Northern Dynasties Imperial Industry

Hulao City, the prefecture-level city in Northern Yuzhou, is an important passage in and out of Henan and Luo. It is also one of the world-famous passes. Therefore, the people who are in charge of this area are often famous ministers and generals of the Northern Qi Kingdom.

The current governor of Northern Yuzhou, Sima Xiaonan, is the son-in-law of Emperor Shenwu Gao Huan and one of the four nobles of the Eastern Wei Dynasty, Sima Ziru. Judging from his background, he is already the top dignitary in the Northern Qi Dynasty. He is responsible for the position of Northern Yuzhou. It is normal to want one place.

However, although Sima Xiaonan has a profound background, the actual situation is not as calm and comfortable as it seems on the surface.

First of all, although his father Sima Ziru had a close personal relationship with Emperor Shenwu Gao Huan and was once in charge of the affairs of the Eastern Wei Dynasty during the Eastern Wei Dynasty, this honor did not last forever. When Emperor Wenxiang Gao Cheng came to power in Ye as a general, he regarded Sima Ziru as a target to establish his authority and severely punished him, which greatly damaged Sima Ziru's prestige.

When the current leader of Qi, Gao Yang, usurped Wei and established itself, Sima Ziru also received a cold reception because his attitude was not positive enough, and he was not awarded the honor of being crowned king. He was promoted to the court because of his seniority and his old relationship with Emperor Shenwu. Tianbao died of illness three years ago.

Sima Xiaonan's family background is no longer as strong as it seems, and his family relationship is not harmonious, so that his wife often complains to the current emperor. In recent years, as the emperor of Qi has become more and more violent, Sima Xiaonan is also worried about this. .

There is another thing that makes Sima Xiaonan quite worried, that is, he has a good personal relationship with Gao Huan, the king of Shangdang. Gao Huan was detained in Jinyang last year and has disappeared since then. It is said that he has been executed long ago, and it is said that he is still imprisoned in Jinyang Palace. This matter was not finalized for a day, so Sima Xiaonan was always worried about whether he would be implicated.

For fear of being unjustly accused by the current emperor, Sima Xiaonan has been very cautious in recent years. In addition to trying to please his wife at home, he has also made many attempts to win over his subordinates and disciples. He is cautious and wins people's hearts, hoping that he can Live in peace.

As an important town in Henan, Northern Yuzhou itself does not have a strong military character. One reason is that the front line of the east-west confrontation is now the Yiyang line in western Henan, and northern Yuzhou is not a frontline military town. The second reason is that Gao Zhongmi also surrendered to the Western Wei Dynasty when he was serving as the governor of Northern Yuzhou last year, so the Yedu court deliberately reduced the military functions of Northern Yuzhou.

Nowadays, the most important function of this place is to serve as a support for the Luozhou War Zone, continuously transporting money, grain supplies and labor from the Henan area to the Heluo area to maintain military consumption in the entire Heluo area.

There are always tens of thousands of troops stationed in Heluo, Heyang and other places. Together with the soldiers dispatched from various places, the scale of the garrison is as many as hundreds of thousands. Such a large population cannot be satisfied by the popular farming and farming in the dilapidated Heluo land. All the money, grain and materials collected from Shandong to Henan need to be transported to Heluo through Hulao in northern Yuzhou.

Therefore, although Sima Xiaonan, as the governor of Northern Yuzhou, did not have much authority to control military aircraft, he also had a lot of authority and had to deal with many important matters every day.

Due to the large amount of money, food and materials being collected, distributed and transported, commerce in Northern Yuzhou was also quite prosperous. Business travelers from all over the world took advantage of the relatively complete logistics roads and warehouse facilities around Hulao City to sell current goods and exchange needed goods here. , making Hulao City more prosperous.

Merchants are often only interested in profit and have little regard for family and country. In order to obtain sufficient profits, they often engage in some illegal activities, and even engage in smuggling with foreign and enemy countries for profit.

Sima Xiaonan himself is not keen on doing business and making profits. Unlike some of the noble sons of the Northern Qi Kingdom who were suddenly high-ranking, his family can be regarded as a long-standing official, and his father Sima Ziru has a wide circle of friends, so Sima Xiaonan also has a lot of friends. The character of an aristocratic son who is interested in socializing and lazy in worldly affairs does not like to personally manage these worldly affairs.

However, Sima Xiaonan himself supported many disciples, and his family had a lot of expenses. In addition, there were many officials in Northern Yuzhou who were engaged in smuggling business for profit. Sima Xiaonan did not want to strictly investigate this matter to see evil. colleagues, and were gradually involved.

When the censor from Yecheng arrived at Hulao City, Sima Xiaonan happened to be not in the city, but went to visit Xixuan Temple in Chenggao. The governor is not in the city, which is convenient for the censor to do his work.

Although the Lord of Qi, Gao Yang, was keen on enjoying himself, he had high demands on internal and external officials. As the eyes and ears of the imperial censor, he also had a lot of power. He went to the prefectures and counties to collect information and correct mistakes. It has a great solemnizing effect, but at the same time it is inevitably accompanied by many domineering and fishy behaviors.

This time when the censor came to Northern Yuzhou, he originally came to use the name of Feng to make excuses. After entering the city, he was naturally even more rude. After entering the city, they first found the governor of the town with a warrant and asked the town to mobilize a team of armored soldiers to cooperate.

The governor of the town was named Fu Jingyuan. After verifying that the talisman was correct, he did not dare to neglect it and summoned 500 soldiers from the military camp to deliver it to the censor. After recruiting the local soldiers, the censor went directly to the governor's house and detained all the officials in charge of the house, such as the chief register, the signatures, and so on. They also sealed up some documents related to the money and food in the warehouse and brought them to the governor's house. Guards were set up in the military camps requisitioned in the city.

"Aye, something bad is going on, something is going wrong..."

After the accident happened, Sima Xiaonan's son Sima Tan hurriedly rode out of the city to look for his father. When he saw Sima Xiaonan in Xixuan Temple, Sima Tan said loudly and urgently.

Accompanied by the monks in the temple, Sima Xiaonan was selecting cliffs and preparing to dig caves and statues to pray for blessings and ward off disasters. When he saw his son arriving in a hurry and shouting, Dang even frowned and said displeased: "You are not young, but you are still not calm at all. , What is so alarming about?”

"Yes, there are censors in Ye who have come to the state, and they have mobilized people from the town to go to the government to arrest people. Chief Secretary Liu, Zhang Dianshan and all the disciples were all locked up..."

When Sima Tan heard his father's scolding, he hurriedly calmed down the panic on his face, but still spoke in a hurried tone.

"W-what...what, what happened in such a hurry..."

After Sima Xiaonan heard this, his face became even more frightened than his son's. If the monk beside him hadn't stepped forward to help him with quick eyes and hands, he would have fallen to the ground.

He had been worried that he would be persecuted, but now that the Yedu Censor came with such force, he was shocked. He immediately stopped caring about digging caves to worship Buddha, and quickly summoned a group of followers and rushed to Hulao City. Because Sima Tan did not find out why the censor came, he was repeatedly scolded and complained by Sima Xiaonan along the way.

"No, no, I can't, I can't go back to the city easily! If the person who comes here is really evil, but I don't recognize him and return, wouldn't I just fall into a trap?"

Halfway through the journey, Sima Xiaonan suddenly reined in his horse and stopped. He was too frightened to return to the city. Instead, he asked his subordinates to go back first to observe the situation, while he took a nearby route and hid in a villa outside the city.

At this time, Hulao City was also in chaos due to the arrival of the censor. After detaining a number of Sima Xiaonan's disciples, the imperial censors began to interrogate them severely. Soon some people could not bear the pressure and confessed some things related to Sima Xiaonan's disciples' involvement in smuggling.

These censors have also handled many similar cases. After initially grasping some of the crimes, Dang even decided to split up, leaving some people to guard here and continue to interrogate these people, while the others went separately according to their instructions. Investigation.

Hulao City was originally a prosperous city with frequent exchanges of goods. If these censors wanted to search and collect evidence, they would of course have to close some warehouses and warehouses, and search and detain relevant personnel. This inevitably caused a lot of disruption to the flow of people and goods in the city, and many people were frightened by this.

The censors were searching and investigating all over the city, causing a lot of trouble. However, Sima Xiaonan, who was hiding in a secluded business outside the city, secretly breathed a sigh of relief after learning the purpose of the censors, and said with a smile: " This thief Bi Yiyun is really hateful, but he is also really stupid. It is ridiculous to want to harm the minister based on this trivial matter!"

If the censor came to Northern Yuzhou for other reasons this time, he would inevitably be frightened, but if he just wanted to make trouble based on the crime of trade smuggling, Sima Xiaonan felt that it would be difficult to hurt him.

There are precedents for high-ranking officials and powerful officials in the Northern Qi Dynasty to be prosecuted for private smuggling, but the punishment is often just to seize the official position and fine the stolen goods. A brief admonishment is sufficient, and substantive punishment is rarely given.

What's more, Sima Xiaonan did not personally handle this matter at all, and as far as he knew, he was not the only one of the powerful people involved in this matter. His brother-in-law Cheng Gao Gong Ke and Zhu Huntian were also involved in this matter. If the censor really wants to pursue this case, he will only cause public outrage. Er Cui, who was so favored as before, was demoted for offending the public, and Bi Yiyun was nothing.

So Sima Xiaonan stopped hiding and swaggered back to Hulao City surrounded by his entourage. After returning to the governor's house, he summoned a group of officials and told them to cooperate with the censor and not deliberately conceal his crimes.

Because he knew very well that the more so-called evidence of crime found by these censors, the safer he would be. He doesn't even need to step forward himself. The powerful people in Yedu will not be able to bear the loss of their interests and will teach these mad dogs a lesson. At that time, he will just stand aside and watch the show.

But Sima Xiaonan's good mood did not last long. After returning home, he drank a few glasses of water and wine at dinner to calm down his shock, and then took advantage of the tipsiness to get on the bed to sleep. But just as he was lying on the bed, outside the door Another cry sounded like a son calling for help: "Aye, something bad is going on, something is going wrong... Censor Zhang Zijie was searching an official warehouse in the south of the city, but he was violently hacked to death by thieves hiding in it!"