Han Hai Tang Ergui

Chapter 584

Just when Nanping Gao Congjiao decided to please Zhang Zhao, Meng Shu, who was entrenched in the land of Bashu, was also nervously inquiring about the outcome of the Zhou-Tang war.

However, for Meng Shu, who lived in the southwest at this time, it was too difficult to get news from the southeast.

They originally got the news from Gao Conghui in Nanping, but after Gao Conghui decided to please Zhang Zhao, he did not report the situation to Meng Shu.

So Meng Shu didn't get the news that the battle situation was extremely unfavorable for Southern Tang until Zhang Zhao's class returned to the court and almost reached the Kaifeng Mansion in Tokyo.

But this is enough, because of the distance, it is impossible for Meng Shu to wait for complete and accurate information before planning.

And judging from the current situation, it is nothing more than the two options of Southern Tang directly destroying the country or surrendering.

At the same time, Meng Shu's own situation is not optimistic. After the failure of the battle in Jinjin Guanzhong, Zhang Qianzhao took more than [-] people with him, but only a few thousand came back.

An Siqian's more than [-] people were wiped out, and even he himself was killed.

Only when Sun Hanshao reluctantly brought back more than [-] Shu army elites who had entered Fengxiang Mansion, and after that, Meng Chang urgently closed all the passes out of Sichuan, did the hearts of the people gradually settle down.

But this move is not completely beneficial to Meng Shu. There is a very simple reason. If the closure of the surrounding area is completely beneficial to the middle of Shu, any regime that separated Sichuan in history can choose to completely close itself.

Burning the plank road and blocking the Jiange, is there really a hole in the sky?

But in fact it is not, because since the Western Han Dynasty, the most important economic activity in Central Shu was brocade weaving, and the biggest buyers of brocade and silk in Central Shu were often Guanzhong and the Central Plains.

Now that Meng Chang has closed the way out of Shu for seven or eight months, the brocades and silks in the treasury have accumulated to a terrifying number, and they are still increasing.

Common people can't afford this stuff, let alone wear it.

How could anyone wear brocade or satin clothes to work in the fields, and the clothes would be scratched in a short time.

And the officials and wealthy households in central Sichuan obviously cannot digest so many brocades of Sichuan, let alone they are the largest manufacturers of this thing.

Therefore, after seven or eight months of closure, the price of Shu brocade fell to a terrible level.

This has greatly reduced the income of the people near the Chengdu Plain. If it is not opened again, the silkworm farmers, raw silk processors and even a large number of weavers engaged in manufacturing will lose their jobs around Chengdu.

This was a result that the Mengshu court could not bear at all.

And this has almost become an unsolvable problem for Meng Shu and even the separatists in the middle of Shu in the past dynasties, that is, the population of Chengdu Plain is completely unable to digest the brocade and silk produced in Shu.

For example, in the Shu Han regime during the Three Kingdoms period, although Zhuge Liang came out of Qishan seven times, the Shu brocade trade with Cao Wei and Dongwu did not stop, and even opened up a southwest trade route to sell Shu brocade to South Asia.

So at that time, although Shu Zhong repeatedly mobilized troops, few people opposed it.

In Jiang Wei's period, Jiang Boyue was not as good as Zhuge Liang, and he couldn't replace the defense with the active offensive posture out of Qishan, so he could only carry out the key offensive mode, and the rest of the places needed to block the plank road and other methods of defense.

At the same time, Cao Wei also reacted and restricted the sales of Shu brocade.

As a result, the people in Sichuan were full of dissatisfaction, and everyone was dissatisfied with Jiang Wei.

Because the Shu brocade could not be sold, everyone suffered heavy losses. As soon as the remnants of the Wei army entered Bazi in western Sichuan, the powerful families and aristocratic families surrendered one after another.

Moreover, when the Panzhihua iron mine was not discovered in central Shu, there was an extreme shortage of metals in the entire central Sichuan, and there was not even enough copper for casting copper coins.

As for the iron coins in Sichuan, that's even more of a joke. Not to mention, they are all made of rather low-grade iron, which may not be called iron at all except for the physical properties of iron in later generations. not yet.

In this case, brocade cloth naturally became a currency in the sense of circulation, and money was just a unit of measurement.

In other words, the cloth used for circulation is just converted into money.

And when this kind of currency accumulates in a large amount and cannot be sold abroad, and cannot really be turned into "money", it will rapidly accelerate the depreciation of the currency in central Sichuan.

And the depreciation of the currency will also disintegrate Mengshu's economic foundation at an extremely fast speed.

Moreover, Sichuan not only lacks precious metals, they also lack porcelain and spices, especially spices. Sichuan only produces one kind of spice, which is pepper.

Except for pepper, almost all the spices need to be imported, but after seven or eight months of blockade, the fragrant leaves and cardamom in Sichuan are already worth gold. After a while, the price of pepper may go up to the sky.

As a result, silkworm farmers and weavers in central Sichuan worked hard all day, and the value of the brocade and silk weaved immediately depreciated, and it was not enough to exchange food for a family of three.

And the more you weave, the faster it will depreciate in value. You still have to weave. If you do weave, you will have some money. If you don’t weave, you can only drink the northwest wind.

Under this crazy 'money printing', a large number of handicraft populations are on the verge of bankruptcy.

And the peasant households are also miserable. The little money saved by their ancestors for several generations will be wiped out in the blink of an eye under the rapid inflation. The food at home is only enough for themselves, but the price of salt and sugar outside is rising like crazy.

The rich and powerful are also dissatisfied. They need to export Shu brocade in exchange for fine porcelain from the Central Plains, fine rock sugar, white sugar, various fine spices, fine bronze mirrors, new-style furniture, and even more beautiful singing, dancing and music. Even books etc.

At the same time, exotic glass cups, ivory products, olive oil, and various gemstones from the Silk Road are also indispensable.

It can be said that the economy from top to bottom in central Sichuan has been unable to support it until now.

In addition, more than [-] Shu troops and more than [-] civilian husbands were detained in Zhou Guoguan, especially the more than [-] Shu troops, which were basically Meng Shu's own forbidden army and Shannan West Road soldiers from Xingyuan Mansion.

If Meng Chang doesn't have a gesture, I am afraid that the transfer of the forbidden army will not be so smooth in the future, and the morale of the army in Xingyuan Mansion (Hanzhong) on ​​Shannan West Road must not be lost.

It is imperative to ask for it back, or at least make a gesture of asking for it.

Therefore, as soon as Meng Chang learned that the war in the Southern Tang Dynasty was unfavorable, he immediately summoned Prime Minister Wu Zhaoyi, Tong Pingzhangshi, Li Hao, the servant of the door, and Han Baozheng, the deputy envoy of the Privy Council and the envoy of Xuanhui North Court to discuss the relationship with Zhou Guo .

However, in fact, there is not much room for negotiation. It is nothing more than whether to use the brocade or become a vassal, to exchange for the soldiers in Zhou State and restore the trade route, or to be a vassal and pay compensation.

In the end, everyone discussed and sent Li Xiaofeng, the eldest son of his servant Li Hao, to the state of Zhou to test the Lord Zhou's attitude towards the state of Shu.

. . . .

Li Hao was originally from Gan County in Guanzhong. When Li Maozhen captured Qian County in the past, when Guanzhong was in turmoil, Li Hao's family fled desperately. His father, younger brother, and younger sister all died in the rebellion, and his mother was separated from him.

Li Hao was favored by Liu Zhijun, the mighty general of the Houliang who had just defected to Li Maozhen at that time, and later became Liu Zhijun's son-in-law. Later, Liu Zhijun defected to Wang Shu, and Li Hao followed him into Shuzhong.

Later, a story happened. After Li Hao became rich in Sichuan, he missed his mother who was lost in Guanzhong, so he sent his confidants to look for it, but he did find it unexpectedly.

Afterwards, Li Hao personally went to the junction of Shuzhong and Guanzhong to meet his mother. After 19 years of separation, the mother and son cried in each other's arms, and were finally reunited.

In the troubled times of the Five Dynasties, this can be said to be a miracle.

After the discussion was over, Li Hao took his eldest son Li Xiaofeng home to discuss, and his mother came out with the help of the maid, took Li Hao's hand and began to cry loudly.

"I enjoy the blessing of a great man, wearing gold and silver, and delicacies from mountains and seas. It is a pity that my father was buried in a military disaster in his early years, and he was buried with my brother and sister in Fengtian (Qian County). It is located in the south of Liangshan, outside Xiaozhuang, surrounded by a big river. , there are many sycamore trees around.

If you go to Fengtian, you must find them, and you will worship them every year from now on, and you will never be a ghost in a lonely grave! "

Although Li Hao was ridiculed by later generations of literati as Shixiu, who was even more extravagant, he was indeed a filial son, and he couldn't stop crying when he heard the words, and he held his mother's hand and agreed one by one.

In fact, in Li Hao's heart, he has always regretted what happened back then, because Li Hao had time to inform his family before Li Maozhen was trapped in Qian County, but he completely forgot in panic.

For so many years, Li Hao dreamed back at midnight, always seeing his father, younger brother, and younger sister lying in a pool of blood, thinking in his heart that he was extremely responsible for the death of his relatives.

As a native of Guanzhong, he felt deeply guilty about the death of his relatives, and coupled with the influence of his mother, Li Hao was actually one of the ministers of Meng and Shu who yearned for the unification of the world, so he did not care about the revision of the table. Don't shy away.

Whether it is Wang Shu or the current Meng Shu, Li Hao thinks that they are nothing more than temporary separatist regimes, and the world will be unified sooner or later when the Holy Lord of the Central Plains comes out.

Li's mother was getting old, and she couldn't bear it after crying for a while. Li Hao and his son were afraid that she would break her body from crying, so they hurriedly helped her into the house.

As soon as they left, a small maid who looked like she was about [-] or [-] years old took the opportunity to sneak out through the back door of Li's house.

Not far from Li's house, there is a large pharmacy crowded with people. Above the pharmacy is a huge plaque with three characters written in Youcitang.

However, unlike the bustling city outside, the Youci Hall was quiet, and Zhao Erlang was writing and drawing on a piece of paper.

There were four strong men in front of him, and Zhao Erlang put it in the hands of these four people after he finished writing four copies of the ghostly talisman-like note.

"The third grade of A character is urgent, send it to Guanzhong immediately, and hand it over to Xu Qianhu in Guanzhong."

If a later generation comes here, he will find that the ghost painting symbols written by Zhao Erlang are basically Chinese pinyin, which is the biggest reliance of Zhang Zhou Jinyiwei.

The Chinese pinyin that no one can understand ensures that the information will not be deciphered. Even if someone deciphers the rules of the Chinese pinyin, it is useless, because the pronunciation is based on later generations of Mandarin.

The information that Zhao Erlang sent back was the secret about the graves of Li Hao's father and younger siblings.

Zhang Zhou's Jinyiwei spy system in central Sichuan relies on three lines.

One dark thread is known only to a few people like Zhang Zhao, and the other is known to all Meng Shu, and the businessman is mixed with the bright thread of spies.

And Zhao Erlang, relying on Han Baosheng's secret line, is the most important information delivery force.

Because the first one is only activated at the most critical moment, the second one is obvious, and their third one is really effective.

"Qianhu, the upper family said that tomorrow they want to withdraw [-] guan from the account of the medicine hall for outings."

Zhao Erlang had just rested for a while, and his subordinates came to report.

The last family is Han Baosheng. Although the elder brother of Mrs. Han Qi has excellent medical skills and is the confidant of the Shu Lord, he is just too greedy.

A gleam flashed in Zhao Erlang's eyes, "I have to go outing every ten days, and it costs a hundred guan to step on it. It seems that the Shang family thinks that they can eat us steadily. Let's go down and prepare. We should put a magic spell on our Shang family. gone."

(End of this chapter)