Wang Jun stayed with Han Qian for several days and returned directly to Yangzhou from Tangyi City on the sixth day of August.
As soon as Wang Jun and his maid Xiangyun returned to Jianyuan, Mrs. Xu rushed over and asked nonstop:
"Has the Marquis of Qianyang agreed to the marriage? Hey, tell me, since ancient times, where has a girl come to the door to propose marriage? Even if the Marquis of Qianyang agrees to cooperate with Huaidong for temporary gain, but if you marry him,
How can you be taken seriously? Besides, the Marquis of Qianyang took a concubine three or four years ago before he even married, and this concubine gave birth to a son for him. Knowing this, he would bully you to death!"
"What if the Marquis of Qianyang doesn't agree?" Wang Jun looked at the girl with interest and asked.
"Ah?" Mrs. Xu was stunned for a while, but seeing the smile on Wang Jun's eyebrows, she couldn't help but reach out and pat her, and said, "What's the use of you trying to deceive me with this matter? I'm not worried about you.
Will you be bullied if you marry?"
"Where is Dad?" Wang Jun asked curiously as he didn't see his father.
"I didn't see him. Maybe I didn't know that you came back from Tangyi today and that he was still doing official business in the state government office." Mrs. Xu said.
Wang Jun knew that his father must have known that she had returned to Jianyuan. He was probably still feeling ashamed of using her as a bargaining chip and didn't want to act too hasty, right?
Naturally, Wang Jun would not reveal too many details to his wife, so he went back to his room to wash up and change into women's clothes. It was not until late in the evening that he saw his father riding a horse back to Jianyuan.
Prefecture Sima Yin Peng also rode over, and Wang Jun knew that they were still thinking about what she had experienced in Tangyi in the past few days; otherwise, Yin Peng, as Prefecture Sima, would not be so idle as his father's follower all day long.
"I went out to relax for a few days, but I lost a little weight. I came back to eat something good and replenish my body." Wang Wenqian waited in the study until Wang Jun came over with his concubine Xu to say hello. He inadvertently signaled to the maid and the guard walked out to the corridor.
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"If your father has nothing else to say, then my daughter will go and eat something good to replenish her health," Wang Jun said.
"Ahem!" Wang Wenqianqing coughed and asked a little shamelessly, "Have you gained anything else from your visit to Tangyi these days?"
Wang Jun didn't cry or hang himself when he came back. Of course Wang Wenqian knew that there was no problem with the marriage, but the problem was that besides this marriage that had gone through too many twists and turns, under what conditions and in what form would Han Qian join forces with Huaidong?
That's the key.
He believed that after Jun'er met Han Qian, even if they were not directly involved in these issues, he would make observations and consider what he needed to figure out.
"Does father want Jun'er to marry to Xuzhou?" Wang Jun stared at his father Wang Wenqian and asked quietly.
Wang Wenqian asked with a hint of bitterness: "After you marry to Xuzhou, I will resign as the governor of Yangzhou. Jun'er, do you want to be a father or not?"
"Ah, why do you want to resign as governor?" Xu asked in shock.
Xu has been with Wang Wenqian for these years, and her vision and knowledge are different from those of ordinary women, but she does not have a deep understanding of people's hearts to the point of being able to understand even the smallest details.
She never thought that the basis for Huaidong to seek cooperation with Han Qian was that Xin Wang Yang Yuanyan, Ruan Yan and others believed that Han Qian was ambitious, and that Han Qian would choose to cooperate with Huaidong for personal gain instead of focusing on the court. It was possible
Help the court put pressure on Huaidong and withdraw from the vassal?
However, everything has two sides.
Huaidong believes that Han Qian's ambition is beneficial to them at this time, but in the future, as long as his strength allows, there is no guarantee that Han Qian will not backfire on Huaidong.
Wang Wenqian resigned as governor of Yangzhou to avoid suspicion for future events.
Of course, the meaning of what Wang Wenqian said to Wang Jun was also very clear. If he was greedy for power, he would not let this marriage push him into extreme embarrassment, and in the end he might not be happy with both parties.
It's not that Wang Jun can't understand these truths in his heart, but sometimes he needs to ask them in person to get a clearer and more certain answer. When he opened his eyes, he saw that his father's temples were already white with frost.
There was silence for a while in the study, and no one answered Xu's question. Xu stood aside slightly embarrassed, tapping Wang Wenqian's shoulder habitually with his hand.
"Does father think that His Highness secretly sent someone to seek help from King Shou?" Wang Jun asked.
"In the past two years, Ruan Yan has been with His Highness, and it has been difficult for me to come and talk to His Highness every three to five months. This matter is really hard to explain," Wang Wenqian said.
The difference between closeness and distance in this world is so subtle. Even if King Xin trusts him now, he does not necessarily tell him everything in detail without having his own opinions. Besides, he is a minister, and Xin
A king is a king, and a king must always pay attention to the way of checks and balances among his subordinates. How can he win over other ministers if he wears the same pants as one minister?
Of course, Wang Wenqian didn't want to go too far into the topic of suspicion between kings and ministers. What he cared more about was Han Qian's exact attitude in the whole matter.
Wang Jun did not say much, but told his father Wang Wenqian that Han Qian intended to sell the Tangyi farmhouse in Yangzhou.
Tangyi offered hundreds of thousands of acres of newly cultivated land for sale, and also gave away houses, farm tools, seeds, food rations until next year's crops mature in the summer, and some necessary daily necessities. This is basically not much different from giving it away for free.
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Even if refugees are recruited to reclaim wasteland, they do not need to pay a penny, but the refugees have to start reclaiming land and build houses. Without enough tools, this process will be extremely difficult, and they should not expect to settle down until two or three years later.
Of course, the number of people Tangyi recruits this time is limited, only 10,000 or 20,000 people. The money and grain earned from selling the land and houses will be fully lent to Huaidong. This can be regarded as a mutually beneficial matter.
More importantly, this lays the foundation for further cooperation in the future, allowing both parties to get closer together step by step, without having to worry about one person suddenly changing his mind or cheating the other party.
Wang Wenqian immediately drafted a letter and sent it to Chuzhou overnight, where Wang Yang Yuanyan would settle the matter.
At present, it is an open secret that the Han family is spending all their money to support the construction of Tangyi.
As a wealthy family in Jiangdong that coexisted with the Feng family, outsiders could not figure out what kind of background the Han family had. Just like who could have expected that the Feng family alone would be confiscated by Emperor Tianyou after the Imperial Mausoleum case.
Six million yuan of family property?
Therefore, Han Qian had enough energy to cultivate land in Tangyi, renovate the excess fields and houses, and sell them for sale. Wang Wenqian and everyone in Huaidong did not think much about it, and thought it was more the result of the Han family's help.
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King Xin Yang Yuanyan responded quickly and gave Yangzhou full authority to handle the matter. Then Han Qian and Feng Yi led a dozen people to Yangzhou to deal with the sale of land and houses and the payment of money.
This matter was not deliberately kept secret from the imperial court. Han Qian even directly wrote to the imperial court, requesting that this method be implemented in Xuanrun and other places to raise military resources.
However, the problem is that Han Qian refused to invest money from clan clans to hoard land in Tangyi and then use slaves to farm it. However, ordinary property-owning households in the counties in the south of the Yangtze River were not in a desperate situation where their families were ruined. Who would be willing to risk their lives and drag their families away?
He moved with his family to settle in Jiangbei, a place that could be involved in a fierce war at any time.
Even though there are quite a lot of landless poor people and refugees who have left their hometowns and live in foreign lands in the counties in the south of the Yangtze River, they are the targets of local aristocratic clans and clans who are competing to sell them into slaves. How can the local forces be willing to give away the fat in their mouths?
Coming to Tangyi?
Of course, the imperial court did not want to strongly support Tangyi in recruiting landless poor people and refugees in the counties south of the Yangtze River, but it would not prohibit Tangyi from attracting war-torn refugees from Huaidong.
If we really want to ban it, wouldn’t it force Han Qian to pick a lot of tricks?
Things progressed just as Han Qian originally expected.
Yangtai and other places were less affected by the war, and the vast majority of the disaster-stricken victims were unwilling to move to Tangyi and were waiting for the floods to recede to return home.
However, Chuzhou, especially the area close to the Huaihe River, was the area that Liang Jun focused on attacking and destroying at the beginning of the year. It is also destined to be the area where Liang Jun focused on attacking in the future. The refugees who fled from there to Yangtai, their
Most of their homes were destroyed. Even if they had to wait for several more months to return home after the flood receded, the situation they would face would not be better than that in Tangyi.
However, people in the world have always settled down and relocated, and not many of these people are willing to move to Tangyi.
Without repeated blows, most people will have an optimistic or lucky attitude towards the future.
However, in the early days of the war, the refugees who fled from Haizhou and Sizhou on the north bank of the Huaihe River to the south had difficulty returning to their homes and were stranded in the Yangtai area. They did not want to starve to death or sell themselves into slavery, so they had no choice but to abandon their small amount of money and belongings and go to Tangyi.
Just try your luck.
The Yangzhou Governor's Office and Tangyi Xingying posted official lists inside and outside Yangzhou City, and those who responded gathered.
Even if the land in Tangyi is sold at one-tenth of the land price in Jiangnan, and comes with houses, rations, farm tools and seeds, there is still a certain threshold for the refugees fleeing south. However, in just ten days, Tangyi and Yangzhou agreed.
The quota of 3,000 households and 20,000 people was all taken up at once.
Either money, gold and silver, or cloth, a total of 200,000 yuan of money and materials were collected, which were lent to the Yangzhou governor's office with the expenses of the Tangyi camp to purchase grain to relieve the Huaidong Army's growing embarrassment.
crisis.
The number of soldiers and civilians in the seven counties of Tangyi finally slowly increased to 150,000 by the end of August. The additional 30,000 men since March added more than 13,000 young men and women to Tangyi's production.
This can be regarded as slightly easing the serious labor shortage in Tangyi.
In addition, the common people who were recruited as corvees from Guangde Prefecture and Jiangzhou, logically speaking, after the three-month service period expires, they must be returned to their place of origin and replaced by a new group of common people.
Theoretically speaking, even if Zhou Fang and Chen Jingzhou withstood the pressure of local forces and fully cooperated, the force that Tangyi could recruit from Guangde Prefecture and Jiangzhou would be fixed.
However, if Tangyi paid enough cloth as wages, a considerable number of people with little or no land would be willing to stay, and they would not be restricted by the three-month corvee period.
At the end of August, the number of laborers from Guangde Prefecture and Jiangzhou to Tangyi to work on the construction of dams, villages, Chidao and Wugang increased to 12,000.
Coupled with the more than 8,000 craftsmen recruited and hired by Han Qian from Xuzhou, many craftsmanship projects in Tangyi counties can still be managed, and there is no serious disconnect...