Tang Dynasty Mingyue Song Dynasty Pass

Chapter 785: Absurd Southern Han

Lin Renzhao served as a general in Southern Tang for many years and had many battles with neighboring countries, so he knew a lot about the courts of Qianyue, Jingchu, and Southern Han.

At this time, he explained to Su Chen: "The monarchs of the Han Kingdom in Lingnan have always been extravagant and immoral. This was evident from the beginning when the first monarch Liu Gong founded the country. He began to build large-scale palaces in the year he founded the country. The palaces were magnificent and luxuriously decorated! It is said that the palace of the Xingwang Mansion in the capital was called the "Jade Hall and Pearl Palace". It used a lot of jade, pearls and other luxury goods for decoration and was built luxuriously. After that, Liu Gong built many official palaces, including the Nan Palace, Wende Palace, Zhaoyang Palace, Nanxun Palace and many other names. Each palace was decorated with luxury goods such as gold, silver, pearls and jade. These were all plundering the people's fat and blood. The people have long been in dire straits."

"In addition to extravagance, the kings of Lingnan Han were also particularly dissolute. For example, although Emperor Shang Liu Yin reigned for only one year, he had no interest in government affairs and was extremely dissolute. He abandoned etiquette and state affairs and spent all day drinking and having fun. Later, Emperor Zhongzong Liu Sheng took advantage of Emperor Shang's dissoluteness and finally murdered Emperor Shang to seize power. However, Emperor Zhongzong Liu Sheng was even more dissolute during his reign. In order to consolidate his position and power, he killed all his brothers and took all their wives and daughters into the harem for his pleasure. The current emperor of Southern Han, Liu Yan, succeeded to the throne at the age of sixteen. He favored eunuchs such as Gong Chengshu and Chen Yanshou. He had sex with palace maids and eunuchs in the palace all day long and didn't pay much attention to government affairs."

"How could he be so foolish and incompetent!" The two Ma brothers were very indignant after hearing this.

Lin Renzhao nodded and continued, "In order to extort money from the people, the Han regime set up warehouse officials, household officials, county magistrates, and thief catchers in various states in Lingnan to intensify the oppression and prevention of the people. Due to the heavy taxes and levies, the people could not bear the burden, and raising an army to resist could not change their living conditions. Many people had to leave their homes and flee to other places to avoid the tyranny of the Han Kingdom!"

  After listening to this, Su Chen felt deeply moved. It would be really unfair if such a court did not perish!

"In ancient times, Lingnan was vast and sparsely populated, with insufficient labor, and could no longer meet the needs of production development; their monarchs lived a decadent life of extravagance and squandered the limited social wealth that the people had worked so hard to create and accumulate; at the same time, in addition to supporting a large number of bureaucrats and troops, this small country also supported a large number of unproductive eunuchs, harem personnel, and personnel who served the royal family's luxurious life; the remaining labor force had to undertake frequent civil engineering projects. Under such conditions, the Lingnan court was on the verge of collapse, and it was a good time for us to send troops!"

Lin Renzhao said: "Yes, the soldiers in Lingnan no longer have much morale to resist, and the destruction of the country is just around the corner!"

Su Chen nodded: "This time, I will personally lead the troops south to open up new territory and expand the territory of Wu. At the same time, it will also save the people of Lingnan Han from danger." Su Chen said with great righteousness.

Of course, after annexing Southern Han, Su Chen actually still attached great importance to Southern Han's trade with Southeast Asia. Trade with Daqin, Nanyang, and overseas could exchange for a lot of gold, silver, and copper, alleviating the shortage of materials for coin minting.

Moreover, the products manufactured by Wu's new industries can be continuously traded overseas, obtaining the foreign materials he wants, providing abundant supplies, storing food, and promoting Wu's economic development. As the saying goes, the lower foundation determines the superstructure. Only when materials are more abundant, the treasury is fuller, the people live and work in peace and contentment, and there are no frozen corpses on the roads, can Wu prosper.

After Su Chen had a discussion with Lin Renzhao, he became more confident about this expedition. After seeing Lin Renzhao off, he asked Ma Donglin and Ma Zhanchao to report to the military camp with his warrant. They would start as the head of a team first, and after the expedition, they would be promoted step by step as they made meritorious contributions.

Ma Donglin and Ma Zhanchao were very happy and left after accepting the order.

At this time, Jing Hong came into the study and reported something to Su Chen: "General, Pan Mei's family has been brought to Jinling."

After listening to this, Su Chen nodded slightly. Now that Pan Mei's family members were brought over, he could come forward and give Pan Mei some good advice.

In fact, after Su Chen learned that Pan Mei was captured, he had long wanted to recruit Pan Mei under his command, but he also knew that Pan Mei's old mother, several sons, and family members were all in Bianjing City. If this worry could not be resolved, Pan Mei would not surrender, otherwise his family would be in danger.

"Let them meet first, and then separate. I will go and meet General Pan Mei in person!"

"General, do you want to recruit Pan Mei to surrender?" "Of course, he is a famous general. It would be a pity to kill him. It would be best if he could be used by me." Su Chen smiled slightly. He came from the future and was familiar with history. He naturally knew that Pan Mei, the famous general of the Northern Song Dynasty, was no ordinary person. He participated in many wars of annihilation of the Northern Song Dynasty. It can be said that Pan Mei and Cao Bin were both good commanders and famous generals of the Song Dynasty.

It's just that because Pan Mei's daughter later married Emperor Zhenzong of Song, and Yang Jiye died in the battlefield, which was related to his forgetting to send people to rescue him, later storytellers fabricated the famous general Pan Mei into a villain father-in-law called "Pan Renmei" who not only colluded with the Liao Kingdom and killed the generals of the Yang family, but also plotted a rebellion and usurped power. In fact, those are all fictional stories.

"Yes, I'll make arrangements right away!"

Jing Hong took people to make arrangements and came back after a while to report to Su Chen that the matter had been settled.

Su Chen nodded, then stood up and went to a separate courtyard, which was guarded by layers of guards and where Pan Mei was under house arrest.

"General Pan, do you still recognize me?"

Su Chen appeared in front of Pan Mei and asked with a smile.

  Having fought each other, Pan Mei had certainly seen Su Chen and had a deep memory of him! In this era, who else was unfamiliar with "Jiangzuo Su Lang"? Everyone had heard of his name!

"Su Chen, General Su!" Pan Mei glanced at him with a complicated expression.

After he was captured, he thought about committing suicide, but his desire to survive prevented him from doing so. However, Su Chen met him once and put him under house arrest without saying much. If he had been persuaded to surrender, he would not have surrendered, because his integrity, responsibility to his family, and loyalty to the court determined that Pan Mei would not surrender after being captured.

But after a year, he gradually lost his spirit and courage, became indifferent to fame and fortune, and saw many things. He used to be a general of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, and later became a general of the Song Dynasty. Now, he is in the new Wu Kingdom, and the future is uncertain, so he can only wait patiently.

Until today, when he saw his old mother and sons in Bian Jing being brought to Jinling City to meet him, Pan Mei immediately knew what Su Chen wanted to do.

Su Chen smiled slightly, "I have neglected General Pan in the past, and there are reasons for that. Now your family has been safely brought to Nanjing, and the family is reunited. Now I have an unwelcome request, which is to hope that General Pan can surrender to my Wu Kingdom, continue to be my Wu Kingdom's general, follow me to the Han Kingdom in Lingnan, and save the people from suffering. I wonder if you are willing?"

Pan Mei hesitated for a moment, then smiled bitterly: "Does Pan have any other choice?"

Su Chen said seriously: "Wu Kingdom really needs General Pan, and hopes that they can put aside their differences and join the Great Wu!"

Pan Mei sighed, knowing that the other party was giving him a way out and had already lowered his posture. He couldn't be ungrateful. Moreover, Su Chen was famous enough, so he had no reason to be arrogant. So he sighed and said, "Okay, I agree to join!"

Su Chen heard this and smiled calmly: "Welcome General Pan to join us. From now on, we are all Wu people!"