Zhangye is known as the fortress to the south of the Yangtze River, and it is not far from Wuwei, where the Hexi Jiedu envoy is stationed at the festival. Before the Anlu Mountain rebellion, the Tubo and Uighurs did not dare to harass Zhangye.
At that time, the people in Zhangye were prosperous and lived in peace and contentment.
But when Li Daoyuan and his party walked into Zhangye City, they could hear crying everywhere, the original prosperity disappeared, and the whole Zhangye was extremely desolate.
There was a long queue at the door of a pawn shop. The Hexi Jiedushi Government once again started to collect mulberry donations. The tax collectors responsible for collecting mulberry donations had already gone door-to-door and issued harsh words. If you can't pay taxes on time, your home will be ransacked!
The city of Zhangye was filled with gloom and misery, and Li Daoyuan and his party finally found an inn to stay at.
Zhou Shizong said in a young and energetic manner: "What kind of bird officials are these! They are destroying Zhangye like this! Commander, Zhangye is not far from Guazhou, right? Let the brothers come over and kill these bird officials and occupy Zhangye."
!”
Li Daoyuan frowned.
Zhang Duanyang first said: "Shut up, you kid! Zhangye is not outside the Great Wall. If you occupy Zhangye, it will be a rebellion! With the number of players, you still want to rebel?"
Li Daoyuan also said: "It is true that Zhangye is an important town of the Tang Dynasty in the Hexi Corridor. Wuwei also has the army of the Hexi Jiedushi. If there is a rebellion in Zhangye, the suppressive army will come tomorrow."
Yu Xiaoxiao looked at the people queuing up to pawn their property and even sold their sons and daughters and couldn't bear to say, "Are we going to let them go on like this?"
Li Daoyuan thought for a while and said: "The Hexi Corridor is the entrance to the Customs and must be captured no matter what. There are also large horse farms in Zhangye. If they really change horses into mulberries, the horse politics of the Tang Dynasty will be finished."
, if you want to restore it by then, you will have to spend several times the financial resources and manpower.”
Yu Xiaoxiao and Zhou Shi's eyes lit up. Li Daoyuan was the backbone of the eastbound group. Since he said that, he must have thought of a way.
Li Daoyuan said: "If the horses involved in Hexi change horses into mulberry, then our journey will be delayed?"
Zhou Shi immediately said: "If you delay, you will delay. Our mission to deliver the letter to Fengxiang Mansion has no time limit. Boss, just tell us what to do!"
Unexpectedly, Li Daoyuan gave an answer that surprised everyone: "Wait!"
wait?
Everyone looked at each other in confusion, not understanding what Li Daoyuan meant.
However, Li Daoyuan did not simply sit in the inn in Zhangye City and wait. He led everyone to wander around Zhangye and chatted with businessmen in Zhangye City when he had nothing to do.
The huge demand from the West has caused the price of silk to soar.
Food merchants flocked to the Tang Dynasty and purchased silk at high prices.
But now that the war near Xijing was breaking out, a large amount of Jiangnan silk was transported to Fengxiang Mansion by water, and was quickly rewarded to the soldiers by the emperor.
Jiangnan has experienced the Yongwang Rebellion, and spring sericulture has also been affected. It is foreseeable that there will still not be a large amount of silk on the market this summer and autumn.
Merchants are the most sensitive to news. Silk prices will continue to rise this year. This has become the consensus of all silk merchants in Zhangye.
The more the price increases, the less silk is on the market. Many merchants cannot receive enough silk and stay in Zhangye City.
The price of silk in the Zhangye market rose three times a day, which also attracted attention to the government's decree to change horses to mulberry.
Nowadays, the price of silk is so high. If you can buy a horse farm and convert it into a mulberry field, how much money can you make?
Moreover, land is something that can be passed down to descendants, which has caused competition among the big families in the city.
The horse farm in Zhangye is quite large, but no matter how much land there is, it is not enough in the eyes of these powerful families.
This is also normal. In this agricultural era, land is the foundation of a family. If they don't really have enough to eat, no one will sell the land.
Even if some people sell land, it is only sporadic land, which cannot be compared with the scale of this time.
Not only were the powerful locals in Zhangye, but when he was in Fengxiang Mansion, Fang Guan vigorously promoted his national policy of converting horses into mulberry trees in Hexi, attracting the attention of many ministers in the Fengxiang Mansion.
Many officials sent their sons and housekeepers to follow Fang Guan to Hexi. They were also the ones who wanted to get a share of the process of converting horses into mulberries.
A mulberry field in Hexi can produce as much silk as possible and how much money can be earned.
The land in Hexi is as fertile as Guanzhong, so these people were attracted by Fang Guan and came to invest in Hexi one after another.
This also led to the phenomenon of hanging rails in Zhangye. On the one hand, people sold their sons and daughters in order to pay enough for their donations.
On the one hand, these powerful families spend a lot of money, and today they even held a banquet at the Dingxiang Building, the largest restaurant in Zhangye City, to entertain local officials.
"Prefect Wu, this is the wish of the twenty-five major families in Zhangye, you must accept it!"
Wu Chudao, who was only in his fifties, was the governor of Ganzhou, and the administrative seat of Ganzhou was Zhangye. Wu Chudao, an old man with a gray beard, was the highest-ranking official in the area.
Wu Chudao has been feeling a little uncomfortable recently. The reason for his discomfort is the decree issued by the Hexi Jiedushi government regarding horses as mulberry trees.
Before the Tianbao Year, the Jiedushi had no power in civil affairs.
It was also because Anlushan had made many meritorious services and the Hu people could not be promoted to the central government as prime minister. In order to appease Anlushan, the prime minister Li Linfu at that time awarded Anlushan the military governors of the four towns in Hedong.
When An Lushan, who later served as the Jiedushi of the four towns, had no reward, the Tang Dynasty court also gave An Lushan the power of civil affairs.
But this is also true for unruly military formations like Hedong. Guanlong was originally the place where Li Tang made his fortune, and there were so many powerful families in the area.
In a small place like Zhangye, only ten households were granted the title of Shangzhu Kingdom.
When the former Jiedushi Guo Ziyi was in office, the Hexi Jiedushi Office did not manage civil affairs.
The governor of a big state like Ganzhou was himself an important official in the imperial court, and he was only one step away from the prime minister.
After Fang Guan took office, he followed the national policy of changing horses into mulberry trees and treated Wu Chudao like a slave.
This also made Wu Chudao very dissatisfied. You, Fang Guan, were just a minister who was lucky to be promoted. Before the chaos, you were just a minister. You were lucky enough to rise to the top with a little credit, and you actually shouted around at an old minister like Wu Chudao?
Wu Chudao was in a bad mood. Although he received the gift, he was still not in high spirits.
The governor was in a bad mood and was not happy with the wine. After finishing the wine, Wu Chudao's closest aide, his brother-in-law Zhang Hun, helped Wu Chudao into the study.
"Brother-in-law, the big families at the table today said they want more mulberry fields, why shouldn't you come down? At the current price of silk, as long as you can spin it, it's money!"
As the name suggests, Zhang Hun was not very good at reading, but he could write and do calculations. He was a member of his own family, so Wu Chudao brought him to Ganzhou to take up the post.
Zhang Hun had the most money. Wu Chudao took one look at him and knew that this guy had taken advantage of others and came to act as a lobbyist.
Wu Chudao sighed and said, "Sell the land if you say you want to. Are there so many mulberry fields in Ganzhou?"
Zhang Hun was in charge of the financial planning of the governor's office and knew the acres of land in Ganzhou very well. He immediately said: "Why not? The Shandan Ranch is so big, there may be a lot of mulberry fields!"
Speaking of money, Zhang Hun was even more unwilling to let the money he got slip away. Several wealthy families established this time spent a lot of money to bribe him. If nothing happens, the money will definitely be returned.
Wu Chudao opened the mailbox and handed the letter inside to his useless brother-in-law.
Zhang Hun saw the names on these letters and his body trembled a few times.
The names here are all famous figures in the world. When he saw the name of Shuofang Zuo Wufeng's envoy Pugu Huai'en, he couldn't hold back at all.
Pugu Huai'en is a popular figure around the current prince. He is brave and good at fighting and has repeatedly made military exploits. Moreover, Pugu Huai'en is from Longyou. He wrote this letter to his nephew to ask for mulberry fields in Zhangye.
Zhang Hun already wanted to return the letter to his brother-in-law, but he was asked to continue reading, so Zhang Hun could only bite the bullet and read on.
When he saw the letter from King Guangping, Zhang Hun completely collapsed on the ground.
The Prince of the Eastern Palace wrote to him, saying that he wanted to ask for land for his family, and asked Wu Chudao to handle it as appropriate.
Now Zhang Hun finally understood why his brother-in-law's words were not enough.
Even if we take out all the land in Longyou, I'm afraid it won't be enough!
Wu Chudao said in a depressed mood: "Go back and do the math. Just the land requested in these letters can divide the entire Ganzhou. How can there be other places to divide?"
Zhang Hun fell limply to the ground and said, "But these big families in the city are on the same page as us, how can we refuse?"
Wu Chudao naturally understood what Zhang Hun meant. He couldn't offend the big shots who wrote the letter. He wanted to be transferred back to the court as soon as possible. If he offended some big shot and was randomly stumbled by others, then he would never be able to return to the court in this life.
Already.
Not to mention the wealthy Longyou family like Pugu Huai'en, and finally the one who cannot be offended is the prince Li Chu.
But you can't offend big shots far away, and you can't offend local wealthy families either.
These families have already had close ties with Wu Chudao, and their relationship can be said to be a deep collusion. If they offend these big families, Wu Chudao will not have a hard time in Zhangye City in the future.
You can't offend him here, and you can't offend him there either. This is why Wu Chudao hates Fang Guan so much. If you change the horse into a mulberry, you won't get the benefits, but you will be in a lot of trouble.
Zhang Hun rolled his eyes and said, "Brother-in-law, you want me to see that there is still land in Ganzhou."
Wu Chudao laughed angrily and said: "You have been in charge of Hucao for so many years, but you still can't understand the account books? You don't know that there is still land in Ganzhou?"
Zhang Hun said with a smile: "Brother-in-law, the Ganzhou racecourse is not enough, but the fields are not enough?"
"Tian? Every field has an owner!"
Zhang Hun grinned and said: "Brother-in-law, since we are changing horses into mulberry fields, planting mulberry trees must be more profitable than farming, right? Why not take this opportunity and change the farmland into mulberry fields?"