Eight hundred and fortieth chapters provoking disputes
Yuancheng is the prefecture of Weizhou and one of the three major cities in Hebei. It is second only to Ji County in Youzhou and higher than Xindu County in Jizhou. Tian Yue also adopted a policy of promoting commerce and heavy taxation on his territory to encourage commerce.
, improve the status of merchants to obtain large amounts of business tax.
In addition, Tian Yue imposed heavy taxes on salt and wine, and implemented a monopoly on salt. Each dou of salt was worth 550 wen, which was the same price as Li Wujun and Li Na. This was the price agreed upon by the three companies.
Wine was also a specialty item, but people could not drink it, or make some fruit wine by themselves. The wine tax was not much, but people had to eat salt, so the salt tax was a big part of the three families' support for the army.
Tian Yue, Li Wujun and Li Na all realized that in order to obtain more salt tax, the population base is the key. The more the population, the more salt is consumed and the higher the salt tax. The three companies also unanimously adopted encouragement
As for fertility measures, widowhood is strictly prohibited and widows are encouraged to remarry.
Strictly restrict concubinage, and link the qualifications for concubinage to the amount of taxes paid. If a businessman wants to take concubines, he must pay enough taxes to qualify for concubines.
On the surface, it seems that the three families are in peace with each other, but in fact, in order to obtain more people, the three families are desperately poaching each other. They are constantly making various small moves, lowering land prices in border areas, and implementing low rents on official fields to attract farmers from each other.
settle down.
Therefore, the Song Dynasty placed great emphasis on commerce and gradually formed a highly developed commodity economy. This was also the result of the pragmatism and emphasis on commerce in the vassal towns in the late Tang Dynasty.
The commerce in Yuancheng is very developed. Boats travel between Yongji Canal and Zhangshui River. Merchants sell cheap and sell expensive. Merchants and goods from all over Hebei gather in Yuancheng.
There are more than a dozen restaurants and inns standing next to the pier outside Yuancheng City. The restaurant on the far side is called Huang's Big Head Fish Restaurant. It is famous for its fish cooking and its business is not bad.
At noon that day, a middle-aged man was sitting by the window on the second floor of Huang's Restaurant. His name was Li Mian. He was the shopkeeper of Gaotong Inn in Yuancheng, and he was also the intelligence chief of the Jinwei Mansion stationed in Yuancheng.
Li Mian tapped the table with his index finger and glanced at the stairs from time to time. He received an order from Chang'an yesterday morning, asking him to obtain detailed information on the Anyang River shipwreck incident as soon as possible, as well as follow-up tracking information.
It should be said that Chang'an's request was not difficult. Li Mian immediately found their people inside Tian Yue and asked to investigate the matter. They met at Huang's Restaurant at noon today.
At this time, a person walked up from the stairs. He was a scribe in his thirties, elegant and elegant. His name was Wang Rui. He worked as a staff member in the Palace of Wei to deal with various intelligence matters. This position was not high, but he had access to some people.
Important information, he was bribed by the Jinwei Mansion two years ago and sold a large amount of important information to the Jinwei Mansion.
Wang Rui sat down opposite Li Mian and said with a smile: "What a coincidence, this morning, King Wei issued a hush order, prohibiting anyone from talking about the shipwreck incident on the Anyang River, and all relevant reports were sealed and handed over. Fortunately, I did it last night
I copied a copy overnight, otherwise I really wouldn’t be able to get anything out.”
After saying that, he put a booklet on the table and pushed it to Li Mian. Li Mian put the book away, stood up and said, "I have to go back. I have already paid for the food and wine on the table. The cloth bag on the table is
Use your salary this month slowly!"
Li Miangong cupped his hands, turned around and went downstairs.
Wang Rui squeezed the cloth bag and found five ingots of silver. He weighed it again and found that it was estimated to be fifty taels. He smiled with satisfaction, put the silver in his bag, and started to drink and eat.
........
At noon the next day, Guo Song received the intelligence from Yuancheng. The length of the Eagle Letter was not large. The sender tried his best to explain the matter clearly in condensed vocabulary, and then the Jinwei Mansion in Chang'an wrote the intelligence into a text of about a thousand words.
Reporting is also a professional skill of the Jinwei Mansion, and there is more or less the shadow of the intelligence code of later generations.
At the same time, intelligence sent from Xindu also described the impact of the shipwreck on Li Wujun.
By combining the two pieces of information into one and then referring to each other, you can intuitively see the impact of this incident on both parties.
What Guo Song really didn't expect was that Luo Siman also died, which was definitely a major blow to Li Wujun. Li Wujun believed that Tie Huolei had been snatched away by Tian Yue, and Tian Yue killed his military advisor Luo Siman.
Tian Yue seemed unable to explain the truth and did not bother to explain, which further confirmed Li Wujun's judgment.
This result is what Guo Song expected. The two sides had turned against each other before, and this time they were even more hostile. Judging from Li Wujun's personal killing, Li Wujun's hatred has reached the edge of breaking out, but there is still a fire left. Li Wujun
Then he could attack Tian Yue regardless of the consequences.
How to light this fire?
Guo Song paced back and forth with his hands behind his back, thinking for a long time. He turned back and asked Song Tian: "What is the biggest conflict between the two of them?"
“Salt and population!”
Song Tian blurted out, and he explained to Guo Song with a smile: "Tian Yue often sent people to smuggle private salt to Li Wujun's territory to sell it for three hundred and fifty cents a dou, and the people in the countryside were willing to buy it. Although it was cheaper, it originally belonged to
Li Wujun's salt tax was stolen by Tian Yue, and the second was to recruit people. Tian Yue's land was more, so he recruited the people under Li Wujun's jurisdiction to rent crops without rent, which caused Li Wujun's extreme dissatisfaction.
The first time I sent people to negotiate, the results were ineffective.
Of course, Li Wujun is not a good person, and he has done many dirty things, but he has suffered more, so he has always held a grudge and expressed his intention to retaliate against Tian Yue many times to his subordinates."
"How important is Luo Siman to Li Wujun?" Guo Song asked again.
"Luo Siman has followed Li Wujun for more than ten years. Many of the major things Li Wujun did were planned by Luo Siman. Luo Siman was not only his military adviser and prime minister, but also Li Wujun's father-in-law. Li Wujun's second concubine was Luo Siman's.
daughter."
Hearing this, Guo Song had a bold idea in his mind. He thought for a long time and said to Song Tianling: "Give me detailed information on Han Jincheng, the chief general of Nangong County."
........
Jingcheng County in the northwest of Beizhou and Nangong County in the south of Jizhou are close together. There is only a river between the two counties, called Jiangshui. This is also the hardest-hit area where Li Wujun and Tian Yue penetrate each other. A large number of Tian Yue's private salt banks
They followed the Jiangshui River deep into the villages of Jizhou and Xingzhou to seize Li Wujun's most important salt tax revenue.
Li Wujun deployed three thousand troops in this area, and beheaded the private salt dealers sent by Tian Yue on the spot if they caught them. However, Li Wujun's troops would also cross Jiangshui to plunder the population in the countryside of Jingcheng County, and Tian Yue was also in Jingcheng County.
Three thousand troops were deployed.
In the middle of the night, more than a dozen men in black sneaked into a private house with two acres of land in Nangong County. The owners who lived here were a young woman and a two-year-old boy.
The men in black broke into the inner courtyard, grabbed the young woman and the child, gagged and tied them up. Several maids and women were so frightened that they hid. At this time, conflicts arose among the men in black.
"General Sima said, as long as we have a boy, this woman will drag us down!"
"Nonsense! General Sima said that the mother and son were arrested together."
"You two, stop arguing, take him back first and then confront him!"
More than a dozen men in black put the mother and son into a sack each and left quickly...
At dawn the next day, Han Jincheng, the army chief stationed in Nangong County, rushed to the county. He had just received news that his concubine and son had been kidnapped at night.
Han Jincheng was shocked and angry. He rushed back to his concubine's home in the county town like crazy.
His family is in Xindu County, and he has two daughters and one son. His son died of illness five years ago.
Han Jincheng lost his son in middle age and was greatly shocked. Three years ago, he was stationed in Nangong County and took a concubine. The concubine was very successful and gave birth to a son for him the next year. This made the nearly fifty
Han Jincheng was ecstatic.
He usually goes back to the county town to spend the night, but last night he had to inspect the night defense situation of the camp and did not return to the town. Unexpectedly, something happened last night.
In the yard, the child's nurse told Han Jincheng what happened last night with tears in her eyes.
"They were very vicious. The young lady was tied up hand and foot and put into a sack. The young master was still sleeping soundly. He was tied up like a little rice dumpling and his mouth was blocked with rags..."
When Han Jincheng heard that his wife and children had been so abused, he couldn't help but feel like a knife was twisting his heart. He asked with a livid face: "Who are they?"
"I don't know, but they seemed to mention General Sima. One person seemed to say that General Sima only wanted his children, and the other said that General Sima wanted both his mother and his son. They argued for a few words and then left quickly."
"Sima Li!"
Han Jincheng gritted his teeth. He knew who it was. Sima Li, the city lord general, must have wanted to avenge himself for killing fifteen salt sellers last month. He was prepared for Sima Li to come to attack and retaliate, but he did not expect that Sima Li would actually
He would attack his own son.
"Sima Li, you actually wanted to arrest my son, so don't blame me, Han Jincheng, for not following the rules."