Red Mansion Royal Cat

Chapter 568 A letter from home is worth ten thousand dollars

Hundreds of ships were racing to sail eastward, and the spectacular sight was so spectacular that even Jia Cong could not help but feel a sense of heroism.

Unfortunately, both Wang Ziteng and Liu Yi had repeatedly warned him not to board the ship, so he could only watch the five armed merchant ships including Xue and Chen go far east behind the Celestial Empire's navy.

The war against Japanese pirates entered its final decisive battle at the end of June. When Jia Cong returned to Izumo Castle, Wang Ziteng was already preparing to move the central army camp forward.

The military generals of the dynasty basically maintained the traditions that existed when the country was founded. They rarely stayed in the rear and never commanded battles in a safe and comfortable place.

"Rush for me" and "Rush with me" are two completely different concepts.

Wang Ziteng was a proud man. Even though Li Shiqian once again angrily warned him not to work too hard, he still insisted on putting on the silver armor.

"Military Supervisor Jia Cong, I order you to stay in Chuyun City and take charge of the logistics of the front army..."

"General, as the military supervisor, how can I stay behind?"

Jia Cong's objection was of no use to Wang Ziteng. He waved his hand to stop Jia Cong's complaints and solemnly reminded him again: "In terms of poetry, I am not as good as you. In fighting, you are not as good as me. In the battlefield, you are far inferior to your second brother! When the army is fighting, it is not enough to just be brave and fearless. As the commander of an army, you should consider defeat before winning. This is what a qualified commander should do. You are the reason why I dare to put all my troops on the battlefield!"

Wang Ziteng's words left Jia Cong speechless.

In fact, this was also an arrangement made by Wang Ziteng after careful consideration. He had been cautious for most of his life, and the expedition against Japan might be the last time he would lead troops into battle in his life.

In this battle, only victory is allowed, not defeat.

By leaving Jia Cong in the rear, Wang Ziteng not only does not need to worry about the safety of the logistics line, but also in the event of a defeat, Jia Cong, a young man who is good at surprise attacks and defending cities, can quickly organize a second line of attack and defense.

Seeing that none of the other generals in the hall objected, Jia Cong could only clasp his fists in agreement and retreat in depression.

After Jia Cong retreated, Wang Ziteng issued a second military order.

"Liu Yi, the vanguard of the front army!"

The second oldest, Jing Wang Liu Yi, stood up, clasped his fists and said, "I will be here!"

"You lead the vanguard of 30,000 troops, leave Tajima Domain, and sweep from north to south, driving all the Japanese on the north side of Kyoto out of the city. Don't make any mistakes!"

Only gave him 30,000 troops?
Although Liu Yi was reluctant, the central military tent was not the place for bargaining, so he could only clasp his fists and accept the order, then step aside.

At this moment, Wang Ziteng showed no sign of the weakness he had shown in previous days.

Military orders came out of his mouth one after another, and more than a dozen generals and commanders in the hall responded one after another.

The gates of Izumo Castle were wide open, and the central army commander's flag slowly left the city under the escort of the personal guards.

Before leaving, Wang Ziteng called Jia Cong aside and repeatedly reminded him: "After I leave, the rear of the army will be under your control. If I win, you can ask the court for people, whether they are civil officials or military generals, and you will arrange them. If I lose, the remaining 50,000 people in Izumo City will be under your command. It is up to you whether to fight or retreat."

The Celestial Empire sent nearly 180,000 troops to the Japanese islands, plus Goryeo's vassal troops, a total of 250,000 troops.

None of the 50,000 men that Wang Ziteng left for Jia Cong were old, weak, sick or disabled, and there were not even any Koreans; they were all elite imperial guards.

Lao Wang finally understood that if he wanted to truly conquer Japan, he would not rely on swords, guns and cannons, but on governance after the killing.

Jia Cong is so important that even if he and Liu Yi are put together, they are not as important as this kid alone.

"I will not leave you many men on the Japanese island. Whether military or civilian, I will only keep 20% at most. The women will be married to soldiers. Within three generations, the Japanese will no longer exist."

After leaving these words, Wang Ziteng rode away without even waiting for Jia Cong's response.

Jia Cong opened his mouth, but finally smiled, waved at him, and watched him slowly disappear in the morning light.

Wa Island, no, it should be the Fusang Provincial Administration Office of Daxia. We only need women who can give birth to babies.

……

Jia Cong handled the affairs of the Marshal's Mansion in an orderly manner. Apart from the allocation of food, fodder and military equipment, he focused more on policies to pacify the people and the governance of various prefectures.

The Japanese have been imitating the systems of the Central Plains dynasties since the early Han Dynasty.

Unfortunately, it is a small country with few people. With so little resources, what they have learned are only half-baked. Even the farming technology is worse than that of the Celestial Empire.

Jia Cong had to recruit people who were proficient in agronomy from traveling merchants, hire them as technicians at high salaries, and promote the latest farming techniques in various states suitable for planting.

Then, in the name of Fusang Provincial Administration, refugees were taken in, work was provided as relief, water conservancy projects were carried out and cities were built in areas that had been incorporated into the Celestial Empire's sphere of influence, thus laying the foundation for governance after the war.

On the ninth day of July, the first good news came from the direction of Kyoto City.

Liu Yi was a natural born killer. Less than fifty miles north of Kyoto City, he led only 30,000 men against 100,000 Japanese and defeated the vanguard of the Japanese army.

According to the news report, the vanguard army killed 20,000 enemies in battle, captured 60,000 enemies, and buried them all in pits!

Along with the good news came a letter from Liu Yi.

He asked Jia Cong to prepare to take in the refugees, as nearly 50,000 Japanese women and children would arrive in Izumo City within a month.

There was no mention of a man in the letter, and Jia Cong didn't know whether he was slaughtered by Liu Yi or used as cannon fodder.

Jia Cong was not very interested in this.

However, there are still more than 100,000 bachelors in the army that is heading to conquer Japan.

There are only 50,000 women and children, and excluding the married, elderly and weak, there is not enough to go around.

The second one is too weak!

"My Lord, there is a letter from the capital."

The personal guard brought a box and a bundle into the study. Jia Cong opened the box and saw a thick stack of letters.

The top letter was written in the flamboyant handwriting of Master She.

"The capital has been quite lively recently. His Majesty has promoted your father-in-law to a higher position. He is now the Imperial Tutor of the Imperial Court and will most likely take over the position of Prime Minister Zhou... Wang Ren is such a loser. He has recently fallen for an actor. I, your father, accepted your second sister-in-law's request and paid to get rid of the actor. I sent Wang Ren to the Xishan Coal Mine... Your second brother sent a letter saying that he is doing well in the west..."

The content of the letter from Master She was messy but detailed.

He chattered on for several chapters, telling Jia Cong about the situation in the capital and all the big and small matters at home.

What shocked Jia Cong the most was the speed at which his father-in-law was promoted.

"Mr. Zhou is actually going to retire? That's true. It's rare for a person to live to be 70. It's time for him to enjoy his retirement."

Jia Cong sighed to himself and picked up the second letter.

"Jia Zhen is dead?"

The letter to Master Jing was probably the thinnest of all the letters, only one sheet of paper, and the content was only a few words, less than ten sentences.

"On the sixth day of March, Jia Zhen died of illness in his old house in Jinling. The letter has reached the capital. I have ordered Baoyu to go to Jinling to handle his funeral affairs. Don't worry."

He didn't even mention the matter of his nephews and nieces observing mourning, nor did he mention letting Jia Rong, who was far away in the west, return to the capital. It seemed that Master Jing was planning to handle the matter coldly.

The next letter was written by the prince himself. It contained a lot of content, nearly a hundred pages.

Twenty to thirty pages were devoted to the recent situation in the court, three to five pages were devoted to complaints about the emperor's mistreatment of his children, and the rest were all new policy ideas that Liu Hong had come up with on his own, and he wanted to hear Jia Cong's opinion.

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has been acting as regent for an increasingly long time, and this enterprising young crown prince has been eager to demonstrate his political wisdom.

From the content of the letter, Jia Cong sensed the Crown Prince Liu Hong's inner anxiety and his dissatisfaction with many court officials.

Even the good guy in the cabinet, Mr. Guo Peigui, was considered by Liu Hong to have high moral character but insufficient ability and courage.

My goodness, when Guo Peigui was young, he was a member of the reform faction who was more radical than anyone else.

During the Zhaowu period, the Daxia versions of the Qingmiao Law and the Shiyi Law were proposed, advocating that the court open money shops to lend money to the people at low interest rates in order to crack down on usury among the people.

In other words, the old man has experienced a lot and understands that governing a big country is like cooking a small fish. Radical reforms can easily lead to social unrest and the cost will outweigh the gains.

Jia Cong had no choice but to repeatedly emphasize in his reply that the reform must be won in a steady manner and must not be rushed...

"I discussed the new silver notes that Fourth Brother mentioned with my colleagues in the Ministry of Revenue last year. For this matter, Fourth Brother can talk to my father-in-law and Mrs. Xue, the wife of He Chong..."

"It is not feasible to fully implement the recruitment of Daxia civil servants at this time. The imperial court's policy of reforming the official system has not yet been implemented, so the matter of civil servants must be put aside for now..."

"Regarding the matter of the new army, Fourth Brother's consideration is correct. The maturity of firearms has already represented the end of the era of cold weapons. Fourth Brother can personally go and talk to those master craftsmen at the Ministry of Industry's Firearms Workshop. There will definitely be considerable gains..."

"I feel like His Majesty is already considering when to abdicate to you. Fourth brother, you must learn how to govern a country from the elders. Especially Elder Guo. This elder is not simple. He cursed the sage just as many times as Lord Hai. He wrote memorials to curse the sage for no reason, but the sage specially trained him as a potential prime minister. Isn't fourth brother curious?"

"I didn't expect that my fourth brother would have a son just after I left Beijing. As his uncle, I must find a good baby for my eldest nephew as a full-month gift..."

It's no wonder that the crown prince of Daxia was very smart. He keenly discovered that the prosperous business of the Celestial Empire had reached a bottleneck.

This bottleneck is the contradiction between the increasingly prosperous business activities and the backward financial industry.

Simply put, the inconvenience of currency circulation can no longer meet the needs of commercial development.

Fortunately, Jia Cong had discussed this matter with Lin Ruhai a long time ago, and discussed the banking industry and the implementation of paper currency with Baochai, a business genius.

This time, Japan has been completely conquered. Even if the output of gold is insufficient, at least the output of silver will be enough to cope with the issuance of paper money.

Thinking of this, Jia Cong found another piece of paper and wrote down his limited knowledge of the financial industry.

Unfortunately, he is not a professional. Apart from his vision, his professional knowledge is probably not as good as Baochai's.

Forget it, let the prince deal with this matter himself.

As for the speculation about the emperor's abdication, it is estimated that the bigwigs in the cabinet and the old generals in the Governor's Office have guessed it.

Unlike the old saint, the emperor was forced to sit on the throne, and his goal from the beginning to the end was not to enjoy the supreme power.

Since the ninth year of Yuanyou, the Emperor has skipped work several times in two years, and each time he has thrown the poor Crown Prince out to take care of things.

Rather than saying that the crown prince was acting as regent while the emperor was recuperating, it would be more accurate to say that the emperor was beating himself up and letting his son give sweet treats to his court officials.

When the emperor has offended almost all the civil and military officials in the court, the prince's prestige will be enough to make everyone in the court submit.

By that time, most of the preliminary work for the new policy had been completed and everything was on track.

If the emperor abdicates and the crown prince takes over, the court officials will no longer have to disagree with the emperor. Isn't that a happy ending for everyone?

Within three to five years, Daxia will definitely make a smooth transition to the era of the new monarch.

"Sure enough, the Fourth Master is still the Fourth Master. He never thought about how the history books would record Emperor Yuanyou."

The Yuanyou Dynasty offended almost all the scholars. Not to mention other things, the Kong family in Qufu was raided by the order of the current emperor himself.

He also cracked down on the Xilin and other academic cliques. It is estimated that in the private writings of these people, Emperor Yuanyou was almost as famous as the First Emperor who burned books and buried scholars.

Jia Cong smiled bitterly and thought, forget it, when he has free time in the future, he will find a job as a historian and write the official history of the Yuanyou Dynasty.

After all, he was the top scholar in the imperial examinations. Compared with those wild and outrageous unofficial histories, future generations should believe in the history books written by the top scholar in the imperial examinations more.

Next came Mr. Lin’s letter, the content of which was almost as concise as that of Mr. Jingda’s.

To sum it up in one sentence: Everything is fine at home, I have been promoted, don't worry, and come back safely.

Uh, this is very Mr. Lin.

When he was working in Jiangnan, he was surrounded by enemies, but he still wrote to Daiyu to say that everything was fine.

Jia Cong was not in a hurry to write back to his father-in-law, but instead opened the envelope which was almost as thick as the letter from Liu Hong.

Daiyu attached a poem at the beginning of the letter, every word of which was full of longing.

"Under the lamp I cut clothes to send to a distant person, I feel so depressed while threading.

Too much worry can lead to illness, and as time goes by, the thoughts you express cannot come true.

The length and width are the same as before, but the width and width still remember the old ones.

I know your destiny is to leave the world, and you have lost some weight due to your hard work."

Jia Cong opened the bundle beside him, revealing two not-so-exquisite warrior uniforms and a brand new official robe.

The orange cat on it did not squint its eyes as usual, but instead opened its eyes wide like copper bells, staring straight ahead with a sharp gaze.

There are one or two huge rats under its feet, with sharp claws exposed, looking very domineering.

The dress was embroidered with dragon patterns and gold thread. After Jia Cong put it on, he looked at himself in the mirror and found that he looked really majestic.

"What a handsome young man! No wonder everyone loves him!"

After boasting, Jia Cong laughed out loud.

He picked up the letter and continued reading. Daiyu's handwriting was pleasing to the eye, and Jia Cong felt as if he could hear her soft Wu accent in his ears.

"I saw those two rats in a temple when I was inspecting the capital. The people in Shunyi built a Royal Cat Temple, in which there is a statue of the Royal Cat, with eyes wide open and very majestic. There are rats under its claws. The temple keeper said that the Royal Cat has caught countless rats for the people, so the statue should be reflected. Therefore, I traced the picture and embroidered it on the clothes..."

"The Crown Prince said it was good after seeing it, and even gave the temple a plaque..."

"The Crown Princess arranged for my brother to marry two concubines. One is the daughter of Shen Qiushan, a scholar from the Imperial Academy, and the other is from a commoner family, the daughter of a craftsman... But my brother has not yet consummated the marriage with them, saying that he will wait until the Crown Princess gives birth to a legitimate son..."

The content of Daiyu's letter was as complicated as that of Master She, but just like her character, it was clear and organized, and she told Jia Cong all the recent events in the capital from all aspects.

Of course, at least half of the letter explicitly or implicitly expressed her longing for Jia Cong.

Since they met as children, they have never been apart for such a long time.

Jia Cong stroked the three pieces of clothing that Daiyu had embroidered herself, as if he was stroking his wife's smooth and tender skin.

After a long time, he came back to his senses from his thoughts and wrote: "Dai'e, my wife, I miss you!"

Monthly ticket recommendation ticket

　I’ll stop here tonight and continue tomorrow. Good night!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)