Fenghou

Chapter 831 Rebellion
Shizhao County, Hezhou, is the confluence of Jialing River, Qujiang River and Fujiang River. Its strategic location and commercial value are very important. It has developed commerce, a large population and rich products. It has been a place of prosperity since ancient times.

There is a big mountain in the northeast of Shizhao County, which is called Shizhao Mountain, and Shizhao County got its name from it. In the middle of the mountain, a castle was built against the mountain. This is the famous Lijiabao, the mansion of Lijia, a wealthy family in Hezhou. , covers a large area, and the castle can accommodate at least thousands of people.

The current owner of the mansion is Li Jinxiao, the sixth generation head of the Li family, who is currently serving as the general judge of Hezhou.

In fact, everyone knows that the Li family started out by selling private salt and wine. Over the past decades, they have accumulated strong financial resources. Their family even has backers in the court, such as relatives Liu Mei, Xiang Zongliang, eunuch Yang Jian, prime minister Qin Hui and so on.

It can be said that if Chen Qing hadn't controlled Bashu, the Li family would have continued to be strong, but since Chen Qing took control of Bashu tax, salt tax, and wine tax, Li's wealth and income have been directly cut off, even including their family's dominance. Tens of thousands of hectares of land have also been nuclear property, requiring the payment of land taxes.

The Li family did not dare to fight against Chen Qing's army, and endured it for a while, but Chen Qing did not completely control Bashu, but only controlled the taxes, and the pressure on the Li family was greatly reduced. Guozhou Wang Dongyuan and Chongqing Prefecture Zhang Jian formed an alliance with the three major families. There are dozens of small wealthy families attached to them.

In the past two years, they have been selling smuggled salt, controlling alcohol, and resisting rent and tax. They have also begun to recruit soldiers and build their own army.

In just two years, they gathered [-] troops, equipped with armor, crossbows, knives, spears and other weapons, and trained on the Changzhou grassland. They gradually lost themselves in their ambitions.

With all the deployments in place and the timing gradually ripening, they finally couldn't bear it anymore and decided to rebel.And Li Yi's assassination case was a critical turning point.

In the morning, several large boats stopped at the pier of Li's house on the Jialing River. A dozen people got off the big boats. The leader was a short middle-aged man. He was the king of Guozhou, Dongyuan. The people were terrified when they heard the news, so that there is a saying in Guozhou, "It is a blessing for a woman to be ugly." '

On the pier, a very thin man bowed and saluted, "Welcome Uncle Shi to Li's Fort!"

The man who greeted him was Li Jinxiao's eldest son, Li Mi, who specially came to the pier to welcome Wang Dongyuan.

"Li Houzi, how is your father?"

"Thank you Uncle Shi for your concern, my father is still in good health!"

"Let him pay attention to restraint. It's too much to have five women in one night, but three are enough."

After finishing speaking, Wang Dongyuan laughed heartily, the Wang family behind did not dare to laugh, their faces were sullen, Li Mi was full of embarrassment, so he could only ask Wang Dongyuan to go to the mansion.

Another wealthy patriarch, Zhang Jian from Chongqing Mansion arrived yesterday, and they were waiting for Wang Dongyuan's arrival.

Everyone exchanged greetings in front of the gate for a while, and then went to the meeting hall. Time was tight, and they couldn't delay any longer.

In the meeting hall, the tall and tall Li Jinxiao said to Wang Dongyuan and Zhang Jian: "Mr. Qin sent us an express letter to support our rebellion. He assured me in the letter that once we raise troops, all states in central Sichuan will raise troops to respond to us. At least The nine states occupied by the royalist party will support us. I calculated that there are more than [-] soldiers in each state, and Zheng Ping only has [-] in Chengdu. We will completely defeat him. Once we capture Chengdu, the imperial court’s [-] troops Will enter Shu, everyone, the time is ripe, and the time has come for us to make contributions."

Zhang Jian was very strong and didn't talk much. He pondered for a while and asked, "Where is Chen Qing?"

"Chen Qing is attacking Hexi and fighting the Uyghurs. He won't come back within half a year. That's why I say it's an opportunity."

Wang Dongyuan frowned, "There is no news about the assassins we sent to Jingzhao, will they miss it?"

"Assassins can't get on the stage, if they fail, they will fail! But now there is a chance."

Both of them looked at Li Jinxiao, "What chance?"

"An army of the Song Army is on its way to Hezhou. The leader is Han Zhengfu, the commander of the internal guards, with [-] men and [-] soldiers. He is here to investigate us and just to train us. For this reason Opportunity, how about we raise troops?"

Wang Dongyuan slammed his fist on the table, gritted his teeth and said, "Anyway, Li Yi was assassinated too, the way out is cut off, let's do it!"

Li Jinxiao looked at Zhang Jian again, Zhang Jian hesitated and said, "Mr. Qin really said that he would send [-] troops into Shu?"

"The letter is here, if you don't believe it, see for yourself!"

Li Jinxiao pushed Qin Hui's letter to Zhang Jian. Zhang Jian read it again, and finally let go of his heart. He nodded, "Since everyone is ready, let's do it!"

Zheng Ping's military camp is located outside the city, covering an area of ​​hundreds of hectares. It is a large military camp that can accommodate [-] people. The [-] garrison under Zheng Ping's command is only in charge of defense. The instructions given to him by the department department.

Since the inner guard came to investigate Li Yi's assassination, Zheng Ping quit the investigation team, but he still gave the inner guard whatever support he could. Han Fuzheng and Zhong Huan each gave [-] soldiers.

For the past few days, Zhong Huan has been living in the barracks. This morning, Zheng Ping invited him and Lu Chuan to tell him the sad news that Han Fuzheng's men were ambushed by thousands of people in Hezhou, causing heavy casualties. Han Fuzheng He was shot by more than [-] arrows and unfortunately died in battle. Twenty-four of the [-] inner guard soldiers were killed, and more than [-] of the [-] soldiers were killed.

This sudden disappearance made Zhong Huan extremely sad. The brother Han who took care of him and helped him like an elder brother died. Zhong Huan held his face in his hands and wept silently.

Zhong Huan suddenly slapped the table and asked sharply, "In that case, why didn't General Zheng send troops to kill the rebels?"

Zheng Ping also said angrily: "Do you think I don't want to send troops? More than three hundred of my five hundred brothers died, and their heads were chopped off and hung on a tree. Do you think I can bear this humiliation?"

"Since you can't bear it, why do you have to bear it?"

"Because military orders are like mountains!"

Zheng Ping threw a military order in front of Zhong Huan, "This is the eagle letter I just received, and it's a letter from the county king!"

Zhong Huan opened the eagle letter, and there was only one sentence on it, "Defend Chengdu, and don't be provoked by foreign affairs to leave!"

Zhong Huan was stunned, and asked for a while: "The king of the county knew that such a thing as being attacked would happen?"

"The county king sees farther than we do."

Lu Chuan, who was silent all the time beside him, said: "The king's decision is right, and Chengdu is the most important thing. Once General Zheng leads the army to the south, the thousands of people deployed by the Chuanli faction in Chengdu will definitely take the opportunity to riot and occupy Chengdu."

"But General Zheng has [-] troops! Keeping [-] troops to guard Chengdu can still suppress riots."

Zheng Ping said with a wry smile: "Who said Chengdu has [-] troops? [-] troops are deployed in Jianzhou and Langzhou in the north, [-] troops are deployed near the border of Dali Kingdom in the south, and [-] troops are deployed in Xiazhou. I only have [-] troops here." .”

"Then the general can at least act first, clean up the thousands of insiders in Chengdu, implement martial law in Chengdu, and prevent riots in Chengdu!"

Zheng Ping thought for a while and said, "That's okay, it didn't violate the military order!"

Zheng Ping's army immediately entered the city, and under the pretext of arresting the murderer who assassinated Li Zhifu, he issued a martial law order, requiring all the people to go home, close their doors, and all shops were also required to close their doors.

Zhong Huan led thirty inner guard soldiers and a hundred soldiers into the post station, and dragged out Li Jin, the deputy steward. Han Zhengfu led his men to go south. It was the dry food he had prepared, so he must have tipped off the news.

Of course Li Jin firmly refused to admit it, he lay on the ground rolling and shouting: "I didn't do anything, I only did my job, let you eat well, live well, everything else is my responsibility It doesn't matter, don't mess with people!"

At this time, several inner guard soldiers ran over and threw a military crossbow and ten poisoned arrows in front of him, "Report to Judge Xiaozhong, this was found in his room, the poisonous arrows and the arrows that threatened you before The poisoned arrows are exactly the same."

Li Jin was dumbfounded, looking at the poisonous arrows and military crossbows on the ground, speechless.

Zhong Huan stepped forward to slap him several times, and waved his hand, "Take them all away!"

Including the chief steward of the post station, two deputy stewards, and five or six waiters, chefs, grooms, etc., were all taken away, and a seal was pasted on the gate of the post station.

The post station is the breakthrough point. Following the steward’s confession, the army began to arrest people, then interrogated them, and then arrested people. It was originally a point, and then it gradually became the same point. More and more people were arrested. That night, there was already a More than [-] people were arrested.

But the interrogation and arrests were not over. During the night, the sound of soldiers running and knocking on doors could be heard everywhere. Everyone was terrified, and the arrests continued all night. By dawn, more than [-] people had been arrested.

(End of this chapter)