In the last few days of April, Zhao Hongrun requisitioned a batch of grain and grass from the Ministry of Household Affairs and asked officials from the Department and Warehouse Department under the Ministry of Household Affairs to load it on cargo ships and transport it along the Cai River, Yingshui River, and Shangshui River.
Nominally, this was rations shipped to the Shangshui Army stationed in Shangshui, but in fact, Zhao Hongrun had already sent a letter to the commander-in-chief of the Shangshui Army, Gu Liangwei, ordering him to transfer this batch of rations to Chen County or Xiangcheng. , secretly delivered to Pingyu Jun Xiong Hu.
Yes, this is the first batch of food and grass that Zhao Hongrun secretly supports Xiong Tuo, the Lord of Yangcheng.
It has to be said that this is an act of capitalizing on the enemy. Although Zhao Hongrun was trying to support Xiong Tuo, Lord of Yangcheng, and promote an internal fight between him and Xiong Sheng, Lord of Liyang, and Emperor Wei had already acquiesced to this matter, but even so, this matter was not It is not appropriate to make it public. If word spreads, even he, the famous Prince Su of Liang Dynasty, may be criticized by many Wei people.
Fortunately, the meeting point in Shangshui County was the surrendered general Gu Liangwei and his Shangshui army, so his loyalty to Zhao Hongrun could be guaranteed.
In fact, although Gu Liangwei is far less talented than Qu Cheng, the head coach of the Yan Navy, he is worse than him because he has no ambitions. The same is true for his deputy general Wu Majiao, who can be regarded as two honest generals.
Of course, this does not mean that Qu Cheng, Yan Mo and other generals of the Yan Navy are not worthy of trust. If I insist on saying so, it can only be said that Qu Cheng is ambitious and wants to make a difference in Wei and create a new world in Wei. The Xiong family is from a family with the surname Qu. Such people tend to value interests over favors.
Regardless of the fact that Qu Cheng is currently obedient to Zhao Hongrun, this is because Zhao Hongrun has a high status and great authority and can decide Qu Cheng's life or death with a single word. However, if Zhao Hongrun loses power one day, Qu Cheng may not be able to obey him.
To use an inappropriate metaphor, if Gu Liangwei is a dog and Qu Cheng is a wolf, if the wolf's belly cannot be fed, God knows if the wolf will one day turn back and bite the flesh and blood of its owner?
Fortunately, Qu Cheng's lieutenant general Yan Mo was honest, and the Yan navy was stationed in the center of Fenxing fortress, Shangshui County, and Anling County. It was in a state of being surrounded. Otherwise, Zhao Hongrun was really worried about taking him. Qu Cheng and Yan Shuijun were placed outside.
Of course, Zhao Hongrun saw this kind of thing very clearly: as long as he always held the power to destroy Qu Cheng. Then Qu Cheng would never be able and would never dare to betray him. After all, he had already promised to surrender these generals. Zhao Hongrun had already warned them with actions.
Until this time, the war triggered by the attack on the Chu envoy last year and its aftermath finally came to an end near May this year.
Estimating the gains and losses. The Wei Dynasty lost many loyal men and martyrs who were loyal to the country, and also lost nearly 100,000 Yingshuijun people. However, because Zhao Hongrun lured more than 400,000 Chu people from Chu after the war, Therefore, the total population of Wei Dynasty increased a lot.
The only thing that will cause conflicts is that the current three counties of Yanling, Changping, and Shangshui are all originally Chu people, while Anling, Zhaoling, Huaiyang and other places are all Wei people, and many of them are from Wei. Having personally experienced the Wei people in the last Chu-Wei war, it is not difficult to guess that the two groups of citizens in these cities will be in a state of disregard for each other, or even hostility to each other, for seven or eight years. I am afraid it will be difficult to resolve this. A barrier of mutual opinion.
Of course, Zhao Hongrun left all the matters of mediating and resolving the conflicts between the two groups of people to the Ministry of Household Affairs. After all, the Ministry of Household Affairs took Zhao Hongrun so much money and material for nothing, so he had to do something to show it, right?
At this point, the Ministry of Rites also made an effort and sent two Langguan to personally lead many people to the three counties of Yanling, Changping and Shangshui, and brought many books about the Wei Dynasty.
It is not difficult to guess that the officials of the Ministry of Rites intend to use the method of royal enlightenment to teach the Chu people to recognize the characters of the Wei Dynasty. Learn the language of the Wei Dynasty and adapt to the humanities and customs of the Wei Dynasty. I believe that these Chu people will gradually get used to wearing the Wei Dynasty. If they wear Wei's clothes, write Wei's characters, and speak Wei's dialect, then these Chu states will gradually integrate into the Wei people.
Moreover, in order to ease and resolve the conflicts between the two groups of people, the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Household Affairs jointly launched a work to encourage Wei men from Zhaoling, Anling, and Huaiyang to marry men from Shangshui, Yanling, and Changping counties. Chu women, and gave them various preferential treatment.
For example, a Wei man who married a Chu woman could enjoy some tax exemptions for his family, and local officials would also provide certain material subsidies, etc.
There was no way. After all, Xiong Tuo, Lord of Yangcheng, and Xiong Hu, Lord of Pingyu, had recruited 160,000 men before attacking the Wei Dynasty, but the only survivors were the more than 50,000 Yuan Pingyang troops who later surrendered to Zhao Hongrun and died in the battle. A total of 110,000 men.
what does that mean?
This means that if every Chu soldier who died in battle was married, it would be equivalent to 110,000 widows.
Of course, in fact, the number of widows is not as many as 110,000, but a conservative estimate is that there are probably 40,000 to 50,000. This does not include those Chu women who are not yet married. This situation has caused Yanling, Shangshui, The ratio of men to women among the Chu people who surrendered to the Wei Dynasty was seriously imbalanced. They were often led by a widowed girl who lost her husband in the war and led her young children. Such a combination, even in a country where taxation was lower than that of Chu State, It would be difficult for Wei State to survive if there were too many.
Therefore, the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Husbandry jointly started working in the hope that widowed Chu women would marry Wei people. This would not only help alleviate the conflict between Chu people and Wei people in Yingshui County, but also enable those orphans and widowed mothers to find a wife. A man who can support the family so that they can survive.
However, Zhao Hongrun only had a brief understanding of this matter. After all, this work would take some time. At the moment, he did not have the time to deal with the aftermath of the war.
In addition to the gains and losses in terms of national population, the Wei Dynasty has generally made gains in terms of vested interests. Not only did it earn a lot of wealth from Chu, but it also signed treaties with Qi and Chu afterwards. I believe that in the future Within three to five years, as long as King Xi of Qi is still alive and firmly in control of Qi, the Wei Dynasty will be in a rare period of peaceful rest.
Unless King Xi of Qi knew that he was about to die soon, in order to prevent Chu State from counterattacking Qi State after his death, he would strike first and organize the coalition forces of Qi, Lu and Wei to launch a final round of attack on Chu State. The Chu State was severely damaged, otherwise, the Wei Dynasty would have no more wars in the south.
Especially when Xiong Tuo, Lord of Yangcheng, had a tacit understanding with Zhao Hongrun in private, and Zhao Hongrun deployed heavy troops in the Yingshui Army, therefore, Yingshui North County would no longer be the weakness of the Wei Dynasty.
The threat to the Wei Dynasty now lies in the north.
Although South Korea in the north did not take advantage of the Chu State's attack on the Wei Dynasty last year, both Zhao Hongrun and officials in the DPRK generally believed that it was not South Korea's arrogance. The more convincing reason was probably the inconvenience of message transmission: By the time South Korea was about to take advantage of the situation and attack the weak Wei State, Zhao Hongrun had already led a large army to fight back into Chu State and reached the fiefdom of Yangcheng Lord Xiong Tuo.
Under such circumstances, how could South Korea easily send troops to Wei? Aren't they afraid that Zhao Hongrun, who was at the height of his military power at that time, would lead his troops to attack them and South Korea while they were victorious?
The Koreans could only sigh secretly, lamenting that they had lost the best opportunity to attack Wei.
It is undeniable that if South Korea sends troops to attack Wei when Zhao Hongrun and Xiong Tuo, Lord of Yangcheng, are still facing each other at Yan River, then Wei will not only lose the few remaining cities in Shangdang County due to insufficient troops , even Hedong County is in danger of falling.
It's a pity that South Korea was a step late. By the time they were ready to send troops, Zhao Hongrun had finished his work and could transfer his army north at any time to assist the Nanyan Army, one of the six garrison battalions, to attack the South Korean army.
Of course, in addition to the national population and vested interests, there were also some changes within the Wei Dynasty due to the war last year.
For example, Zhao Hongrun's imperial sister Princess Yulong finally got her freedom as she wished. According to the man-to-man agreement between Zhao Hongrun and Emperor Wei, Emperor Wei will no longer be able to decide anything for Princess Yulong in the future, including where she wants to go, and even what she wants. Emperor Wei has no right to interfere with who he marries.
Another example is Zhao Hongrun's respected sixth brother, the Rui Wang Zhao Hongzhao, who has been called Qilin'er since he was a child. He is a leader among the children of the Ji family and a rare hero in decades. Because of the war and all the subsequent events, Because of the relationship, he finally left the State of Wei and went to be an official in the State of Qi thousands of miles away, where he married the daughter of King Xi of Qi, Ji Ji. If nothing happens, he will take root in Linzi, the capital of the King of Qi, and it will be rare to return. A trip to Wei State.
But having said that, these changes may not seem like much to outsiders.
For example, the people of Wei State, how they lived in the past and how they still live now, could at most regret King Rui's visit to Qi after dinner, or chat with their neighbors with interest, talking about the sudden appearance in the nearest market. There are a large number of Chu country specialties, but that's all.
The six departments in the imperial court were operating as usual. The only difference was that the Civil Affairs Department, controlled by Prince Hongli of the East Palace, and the Department of Criminal Affairs, Supervisory Department, controlled by Yong Wang Hongyu, started fighting as expected.
Although it cannot be said that he used public affairs for personal gain, it is undeniable that Yong Wang Hongyu conducted some inspections on officials who were suspected of defecting to the Prince of the East Palace, and the most commonly used method was to thoroughly investigate corruption and bribery.
The Prince of the East Palace was so frightened that even though he was in charge of the Literary and Selection Department, which could recommend anyone at any time, and even arrange for anyone to serve in many departments, he did not dare to act rashly, for fear of being targeted by King Yong's Supervisory Department, which would later attract the attention of the Imperial Palace. Shitai is a special department with more power to punish corruption and bribery.
However, Hongli, the crown prince of the East Palace, also launched a counterattack at the suggestion of his aide Luo Yao. He impeached Emperor Wei of the Supervision Department and disrupted the normal operation of the Wenxuan Department. Emperor Wei was extremely annoyed by this and finally threw the matter away. It was given to Yushitai, who had full authority to handle it.
Compared with the Prince of the East Palace and King Yong, the other royal brothers of Zhao Hongrun were very peaceful and managed their own three-acre land honestly, just like Zhao Hongrun.
Not to mention, following Su's new weights and measures regulations that seem to have not helped so far, the Smelting Bureau finally has a project that can make money.
Sell candles.
Don't underestimate the value of that small candle. In fact, in Wei State, which had not yet entered the era of electric lighting, the number of candles consumed by the whole country every day was really an astronomical figure.
Therefore, in Zhao Hongrun's view, as long as it occupies a small share of this huge market, just selling a few newly made candles is enough for the Smelting Bureau to earn countless wealth. (To be continued.)