The rise of the prince

Chapter 416
There have never been many Xiangjun troops in Ningjiang Prefecture, because there are still Jiangxian troops stationed in this area, and they went to Guanbei a few months ago to prevent the north from changing their tune.

In the Ningjiang prefecture, there are only more than 500 Xiang troops in total, and they have nothing to do all year round, lack of training, and lax discipline. Naturally, it is impossible to count on them to fight. As long as there are tough battles, most of them are held by Jiang Xianjun.

"Who is the Commander of the Ningjiang Mansion's Xiang Army?" Li Xingzhou asked while looking at the expenditure details of the Ningjiang Mansion's treasury in the past few years.

One of them rushed forward and said: "Your Majesty, I know that the commander of the Xiang army is named Shen, and he is a branch of the Shen family in Jiangzhou, named Shen Lin."

"Shen Lin." Li Xingzhou nodded, feeling that the San family is a new rising family in Jiangzhou.

The San family is the largest merchant in Ningjiang Mansion, and the merchants are not safe, just like the reason why the Ding family rebelled before.

Merchants want to climb up, they can only rely on officials, and some merchants want to curry favor with the government after losing their wealth. The younger generation of the San family is capable. In a high position.

The second son, Shen Yinfeng, he met at the Yuanxi Poetry Conference. Not to mention his literary talents, he is still at the helm of the Shen family and can do business.

In addition, relying on money and wealth, the San family has also begun to infiltrate the officialdom of Ningjiang Mansion. It can be seen from the commander of the Xiang Army that the San family is one or two. If you are lucky, you may become a big family like the Wang family.

In the afternoon, Li Xingzhou ordered the new army to set up the military tents they had brought with them on the large open space on the east side of the villa.This was originally a Cuju field, very open, presumably it was an entertainment place prepared for the emperor at the beginning.

After having a simple dinner, Xie Linjiang and Wang Ke brought people back, because the two sides were not easy to count, they recruited a total of 62 people.

All gathered in the open space on the east side, most of these women were over 40 years old, they were all from poor families, and some of them looked young. They had never seen any high-ranking princes, and they were very nervous and cramped.

Li Xingzhou asked Wang Ke to make it clear to everyone that they were here to do work, and they had money to pay, and they would arrange board and lodging within a month, but they could not be lazy or leave without authorization.

When everyone heard this, they immediately cheered up. In Jiangzhou's current situation, it is not easy to have something to eat.

Afterwards, Li Xingzhou asked Wang Ke to arrange for these women to live in the tents of the new army. After all, Xie Linjiang was too young to cope with such a thing.

Wang Ke was very experienced, so he quickly picked out five people who could cook, and called a stove maker to start the stove in a utility room next to him, and asked the five people to take care of everyone's meals. An unemployed vagrant attached to the nearby area asked him to be responsible for taking these women to buy vegetables every day.

All the money will be transferred from Jingbei Zhuanyuan to the accountant.

Li Xingzhou didn't expect it, but in just over two hours, Wang Ke had already arranged these matters and delivered the account to him.

He has just arrived in Ningjiang Mansion, so it is naturally impossible to have an accounting room in the temporary mansion.

But of course there is money, and he had already expected that everything would be impossible without money, so he directly used his own money to pay Wang Ke 100 taels, and asked him to be responsible for the food and accommodation of these people.

The emperor also paid him 2 taels from the treasury to calm the chaos, but it was all treasury silver.

The treasury silver is the silver after the annual taxation, which is recast into a unified style, then stamped with a fire seal, and sealed up. It is purer than the silver circulating in the market, and it cannot be directly circulated in the market. It is equivalent to the gold reserve of later generations.

After the treasury allocates silver, it is necessary to release the silver from the branch office and re-melt it.

The treasury releases 2 taels of silver, all of which are pure silver, but in fact only about 8000 taels will be given, and then Duzhisi will mix some other metals such as copper and lead to make up 2 taels before it can flow in market.

The less 2000 taels is equivalent to the tax paid to the royal family by the people of the world, and it is also the royal private bank, which is how the royal family gets most of its money.

The silver will be recast by the Duzhi Division, and logically speaking, it will arrive in Jiangzhou within ten days. But the Duzhi envoy is Xue Fang!
Wang Tong told him that among the people who set him up, Yu Chengan took the lead, and Xue Fang participated. The reason is probably that Xue's restaurant was robbed of business by the Wangfu.

In this way, let alone ten days for the money, it may be difficult to reach Jiangzhou in ten months.

The emperor's order is one thing, if Du Zhisi wants to procrastinate, he can always find a reason.
Fortunately, Li Xingzhou was well prepared. Shiyu had already reminded him of this problem before he came, and he thought of it.

Except for some Kaiyuan commodities on the surface, there are also weapons and food for the new army on the big ship of the Wangfu, but in the cabin at the bottom, there are still several large boxes of white flowers, a total of 5 taels, which are the Wangfu's own silver.

Li Xingzhou warned himself that he is not that selfless, this is an investment, once the big market in Jiangzhou is revitalized, the income of the Wangfu here is far more than the 5 taels, it can be doubled a hundred times.

That night, in the dead of night, Li Xingzhou quietly gathered all the soldiers of the new army, and took advantage of the darkness to transport all the silver to the villa.

The next day, the new army practiced as usual, Li Xingzhou ordered Xie Linjiang to continue looking for people, and Wang Ke was responsible for arranging the accommodation of the recruits and arranging board and lodging.

Early in the morning, many officials came to visit him one after another, giving him various things, including furniture, cloth, meat, and even rice noodles, on the grounds that he had just arrived in Jiangzhou and should buy household belongings.

The reason is reasonable, but those bags of rice flour are too heavy.

How could Li Xingzhou not understand, he was not the kid he looked like, he asked someone to write down which bag of rice and noodles was sent by who, which one gave meat, which one gave what kind of furniture and cloth, and so on.

As soon as he did this, many officials burst into laughter and praised the prince for his wisdom.

It was only after noon, and a lot of things were piled up in the backyard.

Another thirty people were recruited, and Xie Linjiang, who was drinking tea to quench his thirst, saw that he personally took someone to count, and asked puzzledly: "My lord, don't you adults just send some necessities for life, why do you need to remember such details."

Li Xingzhou and the new army man who accompanied him all laughed, and the new army man said: "Master Xie, there is no such heavy rice noodles in the world."

"Let Mr. Xie see the 'needs for life' of the adults." He joked.

"Yes!" The new army man grinned and pulled out the steel knife from his waist.

The new army's knives are all made of tool steel, as bright as a mirror, with excellent strength and toughness. The new army sergeant slashed open the flour bag with a backhand knife, and the fine flour flowed out one after another. After a while, half of the bag collapsed.

The sergeant bowed his waist and took out with his hands, and immediately there were several beeps, and a pile of white silver ingots rolled out, forming a small pile, at least a few hundred taels.

Xie Linjiang was dumbfounded.

The sergeant picked up an old pear wood chair with four heads, stepped on it hard, and the chair leg broke with a sound, and a few gold bars fell out. It turned out that the inside was hollow.

"Now Mr. Xie understands why I have to remember clearly." Li Xingzhou smiled.

"They... how could they do this, how could they do this!" Xie Linjiang said angrily, and then asked: "My lord clearly knows, why did he accept it, my lord should, should have"

Seeing his heartbroken, Li Xingzhou laughed, patted him on the shoulder and said, "I don't accept money, how can they be at ease, and how can they do things for me if they are not at ease?"

Xie Linjiang was speechless.

Li Xingzhou said seriously: "It is a good thing to have justice in one's heart, but to proclaim justice may not be true justice. If justice were that simple, there would be no need for countless people to follow suit and risk their lives.

The current situation in Jiangzhou needs to be taken step by step, to write down who sent these things, to reassure these people, and tell them that the king knows who sent them. Once they are at ease, they can do things for me. When the matter is over, Then slowly settle accounts after autumn.

Furthermore, after writing down these things, this king knows who is what kind of person and who is unreliable. "

Xie Linjiang opened his mouth slightly after hearing this, but remained silent for a long time, and finally cupped his hands and said, "My lord is wise!"

Immediately, Li Xingzhou called Wang Ke, gave him the list of gifts, and asked him to make a list of officials who did not come to give gifts.

At noon, the person who did not deliver rice and noodles finally came was his mother-in-law, Gillian's mother.

She brought her maids and servants, brought him some clothes, several cans of good tea, and some old honey, and told him that if there was any inconvenience, and if there was anything he needed, just go to Wang's Dazhai to find her, and then before leaving.

After seeing off his mother-in-law, before he had time to eat, Shen Lin, commander of the Xiang army, had been waiting for a long time.

As soon as Li Xingzhou entered the hall, he immediately knelt down on one knee and said, "Shan Lin, the commander of the Ningjiang Mansion Xiangjun, pays his respects to the champion general Jingbei Transshipment Envoy Pingnan Wang!"

He is a warrior, so he only talks about his military duties.

Li Xingzhou saw that he was wearing armor, about forty years old, he should be from Uncle Shen Yinfeng's generation, although he was wearing armor, but the back armor and shoulder armor were crooked, so he probably didn't wear it often.

"Forgive me, my lord. I wanted to come to see you last night, but there have been bandits everywhere in Jiangzhou recently, so I really can't get out."

"Get up and sit down." Li Xingzhou said, and then said straight to the point: "I'm looking for you today because I want to call the Ningjiang Mansion Xiangjun."

Shen Lin hurriedly cupped his hands: "The lord is the transshipment envoy to the north of Beijing. We will naturally obey the lord's dispatch, but we have orders, and we will not hesitate to do so."

He nodded: "But don't worry, it's not a big deal, and there is no danger. How many troops are there in the Jiangzhou Xiang Army?"

"Returning to the lord, there are 540 people in the Jiangzhou Xiang Army. They are organized into one battalion and five capitals. There are also auxiliary soldiers and miscellaneous servants. There are more than 800 people in total." Shen Lin said: "However, the auxiliary army also has miscellaneous servants from time to time. Changes, the subordinates do not know the real number."

Hearing what he said, Li Xingzhou nodded, and he had a good opinion of Shen Lingao in his heart. Since he could remember it so clearly, it meant that he might not be a rich man, but cared about the military affairs of the Xiang army.

Li Xingzhou said solemnly: "The Commander of the Xiang Army, Can Sheng, listened to the order."

Shen Lin hurriedly knelt down on one knee: "This subordinate obeys the order!"

"Order your department to send out a team of troops every day from the next day, and wait outside my mansion before the time when you are in armor and armed with knives and guns. There must be no mistakes."

"Order!"

Li Xingzhou said: "Repeat my order."

"From the morning of the day after tomorrow, we will send out a group of troops every day, armed with swords, to enter the city, and wait outside the mansion for orders from the prince before Mao hour." Shen Lin repeated.

"Well, get up."

Shen Lin asked again: "Does the lord want Ma Jun?"

"No, ordinary infantry will do."

"Could it be that the lord wants to use the Xiang army to capture the thief?" Shen Lin said cautiously, and then said worriedly: "My lord, forgive me for talking too much, if that's the case, the Xiang army is no better than a yamen servant. Still able to catch up with thieves."

(End of this chapter)