Better to live forever [Rebirth]

To add fuel to the flames, Ning Heng informed Zhu Dingbei of today's attack from the Ministry of Household Affairs.

Ning Heng: "In view of the drought in the south this year, the harvests in Zhongzhou and Jiangnan have been greatly reduced. Although I proposed to buy new rice at a discount with the household department's old grain, in fact, Li Tao and His Majesty knew in their hearts that after the last war, the household department's stored grain It has already been almost emptied out, and the rest are miscellaneous grains left over from previous years, and the quality is extremely poor. It is inevitable that these grains will cause complaints among the people, so the price of grains needs to be adjusted. If the price of new rice rises, people’s hearts will inevitably be unstable. At this time, it is really not a good time to start a war.”

Zhu Dingbei frowned and said: "Isn't the Ministry of Households selling old grain to grain merchants at a low price every year? How much old grain can there be in the warehouse?"

"Those old grains that cannot be kept for more than three years. You know, every year, the Ministry of Households will store a certain amount of grain for use in various places, such as military rations, disaster relief, and salaries for hundreds of officials. Every grain depot will have [-] to [-]% of the grain. It is kept for urgent use, and there is usually no circulation and transfer between each other, and there are still some old grains that are less than three years old over the years."

Zhu Dingbei understood, and asked again: "Then how do they plan to ask you about the sale—no, since this year's harvest is so bad and the treasury is tight, why do you still have so much new rice to save the emperor's face?"

Ning Heng laughed, "Only [-]% of the grain collected by the Ning family's grain store is purchased from the local people, and the remaining [-]%, [-]% is produced by the Ning family's fields, and the other [-]% is purchased from the south. It seems that You are really incompetent as a lord. Didn’t I ask Uncle Ning to sort out an overview of the accounts over the years for you a month ago, but it clearly lists what kind of business the Ning family has done, and the money and silver for each type of business. .”

"Don't talk nonsense, let's get down to business." Zhu Dingbei blushed. He was too busy recently, so he only browsed briefly to see how rich and powerful the Ning family was. , and Ning Heng and his subordinates will handle it very properly, so I didn't take it too seriously.But this attitude cannot tell Ning Heng the truth, so he changed the subject and asked him: "The southern land refers to the Panyue or the Shan country? Is the grain production there really that rich?"

This is much more than he originally expected. Knowing that the Ning family's granaries are all over the world, even the grain merchants and imperial merchants can only count on them. One can imagine how much the Ning family's [-]% of the grain production is.If Southland provides [-]% of the output every year without interruption, the local grain production is really difficult to predict.

Ning Heng rubbed the back of his neck, and replied: "The southern land has devoted itself to filling water and making fields for a hundred years, and the grain land has been a hundred times larger than before, and the output will naturally increase. Besides, the miasma in the southern land is too deep, and the population is limited. , each of their households has a lot of surplus grain. They hoard old grain even more, and the people have no other income except grain, so they are naturally happy to have someone buy it quantitatively every year."

Zhu Dingbei nodded when he heard the words, "If the war is really imminent, the Qiang and the Huns will definitely buy a large amount of grain from the south. Will there be any hindrance?"

"Don't worry, after suffering such a big loss from Panyue and Shan Kingdom the year before last, our Ning family did not fail to counterattack. You know that it is very difficult for people in the South to give birth. Although there are many witch doctors there, it is difficult for women to give birth. There is no way at all. Most of the women who are responsible for delivering babies are barefoot doctors who travel. These people are actually people from the Ning family who went to discuss food business."

Zhu Dingbei's eyes lit up, and Ning Heng knew that he had understood the key point, and continued with a smile: "After the war, all these barefoot doctors were recalled to Dajing, Panyue and Shan Kingdom this year...the newborns are about Cut in half, and fewer of those women survived than before. So, this time, they begged us to do business, not us begged him."

"Since this is the case, instead of leaving it as rations for the Qiang and Huns, it is better to keep it in our pocket." Zhu Dingbei urged Ning Heng to buy more grain, wishing to collect all the surplus grain in the south.

Seeing that he was greedy, Ning Heng laughed instead, nodding at everything he said, looking extremely stupid.Zhu Dingbei smiled happily, and the hostility lingering between his eyebrows just now dissipated invisible, the two of them giggled for a while, and then Zhu Dingbei got back to business.He said: "Aheng, you said about Zhen Youxiang, should we tell the emperor?"

The emperor is also investigating. They originally thought that he would be able to rely on his own ability to find out the real culprit in the near future, but now he is not sure.

Zhen Feihe hid too deeply, if Lou Shangshu hadn't told him today, perhaps they might not be able to find Zhen Feihe even if they went to the secret channel.

Ning Heng pondered for a while, then said in a low voice: "If you don't want to leak the secret passage to him, it will depend on how many days you can find out."

Zhu Dingbei thought so too, but he was not so eager after knowing the answer.The result of acting too hastily is war. They must let Ning's followers relax their nerves and let them postpone the urgent matter, so that they can be better prepared to deal with the worst outcome.

Of course, there are those people on the list given by Lou Jingzhi, they should also plan slowly, and it is best to have some chance, let the emperor find them all in one fell swoop, and send them all together.Otherwise, clean up one by one, and before they get to Zhen Feihe, the battle will start long ago.It's not what they want to scare the snake away.

But such an opportunity is not that simple.

Before dawn that day, Zhu Dingbei dreamed of the long-lost nightmare again.He dreamed of his father, who died with unrepentant death, his brother and uncles crawled out of the grave one by one, they stepped on their horses, shouting: "Kill!" "Revenge!" "Zhaoxue!"

In the dream, the iron hooves shook the sky, and the murderous aura turned into resentment surrounding Zhu Dingbei. He couldn't move where he was, and could only watch helplessly as the horseshoes of his closest relatives were about to crush him——

Suddenly, a person leaned over from the horse and grabbed him, and threw him outward.

The sky was covered in blood, and he slowly heard the man yelling loudly at him: "Go! Longevity! You have to live—"

"Daddy!"

"!!"

Zhu Dingbei suddenly opened his eyes, turned over from the bed and sat up.

As expected, he was already dripping with sweat. He pressed his beating heart and gasped a few times before he calmed down.The sky was dark before dawn, Zhu Dingbei clenched his fists, and suddenly missed Ning Heng—since he was smashed by the old master that day, even if Ning Heng had ten courage, he would not dare to sneak into Zhu Dingbei It's in the room, and the old Hou Ye is staring at it.

After sitting on the bed for a while, he simply got up, put on his clothes, and punched outside the courtyard.

Every move was serious and slow, and he wanted to use this to meditate until Shuisheng came to serve him at dawn, then he stopped his fists and let Shuisheng prepare the washing things.

After having breakfast with his grandparents, he stopped Grandpa who was about to go out, and the two went to the study in the front yard to have a deep talk.He also specially invited Gu Chao'an to come over. The two of them were shocked when they heard the inside story for the first time.

"I didn't expect...it turned out to be him."

As far as the ancient dynasty is concerned, as the direct disciple of Chen Gel, Prime Minister Chen and Prime Minister Zhen You, who were still active in the court at that time, can be said to have frequent contacts, unlike in his later years, he rarely took the initiative with his ministers to avoid suspicion. touch.Therefore, Gu Chao'an had seen this person with his own eyes.The person whom his master is so optimistic about can be counted on one hand. It was Ma Yuan who was so beautiful at that time. Mr. Chen Ge was on guard, but this person he knew and knew never attracted attention. His old man's suspicions.

How can people not be surprised?

The old Hou Ye didn't say much about it, he knew that that person would not be a simple character. Although Zhen Feihe was beyond his expectation, after being surprised, he was more concerned about the potential war crisis.

"Now those recruits are still hairless. If they are sent to the battlefield rashly, the damage will be very serious."

Old Hou Ye said worriedly.

Now this knife is far from ready to be sharpened, so we can predict how many people will die on the battlefield in vain.This not only wasted their hard work over the past few years, but more importantly, the old Hou Ye was really reluctant to let these new troops die like this.But once the battle started, apart from Zhu Jiajun, the new army that people had high hopes for rushed forward.

Zhu Dingbei also had the same worry, and it was more serious than the old Hou Ye: "In the last battle of the Qiang, Hun, and Nanman allied forces, I saw a big problem in our Dajing."

"The border is vast and the battle line is too long. Although we have a large number of troops and natural dangers to defend, there are too few generals who can withstand the situation. Except for Dad and Uncle Wu, the others in the army are brave enough, but they have the courage to be qualified to be the leader Insufficient planning and insufficient planning. Those who have the courage and planning are too young to take on important responsibilities. In military warfare, it is most taboo to change the command of multiple people. I just want them to complement each other, but it is really difficult to predict the variables. .”

Gu Chao'an sighed and said: "The old marshal has three parents and seventeen adopted sons, but now only the marshal and the remaining five generals survive. The third brother Zhu has been injured and retired and has been taking care of the Hou's mansion in Beijing for many years. The seventh brother Zhu and Zhu Shisan The brothers are both assisting the fifth brother Zhu in Liangzhou, but the two of them can attack, but they want to plan the overall situation... Although the fifth brother is resourceful and resourceful, it is already difficult to defend Liangzhou under the siege of the Qiang and Huns. Yizhou and Ningzhou are unable to take care of both. The coach originally had sixteen brothers and nine...now we are not by his side, and the northern frontier of Xianbei is vast and Liao. It is no longer necessary to defend Xianbei and prevent the Huns from taking advantage of it. Easy."

Calculated in this way, their advantages are actually not many.