end song

Chapter 698 Killing with money

From the posthouse to Chengdu City for more than fifty miles, Yu Desheng traveled all night, and finally returned to Chengdu City at dawn.

After crossing the Fu River, you can already see the newly repaired city wall.In the fields on the outskirts of the city, farmers are already turning up the frozen soil with hoes.

Thanks to Li Bing's construction of Dujiangyan, Chengdu's water conservancy can be called "wonderful".

The Erjiang River runs through Chengdu, and the water of the river can be used for boats, while the rest is used for irrigation, which not only facilitates transportation, but also allows the people to enjoy its water benefits.

The river is fertile, the land is fertile, millet oil, japonica rice are harvested three to four times a year, and there are mountains, forests, bamboo trees, vegetables, and fruits...

As Yu Desheng walked, he glanced at the scene full of vitality in the barrenness, but his heart felt even more desolate.

"The land of abundance will fall into the hands of the rebels."

He said to himself, thinking that if Li Xia regained Chengdu back then, it wasn't for Da Song Sheji.

After passing through the north city gate, he walked towards Guanzipu.

Most of the houses along the way are newly built. Although simple, they are neatly arranged, and traces of knives and axes can be seen from a certain stone wall or a certain beam from time to time.

This city, like a person who has been hacked to pieces, is healing little by little, slowly returning to life.

Yu Desheng sighed again, walked into Guanzipu, and walked to the backyard.

"Ge Er, go prepare the carriage, leave Chengdu immediately, and go to Chongqing Mansion."

"Yes."

"Xu Sishi, please take someone out of Guanzipu, find a place to hide, and wait for the opportunity."

"This is Mr. Yu? Could it be that Ma Jing lost?"

"Is there anything to eat?" Yu Desheng sat down slowly on an armchair, and murmured wearily, "It's not that I lost, but that I died. After only one round of fighting, I was completely defeated by Li Xia and Zhang Jue. Horrible."

"Li Xia?"

"Let me eat something first and then talk to you in detail..."

Speaking of this, Yu Desheng moved quickly, satiated his hunger, and explained everything that should be explained, and dispersed the staff as soon as possible.

He changed the clothes on his body, and there was a dry smell.

The soles of the feet were full of blisters.

After all, he is a literati, and this is the first time in his life that he has suffered such a thing. All he can say is that it is better than being beheaded like Ma Jing.

Just when he was about to leave the closed shop, another person rushed up ahead.

"Sir, Shopkeeper Yu is here."

Although Yu Desheng was impatient, he still saw the shopkeeper Nayu again.

When they met and opened their mouths, shopkeeper Yu was still talking about gold and silver.

Although this guanzi shop was only opened before the New Year's Eve, the gold and silver guanzi had already been circulated among merchants, and it was widely used in the Chongqing government.

In Chengdu, Zhang Jue also saw that Jinyin Guanzi was indeed better than Huizi, and that he could exchange money before allowing merchants to set up shops and issue them...

"Oh, don't we know what Zhang Jue's plan is? Every day he asks us to pay for the bridge and pave the road, but what he thinks in his heart is to follow Xue Tian and Wang Changyi's example and raid Guanzipu for our gold and silver. "

Yu Desheng smiled and said: "What are you afraid of? He doesn't know who is standing behind you. This closed shop is originally owned by the imperial court. How can he check it?"

He got up, patted shopkeeper Yu on the shoulder, and said, "Even if it is confiscated in the end, it doesn't matter. How many gold and silver ingots are there in your warehouse? The first floor on the bright side is not as good as your house." The proprietor is worth a lot of money for a bowl. I have to go to Chongqing for some business, so I’m leaving now.”

……

Yu Desheng got into the donkey cart, leaned there and closed his eyes tiredly, thinking about what happened this time.

Gold and silver Guanzi will be an important means to check and balance Li Xia.

Prime Minister Zuo said very clearly that if the gold and silver Guanzi were to circulate in Sichuan and Shu, there would be no need to worry about whether Li Xia would take the gold and silver.

How many pieces of gold and silver are there?
Jinyinguanzi itself is a piece of paper, and its essence is the reputation of merchants.

To put it simply, the essence of Huizi is the imperial court's monetary reputation. Now that the imperial court's reputation is about to collapse, it is temporarily and pretended to be transferred to the merchants until the imperial court rebuilds its reputation.

The essence of Jinyinguanzi flowing into Sichuan and Shu was to make Sichuan and Shu believe in the reputation of foreign merchants.

In the beginning, a small amount of gold and silver had to be transported to Sichuan and Shu.

But not many, and businessmen are not stupid. There are many businessmen who can build a reputation of 2000 or [-] taels with only one tael of silver.

Even this small amount of gold and silver is itself a dead thing. Even if Li Xia robs it, it will be used as money, and it will be used to buy rebellion needs and people's livelihood all over the world.

Food, armor, ironware, medicinal materials.

Circulation transactions are beneficial to Sichuan and other parts of the world.

That is equivalent to letting Sichuan and Shu share the scourge of the current soaring prices in various places, like pouring a pot of cold water into a boiling pot.

And the blazing fire under the pot is the powerful and powerful people of the Song Dynasty.

Even if Li Xia wanted to scrape out real money, what he was facing was the treacherous shopkeepers under the hands of those giant merchants.

He couldn't even find where those giant merchants were, and it was impossible to find them, because behind the giant merchants, there were countless interests intertwined, and they were the scholar-bureaucrats of the whole world.

Once you have money, you can buy land, hire farmers, support your children to study and become officials, and support higher dignitaries...

In this entire structure of intertwined interests, the biggest beneficiaries all stand above the temple of the Lin'an court, standing higher than the temple!
How could Li Xia find them, he could only fight wits and courage with those treacherous little shopkeepers, and all the business travelers in the world hated Li Xia.

Even if all the Guanzi shops set up in Sichuan and Shu were sealed up, and they got several million guan, what is it?
The nobles in the south of the Yangtze River rewarded their concubines with pure gold, and every box and box they gave as gifts was authentic paintings and calligraphy by the sages.

As long as the gold and silver passes flow into the land of Shu, the land of Shu and the imperial court are like cold water and boiling water, who can separate them?

And if Li Xia doesn't let Jinyinguanzi enter Shu, Sichuan and Shu, the most barren place, will be trapped to death if there is no trade, and the people and material resources will be insufficient, and they will never be able to compete with the imperial court...

Yu Desheng carefully sorted out the train of thought in his mind again, feeling relieved.

Ma Qian and his son, Tiger and his son, Ma Jing was incompetent and failed to kill Li Xia by force.

Fortunately, Prime Minister Zuo has a far-sighted vision and can plan to kill people with money...

~~
Sudden.

There was loud shouting from the west side of Long Street.

Yu Desheng raised the curtain and looked, only to see a group of soldiers heading straight for Guanzipu.

"Under the order of the government office to investigate the rebels! Seal this gate for me!"

"What's the use? Our shopkeeper just donated money to repair the city wall a few years ago..."

"Cover up the rebels, the evidence is conclusive, seal! Starting today, Sichuan and Shu will ban Jinyinguanzi!"

"..."

Yu Desheng shook his hand and quickly put down the curtain.

Counting the time, Li Xia and Zhang Jue were still cleaning up the battlefield in the posthouse last night, but they were able to send people to seal up the Guanzipu just at noon today. What kind of insight is this?

There was cold sweat on his forehead, Yu Desheng raised his hand to wipe it, and anxiously urged the coachman to leave quickly.

After finally getting out of the city gate, he turned his head and took another look at Chengdu City, secretly thinking that he would never dare to come in person again next time...

~~
The twelfth day of the first lunar month.

"Zhang Jue, you son of a bitch! Grandpa got into your ass! When you asked for money, you said you were a brother, and you turned your back on him and turned your back on him. You are shameless! You fucking... woo... Don't kill me... Please don't kill me……"

There was a lot of cursing and shouting in the government office in Chengdu, and then it turned into crying and begging for mercy.

In the end, Zhang Jue didn't kill the shopkeeper Yu of the Guanzi shop, but sent him to a prisoner camp to reclaim wasteland.

Of course, even if the captives grow food, all of it will be filled into the Changping warehouse for military rations and relief for refugees.

After dealing with this matter, Zhang Juefang turned his head to look at Li Xia who was sitting at the top, and said, "He said 'asking for money', I asked him to donate three thousand guanxi to repair the city."

"I know."

Li Xia has walked around the city today. Zhang Jue has managed Chengdu for two years, and the results have actually exceeded his expectations.There are indeed many places to spend money.

"Just now that surnamed Yu has been building a shipping company in central Sichuan since last year, and he owns one out of every four merchant ships on the Minjiang River." Zhang Jue sighed, and said, "You want me to seal him up. Where to go to collect?"

"You figure out a way."

"Chengdu is barren, without these foreign business travelers, how else can I think of a solution?" Zhang Jue rubbed his forehead, and said: "Not to mention the lack of supplies, the best way for foreign refugees to enter Shu is to come with the business travelers , Merchant ships on the Yangtze River are almost the only way from Jinghu to Sichuan.”

"I'm not preventing you from developing business travel." Li Xia said, "Business travel needs to be revitalized, but Song Ting's Chu coins cannot be used."

He got up, walked to the pile of confiscated items, took a look, picked up a gold and silver pass with ten denominations, glanced at it, and threw it aside.

"This thing will become waste paper sooner or later."

"Why?"

"I am more and more sure that Jia Sidao made it. Jia Sidao represents the imperial court. If the root cause of the imperial court's inability to make ends meet is not resolved, its chu coins will always be used to plunder civilians."

Zhang Jue said: "It is said that merchants use it for circulation..."

"Fake, a cover-up to calm people's hearts."

Li Xia shook his head, and said again: "Let's put it this way, the denominations of the Guanzi here are probably more than one million guan, but after you have counted the gold, silver and copper coins brought by shopkeeper Nayu, if there are [-] guan , Count me as loser."

"At present, there is not one time that cannot be exchanged. Moreover, he can still go to Chongqing to transport gold and silver to exchange."

"Maybe it's okay for the time being, this is the capital he paid." Li Xia said: "When we get to the Chongqing mansion and check it again, is he going to talk about Ezhou Dui again? This is a liar who brought [-] yuan to cheat you out of hundreds of dollars Ten thousand supplies."

"His boss is really rich..."

"The richer you are, the more you can cheat, and the richer you are, the more you can cheat."

Zhang Jue still didn't understand.

Li Xia glanced at him, and really didn't know how to explain these currency theories to this general.

"Brother Junyu, as long as you know that this thing is the same as Huizi, it is a great disaster, and it is one of the reasons why the Song Dynasty is bound to perish."

"Must perish?"

"The treasury's income and expenditure are seriously out of balance, but they can't collect taxes from the rich and powerful, so they have to desperately issue Chu coins to plunder the common people. The currency system is extremely disordered, and the economy collapses... Coupled with the fact that the strong and powerful are staring at them, they will die."

In the past, Li Xia only knew that Song was about to die, but he knew the result but couldn't tell why.

But after experiencing countless turmoil, he was no longer the ignorant person he was when he first came, and he was able to point out the reason for the demise of the Song Dynasty in one word.

Song Ting's suspicion of generals was the reason for his rebellion.And the gold and silver pass in front of him is the reason why Song Ting himself will perish.

Speaking of this, Li Xia really admires people like Jia Sidao.

It has come to this point, and other smart people who can see the situation clearly, either want to slow down the situation, or want to surrender to Mongolia, or want to live until the end of the Song Dynasty, or want to rebel.

Jia Sidao still wanted to rescue Song Ting all at once.

mad.

conceited.

……

Zhang Jue listened to the theory of "must perish", but this time he just nodded and asked, "Then what should we do?"

"Originally, what I thought was 'accumulate grain widely and become king slowly', but Sichuan and Shu are too barren, and the development is too slow, so commerce is needed. If commerce uses Song Ting's Chu coins, it will be plundered by Song Ting again. Then The original strategy of "slowly claiming kingship" will not work. We must have our own coins. I need the right to mint coins. This is the power of princes. "

(End of this chapter)