A big bag was swollen on Cheng Yaojin's forehead, his eyes were dissipated, and he couldn't say a word for a long time. Pei Qingsong apologized in his heart. After all, Pei You was his clan sister, but he was also a little depressed. He didn't even have any
Pay attention to him.
He quickly helped Cheng Yaojin up with two personal soldiers. Yang Yuanqing looked at Pei You's ox cart and walked away. He suddenly felt a 70% favorable impression of Pei You. Once a woman is independent, she will have a soul...
After coming out of the city, his five hundred soldiers occupied several greenhouses, all of whom were full of wine and meals, and sat together and chatted. The only one with a bitter face was the shopkeepers of several tea sheds, and they had no way to do business.
When Yang Yuanqing and others walked out of the greenhouse, the personal soldiers came forward to us. The headed personal soldiers and general named Han Xiaoguo, who was Han Qinhu's grandson. He was about twenty-seven or eight years old and was the first to join the army in Youzhou.
Yang Yuanqing went to Fengzhou and became a lieutenant step by step, and eventually became his personal soldier and general.
He stepped forward and bowed, whispered: "Master, I have something to report to you."
"What did you say?"
Han Xiaoguo turned around and pointed at the shopkeeper of the teahouse, "When he was having a meal, he heard a strange thing, saying that the Maitreya Cult in Pingyuan County was extremely prosperous, and it only took two months to develop, and I heard that the government was involved.
Now.”
Yang Yuanqing suddenly became alert. The worship of Maitreya Buddhism is often a prelude to rebellion. A few years ago, Song Zixian, a native of Hedong County, was good at illusion and could transform into Buddha statues. He claimed that he was the reincarnation of Maitreya. He believed in tens of thousands of believers and called on the people to rebel.
There is also a monk named Xiang Haiming from Fufeng County who also claimed to be reincarnated by Maitreya and founded the Maitreya religion. It caused rebellion by tens of thousands of believers and had severe harm.
Why did the Baimaite religion appear in Pingyuan County? Moreover, in the eastern part of Pingyuan is Douzigang, a famous rebellion site, so don’t revolt again.
Yang Yuanqing immediately waved to a guard, handed him a silver medal, and told him: "You go to Hejian County immediately and order the prefect Yang to mobilize 10,000 troops. Hurry up to Pingyuan County and stand by."
"Abide by the order!"
The personal soldiers took over the silver medal and urged the horse to gallop away.
Yang Yuanqing pondered for a moment. He originally planned to go directly to Hengshan County to return to Taiyuan, but now he has changed his mind. He must go to Pingyuan County to check the situation. If he is careless, he will set off a wave of rebellion. This pair of Hebei's economy that has just begun to recover will
It was a fatal blow.
Yang Yuanqing's mood of relaxation suddenly became nervous. He experienced war. He knew very well that this speed of using religion to develop believers could sweep the whole county in just a few months. If he was careless, he would definitely make it into irreparable.
loss.
He couldn't help but feel extremely dissatisfied with the prefect of Pingyuan County. The Maitreya Cult has been developing for two months. He did not report.
"Walk!"
He whipped the war horse hard and led his personal soldiers to rush northeast...
Pingyuan County is located between Qinghe County and Hejian County. Bohai County is to the east and Qi County is across the Yellow River to the south. Its southeast is Douzigang, the most famous rebellion center in the late Sui Dynasty.
Like Qinghe County, Pingyuan County was also devastated by war. The originally rich and densely populated land has dropped sharply by 70% after years of war.
As the war ended, Pingyuan County began to gradually regain its vitality. At this moment, a craze of worshipping Maitreya stormed Pingyuan County.
In the early morning, Yang Yuanqing, dressed as a businessman, brought more than 20 subordinates into Pingyuan County. Yang Yuanqing was very cautious. If he led 500 cavalry into Pingyuan County, he would inevitably be discovered by the Maitreya religious believers, and they might even be triggered.
Rebellion in advance is not worth the cost.
In order to deal with this kind of rebellion using religion, the best way to deal with it is not to suppress the army, but to expand the matter, even if it is suppressed, it will suffer heavy losses. The best way is to arrest the core religious members of the local government.
In the ninth year of Daye, Song Zixian, Tang County, Hedong County, initiated the worship of Maitreya religion. Tens of thousands of believers were discovered by the government in time, killing Song Zixian and more than a thousand loyal believers, and promptly stopping a large-scale rebellion.
But what annoyed Yang Yuanqing was that the Pingyuan County government not only did not stop it, but even rumored that some officials also participated in the church, which made the problem a little serious.
It was late spring, and it rained all night. By dawn, the rain had not stopped. The sky was gray and there was a fine and dense rain, which made the entire plain shrouded in a rain fog.
Because it rained all night, the official road seemed a little muddy. A caravan composed of more than a hundred mules and horses was walking hard on the official road. The mules and horses were loaded with goods and carefully wrapped in oil cloth. Most of them were salt and sugar and other life.
Things that are necessary.
This caravan is dressed by Yang Yuanqing, including Cheng Yaojin and Pei Qingsong, with a total of twenty-five subordinates, all of whom are highly skilled in martial arts.
At this time, they had entered Pingyuan County. Pingyuan County is the southernmost county in Pingyuan County, close to Qinghe County, and it is also the county seat. Pingyuan County is Ande County, located in the central and southern part of Pingyuan County, about 80 miles away from Pingyuan County.
.
On the left side of the official road is a dense forest that stretches for dozens of miles, and on the right side of the official road is a large area of farmland, covered with green wheat seedlings. In the distance is a small river, and by the river is a small village.
"Master, go to that small village to ask about the situation!"
Pei Qingsong, wearing an octagonal hat and a black silk robe, dressed in a tentpole, pointed to the small village not far away and suggested enthusiastically.
Yang Yuanqing nodded, and he looked at the lazy spirit and the unconscious Cheng Yaojin again, and asked him with a smile, "What do the second boss think?"
Since being beaten up by Pei You, Cheng Yaojin has been like a defeated rooster, and he has no more spirit and is too lazy to say a word, "It doesn't matter!" He replied lazily.
"Okay! Let's go to the small village to see if there is any wine sold."
Yang Yuanqing deliberately mentioned wine. Cheng Yaojin's eyes lit up and then dimmed again. Although he was good at wine, how could wine heal the scars in his heart? He now wants to go back to the capital to talk to his wife to tell his heart, but Yang Yuanqing is also
He was helpless to come to Pingyuan County.
The group left the official road and walked along a muddy ridge path towards the small village about three miles away.
In the past, most of the villages on the Hebei plain were dead villages, and there was no one. However, as the war ended, farmers hiding in the county began to return to their homes one after another, and the dead villages gradually emerged.
This small village has obviously lived in it, and the barren land has been reclaimed and irrigation ditches have been dug. A piece of blue-white cooking smoke has appeared on the outermost tiles.
As soon as they approached the small village, they heard a barking of dogs. More than a dozen local dogs ran out and barked around them in all directions.
Several women who were washing clothes by the river also rushed into the village. Soon, dozens of villagers welcomed them warmly, and they were extremely welcome to the arrival of the caravan.
Yang Yuanqing specially bought a lot of groceries, needles, thread, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, cheap jewelry, and some sickles and hoes to wait for it, just to facilitate the villagers to find out the news.
Yang Yuanqing asked several soldiers to buy and sell goods with the villagers, but he walked to a dense locust tree and sat down next to an old man.
"Brother-in-law, who is the village chief in this village?"
The old man was covered in white hair and had a kind face. He glanced at Yang Yuanqing and asked slowly, "Is there anything wrong with the boss?"
Only then did Yang Yuanqing realize that the old man was the village chief. He quickly smiled and said, "Actually nothing is wrong, I was just a little curious. Last year, when I passed here, the village seemed to be uninhabited, and now it has vitality again, which is very gratifying.
.”
The old man smiled slightly, "Last year, everyone was still hiding in the county town. Now that the war is over, everyone will naturally return to their hometown. Alas! There were only 80 families in the village at that time, but now there are only more than twenty families left."
"Hebei is the same everywhere, and they are basically dead in the war. My father-in-law, are you in the village divided the fields?" Yang Yuanqing asked again.
"Divide the field?"
The old man shook his head, pointed at everyone and said, "Our here is Chenjia Village. Everyone's surname is Chen, and they live in harmony. If the government does not divide the land, then our family can have two hundred acres of land on average, but it is said that one divides the land.
The family has only one hundred acres, and the remaining government will take away. Do you think we are willing to divide the land?"
Yang Yuanqing smiled bitterly. In fact, he also knew that dividing land is actually a false proposition for Hebei. Too many people died, and there were no ownerless fields everywhere. If the dividing land was not distributed, farmers could indeed occupy more land.
The distribution of land is actually to limit the land of farmers. Each family has a standard. The extra land will become official land and make reserves for the future population increase. This is also impossible. In history, these reserve lands have been extremely large.
Some of them were swallowed up by the powerful, including the farmers' Yongye land.
But Yang Yuanqing is not concerned about the issue of land distribution now. He is concerned about the Maitreya religion. He has seen that many villagers have a Maitreya Buddha embroidered on their collars on their chests.
But how should he ask about the Maitreya Cult? If the village chief is just a small leader and asks too directly, it will arouse his suspicion.
"How many people are there in my father-in-law's house?" Yang Yuanqing asked in a roundabout way.
The old man sighed, "I originally had four sons, one went to Gaojipo and the other went to Douzigang, but they never came back. The third brother became Dou Jiande Bing and was released a few months ago. That's the one.
!”
The old man pointed at a man who was buying a sickle, and showed a kind smile on his face, "That is my third son, and a fourth son. He is now in the army in Taiyuan and is still a Sui army chief."
When Yang Yuanqing heard that his son was actually the chief of the Sui army, he was immediately excited and laughed: "Brother-in-law, we are coming from Taiyuan."
The old man also became interested. He was about to ask, but a young man rushed into the village and shouted: "Village Chief, Zhang Fosun is here!"
The old man's face changed and he shouted loudly to the villagers: "Don't panic and buy things first, and follow me to welcome the Buddha's grandson!"
More than a hundred villagers knelt down in front of the village entrance, and saw a few young and strong men carrying a carriage from a distance. The carriage was sitting at a young man wearing white clothes, silver crown and holding a staff in his hand.
Indifferent, he was carried into the entrance of the village and saw Yang Yuanqing at first sight.