"In the main town, there is a man who calls himself Qianshan Zhao Han and wants to see him."
"Um?"
Zhao Han looked up with a strange expression, then smiled and said: "Invite him in."
Fei Yu was working outside. He was one of the three secretaries. Not long after, when Fei Yinghuan and Wei Jianxiong were brought in, they almost screamed in surprise, but they immediately immersed themselves in processing official documents.
Fei Yinghuan didn't squint his eyes as he was taken into the house. He raised his hands and said, "Zhao Han from Qianshan, meet Mr. Zhao!"
Zhao Han was a little surprised when his father-in-law came. He quickly stood up and said, "Uncle, please sit down."
Wei Jianxiong retreated outside the house and closed the door to prevent anyone from eavesdropping.
"Brother Han has done a great job." Fei Yinghuan teased with a smile, seeming to be sarcastic, yet also complaining, with a bit of sigh.
Zhao Han was very thick-skinned and said: "Master Taishan is so complimentary."
"I've seen some of your policies, so I won't ask you any more," Fei Yinghuan went straight to the point. "I just ask you, when can you take over Jiangxi?"
Zhao Han said: "We must take Nanchang Mansion next year."
"I heard that there are Fujian and Guangdong armies in the south. I thought you would go to Ganzhou first." Fei Yinghuan was a little disappointed. "If we take Nanchang first, I'm afraid the imperial court will send more guest soldiers to encircle and suppress them."
Zhao Han explained: "I discussed with several gentlemen, and my original intention was to take Ganzhou first, but Nanchang was too bullying. Its private Nanchang banknote customs tax was heavier than that of the eunuchs, which greatly affected the people under my rule.
Business and people’s livelihood. They are willing to die themselves, so let them be fulfilled!”
Fei Yinghuan asked again: "How sure are you of winning Nanchang?"
"Very sure." Zhao Han replied.
"So confident?" Fei Yinghuan asked.
Zhao Han said with a smile: "If it weren't for the purpose of consolidating the territory, I would have occupied half of Jiangxi this year."
Fei Yinghuan stopped asking questions and said, "I want to go south to Funing to be the magistrate. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Funing is in Fujian?" Zhao Han was not sure.
Fei Yinghuan said: "On the seaside of Fujian."
Zhao Han smiled and said: "Master Taishan, if you are willing to help, you can befriend Zheng Zhilong for me."
"Okay, I understand." Fei Yinghuan nodded.
"well!"
Fei Yinghuan suddenly sighed: "When I brought your brother and sister back to Jiangxi, how could I have expected the situation today?"
Zhao Han said: "Even if I don't come to Jiangxi, my son-in-law will find a place to rebel."
"Do you like rebellion that much?" Fei Yinghuan asked.
Zhao Han shook his head and said: "It's not that I like rebellion, but that the Ming Dynasty is hopeless."
Fei Yinghuan smiled and asked, "Do you know that many of the courtiers have the idea of settling in the south?"
"I don't know." Zhao Han said.
Fei Yinghuan explained: "This idea was first proposed by civil scholars and gradually spread to the court. It was believed that the provinces in the south of the Yangtze River were the wealthiest places in the world, and the northern provinces not only failed to harvest money and grain, but also had to continue to provide money from the court.
To fight the war, we might as well abandon the north, move the capital to Nanjing to rectify the government, eliminate the long-standing abuses, and then send our troops northward."
"It's a beautiful idea. After peace, how can anyone be willing to go to the North? Is this the idea of the southern scholars?" Zhao Han said with a sarcastic smile.
"Indeed," Fei Yinghuan nodded and said, "Although it has been widely circulated, it is all private discussion, and no one dares to speak out openly. Now that you are raising troubles here in Jiangxi, there are probably fewer and fewer people who want to be partisan.
Already."
Suddenly, Zhao Han asked: "Master Taishan, why don't you go to the inner house to rest for a while and call Rulan and Ruhe to talk."
"No need," Fei Yinghuan raised his hand and said, "There are many people and it's better for me not to see them. I'll leave after I finish talking to you. Zhang Yinggao, the prefect of Guangxin, is a man who knows how to govern the people and fight. He has trained five thousand
Xiangyong, you should be careful."
"Thank you, Lord Taishan, for reminding me," Zhao Han said with a smile, "No matter how elite the country warriors are, their combat effectiveness will drop exponentially after they leave their hometown because they don't know why they are fighting."
"Okay, that's all, I'm leaving first." Fei Yinghuan stood up and said.
He really wanted to leave without even seeing his son and daughter. He had to rush to Fujian to take up his post.
Fei Yinghuan quickly arrived in Ganzhou by boat and headed southeast along the Gongshui River, where Huichang County had been recaptured by officers and soldiers.
Halfway through the journey, I suddenly saw a large number of ships coming from the opposite side. They were the troops of Zou Weilian, the governor of Fujian. The ships were used to transport baggage. There were about ten thousand soldiers (including civilians) walking along the river bank.
Fei Yinghuan was not stopped for inspection and arrived in Huichang County smoothly.
When I inquired at the dock, I found out that the Ruijin rebels had been wiped out, and only a few hundred remnants were left who fled into the mountains.
Fei Yinghuan was a little worried about his son-in-law, so he immediately returned by boat and went to the capital city of Ganzhou to meet Zou Weilian.
In the military camp outside the city.
Zou Weilian was going on a killing spree, and sixteen mid-level officers were lined up waiting to be beheaded.
The Fujian soldiers he brought with him always went to burn, kill, rape and loot after entering Jiangxi. There were even some generals who killed good people and took credit for their crimes after massacring villages, which made Zou Weilian so angry that he beheaded him on the spot.
Zou Weilian is from Jiangxi!
If you ask him to lead troops to Zhejiang to suppress bandits, he may turn a blind eye. But if he leads troops to Jiangxi to suppress bandits, how can he allow his troops to act randomly? He will be stabbed in the back by his hometown elders!
Among the three governors, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, the governor of Jiangxi, and the governor of Fujian, Zou Weilian was the most eager to suppress thieves.
Because his hometown, Xinchang (Yifeng County), is just north of Fenyi and Xinyu counties. In a year and a half at most, the Luling Zhao thieves will take over his hometown. Can Zou Weilian not be anxious?
A fire broke out in the backyard of the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, so he withdrew his troops and returned to Guangdong to quell the chaos.
Zou Weilian stayed alone in southern Jiangxi, but intensified his efforts to suppress the bandits, and took back Ruijin County in just one month.
He left five hundred soldiers each to garrison Ruijin and Huichang, and then led a large army to Ganzhou.
"kill!"
The sword flashed and the head fell to the ground.
The soldiers are solemn and the generals are resentful.
In order to prevent the guest soldiers from plundering his hometown, Zou Weilian could only pay the full amount. Moreover, he had to avoid the military generals, otherwise the generals would definitely deduct their wages.
Therefore, ordinary soldiers and grassroots officers all supported Zou Weilian very much.
But the middle and high-level military generals hated Zou Weilian to the core. He didn’t let them drink the soldiers’ blood, and he didn’t let them loot. So why did they come to Jiangxi from Fujian to make trouble? Wouldn’t it be better to just enjoy the happiness at home?
"Commander Fu, I have an old friend visiting me." The staff handed over a greeting note.
Zou Weilian picked up the greeting card and looked at it, and immediately said with joy: "It's Zhao Zhao who is here, please come quickly, please come quickly!"
Fei Yinghuan strode forward, cupped his hands and said, "Brother Dehui, long time no see."
"Brother Dazhao," Zou Weilian bowed in return and said with a smile, "please sit down in the tent and have a drink."
These two people were from the same hometown and were elected in the same year. They also went to Beijing to take the exam together and failed.
Zou Weilian was only four years older than Fei Yinghuan. He lost his father when he was young and had to drop out of school. When he was less than ten years old, he went into the mountains with his mother to cut firewood. Both mother and son made a living by working as woodcutter.
He also had no money to buy books, so he borrowed them from neighborhood children. He read books at home, on the road chopping firewood, and at any time and anywhere. He was afraid of getting the books dirty, so he wrapped them in pieces of cloth while working.
Zou Weilian only had a tutor and no Confucian teacher. He relied on self-study of the Four Books and Five Classics. He was admitted as a scholar at the age of nineteen.
After entering the county school, he finally became a Confucian master and studied the Confucian classics seriously. Then, he was elected as a scholar at the age of twenty-one and a Jinshi at the age of twenty-five.
"Why is Brother Dazhao here?" Zou Weilian asked.
Fei Yinghuan replied: "My foolish brother was transferred to Funing Prefecture. Hearing that a Zhao bandit was causing trouble in Jiangxi, he went to Ji'an Prefecture to investigate in person."
"Oh, what can be gained?" Zou Weilian took it seriously. He also had Ji'an gentry who defected, but they all came from Taihe County and Wan'an County. The gentry from Jishui, Luling and Anfu counties preferred to go to Nanchang and
Jiujiang run.
Fei Yinghuan said: "This thief has three things that make him quite unpopular."
Zou Weilian asked: "What three things do you dare to ask?"
Fei Yinghuan laughed and said: "The first is to divide the fields, and divide the land of the big family among the small people. How cruel is it? The second is to release the slaves, and release all the domestic slaves, military households, and civilians. The third is to look down on the scholars.
Regardless of whether you are a scholar or a scholar, anyone who becomes an official under the Zhao thief must start from a low-level official or a small official."
Zou Weilian was stunned and said in horror: "How can this be unpopular? This is an act of incitement and deception!"
The "human heart" mentioned by Fei Yinghuan is the heart of the gentry.
The "people's heart" in Zou Weilian's words refers to the heart of the head of Guizhou.
Zou Weilian asked: "Did the Zhao thieves kill the landlords and gentry indiscriminately?"
"It's not like they killed indiscriminately," Fei Yinghuan said. "Every time they went to a village or town, they would kill the local residents who committed the worst crimes to vent the people's anger. The rest of the landowners were forcibly divided into fields, but they kept their money, food, houses, and homes."
"Are there exploiting merchants?" Zou Weilian asked again.
Fei Yinghuan said: "All merchants are happy with the Zhao thief's government. On the contrary, the governor and chief envoy of Jiangxi have set up private banknotes and imposed heavy taxes, and merchants from the north and south have complained."
Zou Weilian sighed: "This thief is indeed extraordinary."
Fei Yinghuan took out a copy of "Datong Collection" and said: "Ships passing through Linjiang Prefecture and Ji'an Prefecture will be forcibly sold a book on rebelling against thieves. Brother Dehui, please read it."
Zou Weilian opened it and read it carefully. He was angry at first, then frightened.
Many of the articles written by these rebels had the same thoughts as Zou Weilian himself.
In addition to the rebellious remarks in it, Zou Weilian liked this book very much, and even felt a little regretful about it.
Fei Yinghuan suddenly asked: "How many soldiers does Brother Dehui have? Do you have the confidence to defeat the Luling Zhao thief?"
"How can I have any confidence?" Zou Weilian sighed, "I heard that the Zhao thief defeated two governors one after another, so he must be stronger now. Although I have more than 10,000 soldiers, I only have three or four thousand who can fight.
The only people I rely on are the more than a thousand cannons and the more than ten Franco machine cannons."
Fei Yinghuan asked again: "Brother Dehui, why didn't you advance quickly and kill the Zhao thief by surprise?"
Zou Weilian shook his head repeatedly: "In the suppression of bandits in southern Jiangxi, we achieved great victories one after another. My men are all arrogant soldiers. I stopped them again and stopped them from looting in Jiangxi. The generals under my command have become increasingly disobedient. This time they moved to
Ganzhou, firstly, to raise money and food, secondly, to recuperate the troops, and thirdly, to enforce strict military discipline! If military discipline is not strict, I will definitely not dare to go north to suppress the bandits."
"Brother is a man who knows how to fight." Fei Yinghuan said in admiration.
In the following days, Fei Yinghuan was not in a hurry to leave. He helped Zou Weilian in Ganzhou and investigated the reality of his army.
Wei Jianxiong quietly went north and sent a letter to Zhao Han.
Even the name of Lieutenant General Zou Weilian's army was written clearly in the letter, not to mention how many muskets and artillery were there.
(About Yuan Chonghuan, the discussion was quite intense. I can only say that except for the time of Wang Tingxuan’s dismissal, which I got wrong by two months, all the content in the previous chapter is recorded in historical books. Yuan Chonghuan must have done it.
He has done a lot of nonsense, but his attitude towards Mao Wenlong was first helpful, then helpless, and finally angry. There is too much content, so I will write it down in the author’s words.)
