far inferior to Lin Fu's control over the Jiangdong Zuoying. Liu Zhi did not have any when he was the supervisor of the Jiangdong Zuoyun.
What he has done does not mean that he will not accomplish anything when he becomes the supervisor of the Tianjin Navy. The court will probably not want to see Jinhai become a private army of the Lin family, which will further increase Liu Zhi's power in the Tianjin Navy.
Lin Xuwen even worried that the soon-to-be-formed Tianjin Navy would be like the current Jibei Army, forming a pattern of eunuchs actually leading the army.
Lin Xuwen can only try his best to win over and protect Ma Yigong, Yang Yihang and other Jinzhong generals to prevent Liu Zhi from kicking them out of the Tianjin Navy in the future. As long as they are still in the army, they can at least form a rivalry with Liu Zhi.
.
Lin Xuwen's ears perked up when he heard that Lin Fu mentioned that Liu Zhi had come to see him in the morning, wanting to hear if Lin Fu had anything secret to discuss about Liu Zhi.
"Liu Zhi came here on behalf of Hao Zongcheng and hoped that I would allocate more food to the Jibei Army," Lin Fu said. Seeing that Lin Xuwen didn't understand the connection for a while, he said straightforwardly, "Nowadays, almost all the food stored in Beijing is managed by the Ministry of Household Affairs.
It is controlled by the Gyeonggi Okura. Although it is stipulated that cheap grains are rationed to the civilians every day, the supply is very small, including the elderly, the weak, women and children. Evenly speaking, four taels of corn per person per day is not enough. However, the Gyeonggi
The actual amount of grain put in the warehouse is about eight taels per person per day, and most of the excess goes into the hands of private grain merchants... In addition to the affordable grain supply, the price of grain in Gyeonggi is already four or five times that of Tianjin and Hainan.
Taller."
"Hao Zongcheng also wants to get involved in this business and make a fortune?" Lin Xuwen asked.
"Yes, Hao Zongcheng is quite greedy. He wanted to reap the benefits of private food before, but there was no food source. At this time, he did not dare to deduct wages excessively," Lin Fu said. "He asked Liu Zhi to come to me, probably just to see
This idea came to us only after we transported more than 10,000 kilos of grain from Chongzhou. This grain was outside the plan of the Ministry of Household Affairs. Whether it enters Jinhai warehouse or not is actually decided by us..."
Lin Xuwen touched his chin and said, "Will it make Tang Haoxin and the others suspicious?"
"How can we arouse suspicion? Hao Zongcheng is greedy for food. How could he ever see Tang and Zhang intend to overthrow Hao Zongcheng in this matter?" Lin Fu said.
Nowadays, the daily amount of grain released in Beijing is about 4,000 shi, less than half of which is supplied at a reasonable price. Almost all the excess goes to grain merchants to make profits at high prices. The huge profits made are not meant for the Ministry of Household Affairs or the imperial court, but precisely
They were all greedily taken away by these grain merchants.
Zhang Xie now controls the household department, and it is almost impossible for anyone other than Zhang Xie to obtain excess grain from the warehouses in Gyeonggi. The grain merchants have made huge profits, and naturally a considerable part of it flows into Zhang Xie's private pocket. Since these grain merchants can
It is said that they are all Zhang Xie's personal property, and the grain source is the Gyeonggi warehouse under the Ministry of Household Affairs. Therefore, the abnormally high Gyeonggi grain prices are actually intentional by Zhang Xie and others: to control the tolerance level among the people at a certain level.
Within the scope, it does not prevent them from collecting money from the people and putting it into their own pockets.
If all the surplus wealth in the hands of people in Gyeonggi Province is stolen by Zhang Xie and others, will Zhang Xie be kind enough to lower the price of grain?
No, once greed arises, it is difficult to control people's hearts. Even if Zhang Xie still has the overall situation in mind, the grain merchants under him will become difficult to control.
At this time, Hao Zongcheng should be let in to disrupt the situation. As long as households in Gyeonggi have a second source of food, unless Zhang Xie and Hao Zongcheng can work together, they will be able to drive down the price of grain in Gyeonggi and alleviate the increasingly embarrassing plight of households in Gyeonggi.
Lin Fu was thinking about this, but Lin Xuwen was thinking about other things: first of all, they couldn't break away from the Chu Party at this time, but it was also extremely obvious that if the Chu Party split into two factions, they would naturally side with Tang Gu. At the moment, the price of grain in Gyeonggi
He was manipulated by Zhang Xie and officials from the Ministry of Household Affairs to make huge personal profits. Even if the matter was leaked to Tang and Gu knew about it, the matter would not deteriorate to the point where it could not be dealt with. Besides, Hao Zongcheng and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were in a line of their own in the court. Even if they were to
Putting aside Tang Gu, the Lin family is also qualified to seek refuge with Hao Zongcheng. However, Hao Zongcheng's reputation is too bad, and Lin Xuwen still can't save face and thinks of seeking refuge with Hao Zongcheng. However, the current situation makes it even more unpromising for him to consider seeking refuge with Hao Zongcheng, a eunuch.
Chen, but having a good relationship with Hao Zongcheng will undoubtedly help the Lin family gain a foothold in Jinhai.
"What are you going to do?" Lin Xuwen asked.
"I can't refute Hao Zongcheng and Liu Zhi's reputation, but I can't make a hasty decision either," Lin Fu said, "I just promised to allocate an extra two thousand shi of grain to the Jibei Army this time, and I didn't say anything about anything else, so
I just came here to discuss some ideas with my eldest brother."
"How much food can we spare every month?" Lin Xuwen asked.
"Hao Zongcheng controls the Jibei Army at this time, and Liu Zhi will be the supervisor of the Tianjin Navy in the future," Lin Fu said. "If we provide them with an extra ten thousand shi of food every month, we should be quite happy with each other..."
Lin Xuwen nodded. It is difficult for grain prices in the capital to come down in the short term. With 120,000 kilograms of grain a year, the huge profit is also a considerable amount. The key is how to divide it.
Lin Xuwen looked at Lin Fu and said nothing.
Lin Fu said: "Xuhong came to Jinhai to help you. I think he can do this..." Lin Fu hoped that the more private grain transported to Gyeonggi through the Lin family, the better. In fact, it was 10,000 shi per month.
Liang could not interfere with the good deeds of Huang Zhangxie and the officials of the Ministry of Revenue. Besides, Lin Xuwen actually controlled Jinhai and Hejian Mansion. He did not want to argue with Lin Xuwen about this matter. As long as he could guarantee his own interests, it was enough.