Lord of the House

Dong Yuan is now a senior official of the frontier, and he personally went out of Haozhou City to the east port of the city to meet the representatives of the salt merchants, but he did not feel condescending.

Hongzepu is not a regular-shaped lake. Due to the complex topography of the surrounding hills and mountains, Hongzepu is also composed of river meanders and river bends. In dry season, the shallow lake is bare/exposed, while the entire Hongzepu is composed of a series of small lakes. There are only a few lakes in the group of waterways that are really conducive to the navigation of large ships.

The Huaihe River merges into Hongzepu from the northeast of Haozhou City. The Hongzepu Lake area under the jurisdiction of Haozhou, also known as Shanghuaihe Bay, corresponds to the lower Huaihe Bay under the jurisdiction of Shanyin.

The hills and mountains in Haozhou are long, and the terrain is much higher than that of Shanyang in the lower reaches. Every time a flood of water from Hongzepu flows back to the downstream counties such as Shanyang, there are few flood disasters in Haozhou, so it is located along the banks of the Shanghuai River Bay. , there are less fields and more mountains, but a small amount of fields are more suitable for farming than downstream Shanyang County.

For hundreds of years, local people living and multiplying around the Shanghuai River Bay have built earth embankments that stretch for hundreds of kilometers to protect their fields and houses, and have also competed for hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land from Pubin. In these years of war and destruction, the bay embankment has been left untouched and dilapidated, and large tracts of Pubin fields are naturally abandoned and cannot be cultivated.

After Liu Tingzhou came out to learn about Haozhou Prefecture, although he organized people to plant crops and resume production along the banks of the Shanghuai River Bay, he still did not have the strength to organize manpower to repair the bay embankment...

"I heard that Shanyang started to build a stone pond along the Xiahuai River Bay. Has Mr. Liu heard of this?" In early spring, the water was shallow and the boat was slow in Puli. I learned that the salt merchant's boat would take an hour to arrive. When they arrived, they sat under the shelter and waited patiently. Chen Jingrong sat next to Liu Tingzhou and asked him about the bay embankment.

"That's true," Liu Tingzhou said. "The water conditions in the Xiahuai River Bay are usually more severe than here, and the Shanyang Embankment will collapse two or three times in ten years. Liang Wenzhan was in office, and he was determined to rebuild Dayang. The embankment didn't start until Li Wei had it in his hands. I heard that last year, 20,000 stones were used to raise the embankment, and the problem from Xiahuaikou to Baitang River was almost solved at one time. The river goes further south to repair..."

"Huaidong's treasury is full, it's really enviable!" Chen Jingrong said with a tut tut, "Drinking the water of the Huai River, Huaixi was starving and dying, but Huaidong turned a blind eye. At this time, he was so extravagant that he spent a lot of effort to repair the stone pond..."

Building a stone pond costs the most money. The stones used in the Shanyang Embankment cost thousands of pounds a piece. The 20,000 stones used in Shanyang’s levee construction last year were all mined from the surrounding hills, which cost countless manpower and material resources.

There are two reasons why Shanyang can build stone ponds.

First, the horse service case and the later new policies such as land inventory and land reclamation have filled the treasury of Shanyang County. The horse service case alone has added more than 100,000 mu of public land in Shanyang County, and the annual public rental income is nearly 100,000 stone grains. .

The second is that Huaidong and the imperial court agreed that the Huaidong Military Division would draw from the Hailing and Huai'an prefectures to pay taxes to support the army, with a limit of 800,000 stone grains.

Over the years, Huai'an and Hailing, on the one hand, have carried out large-scale inspections of hidden fields and sent fields, and registered households and registered households.

In previous years, the taxes and levies of the Huai'an and Hailing prefectures were only 1 million shi, and the part turned over to the prefectures ranged from 400,000 shi to 600,000 shi. However, when Liu Tingzhou left Huaidong and took office in Haozhou, the total taxation of the eleven counties of Huai'an and Hailing was as high as 2.5 million shi.

Huaidong did not take a penny from the court, and naturally he would not let the court draw a grain of rice from Huaidong. Due to the agreement of the year, the military division can only requisition the upper limit of 800,000 stone grains from the local area, and more taxes can only be used in the prefectures and counties at least on the bright side.

In this way, the Huai'an and Hailing prefectures and eleven counties have more than one million stone of rice grain tax that can be used for local affairs expenses.

Shanyang is a key county controlled by Lin Fu. After the Ma served the case, almost all of the officials in Shanyang County were from Huaidong, and their taxes themselves ranked first among Huaian counties. At this time, it is not surprising that the energy saving can afford to repair the stone pond.

Of course, Lin Fu spends millions of taels of silver in Huaidong every year for ditches, water conservancy, roads, bridges, embankments and other affairs. , a labor camp with a scale of more than 100,000 people.

It is really worrying to think that there are more than 100,000 soldiers in Huaidong today, and there are almost the same size of military troops behind them.

In addition to the taxation of Huai'an and Hailing prefectures that are directly tied to Pingjiang and Danyang, Mingzhou and the core areas of Kuaiji, Yongjia and Taizhou are all under the control of Huaidong. After the Battle of Xuzhou, including the Yinan area, Huaidong gained 11 new counties on the northern front. Today, the imperial court still has a general understanding of the taxation of Huai'an and Hailing. Sixteen counties in eastern and southern Zhejiang, and 15 counties under Xuzhou's jurisdiction are all covered by the iron curtain of Lin Bing. Under this circumstance, the imperial court has no way to interfere in matters such as the appointment of officials and the collection of taxes.

Huaidong also only said that these places had just experienced the war, were severely devastated, and the people's livelihood was in desperate need of recovery. However, based on Liu Tingzhou's knowledge of Huaidong, it is speculated that the Mingzhou prefecture, which is already in the inner line of eastern Zhejiang at this time, can provide Huaidong with millions of stone grain taxes every year.

If Lin Bie doesn't have ambition, that's all. If he has ambition, who in the world can control him?

Thinking of this, Liu Tingzhou was very worried.

Liu Tingzhou knew that Chen Jingrong mentioned this at this time, and it was not purely emotional about the abundance of Shanyang. In Jiangning, there are many people who hope to squeeze some money and grain from Huaidong to make up for the deficiencies in other places, but it is easier said than done!

The more worried about Huaidong's disobedience in his heart, the more Liu Tingzhou felt that it was necessary to support Dong Yuan in laying a foundation in Huaixi. After all, there would still be a figure who could curb Huaidong's ambitions in the future, which would be beneficial to the balance of the situation.

Of course, Liu Tingzhou knew that Dong Yuan was in Lin Fu's position, so he might not have no ambitions, but the situation was such that even if he was trying to quench his thirst, Huaixi could only pin his hopes on Dong Yuan.

Liu Tingzhou also thought of the enthusiasm of Chu Wang Yuan Hancheng these days. This time, it was inconvenient to come forward to meet the salt merchants in person, but he sent the manager of the palace to accompany Dong Yuan Haozhou, and also had the intention of building a bridge.

Liu Tingzhou sighed inwardly: When the dynasty is established, it is very taboo for the royal family and the king to associate with ministers and generals, but in this situation, the foreign vassal are tyrannical and the imperial power is weak. Close one eye.

At that time, Huaidong's attitude played a decisive role in the battle between Ninglu, or it was because King Lu was not in Qingzhou, but in Jinan, he might be able to compete with King Ning - at that time, Qingzhou did not have the strength to force King Lu, Lin said. Bie led the troops to be stationed in Laizhou, but the Liang family had it. As long as the Liang family made a move first, Huaidong did not want to fight with the Liang family to lose both, so he could only follow the support of King Lu.

Liu Tingzhou wondered if the King of Chu also saw the subtleties of this?

But in any case, the current actions of the King of Chu are not too outrageous, and the King of Chu has a deep influence in the Changhuai Army and Huaiyang salt merchants, which is probably what Dong Yuan hopes to borrow.

The relationship between the King of Chu and the Changhuai Army can be traced back to the Huaisi War. The Changhuai Army was trapped in the city of Xuzhou for half a year. The King of Chu and Yue Lengqiu fought together against strong enemies. Among the generals of the Changhuai Army, there were some. high prestige.

At the moment, Dong Yuan can only draw generals from within the Changhuai Army to control Tao Chun-Tao Chun envoys to Yue Lengqiu's shelter, and if he wants to fight against Dong Yuan, he is afraid that he is still a little worse.

Dong Yuan squinted at the water of Hongzepu Lake outside the pier. Now he is also a senior official of the frontier. One of the officials from the frontier came to the wharf to meet the salt merchants and waited for an hour under the awning that did not shield the wind from all sides. Things. To spread it to Jiangning, I don't know how much controversy it will cause, but Dong Yuan needs to show such a gesture at this time.

Said to be a senior official of the frontier, Dong Yuan didn't think that there was the scenery and ease of knowing Weiyangli at this time.

Although Huaixi has 100,000 soldiers and horses, and can get 2 million taels of silver from the imperial court every year, the gap with Huaidong is still too big and too big. Without the support of Weiyang salt merchants, Dong Yuan does not know what to do. to show hands and feet.

The arrival of Ding Zhiru made the situation in Huaixi improve. The support of Weiyang salt merchants played a very subtle and crucial role.

As a coach, if you can't control people, you have to control money and food. There is no fart, and the generals below will understand you.

Now that everyone believes that Dong Yuan can raise money, their attitudes are different - Tao Chun has returned to Guoyang, and has already started to abolish the weak soldiers, and the first batch of 3,000 old soldiers have been sent to Shouzhou.

As long as Huaidong defends Xuzhou, Guoyang has enough 30,000 elites, so Huaixi's pressure on military capital will be reduced a lot~www.wuxiaspot.com~ To avoid disturbing Luo Xiancheng, Dong Yuan only sent Xiao Kuian to lead 10,000 elites He went to Xinyang to garrison and encircle and suppress Chen Hansan; Dong Yuan even kept only 5,000 soldiers in Shouzhou. This time, he would convert more than 45,000 soldiers and horses into colonies, and he planned to station the fields in Guangying in Shouzhou first.

There is no way, except for Dongyang and Luzhou, which are out of control (fortunately, the number is limited, with a total of only 20,000 elites). The 20,000 soldiers and horses that came were not his direct line, and it was difficult to control them like an arm.

Only by taking the opportunity of the field to disperse some of the soldiers and horses to become soldiers, can Tao Chun and Xiao Kuian be able to break the control of the army leaders, and Dong Yuan can install some cronies, or promote some generals from ordinary generals. Thus mastering a direct line of soldiers and horses that obey his orders.

Although the soldiers were all the old and weak who were eliminated by the various armies, as long as they could manage the army, it would not be a problem to make up 10,000 elites. You don't have to look at the face of Liu Tingzhou, the military leader and envoy.

Dong Yuan figured in his heart that maybe it would take a year before he, a vassal official, could take the initiative in Huaixi.

Only when there are soldiers and provisions in hand, can Tao Chun and Xiao Kuian be called obedient.

These lessons, Dong Yuan has a profound experience in northern Zhejiang. After the Fuyang War, Meng Yishan was very obedient. After the Fuyang War, Dong Yuan's direct line of soldiers and horses were severely damaged. Meng Yishan could not wait to climb on his face, and finally returned to Wu Dang and Huaidong to jointly run on the last few direct line soldiers and horses. All gave up coming to Huaixi.

As for Yuan Hancheng's thoughts, Dong Yuan can understand a little bit, but it's too early to talk about anything at this time. My QT room is open! More vulgar official QT room number [9167] Click to enter