On the Lantern Festival in the spring of the ninth year of Jianyan, Zhao Guan's family further stated on Fenghuang Mountain that they were still tolerating each other for the sake of the country, and then insisted on the general strategy of the Northern Expedition... Of course, among the people in the southeast, it was rumored that it was Zhao Guan's family who dragged his sword and wrote poems, which intimidated the situation.
Households... But no matter what, shortly after the Shangyuan Festival, the top priority of the Zhao Guan family's southern tour, that is, the tax reform centered on never increasing taxes and apportioning people into acres, was officially completed.
Climb the most difficult mountain and achieve a staged victory.
The most literary, but also the so-called core of the southeastern region, Liangzhe Road and Jiangnan East Road have officially completed the soil clearance and land inspection work for the situation households, and the relevant reforms were completed first in the situation households.
During the same spring plowing period, the Zhao Guan family, who were still stationed in Phoenix Mountain, once again issued a formal edict, but they pointed out two major events... The first was for the governors of Tokyo, the secret pavilion officials, and the imperial camp commanders from all over the country.
The commander's clear purpose ultimately determined the best number of personnel for military expansion.
The decree is clear and unmistakable. From now on, we will begin to expand the army. By the end of this autumn, the imperial camp's front, rear, left, right, center, cavalry, and naval forces must reach the full size of 300,000 troops!
Although the decree did not disclose the final number of positions, it could not be concealed from those who were interested - judging from logistics and the scale of recruitment in various places, most of the new positions were still allocated to Han Shizhong's Imperial Camp Left Army, Wu Jie's Imperial Camp Rear Army, and Li Yanxian
The Shaanzhou-Hedong Front Army, which is actually responsible for the attack, is nominally part of the Imperial Camp Central Army, as well as the Imperial Camp Cavalry in Quduan.
Obviously, this official finally made up his mind to open up the situation from the outside and inside mountains and rivers of Hedong.
Everyone had anticipated this for a long time. After all, it was an objective need of military strategy. However, this deadline showed that Zhao Guan's family's determination for the Northern Expedition remained unchanged, and the original timetable also remained unchanged.
In other words, with the visible 'success' of the Zhao Guan family's southern tour, the pace of the Northern Expedition is getting closer.
In fact, the second decree of the Zhao Guan family was to officially promote tax reform on a large scale in the southeast.
And this second edict was basically sent to the surrounding states and counties in the southeast together with the document from Lu Yihao, the envoy to the southeast and the envoy to the Zhejiang and Zhejiang roads. It also requested that the Jiangnan West Road, Lianghuai Road, and Fujian Road be plowed in the spring.
Similar restructuring was carried out later.
In the decree, Zhao Guanjia clearly pointed out in an almost magnanimous manner that the original intention of this restructuring was because the Jingkang Incident caused the national treasury to be empty and there was no money to feed the troops and the Northern Expedition, so they increased taxes in the southeast and Jingxiang;
Although it has made an indelible contribution to the stability of the country and the upcoming Northern Expedition, it has also increased the burden on the poor at the bottom; and since ancient times, the people have been struggling to make ends meet.
Therefore, when the Northern Expedition is about to be completed, it is necessary to complete the financial reform in the southeastern region, which has the heaviest taxes, so that the people at the bottom can have a little breathing space before they can start planning again.
Nowadays, the two Zhejiang Roads and Jiangnan East Road have been reformed, and the results are promising. This shows that this matter is indeed feasible, so the remaining four roads are implemented to reassure people and stabilize the country.
As for anyone who dares to neglect official duties out of selfish motives, take advantage of the general situation and pervert part of the situation, or even push back and resist, openly and covertly resisting, he will be severely punished and not even killed.
The decree was issued, and the official newspaper in Tokyo and the temporary ten-day issue of Fenghuang Mountain were published all over the country. For a time, there was a commotion in the country, and everyone was horrified.
Immediately after the spring plowing had passed and the edict was issued, Tokyo once again sent envoys to Fenghuang Mountain to invite the officials to return to Luan, and to report on the affairs of the court after the officials' southern tour last year, as well as the results of the unified judgments of the various ministers in the secret pavilion.
Please review it with the officials.
However, Zhao Guanjia once again publicly issued an order, commending several ministers and all the important officials in the secret cabinet for staying in Tokyo for their hard work and proper behavior; at the same time, they publicly replied that they would continue to stay in Fenghuang Mountain and wait for the implementation of new policies in the surrounding areas to prevent chaos in the southeast.
It's quite a bit like being here and not thinking about Shu.
Tokyo had no choice but to maintain smooth communication between the two places and put pressure on and assist the local governments. They repeatedly asked the local governments to cooperate with the Zhao family's financial reform, and sent supervisory censors to inspect the local areas, and also sent people to the relatively nearby Lianghuai River.
Assist in establishing the public cabinet.
In this way, Zhao Guan's family still stayed in the southeast and took charge. Then, from late spring onwards, summer gradually entered, and as the surrounding areas began to implement new policies, things happened again and again.
For example, the economic size of the Lianghuai Road is not inferior to that of Zhejiang and Jiangdong. From the south, it is considered the north, and from the central plain, it is the southeast. In this process, no serious resistance occurred as expected.
This is not only because the Wuwei Army stationed by Wang Gui is between the Jianghuai River and the Huaihe River, but also because he has witnessed all the events in the south of the Yangtze River across the river from Jingkou to Guazhou, so he has been mentally prepared for it.
In addition, Lianghuai is relatively close to Tokyo. It has always obeyed the central government politically and belongs to the core ruling area of the imperial court. It is the envoys of Lianghuai Road, Yangzhou, Shouzhou, Bozhou and Luzhou.
Most of the people-friendly officials in the state capital were confidants directly appointed by the imperial ministers or the Zhao family, so they were extremely effective in execution.
But the most important point is that Huaishang felt the effects of the Jingkang War firsthand that day. Huaibei was in a state of displacement, and Huainan also worked together to support the battle in Huaishang... Moreover, Huaixi and Huaidong were both the former imperial camps.
Where the troops were stationed, the official positions of Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun when they were stationed in Nanyang at Zhao Guan's house were respectively the envoys of Huaixi system and the envoys of Huaidong... From the beginning, the people of Huaihe and Huaihe understood in their bones the authority of the imperial court and the power of the imperial army.
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What's more, before the New Deal, there were signs that the imperial camp would expand its army in preparation for the Northern Expedition?
Under such circumstances, how dare the two sides really engage in confrontation?
However, as the saying goes, things must be reversed when they go to extremes.
Although there was no obvious act of resistance in Lianghuai, they did go too far. Especially in Huaixi, there were many local officials who harassed and even took the opportunity to exploit local large households... And this situation began to change with the formation of Lianghuai.
After the establishment of the public cabinet, it quickly caused a backlash. Local households used the public cabinet as an organizational form to contact the supervisory censor, and even directly appealed to Tokyo, targeting the local government.
The two sides were at loggerheads for a while, and there were a lot of bad debts.
It can only be said that what Liu Dazhong said that day was right. Lianghuai had already begun to have a situation where households borrowed public offices to compete with the government.
If this goes on for a long time, it may cause structural problems.
In comparison, the Jiangnan West Road side is much simpler.
In Peng Lize (later Poyang Lake), there were people who were witches, powerful men, and water bandits who contacted the rebellion, pretended to be Zhong Xiang, Yang Mo, and proclaimed himself the Monkey King, quickly swept through many states and counties, and even fought along the Yangtze River.
Next, the slogan was to break Phoenix Mountain and capture Zhao Guan's family alive. At the same time, it finally settled down again, but the southern area of Qianzhou, which had always had a tradition of rebellion, also started to riot. After Jingkang, the Qian thieves appeared three times.
And a Pengli Wu Dao water bandit, a Qianzhou Miao village bandit, one in the south and one in the north, immediately formed a scale in Jiangxi.
Of course, the imperial court was really prepared this time. Wang Gui from the Wuwei Army immediately went up the river and entered Penglize via Jiangzhou. At the same time, Guo Zhongxun's imperial camp reserve troops did not hesitate and immediately came from Departing from the north of Qianzhou, we launched the second round of encirclement and suppression of the Qian thieves.
Not to mention this, as early as the end of spring, Liu Qi's army began to gradually disperse northward in the name of letting the sergeants take leave to return to the Yellow River. However, they were waiting for orders in the Chizhou area and did not cross. At this time, they gathered directly and headed west.
As a result, the former took 17 days and the latter took 23 days. The two rebellions were ended before midsummer arrived.
Then, Liu Qi's tribe really went north and returned to the Yellow River. Even Wang Gui's tribe returned north to wait for orders directly after the war. As for Fenghuang Mountain, it opened the door to Guo Zhongxun's tribe who had pacified Qianzhou... Guo Zhongxun's tribe Ten thousand people were selected and replaced. Half of the weak soldiers continued to stay in Qianzhou, while the other half took advantage of the situation and turned to Hangzhou to gather in front of the imperial commander.
Of course, with the completion of the thorough military clean-up work, Jiangxi's soil was cut off, and the inspection of the ground was naturally carried out thoroughly and forcefully.
As for Fujian Road, it is different from Jiangxi and Lianghuai.
First of all, Fujian Road, together with Lianghuai, watched the reforms in Zhejiang and Southeast China, and they also had a good idea. Moreover, the achievements of Fujian's scholar-bureaucrats in these years were extremely common. There were famous scholars in almost every state capital, and they could appeal to the countryside. , and even planned and prepared early. At the same time, don’t forget that Fujian Road is the most severely exploited by the population tax, and the Zhao Guan family’s new policy is the most liberating for them.
However, Fujian's mountainous terrain has made the local clan power in this place almost unique and powerful.
All these circumstances ultimately led to Fujian Road's New Deal reforms taking a direction that no one expected - the problem was not how the households resisted the state, nor was it the conflicts between the government and the cabinet, and there were few who actually rebelled. Yes, the problem is that there are huge regional conflicts between localities due to land inspection and land separation issues.
By the way, what is the purpose of land inspection and land excavation? Of course it is for the fair distribution of taxes.
However, when the results of land inspection and land expropriation produce a necessary difference based on the area compared with the original total amount, those more or less differences, coupled with the total amount remaining unchanged due to never increasing the tax, This has led a considerable number of people to believe that they have experienced unfairness.
Those who have less money will naturally feel that they have paid more in the past hundreds of years, and those who have more money will naturally feel that they have been wronged.
The result is that between state capitals, cities and villages, cities and cities, and villages and villages, tax amounts are often distributed based on hundreds of guan, dozens of guan, or even a few guan or a few pence. A fierce dispute occurred.
And this kind of dispute can still be mediated and distributed between the state capital and the city. In other words, it can still be said by documents, and the superiors can still be arbitrary. However, as the upper and middle levels gradually smooth out the difference, the difference is decentralized. At the grassroots level, especially at the village level, things suddenly got out of control due to the emergence of large-scale armed fighting.
This is of course an extremely serious problem, and its destructive power is no less than that of the Jiangxi rebellion next door. However, faced with this situation, everyone did not know how to deal with it... First of all, everyone was just fighting internally, not really fighting the flag. The rebellion against the Song Dynasty didn't even touch the county seat. It can't be said that the troops of Guo Zhongxun and Yang Yizhong were directly transferred to suppress it, right?
But if we say that we only count malignant cases, we can just let the local officials go and try them, but I'm afraid that won't work... Because this kind of grassroots fighting is one of chaos and the other of cover. Where can the facts and criminals come from? And there are only a few in the county government.
How can an official officer be considered useless in front of the hundreds or thousands of young men armed with weapons in the village community? What kind of execution ability do they have?
Ever since, with eyes wide open, I could see Fujian Road falling into a weird overall chaos because of this incident.
For a time, even the Zhao Guan family, who had been proud of Lianghuai's obedience and Jiangxi's sharp knife to cut through the mess, was dumbfounded on Phoenix Mountain. They could only follow Li Gang's suggestion and sent Xu Jingheng, Liu Dazhong, Fan Zongyin, Mei Yue and others.
The "Investigation Team on behalf of the Emperor" headed by the Prime Minister went to various parts of Fujian to make peace with the situation, while hastily asking Fujian officials everywhere... Those who were close to him should go directly back to Fujian to maintain stability, and those who were far away had to write letters back quickly to provide guidance.
But to be honest, at this time, the official had already noticed that something was wrong, because he could probably see that the problem on Fujian Road was not only the most unexpected, but also the most serious in fact.
And the most difficult thing. Because firstly, its scale is far beyond imagination, and almost the entire grassroots level in Fujian is in chaos; secondly, it is the place where it happened, or the class where it happened, which is basically the central power in this feudal era.
The area that can be effectively touched... In other words, the Zhao Guan family is simply unable to use it.
In fact, this is indeed the case.
With the return of a series of reports from various parties, it is clear that the unrest at the grassroots level in Fujian, which made people confused, not only seriously delayed production, but also caused violent social unrest and created a series of local conflicts.
What's even more terrible is that when Zhao Jiu received the news that the local government was gradually calming down, summer was already over...and this meant that the summer tax collection work on Fujian Road had been largely damaged.
Even the autumn tax is not guaranteed!
And don’t forget, why did Zhao Jiu want to patrol the south and carry out this reform? Isn’t it just to unite people before the Northern Expedition, so that the people in the south can be a little more stable before the Northern Expedition, so that they can stand together and move north?
Then why can we make the Northern Expedition?
Isn’t it said that looking at this fiscal budget, it is estimated that it will be in place this year?
But now you can't collect all the summer taxes, and even the autumn taxes, and Jiangxi has also been affected to a certain extent, so why are you doing the Northern Expedition?
And is Jiangnan considered stable or not?
This turmoil has fundamentally shaken the Zhao Guan family's overall strategy.
Poor our Zhao Guan family. Since his debut, he has boasted of suppressing warlords, sweeping away rebellions, regaining the Central Plains, kicking down the Second Sage, shooting arrows at Yanlou's house, forcing Yelu Dashi to climb, conquering Xixia, opening a public pavilion, connecting the Western Regions, establishing Yuan School, and since then.
The Emperor of Japan pocketed gold, made money from the Confucian officials of Goryeo, asked Dali for copper mines, went to South Vietnam to buy rice, fought side by side with Yue Fei and Han Shizhong, chatted and laughed with Li Gang and Lu Haowen...turning around, he could also be in Phoenix
Counting crows on the mountain, sweeping the West Lake with a black dragon boat, dragging swords and composing poems to conquer the southeast, punching households in martial arts competitions, and looking down on Taoists, but they never expected that they were caught off guard and fell directly into a local brawl in Fujian.
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It is simply the most ridiculous thing in the world.
But this is not over yet. Summer is coming to an end, and just as the turmoil in Fujian is gradually calming down, and the Zhao family is hesitant to return north to Tokyo, another piece of bad news...or a phenomenon visible to the naked eye appears.
Zhao Guan's family could clearly see from Fenghuang Mountain that in the late summer, it began to rain extensively in the entire southeast, and it continued to rain non-stop.
In fact, in early summer of April, there was already too much rain in the southeast. At that time, local officials told Lu Yihao that this year's silk production would be slightly damaged.
But it's just a little bit, so it can't be called a disaster, and right now, it's actually similar... It would be too sensational to say it's a disaster, but this round of non-stop rain has indeed affected the autumn harvest on Liangzhe Road.
This made Zhao Jiu a little flustered, and it also made Lu Yihao a little flustered. The local officials were also a little flustered... Because everyone is not a fool. They all know that there are 300,000 people in the Qiuhou imperial camp, and they all know that something went wrong with the summer tax on Fujian Road.
What if the autumn harvest in the southeast suffers a disaster?
In the panic, some people couldn't hold their anger and took the initiative to report to Zhao Guan's family, suggesting that Zhao Guan's family offer sacrifices to heaven and earth and pray for sunny days.
Zhao Jiu tore up this memorial.
It was less than a day after the tear, and it was still raining in the West Lake, when an envoy from Tokyo arrived as a routine... Throughout the ninth year of Jianyan, envoys arrived every month, and they were usually at the level of a minister.
A senior member of the Secret Pavilion... This time was no exception. Liu Hongdao, the left minister of the Ministry of War, led the capital's water supervisor.
But to be honest, Liu Hongdao is responsible for the Yellow River issue. Unless there is something urgent at this time, there is no need to come here to ask for peace... As expected, this person went to Phoenix Mountain to visit Zhao Guan's family and explained various Tokyo matters and
Before local military affairs, a troublesome matter was mentioned.
"Yellow River waterway?" Zhao Jiu frowned.
"Yes." Liu Hongdao responded solemnly. "Specifically, it's the waterway in Shaanzhou. There are mainstays in the river... I don't mean Li Dutong, but the real mainstay..."
"I know...haven't there been no problems in the past?" Zhao Jiu looked at the patter of rain outside the old palace with his hands behind his hands. He looked a little impatient and interrupted the other party directly.
"I didn't say anything about the problem, but now that we are preparing for the Northern Expedition, a large amount of military supplies have begun to be transported to Kansai, and the rivers there are inevitably somewhat stretched." Liu Hongdao still responded seriously.
"That's true." Zhao Jiu nodded repeatedly. "It's something that can't be helped..."
"Actually, there is a way." Liu Hongdao quickly continued to explain. "Before I came, Hu Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry had discussed with me... In fact, we can rebuild the plank road in the river in the Tang Dynasty... The Shaanzhou area happens to have the north and south of the river in our hands, so it is completely feasible
."
"But how long does it take to build the plank road?" Zhao Jiu frowned even more.
"If gunpowder is used, it can be done quickly." Liu Hongdao responded sincerely. "I have tried it before in Tokyo. Using gunpowder to drill holes can completely blow up rocks to clear a way... But using large amounts of gunpowder requires official decision-making, so I came here specially...
If the officials can quickly dig a plank road, not only can military supplies reach Guanxi in time, but also materials from the southeast can be transported to the battlefield in Hedong at a faster pace when the war starts. Regarding smooth logistics, I think it is worth it."
Zhao Jiu could have opened his mouth to speak, but for some reason, he was doubtful for a moment and did not give a reply. Instead, as if he was lost in thought, he stood inside the door and stared outside the old palace in silence.
However, when I looked outside the palace, I saw the lush Phoenix Mountain, the Leifeng Pagoda visible in the distance, and the misty West Lake, but they were all misty and misty, shrouded in the summer rain.
Zhao Jiu knew in her heart that it was time to make a decision again.
PS: Thank you to Mr. Rabbit for being so cute, thank you to Mr. Saltwatermelon for being so cute, and thank you to Mr. Narb for being so cute. I will continue to wish you all a good year.