First Minister of Ming Dynasty

He looked at Zhang Ximeng, and suddenly said, "Did you say that?"

Zhang Ximeng smiled, "How?"

Jia Lu sneered, "It's just copying what others say, and I don't see any cleverness."

"Really?" Zhang Ximeng said with a light smile, "If you carefully screen them, all those who cooperate with the Yuan court, contract taxes, and exploit the common people will all be executed... The rest of the small landlords are restricted from land rent and are not allowed to hold more than [-] mu of land. How about distributing all the harvested acres to the common people, so that every household has fields to farm and food to eat?”

Jia Lu was stunned, this method seems to work!

Zhang Ximeng said again: "After the land is divided, five shi grains per person will be used as rations. For the part exceeding five shi, land taxes will be levied accumulatively. The more surplus grain, the more they will pay. The business tax is collected here, anyway, the bigger the business, the bigger the burden.”

"After the land is divided, young and strong will be absorbed from the children of good families to serve as the source of troops. After this, within ten years, it will not be difficult to develop hundreds of thousands of elite troops? At that time, will the Yuan court still survive? ?”

Having said that, Jia Lu was already terrified. He looked at Zhang Ximeng in a daze, and he was dumbfounded.

Anyone can talk about helping the people in general.

But it really touches the reality, but it is not something ordinary people can tell.

Zhang Ximeng not only talked about it, but also came up with a whole set of strategies... The problem of money and food was solved, and the source of soldiers was also solved. If we really want to go down this road, Yuan Ting will definitely have no way out.

"Okay! As expected of Mr. Yunzhuang's descendants, you are really powerful!" Jia Lu raised his head and sighed, and said helplessly, "It's the old man who underestimated the heroes of the world. It seems that you must be the ones who can destroy Da Yuan."

Zhu Chongba was still thinking about what Zhang Ximeng said just now, seeing that Jia Lu had lowered his head, he couldn't wait to ask, "Would you like to help us, sir?"

Jia Lu raised his head and said with a wry smile: "The old man is already half dead, I'm afraid..."

Before he finished speaking, Ma Shi came in from the outside, followed by a doctor behind her.

Coincidentally, when Zhang Ximeng was dying, he was the one who saved him.

"Please do your best and treat him carefully."

The doctor nodded, didn't say much, just came to check the pulse, and then turned around to boil the medicine.

Jia Lu was lying on the hospital bed, and suddenly smiled, "I used to be Minister of the Ministry of Industry, a scholar of Jixian Hall, and Zuo Cheng of Zhongshu. If you want me to work, you must give me an official position!"

Zhu Chongba was stunned all of a sudden, official position?He wants it too!

Zhang Ximeng laughed directly and said: "My lord has done so many official positions, so I shouldn't care about this. But my lord will not treat my lord badly. Originally, I was the secretary of my benefactor. From now on, my lord will be the secretary. You are the deputy."

Jia Lu was stunned. The official in charge of the secretary was originally an assistant to Jiedushi. Zhao Pu, the prime minister of the Northern Song Dynasty, started his career as a secretary.

That's not a bad thing to say.

Jia Lu thought about it again, and suddenly he was puzzled: "How does this old man remember that Guo Zixing called himself Marshal? How many Jiedu envoys did he set up under Marshal?"

Zhu Chongba said honestly: "There is no Jiedushi, just five generals!"

Jia Lu thought it was funny, "There is no Jiedushi, so what's the matter with the Jiedushi in charge of the secretary?"

Zhu Chongba was dumbfounded, but Zhang Ximeng was unhurried, and said with a smile: "My lord is pedantic, who said that we must set up a secretary under the Jiedushi? The two of us are the secretary in charge of the nine husbands, isn't it good?"

Jia Lu frowned slightly, feeling bad in an instant.

Chief Nine, you have less than ten people in charge, and you have two secretaries, thanks to what you said?

"Then, do you want to have another nine-wife deputy chief, nine-husband Sima, and nine-husband judge?"

Zhang Ximeng smiled and praised: "Wonderful, my lord, you must hurry up and find all the people to support our facade."

Chapter 28 Food and People

Jia Lu was thrown to the doctor, who could save Zhang Ximeng, and he had hope to save Jia Lu, at least let the old guy live for a few more years.

Some people may wonder, what's the use of a half-dead old man?

Are you really counting on the unification of the world and let him rule the Yellow River again?

Jia Lu is over 50, even if he can live to [-], will he still have the energy to explore the river and make a plan to repair the river?Besides, the Yellow River floods and breaks its embankments every year, and the river course has changed greatly. After a few years, it will definitely be different from the current situation.

Therefore, it is just a mind-set and a beautiful vision to control the river in the future.

At present, Jia Lu's greatest value is his experience as an official in the Yuan Dynasty... This person has climbed from the bottom to Zuo Cheng of Zhongshu, and has a complete experience from the local to the central. He has controlled the water and led the army.

Now if you want to start a new business from scratch, there is such a person, probably the white-bearded grandfather in the ring, who belongs to the kind who is open and has the halo of the protagonist.

Zhang Ximeng was just an ordinary college student in later generations, and he didn't really understand how a system should work in a healthy way.

I don't know how much time and energy I will need to explore by myself.

With Jia Lu here, he will definitely be able to avoid many detours.

Of course, the premise is that the old stuff can survive.

"Chongba, I'll look at Mrs. Jia's side. Also, there are too few houses in Linhuai Town, so it may not be enough. Find a suitable place to build a barracks. Just use tents for the time being, and you have to seize them Just take all the things you have." Ma Shi instructed Zhu Chongba, saying that the male should be the outsider and the female should be the inside.

But as Lao Zhu's virtuous helper, Ma Shi is not only responsible for the family's bottles and cans, but also has her share in military affairs.

Clothes and armor, the families of the wounded, even meals and lodgings, everything, Mr. Ma has to take care of it.

Fortunately, during the period of defending the city, Mrs. Ma led the old and weak women and children in the city, demolished houses, dug trenches, and accumulated rich experience.

She absorbed the failure experience of defending the city at that time, and first built a trench on the outermost side to prevent enemy attacks.Then build a second trench, between the two trenches, to house horses and livestock.

Then there is the third trench. Here and the open space of the second trench, some temporary camps will be built to accommodate civilians and prisoners. The innermost part is a regular military camp and a warehouse for storing food.

Since the city wall cannot be repaired in a short period of time, the trenches must be dug deeper and wider, and a sheep and horse wall must be built for each trench to strengthen defense.

Ma made arrangements in an orderly manner, and Zhu Chongba felt relieved. He immediately ordered Tang He and Fei Ju to lead their own troops to grab supplies.

Zhu Chongba also personally led a team of people to respond, and when he encountered something, he would deal with it.

Everyone got busy, except Zhang Ximeng.

He couldn't be idle anymore, Zhang Ximeng needed to register all the personnel and materials, and analyze them in detail.

To put it bluntly, as much as they can grab now, their entrepreneurial capital is as high as they are, but they must not be sloppy.

When Zhang Ximeng came, he had rolled up a lot of rice paper, and now he cut it out quickly, punched holes, threaded it with hemp rope, wrote items such as grain, cloth, livestock, chariots, weapons, etc., and piled them neatly at the entrance of the village. .

Just waiting for the big guys to return with a full load.

As soon as Zhang Ximeng finished his busy work, the first batch of things arrived, which was nothing but the most precious food.

There were a total of [-] carriages, each of which carried [-] sacks of sacks, which was almost [-] shi of grain, which was [-] shi.

From a long distance, you can see the coachman's pack horse, with white gas on his body, and the big guys are fighting for their lives.

Tang He commanded [-] cavalry to protect the grain carts, and there were some sacks on the backs of these horses. Some cavalry were really reluctant to part with their beloved horses, so they had to get down and run on two legs, sweating profusely.

"Master Tang, can we eat white flour steamed buns this time?"

Tang He scolded with a smile: "Food bucket! Look at how promising you are, when the food is brought back, I will give you big buns filled with meat!"

"That's daring!"

The soldiers agreed enthusiastically, and rushed to Linhuai Town screaming.

Zhang Ximeng quickly took notes with a pen, and directed the staff to help unload the truck and send in bags of food.

Tang He also commanded at the top of his voice, and wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve.

"Little Mister, hurry up, now Zhao Junyong, Sun Deya, and our Marshal Guo are all sending people to snatch it, and it will fall into their hands later."

Zhang Ximeng nodded, and he also became ruthless: "It's been going on all night today, everyone is moving. Tang Qianhu, nothing is as precious as food, we must get it back, this is our lifeblood. Haozhou was besieged, if not If the siege is broken in time, people in the city will starve to death."

Tang He nodded vigorously, "Understood."

He didn't care about rest, the grooms and soldiers were still hungry, so they had to turn around and run again.

At this moment, Tang He suddenly smelled a fragrance, and the saliva in his mouth suddenly became rich.This is especially true for the soldiers and coachmen under him, who all drooled.

I saw Ma Shi leading a lot of people, carrying five or six bamboo baskets, all of which were steaming steamed buns the size of fists.

"When we arrive in Linhuai, I will let them steam steamed buns with noodles... The big guys will fill up their hunger first, and then let Chongba reward the big guys later. Good wine and meat, they will not treat the big guys badly."

As Ma said, he grabbed two big steamed buns and stuffed them to a driver.Without looking up, he handed out to the next one.

After receiving the hot steamed buns, the driver's eye circles were slightly red, and his hands were trembling. He took a deep breath, and the aroma was overwhelming.Quickly open your mouth, bite down the half of it hard, it is soft and sweet, there is no such delicious thing.

Madam treats big guys, that's really unspoken!

The coachman ate a steamed bun in two bites, and immediately regained 120 points of energy.He swung the whip vigorously and made a beautiful whip!

"drive!"

People have feelings. At this time, a steamed bun is worth a tael of silver.

When Mrs. Ma arrived in Linhuai, she hadn't eaten yet, she was busy all the time, but she still found time to let the people below steam steamed buns, and deliver them to the busy soldiers first, so that the big guys could have a warm bite.

There are not many things, it is heart-warming!

Everyone worked harder.

Only those who have experienced hunger know how precious food is.

In the famine years, a girl can be exchanged for ten catties of noodles, and one ingot of gold may not be able to exchange one stone of grain... So the big guys put all their lives into it, trying their best to load it on the carriage.

Some pack horses walked halfway and couldn't hold on any longer, and the big guys couldn't bear to give up, so they transported grain to other carriages, but the other carriages were also full, so they could only be put on the backs of the war horses. Carried by the driver himself.

"Death will be a dead ghost!"

Everyone tried their best, but when they came back for the second time, the big guys couldn't stand it anymore.

The military camps outside Linhuai Town and Haozhou City were less than [-] miles away, and it was [-] miles away for the two of them to come back. It was enough to run, not to mention transporting food.

If it goes on like this, everyone will be exhausted.

It's just that it's still far from the goal.

What should I do?

Tang He also had an idea. He told those who were too tired to stay and rest first.

Then he returned to the front again with some people, and immediately ordered to mobilize the prisoners, one person carrying a bag of food, and two people carrying a bag.

And those captured carriages and war horses were all loaded with food.Like a long dragon, heading towards Linhuai... Until noon the next day, Zhang Ximeng received almost [-] shi of grain one after another.

Even if there are many pot-bellied men in the army, one person can eat five shi of grain a year, which is enough to feed 4000 people for a year.

Although it is not too much, it is quite precious at this time of general food shortage.

With food, people are needed.

This is also the most important thing. Lao Zhu left Guo Zixing to work alone, but if no one followed him, it would be a complete joke.

Fortunately, Lao Zhu is not alone.

First of all, Tang and his subordinates followed.

Originally, Tanghe commanded a thousand households, but the actual number was less than 800 people. In the battle of defending the city, more than 300 good men were lost, but some of them were replenished one after another, and there were still 600 people.

Zhu Chongba was assigned to guard the west city. Although Guo Zixing did not promote him to an official position, he still gave him 1000 elite soldiers. In addition, Xu Qianhu and others died in battle, and the soldiers and horses under him also returned to Lao Zhu. , and then there is the civilian husband incorporated by Zhang Ximeng.Counting it all together, Zhu Chongba's direct lineage is almost 2000 people.

In addition, there were some Guo Zixing's subordinates who were coerced by Lao Zhu, and the number exceeded 3000... Then there were prisoners. Although Zhu Chongba did not go all out to arrest them, more than [-] people were scattered, and the gift package was too big. It's not a small amount to gather casually.

About six or seven thousand prisoners were escorted to Linhuai Town.

This small town, which was almost deserted, suddenly had 1 people, and suddenly it was full of voices and became lively.

In addition, Fei Ju also successively sent 2 tents, more than [-] weapons, and gathered [-] war horses and draft horses.As for other property, banners, gongs and drums, gold and silver, precious banknotes... countless.

Zhang Ximeng registered desperately, his hands trembling like chicken feet, but his heart was filled with joy, he forgot about his fatigue, forgot about everything, and only hoped for a little more, a little more!The thicker the books, the better!

Chapter 29 Zhu Chongba breaks through the barrier

The 10 yuan army collapsed, and the legacy left behind is simply incalculable.

Weapons, grain, horses, and so many captives.

Zhu Chongba hugged back desperately, but only a little bit.The real big boss was divided up by those generals... The first to bear the brunt was Peng Da. He had a large number of soldiers and was able to fight.

Just in terms of soldiers and horses, Peng Da recruited and surrendered the rebels, recruiting nearly 2 people, making the total force more than [-].

In terms of the number of people, Peng Da has already surpassed Guo Zixing, becoming the No. 1 red scarf in Haozhou.

Zhao Junyong snatched the arsenal of the Yuan army, got more than 100 return guns, and captured many gun craftsmen, and his strength also increased dramatically.

Sun Deya also reaped a lot of benefits, and the balance of power in Haozhou began to reverse.

From the very beginning, Guo Zixing's family was the only one big, and it needed the joint efforts of those marshals to fight against it.Now that Peng Da alone can suppress Guo Zixing, it can be described as earth-shaking.

Guo Zixing was dumbfounded to lose himself in a great victory, absolutely unacceptable.