Outside the town of Wei County, a banquet had just ended.
Li Fan returned to the inn with deep emotion.
Xiao County, a place that has been desolate for who knows how many years, has actually become a place with a stable supply of money and food.
Bah! Only party members like it.
There are mountains everywhere, and although there is no flat land, it is difficult to connect them. A small mountain valley can often only accommodate dozens or even a few households. The valley land is good, but there is too little.
However, King Xia was willing to spend money and acquired so many livestock. The mountains were lush with vegetation and gurgling streams, making it an excellent place to raise livestock, similar to Hengshan.
Wei County is just another Hengshan party settlement.
"Today's Dayu, the mutton is very good. The Dangxiang people are really good at raising sheep."
"That's Hexi sheep, not Shayuan sheep. You haven't eaten enough."
"Actually, fish are not bad. How come Dangxiang people know how to raise fish?"
"If there are agricultural students teaching, there will be no problem."
“Why are there no agricultural students coming to Shaanzhou?”
Outside the inn, the soldiers were chatting in twos and threes and reminiscing about the great feast that had just ended.
Li Fan strode into the inn.
As soon as he entered, he felt something was wrong. The three floors inside were full of sergeants, with their swords unsheathed and their bows strung. Zhao Guangfeng was sitting in the back, looking at him with a smile.
The sound of horse hooves could be heard outside the inn. The crowd was so dense that there might have been hundreds of horsemen.
Li Fan's expression suddenly changed.
"What are you doing, Li Shuai, standing there?" Zhao Guangfeng stood up and invited him, smiling and saying, "Yixing Yangxian tea, come and taste it together."
"I should have thought of such a day." Li Fan shook his head and smiled bitterly.
He stopped the blind movement of his soldiers, took off his sword, handed the bow tip to his entourage, sat down in front of Zhao Guangfeng, and asked: "Is this what King Xia means?"
Zhao Guangfeng nodded.
"It's not bad. I have been the commander of the festival for four years." Li Fan laughed at himself, maybe a little unwilling after all, and asked: "By doing this, King Xia is not afraid of chilling the hearts of the heroes in the world and no one will come to vote for him."
What?"
"If the general trend had not yet come true, perhaps we would not have dared to do this, but now the general trend has come true." Zhao Guangfeng said concisely and concisely.
Li Fan was speechless.
He also has a share of credit for helping the King of Xia become powerful. No, he just ran to Nanyang with 6,000 soldiers last year to guard Luyang Pass. He also fought twice with the Liang people in Sanya Town and Lushan County, killing nearly 1,000 people.
.
How ironic!
"Zhu Quanzhong can't survive for a few more years." Zhao Guangfeng continued: "Li Keyong has sworn in Jinyang and sent troops to Youzhou. He has no time to take care of the overall situation of the Central Plains for the time being. The king just won a great victory in Huainan and even won Shen Guangshou'an.
Four prefectures and nineteen counties. The Feilong Army broke into the Liang Dynasty and turned the world upside down. Quanzhong could not control it. With such a great situation, what can I say?"
Li Fan became even more silent.
He was fighting with the Liang people on the front line and knew the situation very well.
In the Battle of Heqing last year, Quanzhong suffered heavy losses. This year, we felt it. The total strength of the Liang Army did not seem to be effectively compensated. How much did Huainan lose this time?
According to the information obtained through inquiring, Shi Shucong lost more than 10,000 people, Zhang Quanyi and Ding Hui lost thousands more. I don’t know how many of them are government soldiers, how many are state and county soldiers, and how many are local men. But
There must have been losses of three to five thousand direct lineage troops, or even more.
Yang Xingmi took the opportunity to capture the two states of Chu and Hao, further reducing Zhu Quanzhong's territory. Coupled with the troubles of the Feilong Army, the spring plowing of some counties in Liang was affected. Most of the troops and horses lost this year will not be replaced unless taxes are increased.
The more people are fighting, the fewer people are fighting, and the territory is getting smaller and smaller. This is the general trend.
"How did King Xia arrange for me?" Li Fan asked feebly.
"Maybe he can enter the court."
"Not bad." Li Fan smiled bitterly and asked, "What will happen to Shaanxi Town?"
"Abolish Tonghua Town, merge Tongzhou into Shuofang. Set up Shaanxi Town, control the four prefectures of Shaanxi, Guo, Hua and Shao, and govern Shaanxi Prefecture." Zhao Guangfeng said.
In fact, the plan to stop Yingning Town was made at the end of last year, but due to delays, it has only been officially launched now.
Including Fengxiang Town, which Shao Shude just dismissed, the territory directly controlled by "Xia State" will include 24 states, 108 counties, more than 483,000 households, and more than 2.484 million people.
The expansion is still very rapid. This year's task is to digest it well, transform Xindezhou County and replace it with reliable officials. The state army system also needs to be vigorously rectified, and the post station, academy, and school system are fully integrated. In short, there are a lot of things to do
The most important thing is to let the people in these states and counties know who the "real" saint is.
"What should the sergeants do?" Li Fan asked.
Zhao Guangfeng did not answer him.
Li Fan understood, and probably wanted to cut through the mess quickly and deal with it quickly.
Before he set off, Li Tangbin ordered him to select a thousand elite soldiers to go to Mianchi.
I didn't want to take the order, but I didn't dare to refuse in the end. Instead, I helped persuade these sergeants to go eastward. Now it seems that most of them have been annexed and broken up into various armies to make up for the battle losses.
Gao Renhou also asked him to "select a thousand warriors" to escort grain and grass to Heyang. Now thinking about it, most of them were not escorting grain and grass, but annexation. I heard that they were attacking the Liang people's Guanghe and Banzhu cities.
There will be fewer casualties, and this will fill the gap.
Once these two thousand people left, there were only three thousand soldiers left in Shaanzhou. But there were quite a few Xia troops stationed there to rest and recuperate. As long as they were deceived, for example, by directly disarming them in the name of a reward, that would be enough.
It's been straightened out.
After all, the Shaanxi and Guo army was too weak. If they had only ten or twenty thousand men and were well prepared, they would never have been annexed so easily.
Alas, it's too late to say anything!
The Shaanxi-Guo Army, which evolved from the Shence Army stationed in Shaanxi, is about to disappear. Perhaps military titles such as the Baoyi Army will still be retained, but what does it have to do with the Shaanxi people?
Being weak is really "sinful".
…
"It seems that your Duke is living very comfortably in Chang'an." In the Chongming Pavilion of Huaqing Palace, Shao Shude poured a bowl of tea for Xiao Yu with his own hands.
Xiao Yuan was very satisfied with Shao Shude's gesture. At least he respected them on the surface. Unlike some warriors who simply used knives to coerce rather than cooperate.
"The imperial court is peaceful and fine." Xiao Yu said: "Ximen Zhongsui took up his post, and Liu Chongwang took away another 20,000 people. Now there are less than 10,000 soldiers in the city. Even if you want to do something, it will not be easy. Han Palace Supervisor should know it very well."
"With your Majesty in charge of the overall situation, Xiaoxiao will naturally not dare to make any mistakes." Han Quanhui said with an apologetic smile.
In the past six months, Changan has experienced a lot of personnel changes.
Ximen Zhongsui, the envoy of the Tenth Army, was appointed to the post, and Han Quanjie took over the post. However, Liu Jishu also decentralized power and maintained a new balance.
Prime Minister Cui Zhaowei was demoted to Fengzhou Sima. Xiao Qu, the former deputy envoy of Longyou Jiedu, came to Beijing and served as minister of the Ministry of Industry, minister of Zhongshu, and Tongping Zhangshi. Today, the four prime ministers are Xiao Qu, Zheng Yanchang, Wang Tuan and Cui Yin.
, the key post of Minister of Rites is held by Feng Yanqing. Over time, this court will be tamed to become more and more obedient, and at the same time, it will become less and less valuable.
"The only thing that troubles the imperial court is financial planning." Xiao Yuan added: "I granted several kingships last year, and I should be able to cope with it this year. If war starts again, the imperial court will have nothing to eat."
"We can only look at this again." Shao Shude had no way to solve this problem.
You can't tie up various vassal towns and ask them to pay tribute, right? What's more, Shao Shude himself is poaching the court, and the five counties of Qianzhou suddenly cut off 300,000 people, which made the court's financial situation worse.
"If we only raise an army of 10,000 gods, our financial plan can still support it." Han Quanjie added at the side.
Xiao Yu and Shao Shude both knew that if Liu Chongwang's 20,000 people couldn't come back, wouldn't they save money?
"Eighty people will be admitted to the science examination this year." After talking about financial planning, Xiao Yuan talked about another matter: "There are not so many positions in Jingzhao Mansion, and many people have not yet obtained official positions."
"There are still many vacancies in the five counties of Fengtian and the counties of the former Fengxiang Town. Let's pick some reliable people to go there." Shao Shude said.
In the past few years, the number of candidates for the imperial examination has increased from thirty to fifty, and then to eighty. Scholars from all over the country are praising them. Many of them have submitted their papers to Feng Yanqing, and these can be used.
In fact, there are not that many vacancies in the five counties of Fengtian, Fengxiang, and Pingning, but isn't this a clean-up of the bureaucracy? All the unreliable ones have been stepped aside and replaced by students from Guanbei Prefecture and foreign scholars who wrote the papers.
Of course, these people must also be examined. If their loyalty is not absolute, they will be replaced one after another in the future.
Shao Shude didn't want to think that when he was doing something unspeakable, there would still be people in the Kansai base who would dare to stand up against him.
Officials loyal to the Li Tang royal family must be slowly found out and told to get out.
As for the generals who may be loyal to the imperial court in the army, it is not that there are none, but they are definitely much fewer than the civil servant group. After all, when the imperial court's prestige was still relatively high, this group of military men dared to rob the emperor and rob the palace people, counting on their hearts.
To be loyal to the imperial court and to the saint is simply an overthinking. Now the vassals who are still loyal to the imperial court, I don’t know if they can exceed the number of them.
"Your Majesty, you have thought carefully." Xiao Yuan nodded approvingly.
The vassal towns in Guanzhong were flattened, local state and county officials were gradually replaced, and the behemoth nicknamed "Xia Kingdom" was steadily expanding. These were all moves that consolidated the fundamentals, and Xiao Yu appreciated it very much.
Only by doing this can big turbulence not be caused when the dynasty changes, at least the Kansai fundamentals cannot be reversed.
Xiao Tuan had a strong hunch that Shao Shude might be the first among the princes in the world to proclaim himself emperor and change dynasties.
Although this has advantages, it also has great disadvantages. The first person to do this is always easily disgusted, criticized, reviled and even hated by the people in the world.
In such an uncertain situation, it is very important to have stable fundamental support.
Kansai cannot rebel, and cannot even have a big voice of opposition. This is the minimum requirement.
"Let's leave it to that in Chang'an." Shao Shude said, "In a few days, I will go to Heyang. There are more than 130,000 people in Menghuai counties, and the first batch of millet and wheat has been harvested this month. What's next? There is also autumn sowing, and more fields will be planted this time. This is a major event, and I must be there in person. All matters in Guanzhong will be left to you and others."
"We will not distract the king." Xiao Yuan and Han Quanjie responded.
On July 21, the second year of Qianning, Tianxiong's army collected food and grass and set off first.
On the 23rd, Shao Shude personally led the Yi Congjun, and the right wing of Tielin's army left Huaqing Palace and marched towards the river.
