In April in Chongzhou, the night wind was not cold on the face. Lin Fu went down the mountain under the moonlight. There was a stone path at the southern foot that zigzagged down to the riverside dock.
Although it had only been a year and a half since the She family surrendered, but in the middle and late stages of the ten-year East Fujian war, the She family felt that their previous strategy had fatal limitations. When the She family realized this, they were already in a difficult situation, but they tried their best to mobilize
The strategic layout of resources has been adjusted, and the layout has been carried out in advance on the islands of Changguo County and Mingzhou, Jiahang, Pingjiang, Hailing and other prefectures and counties. Du Rong, Shujia, Guangjiao Temple and Donghai Bandits have experienced a sharp expansion in power in recent years.
Shejia arranges the placement directly.
Put in the Central Plains, Zilang Mountain is really not a famous mountain. It is only 34 to 50 feet tall, which is only a little over 100 meters high. The Jinhai is about 60 meters long from bow to stern.
Well, but in the alluvial land of Hailingfu, the terrain of Zilang Mountain is extra important. If you get it, you can control the river mouth and screen Chongzhou.
The terrain of Zilang Mountain is so important, and there are monasteries to protect it. The She family has invested a lot of resources in it in recent years, carrying out large-scale construction projects and building temples along the mountain. In addition to the Zen monastery buildings on the east and north slopes, there are also temples on the southwest cliff.
A pier was also built on the lower bank of the river.
Although the pier is not big, the location was chosen very carefully, so that the Jinhai, which is fully loaded and has a draft of three to four feet deep, can dock directly there.
When Lin Fu came down the mountain, the Jinhai was docked at the pier, and other ships were anchored in the river channel not far from the port, and they were all ready to leave the port and set sail.
Yue Lengqiu acted very quickly. Before the results of the Qingzhou Trial came out, he moved to seal up the Xihe Society and the Sun family's fields, houses, and property. There was nothing that could be done about it. As the governor of Jianghuai, Yue Lengqiu could not do even this.
If not, he doesn't have to mess around.
When Sun Wenbing rushed to Jiangning, except for forty or fifty private boats of the Sun family that were promptly transferred to the name of Jiyun Society, most of the land, houses and property were seized and destined to be confiscated and entered into the officialdom. Most of the members of the Xihe Society were poor.
The family did not have the financial resources to purchase private property, so the Xihe Hui and the Sun family were sealed off, and thousands of their family members were driven out and temporarily settled at the mouth of the river.
In order to avoid long nights and nightmares, at least before Yue Lengqiu could react to the news that the Jiangdong Left Army had completely controlled the situation in Chongzhou, he took people out of Jiangning. Lin Fu had already sent people to quickly go there before returning to Chongzhou to land.
Contact Jiangning and ask Jiangning to immediately organize a boat to transfer the family members of the Xihe Congregation.
There are nearly 500 miles of waterways from Jiangning to Chongzhou, and there are many waterways in and out of Taihu Lake. It is not very safe. We also need to prevent Yue Lengqiu from sending pursuers from Jiangning - which involves the transfer of thousands of people. As Jianghuai
The governor-general Yue Lengqiu had too many excuses to obstruct the situation. As soon as the situation here calmed down, Lin Fu asked Ge Cunxin, Ning Zechen, and Zhou Tong to lead their soldiers overnight to take a boat upstream to respond.
Lin Fu came to the dock and gave Ge Cunxin, Ning Zechen and others a few words of advice, then asked them to weigh anchor and set sail, taking advantage of the east wind and heading westward against the current.
Occasionally, the sound of fighting could be heard in the mountains when Sou Shan encountered resistance from the monks. Watching the ship sailing westward under the moonlight, Lin Fu stood on the pier for a while and blew the night wind before walking along the mountain path and turning to the Donglu Zen Monastery.
*********
Lin Fu walked up the gentle slope, and the Donglu Temple was in front of him. It was a complex of buildings with entrances to the courtyard. Outside the temple was the Donglu Mountain Gate, and the tall and thick courtyard walls extended to the southeastern river beach.
Lin Fu set up his command camp at the Eastern Foot of the Zen Temple, but he did not fight for it. Instead, he stood on a hillock and observed the terrain of the eastern foot of Zilang Mountain. The military camp was right in front of him. He waded across the shallow water, only three hundred steps away.
"Ah, you're here!" Lin Mengde hurried out of the house and saw Lin Fu standing on a high place admiring the moonlight. He didn't ask what useful information Lin Fu got from She Feihu's wife and sister, and smiled.
He said, "We are all so busy that we are smoking, but you have the leisure to look at the moonlight..." He came closer and stood next to Lin Fu, looked at the sparkling river water under the moonlight, and said with emotion, "
The moonlight is really beautiful, and I don’t know how many beautiful scenery I will miss if I am so busy.”
"I want to build an earth-rock dam here so that the two mountains can be integrated into one. The shallows inside the dam can be turned into flat land, and the water camp military port can be built outside the dam..." Lin Fu pointed to the southeast between the military mountain village and the military mountain village.
Qian Shui, said to Lin Mengde.
"Are you thinking about this..." Lin Mengde sighed and took a closer look at the surrounding terrain. He was very good at calculations. To build such an earth-rock dam, it would only take more than a month to mobilize two to three thousand people to work. Maybe
It requires an investment of thousands or even tens of thousands of taels of silver. In the past, he would have thought that the amount of the project was astonishingly large. For Chongzhou County, which only had 10,000 taels of silver in the autumn grain harvest, building such a dam was really a waste of money.
It was a huge project. But from last autumn to this year, in order to transform Xisha Island and resettle the refugees, the actual amount of money they invested in Xisha Island had reached a huge amount of one hundred thousand taels. He felt that between Junshan and Zilangshan,
Building an earth-rock dam is no longer beyond imagination.
"Are you sure that we can take the initiative to build Chongzhou New City?" Lin Mengde asked uncertainly.
It is most beneficial to build an earth-rock dam between Junshan and Zilang Mountains together with the construction of a new city in Chongzhou. However, building a new city is a local matter and belongs to the Hailing Prefecture, the Xuanfu envoy, and the governor.
Under the jurisdiction of the government, the Jiangdong Left Army only used Chongzhou as its source of salary and was stationed in Chongzhou, without taking the initiative to build a new city.
"Let's see how much money Hailing Mansion and the county chief can allocate to Chongzhou to build a new city," Lin Fu said. "Unless Yue Lengqiu wants to completely ruin the situation in Jiangdong County, he still has to follow the rules of who gets the money and who has the say.
of……"
"I don't think he would mind throwing these seemingly heavy burdens into our hands!" Cao Zi'ang came from behind and took Lin Fu's words and said, "There are some simple truths in this world. Raising troops requires money. As long as it's
People need to eat, and as long as they have iron armor, swords, and guns, they will rust. People will die in wars, and soldiers, armor, and war equipment will be worn out. Pensions, replenishing armor and war equipment, and recruiting and replenishing soldiers all cost a lot of money.
Yue Lengqiu also understood this truth very well, so after he seized the property of Xihehui and Sunjia Tianzhai, he rushed everyone to the mouth of the river for us to take over. He just wanted to smash the robes into our hands and see us holding on.
The day I don’t live there…”
The reason is very simple. Once the source of pay dries up, no matter how elite the Jiangdong Left Army is, it will only be gradually depleted without effective supplements and will not be able to grow stronger.
The vast majority of the peasant armies who initially raised the flag of rebellion eventually became rogue bandits that harmed the local area. The most fundamental reason was that they could not get effective and stable supplies and had to rely on looting to survive. Maybe they would start selectively.
Loot the corrupt officials and bullies in the local area. After the corrupt officials and bullies have completely looted and there is no oil or water to dig out, they will select the good gentry and wealthy households to loot. Then the small and medium-sized landowners and farmers will suffer, and eventually the local order will be completely destroyed. Naturally,
He became a bandit who was deeply hated by local officials and people.
She Feixiong knew this and rushed to destroy Chongzhou City before Jiangdong Zuojun returned.
Yue Lengqiu knew this, so he shouldn't mind that the initiative to build Chongzhou New City fell into Lin Fu's hands. As long as he allocated two to thirty thousand taels of silver to this side in a symbolic way, Lin Fu would not be able to raise it from the local government.
With enough money, he could not build a new city, but he could still find an excuse to punish Lin Fu's crimes.
Lin Mengde smiled slightly and said: "Perhaps Yue Lengqiu thought that the Lin family was the financial source behind Jiangdong Zuojun at this time. He was probably waiting to see the Lin family's financial resources exhausted..."
"Yue Lengqiu is not able to sit in this position because he is a mediocre person who is ignorant of practical matters," Cao Zi'ang said. "How much money is needed to build the Jiangdong Left Army into the elite it is today? To keep the Jiangdong Left Army's combat effectiveness from declining, it must be sustained.
He knew how much money he had invested... He led the Huai army to regain Shanglinli and conquered Shanglinli to garrison the Changhuai army. In addition to the fact that Shanglinli was indeed an important place to control the south entrance of Hongzepu, he did not rule out that
He has restricted the possibility of Dongyang Xiangyong. Another possibility is that he does not want to return Shanglinli to the Lin family. It can be expected that in the next step, he will definitely restrict the development of Jiyun Society and the Lin family in Jiangning..."
"That's right, the Hai Cao River seems to be under our control for the time being, but right now we are still in the early stages of making ends meet," Lin Mengde said. "As long as the Yellow River breach is sealed, the river channels in Pingyuan Prefecture are restored, or the imperial court moves the capital to Jiangning, the Hai Cao River will be
Null and void... Yue Lengqiu wants to crush us in the general situation!"
"The truth is sometimes very simple," Lin Fu smiled slightly and said, "But they think too simply..." He thought of those dazzlingly beautiful women on the top of the mountain, Yue Lengqiu, Luxury Feixiong and others.
It can be said that he is a first-class hero and general, but his eyesight is not as good as that of a woman. He did not follow Cao Ziang. Lin Mengde said that he was ridiculed on the top of the mountain just now and saw Cao Ziang holding a pile of books.
, he was also followed by guards, but he was reluctant to let the guards carry these books for him, and asked, "What treasure are you holding and looking at so closely?"
"Guangjiao Temple's land register," Cao Zi'ang said, "Guess how many fields Guangjiao Temple has under its name?"
"How much?" Lin Fu asked.
"Including Jihu, Guangjiao Temple has occupied almost all the fields around Zilang Mountain, more than 260 hectares! Most of them are prime and mature land," Cao Zi'ang said.
"The city of Chongzhou is abandoned and a new city needs to be built. Apart from the area around Zilang Mountain, where can such a large area of land be allocated?" Lin Fu said with a smile, "It doesn't matter whether Yue Lengqiu wants it or not, and it doesn't matter whether Hailing Mansion and the
There are many people in the Xuanfu envoy who dislike us, at least they don’t have much initiative when it comes to choosing a location for building a city."
"In order to avoid taxes, the tenants sent their fields and tenants to the name of the monastery. This is not a secret, and I didn't expect that there was so much land hidden under the name of Guangjiao Temple!" Lin Mengde sighed with emotion at the amount of land under the name of Guangjiao Temple.
He said quite excitedly, "It seems that as long as we hold the land under the name of Chongzhou Monastery, it will be enough to raise ten thousand soldiers..."
More than two hundred and sixty hectares means more than 26,000 acres. In the Jianghuai area where land annexation is a serious phenomenon, you can be considered a first-rate big landowner. The Lin family only had more than 200 hectares of land in Shanglinli.
Chongzhou's middle-to-high-grade fertile land, with one crop of rice and one crop of wheat, can produce an annual harvest of about three liters of rice per acre as long as no disasters occur. The tenant farmers pay rent and taxes on the land, which accounts for about 50 to 60% of the annual harvest.
All 26,000 acres of land are in the hands of Jiangdong Zuojun, which means that in a normal year, they can collect more than 20,000 dan in rent, tax and grain, which is almost equivalent to the autumn grain tax in Chongzhou County.
In Chongzhou, there are as many as eighteen monasteries of moderate size. Without a final thorough investigation, we really don’t know how much land is occupied and hidden by the monasteries.
No wonder Lin Mengde was so excited. Having fields these days means having food, and only with food can we raise troops.
Lin Fu shook his head and said: "It would be as simple as that. First find out which fields are owned by Guangjiao Temple and which fields are owned by nearby farmers. The landowners are in the name of Guangjiao Temple. Don't let any news out yet...
…”
"Why, do you still need to return the land to the owner?" Cao Zi'ang asked in surprise, "The monks of Guangjiao Temple collaborated with the bandits, and it has been confirmed that the land under the name of the monastery is actually owned by the monastery, or it is a false trust for the owner.
In the name of the monastery, no one dares to come and ask for it! We will allocate these fields directly. Even if we collect five liters of grain per acre, the high tax and apportionment of eight liters of grain will make farmers happy!"
The land annexation in Chongzhou County is serious, and most people have become tenants, renting fields from the landowners. The rent per mu is about five liters of wheat and one stone of rice. They also have to bear the Ding tax and various assessments. Life is very difficult. Can.
By allocating the fields to them and reducing the actual burden by about half, it would be difficult for the Jiangdong Left Army to win the support of these farmers. Moreover, Chongzhou City was destroyed by the Donghai bandits, and local power suffered a heavy setback. There was no resistance for them to do these things in Chongzhou.
Not big.
Cao Ziang's half-life career has made him very familiar with the suffering of the people at the bottom. He is more inclined to allocate these fields directly to farmers who support the Jiangdong Left Army, and directly consolidate the foundation of the Jiangdong Left Army in Chongzhou. He is really unwilling to return the fields to those who are living in Chongzhou.
Blood, country tycoons and landowners who eat people's anointing.
Lin Fu shook his head slightly, but did not say anything directly. He said, "Mr. Qin, Master Fu and others will be called over to discuss this matter together. We can't make a hasty decision at this time..."
Cao Ziang knew that Lin Fu did not agree with his opinion of directly dividing the fields. He was just taking care of his face and did not refute it directly. He would not argue with Lin Fu in person. As subordinates, they must respect and maintain Lin Fu's dignity.
Yes, besides, Lin Fu didn't keep his words to death. The opinions of Qin Chengzu and Fu Qinghe are also very important. It won't be too late to decide this matter after the matter here is settled and everyone can get together to discuss it.
Lin Fu knew that if he followed what Cao Ziang said, it would not be much different from land redistribution reforms. Unless a complete political power was established and there were no strong enemies around, there would not be a good opportunity to carry out land reform. Even if the Jiangdong Left Army
At present, there are conditions for land redistribution in Chongzhou, but it will also offend the local forces around Chongzhou. Is it possible that the Jiangdong Left Army will not consider developing outside Chongzhou in the future?
Of course, Lin Fu would not be too cheap for those who had entrusted their fields to the name of the monastery. The key was to find a middle path that could ease the conflicts between various parties, rather than intensify the conflicts at this time of internal and external troubles.
If Lin Fu wants to control the place, he needs the support of officials who can read and write. In this era when the literacy rate is generally low, the vast majority of these officials are actually from the landlords or the property class. For thousands of years, peasant uprisings or
The lessons of success or failure were vividly presented in Lin Fu's mind. At this time, how could he rashly deprive the local power of their land and distribute it to the poor tenants? The first step should be to restrict and suppress, and always control the contradiction to the extent possible.
Within the scope of control.
At this time, Lin Fu couldn't help but wonder, what kind of knowledge does the woman on the top of the mountain have? ,!