The several alleys south of Zangjin Bridge in the east of the city are populated by rich and noble families...
com Lin Fu was riding a horse in the alley. When he saw the rows of eaves, he saw that the courtyard walls on both sides were painted white and covered with green tiles, weeping willows lay low, and the streets were paved with blue stones. The sound of horse hooves and the chirping of cicadas could be heard in the alley.
Arriving in front of the Yongchang Hou Mansion in Sishui Lane, Lin Fu dismounted his horse and tied it to the horse-tying stone on the left side of the house door. He asked the guards to wait in the awning outside. He took Ao Canghai there and posted the door post. The concierge went in to inform.
Lin Fu and Ao Canghai waited in the foyer for a while, and then saw a group of people walking out of the hanging flower door. Brothers Yuan Jinqiu and Yuan Jinsheng were also in the crowd. The middle-aged man in the middle looked somewhat similar to the Yuan brothers.
, with a thin face and narrow eyes, fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and a thick beard almost four or five inches under his chin. He walked out of the hanging flower door with a majestic and extraordinary bearing. He must be the return of Hou Yuan of Yongchang.
Lin Fu never thought that the Marquis of Yongchang would come out of the hanging flower door to greet him. He hurriedly walked out of the hall corridor, bowed under the shade of a tree and saluted, and said: "Lin Fu, who is late, paid homage to the Marquis and the Crown Prince. Lin Fu also lived in Jiangning for a long time.
I have never had the opportunity to come and pay my respects. I hope you will forgive me for being rude..."
"What happened in the past doesn't matter!" Yuan Guizheng laughed, took Lin Fu's arm, and said with a smile, "If you don't send me a message, I will also send a message to meet the governor of Yannan who is famous all over the world for his four victories.
Let your lord..."
"The Marquis is joking about being born late. Why should Yan Nan's modest achievements be taken seriously?" Lin Fu said with a smile.
"The governor of the capital is really humble," Yuan Guizheng said with a smile. "The King of Lu's family suffered the most when the Eastern invaders invaded. In addition to the general who attacked the country, the prince Yuan Yan, the queen mother, took pity on her and made her
She lives and works in the palace. Now she is adopted as a righteous daughter and canonized as Princess Yangxin. Princess Yangxin praised the reputation of the governor in the palace. The Empress Dowager also mentioned the title of the governor in several of her decrees.
Eunuch. If she hadn't wanted to allow the Eunuch to continue to make contributions to the court, the Queen Mother would have even wanted to make the decision to grant the Eunuch a marriage? Speaking of which, this age-old rule should really be changed. They all said, '
"Every man is responsible for the rise and fall of a country. If we are related to the same clan, the children of our relatives cannot serve the court? What do you think, the governor?"
Lin Fu narrowed his eyes slightly, avoiding Yuan Guizheng's gaze, and said with a smile: "After listening to Mr. Hou, I feel that everything is reasonable. It's just that I am born late and have little knowledge. I also feel that there are benefits to the old rules. I will wait until I am born later.
Go back and carefully consider the pros and cons before replying to the Marquis..."
Listening to the hints in Yuan Guizheng's words, Lin Fu found it funny: Is it not possible to grant a marriage to that little girl Yuan Yan and marry him? No matter how much I think about it, I don't find it funny. A twelve-year-old clan girl is married.
There was no precedent. Thinking of this, Lin Fu couldn't help but reach out and wipe the cold sweat from his forehead, thinking that it was a blessing that he didn't go to Beijing this time.
If after entering the capital, Zhang Xie brought up the matter of granting a marriage to a clan daughter, he would really be extremely passive.
In the more than two hundred years since the founding of the Yue Dynasty, there have been few instances of clans and relatives taking over power.
In addition to the institutional factors of the system of civil servants and the suppression of clans and relatives, another major factor is that the emperors were all grown up when they succeeded to the throne. When checking and balancing the court officials, they rarely relied on clans and relatives, so the clan
There is no chance for the influence of relatives and foreign relatives to expand.
That's not to say that the clan and relatives' influence has no chance at all.
When Emperor Delong died of a sudden illness, his sons were young, and his maternal relatives, the Liang family, had the opportunity to support the young emperor and control the government. However, the secret edict left by Emperor Delong before his death actually passed the throne to the grown-up*
*'s younger brother, the current Holy Emperor Chongguan, deprived the Liang family of an excellent opportunity to control the government.
However, before the disastrous defeat of Chentangyi, the Liang family almost controlled the frontier armies in Datong, Xuanhua and Jiliao towns. Even after the defeat of Chentangyi, where five out of ten frontier armies were killed, the Liang family's influence in the frontier army
His power is still far-reaching, which is an important factor why Yue Lengqiu was unwilling to serve as the governor of the three towns after the defeat of Chentangyi.
While Lin Fu was dealing with Yuan Guizheng perfunctorily, he carefully thought about the various implications in his words. Fan Ding and others led the way to the inner hall where the banquet was held.
There are two long sandalwood tables in the gorgeous hall of Nuo Da. It is hot outside, but there is a cool breeze in the hall. In addition to the beautiful maid in a light Chinese dress holding a fan behind her, there must be ice cubes in the room.
Absorb heat.
When Yuan returned to the government, he asked Lin Fu to sit across from him, while Yuan Jinqiu, Yuan Jinsheng, Fan Ding and others stood aside to wait and talk with him according to the rules.
The fine wines and delicacies were all served by the maids on the side. Only one dish was served at a time. Lin Fu only had time to take one or two bites to taste, and then they took them away and replaced them with another delicacy. A full table of wine was served for fifty or sixty yuan.
Lin Fu was only half full after eating the dish.
"Nowadays, there are many discussions about moving the capital in Beijing and Jiangning. What do the governors think about this?"
Lin Fu was gargling his mouth with the green salt brought by the maid. When Yuan Guizheng mentioned this matter, he spit out the salt water into the silver bowl and wiped his hands with a snow-white sweat towel. He thought that his words were all perfunctory and difficult to deal with.
Let Yuan return to power in Su Mei and let go, saying: "It has its advantages and disadvantages - these words should not be said by a humble person like Wan Sheng, but the Marquis treats Wan Sheng very sincerely, and Wan Sheng also
There is no need to worry about other things in front of the Marquis - Yanjing is the gate of the country, and moving the capital is not conducive to the soldiers working together to defend the gate. If Yanshan is lost, crossing the river from the Yanji Plain to Shandong, and then to the Huaihe River, there will be no danger to defend. Before moving the capital
If you are not careful, it is very likely to shake half of the country. I think the current plan is not to move the capital lightly. However, there are various disadvantages of not moving the capital: last autumn, the Donglu invaded the border and invaded. It was easy to enter the courtyard, and Yanshan was as easy as undefended.
; Yanjing is directly exposed to the threat of Donglu's cavalry. There are more than 10,000 officials in the capital and nearly 100,000 soldiers in the ban. These two items alone require nearly 3 million shi of grain and fodder annually. When the waterway is open, in order to ensure 300
Tens of thousands of grains were transported to central Beijing in time, and the actual grain consumption in other counties was three to five times the amount of grains. At this time, the river collapsed and the water transportation was unblocked. The only way to detour from Shandong and Jinhai was to transport the grain to Jiaozhou Bay.
Apart from the fact that the foot charges are not reduced at all, even if they are reduced, it will only reduce the local burden. However, from Jiaozhou Bay to Jinhai via Woshui River and Weihe River to Gyeonggi, the imperial court still needs to subsidize an additional six yuan of silver for each stone of grain.
The total amount is astonishing, far beyond what the Ministry of Household Affairs can bear - considering the practical difficulties, relocating the capital is an urgent move..."
Yuan Guizheng narrowed his eyes at Lin Fu. It was only from the moment the Qu family fell into the trap that he officially paid attention to the pigherder in front of him, and thought to himself: There is a way for him to rise.
When others discussed moving the capital, they only said that the Yanshan defense line was full of loopholes and that the imperial capital was exposed to the iron heel of the Donglu, which was very dangerous, but failed to see the deeper crisis behind it.
silver.
To transport grain via the Tianjin Sea Grain Road, the imperial court needed to subsidize an additional six taels of silver for every stone of grain transported. Every year, when three million stone of grain was transported to Beijing, an additional subsidy of 1.8 million taels of silver was needed. The key was to transport Yanshan
To truly support the defense line, six million stone grains would be brought into Beijing each year, and an additional 3.6 million taels of silver would need to be subsidized.
Such a huge expenditure may be barely enough to sustain for a year and a half, but over time, the imperial court's finances will inevitably collapse.
Perhaps as long as the Yellow River breach is blocked and water transportation returns to normal, there is no need to go through the expensive Jinhai River Channel. In fact, the Yanshan defense line is full of loopholes. Even if the Yellow River breach can be blocked this year, another Donglu cavalry will break through next year.
The invaders penetrated into Shandong and once again dug up the Yellow River - the Donghu people had already seen this fatal weakness of the Dai Viet Dynasty.
"The Governor's perspective on problems is indeed far deeper than ordinary people. I have learned a lesson..." Yuan Guizheng nodded.
"Basically speaking, the Marquis has oversold me." Lin Fuqian said, but he was thinking in his heart: What are the interests of moving or not moving the capital to the return of the Yuan Dynasty and the Empress Dowager Liang and Guanyun Liang family in the palace? In addition, Yue Yue
Leng Qiu monopolizes power in Jiangdong, and Gu Wuchen is actually not strong enough to check him. Does the palace have complete confidence in Yue Lengqiu?
Lin Fu calmed down his thoughts a little and did not think about too complicated things. Su Mei's affairs would always test Yuan Guizheng's attitude. He chuckled and said: "The feudal master is also here. Wan Sheng remembered something that I asked the feudal master...
…”
Fan Ding and Yuan Guizheng looked at each other, saluted Lin Fu and said, "Please come and give me your orders."
"Chongzhou was hit by bandits in April, the city was destroyed, and thousands of people were massacred. Miss Su Mei sympathized with him and was willing to go to Chongzhou to help the victims with the proceeds from her singing skills. I wonder if Miss Su Mei mentioned it to the feudal lord.
This matter?" Lin Fu said.
"I haven't heard Miss Su mention it..." When Fan Ding said this, he looked at Yuan Guizheng.
"This is a good thing," Yuan Guizheng laughed, "I will donate a thousand taels of silver to help Miss Su Mei's charity... The governor is also a real man who likes to hear Miss Su Mei's wonderful songs sung a cappella. There is Baisha County
As a lesson learned from the robbery, for safety reasons, the feudal lord did not dare to easily let Miss Su Mei leave Jiangning to perform singing in other places. Now that the Chongzhou Jiangkou has a capital inspector in charge, the Donghai bandits can no longer get in, so there is no need to worry about this anymore
.We should also let Miss Su Mei go out for more walks."
"Thank you, Lord Marquis, for making this happen. If Miss Su Mei goes to Jiangning, I will definitely think carefully about her safety," Lin Fu said.
"There is no need for the governor to worry about safety," Yuan Guizheng said with a smile, "Our government also has several merchant ships that want to sail from Chongzhou to Beijing. We can escort Miss Su Mei back to Chongzhou..."
"That's just right." Lin Fu said. He was wondering: when did the Yongchang Marquis' Mansion have a sea ship? And they actually wanted to open the trade route to the capital before them. It seems that there are many things in the Yongchang Marquis' Mansion that are not known to outsiders.