Throughout the dynasties, the secret history of the palace was not necessarily less complex than the official history.
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From the assassination of Emperor Qingyu to King Yan, the rebellion of Jingbei Hou and Emperor Delong's ascension to the throne, the rise of the Empress Dowager Liang and the Liang family, as well as Emperor Delong's sudden illness and death, and the secret edict passed down to his younger brother, there are many hidden secrets.
A bloody secret known to outsiders.
In the cruel and bloody struggle for imperial power, princes, generals and ministers were nothing but passing clouds.
After coming out of the Yongchang Marquis Mansion, the sun was already setting in the west. Lin Fu was riding on horseback, squinting at the setting sun and the rows of rows of eaves reflecting the golden light. He reined in the reins and said to Ao Canghai: ""A Journey in the Hao" is a novel.
An excellent poem: White bones are exposed in the wild, there are no roosters crowing for thousands of miles, and hundreds of living people have lost their lives. The thought of it breaks people's hearts... However, since Chen She, everyone only knows this sentence: "Princes, generals, and prime ministers would rather have seeds."
That’s it.”
During the banquet, Ao Canghai stood behind Lin Fu. Judging from various signs, Yuan Guizheng was also a person who was unwilling to be lonely. To be distinguished and rich, even if he was a clan prince, he would be reduced to a prince after nine generations.
Of all people, hereditary nobility is the most rare. There are only thirteen families in the world, and Yongchang Marquis Mansion is one of them. Does Yuan Guizheng want to imitate the eight surnames of Eastern Fujian and create a marquis?
"I'm worried that the Yongchang Marquis Mansion also has contact with the She family..." Ao Canghai said.
"How could a person like this bet his chips on just one family?" Lin Fu smiled slightly and said, "When the waves come, the clouds rise and the waves disappear, let them go." Lin Fu didn't want to get entangled in the bloody struggle in the palace at this time.
, he could exchange for the opportunity for Su Mei to travel freely to Chongzhou, and it was impossible not to be involved at all. What did the Yongchang Marquis Mansion's ship want to do by sailing from Chongzhou to and from Gyeonggi? Lin Fu planned to turn a blind eye.
One eye, too lazy to care, can't hinder him for the time being - in the face of the general situation, this kind of conspiracy and calculation hidden in the corner of the palace really cannot be brought to the table.
Seeing the sky getting darker, Lin Fu went to Gu Mansion again.
Before noon, a preliminary charter was drafted at the Procuratorate's Office regarding the evacuation of Prison Island and the construction of a prison city, but the location of the prison city in Chongzhou has not yet been finalized. According to Xiao Xuanchou's memorial and the approval of the Central Government, a site was selected at the mouth of the Chongzhou River.
Just stay on Sand Island.
Xisha Island already has more than 34,000 inhabitants, and the land that can be reclaimed as fertile farmland is only 150,000 to 60,000 acres. There is not much rich wasteland. Most importantly, Lin Fu has a relatively complete plan for reclaiming Xisha Island.
, in addition to materials, there is no need to continue to increase investment in manpower.
In addition to Xisha Island, there are dozens of large and small sandbanks near the mouth of the Chongzhou River, but the object Lin Fu is interested in is the Hecheng Grassland east of Chongzhou County, which belongs to the Weiyang Salt and Iron Company.
At that time, salt production was mainly based on boiling salt with brine, also known as boiled sea salt.
Frying the sea and boiling salt requires a lot of fuel. The naturally growing reeds on large tidal flats in coastal areas provide a large amount of fodder for frying and boiling salt. In order to ensure the availability of forage, the large tracts of new tidal flats around the saltworks are designated as salt iron.
On the pasture land owned by the company, only pasture households are allowed to plant wild grass, and villagers and refugees are strictly prohibited from cultivating it.
Hecheng Grassland to the east of Chongzhou, even if the tidal flats are not included, is larger than Chongzhou County. Compared with Chongzhou County, which supports more than 300,000 people in one county, Hecheng Grassland except those near Hecheng Division
Apart from a small number of farmers, there are only more than 30,000 grassland households, and the land is extremely abandoned.
In fact, except for the sea-frying and salt-cooking method, which consumes a lot of fodder, drying salt around fields is not a top-secret advanced technology.
In the early years, there were records of enclosing fields to dry salt in Wudi County, Shandong Province. Maybe it was a conservative bad habit, or maybe it was a small-scale enclosing of fields to dry salt. The output was greatly affected by the wind and rain season. The history of enclosing fields to dry salt in Wudi County
It continued on and off for twenty or thirty years, and then was banned.
Changlu and Huainan Salt Fields also have records of enclosing fields to dry salt, but they have not been popularized.
Lin Fu knew that enclosing fields to dry salt was a major trend in the salt industry. He had no control over this for the time being. What he was interested in was the large area of land under the jurisdiction of Hecheng Caochang.
If hundreds of thousands of refugees had been led to Heseong Grassland to reclaim wasteland in the early spring of last year, the Hongzeupo Rebellion would never have become what it is today.
The land in Chongzhou County is limited, and most of the land has owners and tenant farmers. Lin Fu mainly checks hidden fields and tenants in Chongzhou County, and raises taxes in Chongzhou County, but it cannot accommodate too many refugees, but He
There are plenty of pastures in the city.
Of course, Hecheng Grassland provides six to seven million taels of forage to Weiyang Salt and Iron Division every year, and Weiyang Salt and Iron Division provides two million taels of salt tax to the center every year. Hecheng Grassland's idea is not that easy to win, Lin Fu
We can only adopt the roundabout strategy of slowly trying to figure it out.
The first step is to replace a thousand fields of land from the Hecheng pasture on the north bank of the Yangtze River to build the prison city. Other thoughts will be hidden for the time being.
Lin Fu didn't think he was qualified to deal directly with the Weiyang Salt and Iron Division. He hoped that Gu Wuchen could come forward in the name of the Inspector General. As for how much money would be spent behind the scenes, he asked Lin Mengde to handle it himself.
Lin Fu had dinner at Gu's house at night before leaving the city. When he returned to the mouth of the river, he found out that Su Mei had asked the Fourth Lady to come to the thatched cottage and asked him to visit Xiaobai Garden when he came back.
Arriving at Xiaobai Garden, Lin Fu found that there were three little girls of thirteen or fourteen years old beside Su Mei. Without Su Mei's explanation, Lin Fu could guess that these three girls were all sentenced to prison for Su Hu's conspiracy.
The girl from the Su family in the Jiaofang Division must have been sent by someone from Fan Ding.
"At dusk, Fan Ding was sent by someone." Su Mei sent the person away and sat under the lamp, with two lines of tears streaming down his cheeks. "With this result, I don't have any other unfulfilled wishes."
…”
Lin Fu walked over and reached out to wipe away the tears on her cheeks. Su Mei hugged his waist and lay in his arms crying. Lin Fu let her cry for a while and then said with a smile: "
This is a good thing, but you have to stain my new robe with tears..."
"You..." Su Mei let go of her hand in embarrassment and wiped away the tears on her cheeks with an embroidered handkerchief. Lin Fu put his arms around her shoulders, and she docilely leaned into his arms.
Lin Fu felt tired from standing, so he cheekily squeezed into a chair with Su Mei, and told Su Mei about today's banquet at the Yongchang Marquis Mansion, and said: "Yuan Guizheng thought he dragged me to
When the rebellion case happened back then, it didn't make much sense whether to detain the person or not. It's better to pretend to be generous and send the person over as a sign of goodwill. From now on, when you go in and out of Jiangning, the feudal family won't have any special restrictions.
Prepare a boat for you..."
"You are in urgent need of ships. What am I doing with a ship when I have nothing to do?" Su Mei shook her head and refused. Lin Fu specially prepared a ship for her. "The merchant fleet of Jiyunshe comes to Chongzhou frequently. I want to go to Chongzhou to see it."
You and Xiaoman can just sit in the merchant fleet of Jiyun Society..."
Lin Fu held Su Mei's plump and round chin and looked at her charming and bright eyes under the lamp. He wanted to let her sit on his lap, but he was afraid of being rude to her, so he just said: "That's okay, you follow me first this time."
When you go to Chongzhou, the Su family should also formally recognize each other - these things must be told to Xiaoman yourself..."
"Okay." Su Mei was a little embarrassed to be stared at by Lin Fu. She struggled a little and lowered her head, putting her ear against his chest and listening to his heart beating vigorously. She thought about sitting like this for the rest of her life.
When the candle burned out, he thought that Lin Fu still had many things to do in Jiangning, so he stood up and pushed him to leave.
On June 28, Lin Xuwen's reply came back to Jiangning from Jinhai. He also agreed that the body of his father Lin Tingxun should be moved to Chongzhou immediately for burial. At the same time in Jinhai, he submitted a memorial to resign and return to Chongzhou to observe mourning.
Jiangning invited a monk to perform the rituals for eleven days, and other matters were well prepared. The second day of July was set for the official transfer of the coffin to Chongzhou for burial.
Lin Fuze and Su Mei rushed ahead on June 29th. In addition to the second battalion of Jinghaihai Camp, there were also prisoners on the Prison Island and more than 1,700 officers and soldiers.
In addition to the fleet of the Jinghaihai Camp, Jiyun Society also organized more than 60 additional U-Peng boats to transport prisoners.
In July, the river is in full swing, and people can move down the river like galloping horses. Although the moon is shining at night, the stars are bright, which is conducive to night sailing. We set sail in the early morning of June 29th and arrived at Guanyin Beach on Xisha Island at noon on the 30th.
Prison Island has long been used as a large prison outside the city, and it houses misdemeanor prisoners sentenced to one to three years in prison. These prisoners are not very harmful, and even more than half of them cannot be handed over.
The rent and taxes shall be paid to the tenants who were brought into custody by the officials.
When I was on Prison Island, although the food and clothing were not that good, I had enough food to eat, clothes to wear, and free medicine when I was sick. I even received a small amount of wages every day. They worked very diligently and in an orderly manner; it was they who
More than a dozen factories on Prison Island were propped up.
After Lin Fu arrived in Chongzhou, he also set up some workshops in different categories on Xisha Island.
In the early stage, these factories were mainly used to meet the internal ordnance, warships, combat equipment, armor, shoes, hats, bedding and other material needs of the Jiangdong Left Army, as well as the production and construction of Xisha Island and the survival and living needs of the islanders.
These workshops have only been established for less than two months, and they are in short supply of skilled craftsmen. Most of the refugees resettled to Xisha Island are farmers, and there are very few people who know how to do crafts. Xisha Island employs a group of craftsmen, but the number is also very small.
After all, in this era, as long as they can have a bowl of hot soup and rice at home, most people are unwilling to leave their hometowns.
Nearly 8,000 members of the Xihe Congregation and their families moved to Chongzhou, which solved some problems. However, the craftsmen belonging to the Xihe Congregation were mainly concentrated in the field of building inland river ships. The establishment of the shipbuilding yard took away more than half of the craftsmen of the Xihe Congregation, but
Craftsmen who burn bricks to build houses, make coking coal to make iron, make armor pieces, knives, and make various copper and iron castings and tools are still extremely scarce.
The prison island has been operating for a year and a half. Among the nearly 1,500 prisoners, there are more than 300 skilled craftsmen. Others are also more or less skilled in handicrafts. They can be directly arranged to work in the factory, which is considered relatively good.
It has completely solved one of the most troublesome problems in Xisha Island.
Changsun Geng, who served as the deputy supervisor of the Zhengjiupin Prison City, also moved his family to Chongzhou this time. He also struggled to cross the threshold from a clerk to an official. In the afternoon, he set foot on the land of Xisha Island and took a long breath.
It’s hard to believe that a year ago, this was a deserted island where more than 20,000 people drowned due to typhoons and incoming tides.
After Lin Fu arrived in Chongzhou, the ship docked directly at the Nanya Pier of Zilang Mountain, and asked Hu Zhiyong to arrange a small courtyard for Changsun Geng and his family in the building on the east bank of the Xiaoman River in Guanyintan.
There are six rooms, which are enough for Chang Sun Geng and his wife to live with their mother, only son and an entire family.
Everything on Xisha Island is taken care of by someone. As long as more than a thousand prisoners are brought to Chongzhou, everything will be arranged in an orderly manner. After arriving at Xisha Island, Lin Fu also asked Sun Geng to rest for two days and arrange his family before sending him to Chongzhou.
When the work started, Hu Zhiyong was asked to give Changsun Geng a clear introduction to the situation on Xisha Island.
"The roads on the island are neater on the Guanyin Beach side. If Master Changsun wants to go out for a walk, just talk to me, or go directly to the horse camp to borrow a horse..." Hu Zhiyong said.
"Everything on the island will have to be settled in a troublesome manner from now on." Changsun Geng said.
Hu Zhiyong appeared to be the most upright person on Xisha Island, and Chang Sun Geng naturally had the same reputation. However, he knew in his heart that apart from the two garrison battalions, Hu Zhiyong and Sun Jingxuan were Lin Fu's confidants on Xisha Island.
After getting along with him for so long, Changsun Geng was quite convinced of Lin Fu's conduct as a person. He followed him to Chongzhou not because he was coveting an official title of ninth rank, but also because he hoped to achieve greater achievements by following Lin Fu. Naturally, he wanted to do many things with him.
Hu Zhiyong cooperated well.
"Your Majesty, Changsun, you're welcome," Hu Zhiyong said with a smile, "How about I take you to the enclosed room where the prisoners are housed to take a look. Your Excellency ordered you not to build an additional wall to separate it from Guanyin Beach; but you also ordered the island prison guards to
The main prisoner is Lord Changsun. After Lord Changsun has seen it, please tell me if you have any orders..."
"Let's go take a look at the surrounding house first..." Changsun Geng also couldn't sit still.
Three enclosed houses have been specially vacated on Guanyin Beach, and they are all concentrated on the beach on the east side of Guanyin Beach. To the east is a peach grove. A stone brick dam has been built on the sandy beach at the beach, and three or four rows of miscellaneous trees have been planted along the bank.
, have grown to seven or eight feet tall, and the crown of the tree has grown quite impressive.
The enclosed houses are very large. Each enclosed house covers an area of about fifteen or six acres. They are arranged in a Z-shaped arrangement. In the middle is a shared rammed earth drying ground, covering an area of five or six acres. The doors of the three enclosed houses all face the drying ground.
According to Lin Fu's instructions, no additional walls were built outside the three surrounding houses. The overall appearance is not much different from other buildings in Guanyin Beach except for the enclosed buildings and military fortresses.
A lot of reception staff have been arranged on Xisha Island, and Zhao Hu also led the jailers to supervise the side. More than 1,400 prisoners are entering the enclosure in an orderly manner, holding mats, basins, pots and other items, waiting for arrangements. Chang Sun Geng and Hu Zhiyong
Come over, the arrangements have almost been completed. The smell of meat came from the surrounding room. Hu Zhiyong smiled and said: "We are all new here. The first meal consists of wine and meat. We don't want to get drunk with wine, but we have enough meat... I heard the adults say that the eldest grandson
Your Excellency doesn’t mind dining and drinking with the prisoners, so how about we have dinner here too?”
"Very good," Changsun Geng said with a smile, "You have wine and meat, what more can you ask for?"
After a while, Sun Jingxuan also rushed over to meet Chang Sun Geng and discuss with Chang Sun Geng the matter of prisoners entering the factory to work.
Except for the prison island warriors led by Chang Sun Geng and Zhao Hu, ordinary jailers and government officials did not follow. However, the prisoners on the prison island have formed a system of prisoner autonomy, and there are also a group of people who voluntarily stayed after the expiration of their prison terms.
Those who came down to work were also selected from among them to serve as jailers, who performed their duties more diligently than the previous jailers and yamen officials.
This is also the reason why more than 1,400 prisoners were evacuated from Prison Island and moved to Xisha Island without any chaos.
Even if these more than a thousand prisoners have settled down on Xisha Island, they gather in the closed room to rest at night, organize training in the morning, and after meals, they are assigned to work in various workshops under the leadership of the warden and cell leader, and eat in the workshop at noon
, after getting off work in the evening, we go back to the surrounding house to have dinner together.
For most of the misdemeanor prisoners who were sued because they could not pay the taxes, they have jobs, food to eat, and a small amount of wages that can be saved to support their families. They work for half a month and even get a day off.
On this day of rest, wages and food are provided, and life is even more stable than before being imprisoned. What else is there to be dissatisfied about? Perhaps the biggest worry is that you don't know where to go after your sentence is over, right?
The operation of Prison Island for more than a year has also proved that this set of methods is very effective.
The real headache is the steady stream of exiled prisoners who will be sent to Chongzhou. The vast majority of the exiled prisoners are serious prisoners, many of whom are rogue bandits who kill without batting an eye, and their geographical distribution is very complicated. Jiangdong, Liangzhejiang, Jiangxi,
There are criminals from Shandong, Zhongzhou, Jinghu and Jingchu counties.
Changsun Geng didn't know how Lin Fu would deal with the exiled prisoners. Judging from Lin Fu's arrangement, he probably wouldn't place the exiled prisoners on Xisha Island.