Li Chengzhi really wants Hu Baozong to pay back the money?
Just an excuse.
What he wants is just a fig leaf with an official name.
With Hu Baozong coming forward, even if the court later discovered that the Li family actually had so many armors and horses, the Li family would still have a reason to argue: to help the Jingzhou government quell civil unrest.
It’s really not just random excuses.
Li Chengzhi has never forgotten what Hu Baozong came to do when he met Hu Baozong for the first time: on the orders of the governor Hu Shichang, he ordered the gentry to raise soldiers to relieve the siege of Jingzhou!
If the court still pursues them, it is not impossible for Li Chengzhi to move the armor and the horse back a little.
Of course, the court must return every penny of the four thousand kilograms of colored copper spent...
Hu Baozong's brain speed is not that fast, and he did not expect it to be so deep for the time being. He only thought that Li Chengzhi was forced to consider the dilemma he was about to face: lack of food and soldiers!
He also had to admire Li Chengzhi's courage: if it were him, if he wanted to use such a large amount of financial resources to do something that might not be of much benefit to the clan, he would definitely think about it again and again...
With the Li family's financial situation, it would take ten years to accumulate so much money without eating or drinking, so was Li Chengzhi just a disaster?
"Ten thousand catties of gold?" Hu Baozong was slightly worried, "I wonder if Duke Huaide (Li Shixian) will be relieved after knowing about it?"
"Isn't the imperial court responsible for this?" Li Chengzhi said half-jokingly.
Also "Can you let go?"
Look at Li Song’s emotion when he knew he could really forge thirty pairs of armor in one day: God bless the Li family...
Not only did he want to arm the more than 300 soldiers of the Li family from beginning to end, he even wanted to attack the 400 soldiers of the Song family.
Li Chengzhi didn't dare to ask deeply, but he could roughly guess: Ever since Li Qi and Li Shixian were demoted to common people due to their defeat, the entire Li family has been waiting for this day for almost ten years.
Otherwise, how could Li Song, a retainer, have such courage to say "Li family is in high demand" every day?
What's more, this money is just like falling from the sky, what can't Li Shixian feel relieved about?
Even if Hu Baozong tried his best, he would never have imagined that Li Chengzhi was so bold that he dared to melt all the Buddha statues in Zhaoxuan Temple.
After hearing that Li Chengzhi told the court to tell the truth, he nodded seriously: "Don't worry, Mr. Shi is not a mediocre person, so he will not treat your family badly..."
"I hope so!" Li Chengzhi responded noncommittally, and then asked, "Now that it's decided, then think carefully about where to exchange these grains, horses, and iron materials. I'm so early
I asked Li Songyu to prepare a car and people for you... I just don’t know if you can survive this injury?"
"Actually, I'm fine. Even riding a horse is no problem..." After half a sentence, Hu Baozong paused again, "Forget it, let's prepare the car and go to Gaoping Town. It's not too far to the left and right..." p>
Li Chengzhi breathed a sigh of relief.
Li Song was indeed right, Hu Baozong chose Gaoping Town.
Just because it’s the closest to Jingzhou...
Today's Gaoping Town is Guyuan, Ningxia in later generations, only two hundred miles away from Jingzhou.
It was also one of the six town uprisings that led to the decline of the Northern Wei Dynasty more than ten years later.
The deputy town general is called Lu Gong. Bu Liugu comes from the eight nobles of Xianbei. He is married to the sister-in-law of Wu Shihou Hu Guozhen, who is also the clan aunt of Hu Baozong.
Although he is a deputy, the general Yan Ti is from a small Xianbei tribe, so he is very attracted to him, and the two have long been in collusion.
As for whether these two people dare to sell so much iron and horses to Hu Baozong?
Li Chengzhi said hehehe...
Not to mention horses and iron materials worth tens of thousands of catties of copper, why don't you try pulling one hundred thousand catties of copper?
The border towns of the Great Wei Dynasty have long been extremely corrupt, and there is nothing they dare to traffic in. Moreover, the objects of business are the sworn enemies that these border towns need to guard against: the Xiongnu, also known as the Rouran people.
The reason why these border town generals are so bold is largely due to the fault of the Yuan and Wei Dynasties: It has been more than 120 years since the founding of the Wei Dynasty. In the first hundred years, officials from top to bottom did not have salaries?<
/p>
Who dares to believe it?
Li Song told him that at the beginning, he was robbing, not just the enemy, but also the common people.
Later, when they were not allowed to rob, they could only be greedy and exploit them vigorously. In comparison, these self-organized caravans and Rourans, who did business with the Southern Dynasties, were simply the most upright officials among upright officials.
It wasn't until the late emperor, Emperor Xiaowen, came to power, Xianbei implemented Sinicization reforms, and began to pay salaries to officials, that this kind of business activity, which was no different from capitalizing on the enemy, stopped somewhat.
But when the emperor succeeded to the throne and fought several defeats against the Southern Dynasties, especially after the Zhongli War that almost exhausted the accumulation of generations of Yuan and Wei Dynasties, the imperial court could no longer afford the money.
The localities can still make peace, and at worst they can tax more heavily and let the governments at all levels withhold some. But the army in the border towns has no choice. At most, it can only provide rice and grain, barely enough to prevent the soldiers from starving and rebelling.<
/p>
If the town generals and military officers are a little greedy, the lower-level sergeants will not be able to maintain their food and clothing, let alone their lives.
This is the origin of the Six Towns Uprising.
Generals like Yan Ti and Lu Gong who have returned to old habits and organized soldiers to traffic in scarce supplies to pay for the military and also to make money for themselves can be regarded as honest, honest, and loyal to the emperor and the country.
What they usually traffic north are food, silk, linen, pottery and other items that the Rouran people are in urgent need of, and then exchange them for iron materials, horses, cattle and sheep, etc. from the Rouran people.
If the iron materials were transported to the Southern Dynasties, the benefits would be at least twenty to thirty times greater.
The reason why the ironware of the Wei Dynasty was cheap was because the northern border towns bought too much iron from the Xiongnu.
At that time, when Li Chengzhi heard the sentence "Iron materials were transported to the Southern Dynasties", he felt like he was hearing a joke.
During the Han Dynasty in the Central Plains, a large part of the iron materials used to make weapons and farm tools were actually made by nomadic peoples?
He even felt that he had traveled through the wrong time and space...
It wasn't until Li Song mentioned again that the Ashina tribe who mined iron mines and forged iron tools for the Rouran people were the Qianghu who escaped from Jingzhou when Emperor Taiwu captured Longxi, that Li Chengzhi suddenly remembered: This
The Ashina tribe should be the ancestors of the Turks...
In a hundred years, the Turks who destroyed Rouran and forced Li Shimin to establish the Weishui Alliance should be opening iron mines and burning iron materials for the Rouran people...
It was precisely because during the Five Hu Periods that the Hu people's armored cavalry ravaged the Central Plains and were irresistible, the Central Plains dynasty was forced to completely abandon the outdated tactical equipment of "chariots".
The Hu people's methods of building armored and heavy cavalry were learned from the Xiongnu.
Only then did Li Chengzhi realize: The grassland peoples at this stage really don’t seem to be short of iron...
Therefore, he was not worried at all whether Hu Baozong would return without success.
Thoughts were swirling in his mind, but Li Chengzhi didn't show anything on his face: "Since it's Gaoping Town, it's easier to handle. It's only two hundred miles away. If something happens, we can send a fast horse to deliver the letter and we can get there in one day.
It won't be too late to contact you then... Then I'll make arrangements now, and you can leave at dawn tomorrow!"
Hu Baozong hesitated for a while, and finally said only one word: "Okay!"