Fenghou

……

When Cheng Guangya entered the city, he first came to the state government office and met Wang Kuang, the governor of Yuezhou. Recommended by Zhang Jun.

"Senior official, I have seen the other party's general in a humble position."

Wang Kuang took a sip of tea and asked calmly, "Who are they?"

"The chief general is called Zhong Huan, the commander of the third battalion of the Huben Army's scouts, and more than 1000 people are scouts."

"you sure?"

"Xiaozhi saw his military badge, and his subordinates were all wearing mountain-pattern armor of scouts, and the banner was also the banner of the Huben Army, so it should be correct."

Wang Kuang nodded, "They didn't report to Jiangling, what did they come to Yueyang for?"

"It's normal for humble officials. They are the Huben army, not the Bashu army. They are completely different from the Jiangling Yang command. Of course, they don't need to report to the Yang command."

"That makes sense! Then what are they doing here?"

"According to what the other party said, it seems that they are monitoring Zhang Jun's army and will stay here for two or three months."

Wang Kuang smiled and said, "I'm just curious. You don't need to report to me. You can directly provide them with logistical support. He's a lowly post, so I don't need to meet him."

"Resign from humble position!" Cheng Guangya saluted and left.

Wang Kuang's expression changed, and he said to himself, "This army is so strange!"

Chapter 55 Sudden Arrival

Not long after, Cheng Guangya, the county magistrate, organized a fleet to send thousands of shi grains and thousands of loads of forage to the barracks. The kindness of the people is used to reward the army, which means asking them to strictly observe military discipline and not harass the people.

Cheng Guangya immediately brought over 200 sheep with a big businessman, and he could order meat from this businessman for a long time in the future.

Chong Huan thanked him again and again, sent Cheng Guangya away, and then slaughtered pigs and sheep to reward the army.

When night fell, a man came to see Zhong Huan, and Zhong Huan ordered him to be taken to his tent.

This man is called Qin Kuangming, very young, only 25 or [-] years old, and he is the head of the inner guard. Last year, more than a thousand people from the inner guard came to suppress illegal salt. Before leaving, more than [-] people stayed in the pool Qin Kuangming is the leader of this team.

"See the commander for the humble position!" Qin Kuangming knelt down on one knee and saluted.

Chong Huan smiled and asked him to sit down, "Did you see the internal letter from Jing Zhao sent by Wang Tongzhi?"

"The humble job saw it!"

"I find it very strange, why did the suppression of illegal salt fail last year? You should know the inside story!"

Qin Kuangming nodded, "Humble job is very clear about the reason. The root cause is that the other party has an internal response. When the news leaked, the other party retreated to Poyang Lake. We sold private salt instead of official salt. When we asked the people, the people said they bought it. Official salt, no one will admit that you buy private salt, and when the internal guards withdraw, they will show up again."

"Who should be in the other party?" Zhong Huan asked again.

"Of course it's officials from all over the country. Without the cover of the government, how could private salt be so rampant?"

Zhong Huan nodded, "So this time I came to Yuezhou to stay instead of going directly to Tanzhou. On the surface, I aimed at Jiangbei, but in fact I didn't want to startle the snake."

"The commander did the right thing. If your troops go to Tanzhou, they will definitely flee immediately."

"Who are they referring to?"

"Of course they are Yan Xiao Zhang Tai, Yan Xiao Wang Santai, and Yan Xiao Li Taishan. The names of the three major Yan Xiao have the word Thai, so they are called Yan Xiao Santai."

"What about the private salt dealer?"

Qin Kuangming quickly explained: "Private salt dealers are local salt dealers. They are responsible for taking goods from salt lords and then distributing them to various retail shops. Private salt dealers have their own territories, and various government governments also benefit from them. Salt lords generally don’t deal with the government, but they will ship the private salt to the warehouses designated by various private salt dealers. They have been trading for more than ten years, and they all abide by the rules and cooperate with each other very tacitly.”

Chong Huan thought for a while and said: "It's been more than ten years, so who is the private salt dealer should be clear!"

"Almost! The key is that private salt dealers will flee. It was like this last year. Once the inner guards arrived, all the private salt dealers escaped without a trace, and they all have another identity. They are benevolent members, justice-seeking villagers. Old man, I heard that there are professors in the county school, all of them are innocent, without any evidence, so it is not easy to touch their family members."

"What about Yuezhou's private salt?" Zhong Huan asked again.

"Yuezhou's private salt came from Jinghu North Road. It should be the private salt sold by Zhang Jun in the legend. But I have been here for a year, and I have no clue about Yuezhou's private salt. The key is that I don't know about Yuezhou. Who is your private salt dealer?"

Only then did Chong Huan realize that it is really difficult to eradicate illegal salt. No wonder he failed last year. At this time, he still needs to consult more experienced people.

"Then Qin Dutou thinks where should I start?"

Qin Kuangming thought for a while and said: "The humble officer suggests that the commander should start with the Yanxiao first. If these people escape to Poyang Lake, we will not be able to get through."

"They fled to Poyang Lake by boat?" Zhong Huan asked.

"Most of them go to the Yangtze River by boat, and then go to Poyang Lake from the Yangtze River."

"Now are they active?"

"Almost, Zhang Tai's fleet is in Tanzhou, and the other two Tai's are in Hengyang. It's autumn, which happens to be their shipping season."

Zhong Huan pondered for a moment and said: "Take thirty scout brothers back, find Zhang Tai's fleet for me, and keep an eye on them. Don't worry about the other two Tai, I want to catch big fish."

"Humble job understands!"

The two negotiated many details, and Zhong Huan sent thirty elite scouts, dressed as ordinary people, to follow Qin Kuangming to the south on a large cargo ship.

……

Two days later, Yang Yuanqing sent people to send [-] war horses. This was an order directly issued by Chen Qing. Yang Yuanqing didn't dare to disobey or ask more questions, and he didn't even come to Yuezhou to visit.

Two days later, Qin Kuangming sent someone to send news that they had discovered Zhang Tai's Yan Xiao fleet and were also keeping an eye on the other party.

Zhong Huan immediately led [-] cavalry to go south to Changsha County.

Tanzhou is located in the south of Yuezhou. It is a populous state. It was far less damaged than Yuezhou during the Yang Yao Rebellion. After Yang Yao was put down, Tanzhou recovered quickly. The prosperity of the Land of Fish and Rice has been rejuvenated.

Tanzhou was included among the five prefecture jurisdictions that Chen Qing proposed to the imperial court, so the officials in Tanzhou were all appointed by Jingzhao.

Zhonghuan made a lot of noise, and the cavalry rushed to Changsha City with great momentum. They had already put on the special black helmets of the inner guards, which is the symbol of the inner guards. As you all know, the soldier in the black helmet is here again.

Before the inner guard cavalry arrived, Ji Chunlai, the county magistrate, got the news. He hurriedly wrote a letter and sent someone to deliver the letter to the king's mansion outside the city.

Wang Yuanwai is a well-known benevolent person with a radius of tens of miles. He builds roads, builds bridges, and helps students. He provides food and rice every month to support dozens of lonely elderly people. His name is Wang Conglin, and his official status is a big landlord. His family has thousands of acres of land and several shops in the city.

But he also has another identity, a private salt dealer in Tanzhou. He controls all the private salt in Tanzhou. Tanzhou is his territory. He bought smuggled salt and sold it to retail shops at a price of 25 Wen per catty. He earned [-] Wen per catty, and the retail shops sold it to ordinary people at a price of [-] Wen per catty. The official salt is much more cost-effective.

Salt lords, private salt dealers, and salt shops have all made money, and the common people seem to have benefited, but the government's tax revenue has disappeared.

Wang Conglin received Ji Chunlai's urgent letter and read it through. In autumn, when the salt was most urgent, the inner guard came again, and the person who came was not good.

Wang Conglin felt the need to go out and hide for a while. Of course, he would not go to the mountains to suffer. He went directly to Xiangtan County and hid under a different name. No one could find him except his three sons.

In addition, he had to notify Zhang Tai's fleet to retreat. Anyway, the goods were almost out, so go back quickly.

Wang Conglin immediately found his third son, Wang Han, and said to him, "Go and inform Zhang Laizi's cargo ship to retreat immediately, the inner guards are coming again."

Wang Conglin has three sons. The eldest son, Wang Xun, inherited his positive image and also dealt with officials. The second son, Wang Bin, was in charge of shipping to various shops. The third son, Wang Han, was quite sturdy as his name suggests. Yan Xiao Zhang Tai dealt with him, responsible for purchase and warehouse storage.

Wang Han nodded, "Boy, tell them to evacuate now!"

Wang Conglin said to his second son, Wang Bin, "Go arrange all the shops and sell official salt instead."

The second son, Wang Bin, also left in a hurry.

Wang Conglin took out another 500 taels of silver and asked his eldest son Wang Xun to take it to deal with state and county officials. Once the money was in place, his safety would also be in place.

After making some arrangements, Wang Conglin took two concubines to take refuge in Xiangtan County on a painting boat, but he never expected that this time there would be not only internal guards, but also more professional army scouts. Then, a fishing boat followed his boat from afar.

Chapter 56 Set up a network

The water surface of Xiangjiang River is wide, and boats are constantly coming and going, which is very lively. It is not uncommon to see a fleet of dozens of cargo ships connected together. After entering Dongting Lake, the water surface is as wide as the sea, with more ships, and flocks of seagulls soaring and singing in the sky.

In the morning, a fleet of more than 100 thousand-stone flat-bottomed cargo ships was sailing towards the north. At the front was a car and boat, with rolling blades and white waves, leading more than a hundred cargo ships to the north with ropes.

This fleet was the salt transport team of the salt lord Zhang Tai. They traveled back and forth between Poyang Lake and Xiangjiang River in almost ten and a half months, and sold a large amount of private salt to the states and counties on Jingnan South Road.

This time they also completed the task of transporting salt, just as the inner guard came again, the fleet returned to Poyang Lake immediately.

The leader of the fleet is Zhang Cai, Zhang Tai's nephew. He has a big shoulder and a round waist, and he has sturdy muscles. He has been on this line for seven or eight years and has never had any problems. He has deeply realized that as long as he buys off the government, even if he goes to Lin'an to sell salt, no one will How dare you take him.

"Third brother, Baling is ahead, do you want to get some food, the meat is gone!" a member of the staff shouted.

"No, go directly to the Yangtze River!"

Zhang Cai was not afraid of what would happen to the government, but Yuezhou was not their territory, and there were also salt lords controlling it, and it was Zhang Jun's army salt lord, so he was afraid of causing unnecessary misunderstandings.

The fleet continued to go north, and the outline of Baling County was clearly visible not far away, and the water in front of it narrowed. Suddenly, a crew member shouted: "There is an unknown ship approaching us from behind!"

Zhang Cai looked back and saw five or six ships approaching the cargo ship. At this moment, he suddenly saw groups of soldiers jumping on board the fleet.

"Oops!"

Zhang Cai realized that he was in trouble. The opponent was a regular army with too many people. They were no match at all. He shouted, "Cut the rope!"

At this time, like a gecko, he was about to cut off his tail to survive. A dozen of his men swung their knives and slashed at the rope. After a while, the rope was cut off, and the main ship and more than 100 cargo ships separated, and the two quickly separated.

But before he could be happy, another four or five warships surrounded him. There was a loud noise from the waterwheel, and the boat stopped. A boatman shouted: "Third brother, the paddles are entangled, and the boat can't move!"

Zhang Cai ran over, and saw that the water tanker was tightly entangled by the fishing net, and there were more and more warships around, there were already a dozen of them, all of them were soldiers holding crossbows.

Zhang Cai was terrified, and he pulled out the water thorn and shouted: "Brothers, dive into the encirclement!"

As soon as he jumped down Dongting Lake, his subordinates followed suit. Zhang Cai had just jumped into the water when someone grabbed his arm. There were water ghosts all around him. What he encountered was the Jiaolong army from the scout battalion, a professional water ghost. Specially trained in underwater combat, although Zhang Cai is excellent in water, he is far from being an opponent for the three opponents to encircle and suppress. With three moves and two moves, Zhang Cai was captured alive by the water ghost, and other subordinates were also captured by the water ghost , tied up and thrown on board.

In less than half an hour, Zhang Tai's salt fleet was captured by the long-awaited western army.

Next came the interrogation, a high-intensity and cruel interrogation, interrogating the location of Zhang Tai's lair, which is the specialty of the inner guard.

"Although you kill me, do you think I will give in? Bah! Ah——"

Zhang Cai's miserable screams resounded through the night. Both of his legs were broken, his teeth were pulled out, his ears were cut off, and his face and body were bloody. Refuse to confess.

Deng Jinshan, the deputy commander, nodded, "As expected of Yan Xiao, he is really brave enough to drag him in front of the others, and cut off his head in public!"

Zhang Cai, who was tortured to the brink of death, was dragged in front of the other 27 people. He was stripped of his clothes and tied to a chair. The internal guards of the Western Army raised their swords high and slashed off his head. Blood spurted out of the headless neck. , the others were silent, and no one showed panic.

Deng Jinshan yelled: "Everyone dragged out and lined up, come one by one, kill one by one, if you dare to say a word, you will cut off your head!"

Deng Jinshan was nicknamed the barber in the inner guard. He was cruel and murderous. This time, Chen Qing specially appointed him as Zhong Huan's deputy. Zhong Huan's biggest weakness was that he was not cruel enough.

When 27 of the 19 salt lords were brutally killed, the remaining eight boatmen completely collapsed and confessed to their lairs in Poyang Lake.

At noon the next day, Zhong Huan returned to Baling County with [-] cavalry.

The deputy commander, Deng Jinshan, held a detailed map and said to him: "General, this is the map of the salt lord's lair we drew based on the confessions of the eight boatmen."

"It's not easy to interrogate!"

Deng Jinshan nodded, "This group of people is not afraid of death, no one is willing to recruit, even if they are all killed, they will not be recruited. In the end, the boatman recruited them. They have all been to Zhang Tai's lair."

Chong Huan looked at the map carefully, pointed to the old nest marked with a red circle and asked, "Is this an island?"

"It's called Changshan Island. It consists of a series of small islands. The old nest is on Changshan Island. I asked two local boatmen. They confirmed that there are water thieves near Changshan Island, and no boat dares to approach it. Go around Changshan Island."

"Does the local government not care?"

"They didn't say it, and they probably don't know. They should have been bought."

"Head the brothers to assemble, we are ready to go!"

The main reason for the unceasing flood of private salt on Jingnan South Road is that the source is not dead, so it can be revived every time, and a steady stream of private salt is transported from the lair of salt lords in Poyang Lake to Tanzhou and other state capitals.

So this time Zhong Huan was ordered to crack down on private salt. The goal is also very clear, that is, to crack down on the salt lords at the source. Of course, Zhang Tai is not the final big salt lord, he also takes goods from bigger salt lords, which is difficult to track down. .

That night, 1000 warships carrying [-] or [-] soldiers left Baling County and headed for Poyang Lake, hundreds of miles away.

……

It has been a month since Chen Qing returned to Jingzhao. After the conflicts about finance and land were eased, everything started to work normally.

Chen Qing also kept going out to inspect, but his inspections were all short-distance, and he would come back in a day or two.

This afternoon, Chen Qing came back from his inspection in Lantian County. As usual, Chen Qing came directly to his official room.

Chao Qing quickly followed Chen Qinghui and reported: "His Highness, Wei Sima has visited His Highness twice today, and it seems that there is something urgent."

Chen Qing nodded, "Go and find him, I'll wait for him."

Chao Qing went there in a hurry, Chen Qing sat down, picked up today's "Beijing News", and roughly browsed through it. The first page of today's "Beijing News" has a notice of the Taixue autumn exam. One and a half months after the Fuqiu test ended.

According to Chen Qing's thoughts on Taixue's reform, Taixue will focus on cultivating professional officials, and professional officials will also be reformed in the next step to distinguish them from civil officials. All official positions will also be divided into three categories, civilian officials, workers Officers and Military Officers.

According to Chen Qing's idea, for example, a county currently has four officials, magistrate, county magistrate, county lieutenant, and master boss. Chen Qing considers adding a county worker in the future. It belongs to the official of the labor rank, and the county lieutenant will belong to the military rank of the official.

The most important county magistrate is rather vague. Generally, civilian officials are the main ones, but industrial officials and military officials can also serve. This depends on the characteristics of the specific county. For example, a county with mining as its main industry may be employed Officials serve as county magistrates, and for counties with relatively important strategic positions, such as Datong County, it is likely that military officials serve as county magistrates.

The improvement of this reform idea will be published in newspapers for discussion by the whole people, and it is also a psychological preparation for everyone.