Just as Zhao Hongrun was standing on the edge of the cliff quietly observing Kou Zheng, the hunter had slipped down another narrow path and came to Kou Zheng, the magistrate of Shang County.
"General Lu from Tianmen Pass?"
A trace of surprise flashed across Kou Zheng's face. He looked up, but what he saw was not Lu Zhan, but Zhao Hongrun.
Isn’t that... King Su?
Kou Zheng's eyes flashed with surprise.
He recognized King Su Zhao Hongrun, because Zhao Hongrun patrolled the venue during the imperial examination in the 16th year of Hong De's reign as an accompaniment to the prince.
It's just that at that time, Zhao Hongrun did not have the reputation he has now. He was even criticized by some scholars because he had humiliated Luo Rong, the son of Luo Wenzhong, the former official of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, in the examination hall.
Didn't His Highness King Su go to Handan County in South Korea to fight?... Could it be that he has already won?
Kou Zheng was greatly surprised. After all, when he met Tianmen Pass guard Lu Zhan a while ago, Lu Zhan told him this.
With doubts in mind, Kou Zheng was about to run up the narrow path to meet the gift. Unexpectedly, Zhao Hongrun had already led the people down on his own.
Seeing this, he could only stand there respectfully.
"His Royal Highness King Su."
After Zhao Hongrun came down, Kou Zheng bowed his hands and bowed respectfully: "I didn't know that Your Highness was coming, so I missed you from afar. Please forgive me."
"Master Kou, there is no need to be polite."
Zhao Hongrun waved his hand, signaling Kou Zheng to stand up straight, and then he looked around at the villagers who were digging into the mountains to open roads.
At this time, the mountain people had stopped, holding hoes in their hands, sometimes secretly looking at Zhao Hongrun, sometimes whispering, as if they had seen something strange.
Seeing this, Kou Zheng quickly apologized and said: "The villagers here are ignorant and don't know how noble your highness is. I hope your highness will not be offended."
Hearing this, Zhao Hongrun smiled slightly, cupped his hands towards the villagers, and said with a smile: "Everyone is busy, I would like to ask the county magistrate for a few words."
But after hearing this, the villagers still stared at Zhao Hongrun. At this time, an old man with a gray beard came over, hit several young people on the head with a cane, and cursed: "What are you still standing there for?
Don’t be lazy!”
This old man seemed to have quite a lot of prestige here. When he scolded him, no one of those young people dared to pay attention to Zhao Hongrun anymore.
But the strange thing is that these villagers were not angry. In fact, even the young people who were beaten started to work hard to build the road after laughing a few times.
Seeing this, Zhao Hongrun was secretly surprised and asked Kou Zhengdao in a low voice: "Master Kou, who is this father-in-law?"
Kou Zheng glanced at the old father-in-law and said with respect in his words: "This is the county elder of our Shang County. After the Shang family in Hedong, he is also the mentor of Xiaguan. His name is Taobao Xun."
"I see."
Zhao Hongrun turned his head and glanced at the old man. It happened that the old man was also looking at him at this time. After noticing Zhao Hongrun's gaze, the old man lowered his head and saluted from a distance.
The old clan...
Zhao Hongrun quickly returned the gift and showed his kindness.
The old clans he spoke of were probably the big families in the early days of the founding of Wei, or after the annexation of Liang and Zheng.
For example, the Shang family, as far as Zhao Hongrun knew, was one of the prominent families in Hedong.
Of course, that was once.
Nowadays, most of these old clans are gradually dying out and being gradually forgotten by people. Only in nooks and crannies like Shang County can you find a trace of the old clans.
In fact, in Zhao Hongrun's view, although the nobles have replaced the old clans, this is actually not a good thing.
The old clan was a family system and was also the predecessor of the clan state. In the context of the times, the old clan could only recruit more civilians to serve them by spreading good deeds. Therefore, the people of the old clan were generally clean and self-sufficient, and they were quite popular in the local area.
see.
But now the aristocrats of Wei State are different. Their status comes from the canonization of the imperial court and has no direct interest in the supporters of the common people. Therefore, the opposition between the aristocrats and the common people has arisen.
To put it bluntly, they are still exploiting the common people, but the old clans are more generous and still value the voices of the common people; but now the nobles of Wei State are exploiting the common people more thoroughly and oppressing the common people more and more unscrupulously.
But having said that, although it is regrettable, the decline of the old clans is inevitable. After all, the Wei court cannot sit back and watch these popular old clans continue to grow. If this force that has won the hearts of the local people is allowed to last forever, the Ji Zhao clan
What else to play?
Therefore, it is inevitable that the nobility canonized by the imperial court will replace the old clan power.
Under the guidance of Kou Zheng, Zhao Hongrun and his party slowly headed to Shang County.
When he came to Shang County, Zhao Hongrun finally understood why Lu Zhan used such a contemptuous tone to mock Yan Mo. The reason was that Shang County, a mountain city, was not enough to be a city at all, it was just a small mountain village.
For example, Yan Mo speculated that the city wall that Shangxian County might use to defend against enemies was actually just an earthen wall only one person high. Zhao Hongrun even suspected that Chu Heng, the strongest among his clan guards, could even directly destroy this wall.
The earthen wall was knocked down.
How can this kind of thing be used to defend against enemies?
Looking back at Yan Mo, Zhao Hongrun found out in a funny way that when he saw the earthen wall, Yan Mo opened his mouth in shock and looked dumbfounded.
Lu Zhan, on the other hand, was smiling proudly.
"How did Lord Kou resist the rout of the Korean army?" Zhao Hongrun couldn't help but ask.
Kou Zheng smiled a little shyly and began to tell the story rather embarrassedly.
It turned out that when the more than two hundred Korean troops broke up and attacked Shangxian County, there were only a group of lonely old and strong young people in Shangxian County who were either hunting or building roads.
At that time, Kou Zheng bravely stood up and said to the leader of the defeated army, a 500-man general: If you want food, you can, but you are not allowed to kill and loot. As long as you agree to this, we will give you food. Otherwise, we will
They burned down the granaries in the county and dispersed them in one fell swoop.
Due to Kou Zheng's tough attitude, the 500-man general finally agreed. In order to get precious time, he waited outside the city in accordance with Kou Zheng's conditions.
But for the sake of caution, he asked his subordinates to go into the city with a hundred soldiers and twenty or so soldiers to monitor him.
Sure enough, Kou Zheng collected the surplus grain and pickled vegetables and meat from each household, asked the women and children in the county to make fires to cook, and then sent the meals outside the city.
And just when the defeated troops were busy scrambling for food and their vigilance was greatly reduced, the young and strong villagers who received the news conveyed by Kou Zheng's men suddenly rushed out and killed the defeated troops by surprise.
At that time, the defeated army was in great commotion. They were reluctant to put down the tempting food. They actually stuffed the food into their mouths with one hand and fought with the villagers with weapons in the other hand. As a result, they were killed by the villagers who were holding hunting crossbows, pitchforks, hoes, and bamboo poles.
The people were killed and defeated.
Even the 500-man general was shot to death on the spot by an Orion's hunting crossbow.
So when Lu Zhan led his troops to search here, he could hardly believe his eyes: more than two hundred Korean regular troops were actually massacred by a group of Shangcheng villagers armed with hunting crossbows, pitchforks, hoes, and bamboo poles.
defeat.
It has to be said that although Kou Zheng described it very concisely and had no intention of taking credit for it, Zhao Hongrun could still see Kou Zheng's strategy and courage.
Facing Zhao Hongrun's praise, Kou Zheng humbly said that the reason why he was able to repel the more than 200 Korean troops was due to the unity of the villagers of Shang County and was not due to him.
Seeing Kou Zheng's unpretentious expression, Zhao Hongrun felt even more happy and intended to recruit this great sage.
But Zhao Hongrun knew that rashly proposing solicitation would only make Kou Zheng disgusted. After all, this man gave up the bright future he had at his fingertips and was willing to return to his hometown to be a small county magistrate. This shows that wealth and prosperity,
It was not enough to impress the great sage.
Recalling the tricks Liu Jie used to favor him, Zhao Hongrun already had an idea in his mind.
"Master Kou wants to build roads, why don't you go to the court?" Zhao Hongrun asked.
Hearing this, Kou Zheng showed a bit of bitterness on his face, shook his head and said: "His Royal Highness King Su, I don't know that when I first asked the court to open a mountain road from Shangxian County to Zhiyi, the man in the court was full of surprise and asked
Where is Xiaguan Shang County? At that time, Xiaguan felt that instead of waiting for the court to remember Shang County, it would be better for him to serve as the county magistrate here, borrow some money and food from the nearby Zhiyi Prefecture, and build roads on his own..."
"Did you borrow Zhi Yi?" Zhao Hongrun asked.
Kou Zheng nodded and said with some embarrassment: "Zhi Yi Ling thinks it is unnecessary to repair this mountain road, but for the sake of our colleagues, we still lent some money and food to the lower official." As he said that, he saw Zhao Hongrun frown.
Frowning, he quickly added: "The magistrate of Zhiyi is a good official, and he also invited the villagers of our county to live in Zhiyi, but... the villagers here can live here, and all the ancestral tombs and temples are here, but they don't want to
Leave, therefore..."
Zhao Hongrun nodded slightly.
To be fair, he felt that the Zhiyi magistrate was right. It was really unnecessary to spend huge sums of money to build a mountain road for a mountain town like Shangxian County, which was in a corner and had no special products.
After all, there is already a mountain road called Tianmen Trail that connects Shangdang and Hedong. It is unlikely that the Ministry of Industry will build another one.
Therefore, as Kou Zheng said, we can only rely on the villagers of Shang County to build a mountain road on their own.
But, is it worth it?
In Zhao Hongrun's opinion, it would be too unfair for a talent like Kou Zheng to stay in a place like this.
After thinking about it, Zhao Hongrun said seriously: "Master Kou, this time our Wei Dynasty is at war with South Korea, and South Korea has been defeated. According to the "Wei-Han Handan Peace Agreement", South Korea will send troops to conquer Hexi as compensation for our Great Wei... Hexi.
I believe Mr. Kou also understands the importance of land."
Kou Zheng was surprised that Zhao Hongrun actually mentioned this to him, but he still nodded. The importance of the land in Hexi was nothing more than livestock husbandry, such as cattle and horses, which were most in short supply in his country of Wei.
At this time, Zhao Hongrun continued: "Hexi is the territory of the Qiang and Hu. Even if the Han army conquers Hexi, it will not be easy for me, the Wei Dynasty, to govern that land... In order to prevent the Qiang and Hu from counterattacking, I decided to
Strengthen the defense of several cities along the (west) river in Hedong County, namely Beiqu, Pishi, Fenyin, and Puban... Among them, Fenyin and Puban are the most important, so I would like to recommend them.
Mr. Kou takes up the post, I wonder what Mr. Kou thinks?"
"Subordinate?"
Kou Zheng looked at Zhao Hongrun in surprise.
With his wisdom, how could he not see the important position of Fenyin and Puban in the western part of Hedong County in the future. 8