A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 1082 Shake hands and make peace

Wu Huaiyu went out and went straight to the Dongshi next door.

Arriving at the incense candle street, this street sells all kinds of incense candles, paper, horse tin foil, etc. Shujia Paper Making Shop and Xujia Paper Making Shop specialize in paper figures and horses, while Wangjia Paper Horse Shop specializes in paper horses and also sells incense, candles and tin foil.

Liu's paper-making shop specializes in paper-making for ghost utensils. Lao Zhao Paper Shop sells paper incense candles.

Qian's flower shop specializes in weddings and funerals.

A little further along, there are many people selling coffins.

Wu Huaiyu bought a lot of gold and silver ingots, paper money, fire paper, and incense candles from the house on the corner of the street. He also bought some paper horses, paper houses, etc., and loaded them into a cart.

Wu Huaiyu discovered that these incense and candle shops, Zhima Pu, actually had a very complicated business. They not only sold paper horses, incense, candles, ingots, gold foil, etc., but also soybean powder and tung oil, and even food and medicinal materials. In the words of the store manager, they were originally engaged in groceries, but they were in vain. It's just the name of the incense candle.

It can be seen that the business minds of these store owners are still very flexible.

They also sell portraits of door gods and kitchen gods, as well as mahogany swords. They even sell hand-written scriptures and yellow paper talismans and seals. The shop even hires people to copy scriptures. They sell whatever the people of Chang'an need.

Everyone asked each other.

But in the subsequent situation, Xue Wanjun felt that there was no point in suppressing King Wei, but Wan Che refused to listen. Now that Wu Huaiyu and Changsun Wuji have joined forces to attack, Xue Wanjun is already feeling a lot of pressure.

"But no matter what, if you can avoid offending Wu Huaiyu, don't offend him for the time being. This person is very deep and aggressive and cannot be easily offended."

The fact is exactly the same, Xue Wanjun was in the Qin Palace, and Xue Wanche was in the East Palace. Although the final construction failed, the Xue family still had the last laugh.

Unexpectedly, this guy came uninvited today.

When Wu Huaiyu arrived with a cart of incense, candles, paper horses and ingots, the housekeeper immediately went to report to Xue Wanche.

"Brother, just go, I don't want to go." Xue Wanjun glared at him, "If a good man doesn't suffer the consequences, don't you suffer enough? I told you a long time ago, don't get involved with Hou Junji and the others. Don’t still think about King Wei,
Look at Zhang Liang, then look at you, who is next? "

Xue Wanche frowned, "Are we really going to bow to that guy?"

The Xue brothers are each more crazy than the other.

Xue Wanjun also came over after hearing the news.

Today, the male descendants of the Xue family in Beijing are also kowtowing to relatives and friends in the capital to announce the funeral.

Wu Huaiyu was dressed in casual clothes and chatted with the shopkeeper for a few words. When the things were packed, he specially gave an extra silver Kaiyuan when paying.

After Wu Huaiyu left, everyone in Zhizha Street soon knew that such a big customer had just arrived.

Even felt the danger.

The brothers of the Tang Dynasty were all granted the title of Duke, so there were only two pairs, one from the An family and one from the Xue family.

But the Xue brothers' madness is actually not brainless madness. For example, Xue Wanjun is a man who is both coarse and fine. When they followed Luo Yi and joined the Tang Dynasty, it was he who came up with the idea. The two brothers joined Li Shimin and Li Jiancheng respectively.

He wanted to take advantage of this opportunity when his mother died of illness and his brother Ding You simply surrendered to Wu Huaiyu's eldest grandson Wuji and asked for peace.
"It's too early to give up now." Xue Wanche was unconvinced.

It was said that he was a brother who controlled the guards in Chang'an, and then the deputy general Pei Xingfang incited many generals to report him for being inconsistent with his subordinates, beating and scolding soldiers, etc., which made the emperor want to demote him out of Chang'an and go to Jiaozhou to serve. It is nothing more than distribution.

Someone soon provided the news that it seemed that the old lady of Lu Guogong and Ze Guogong died of illness today.

Everyone knows about Ze Guogong and Lu Guogong. Isn't this the Xue family? Seven generals and five princes came out of one sect, and two brothers were even granted the title of Duke.

Provoking the shopkeeper to thank him repeatedly, he really met a noble person. A silver Kaiyuan was worth 1,600 yuan. Even at today's grain price of more than ten yuan per bucket of rice, he could buy ten shi of rice.

"Erlang, Prime Minister Wu is here, bringing a large cart of incense, candles and paper horses."

"Just go and receive him personally and then send him off."

"Which noble man is this?"

How many incense candles, paper horses, and how many big black donkey hooves he had to sell.

Wu Huaiyu's counterattack this time was very swift and powerful.

Other relatives and friends also came uninvited.

"Second brother, let's go greet him together."

This time my mother left at the wrong time. All the Xue brothers had to leave their posts and Ding You had been idle for a few years. Uncles Wu Huai and Yulang were prime ministers, and there were also the relatives of Changsun Wuji and Gao Shilian.
They unite to deal with the jobless Xue brothers, and that's not just a casual fight.

"What you said makes sense, but it's a cause, so we might as well take this opportunity to retreat temporarily and wait and see what happens. Let's just tolerate it for three years. We will see how the situation changes after three years." Xue Wanjun reminded his brother.

However, funerals are only reported to close clan members and in-laws.

When Xue Wanjun conquered Tuyuhun before, he competed with Qibi Heli for merit, and they all fought to get to the Golden Palace. He insisted on taking Qibi Heli's merit, but in the end he was able to escape unscathed and was granted the title of Duke of Jin Dynasty.

Xue Wanche wanted to bet on the King of Wei, but he was still betting on both ends, just in case.

"Erlang, today, all the guests can come. This is the old lady's big day. Erlang should entertain her personally."

"Zhang Liang has surrendered. I heard that he took the initiative to go to Wu's house yesterday and waited for Wu Huaiyu for a whole day."

With just a slight move, Zhang Liang and them were unable to resist.

Don't go to wedding banquets without invitations, and come to funerals without invitations.

Xue Wanche frowned.
Since he knew that Fan Xuanfu had originally assassinated him and Wu Huaiyu had protected him, he felt that he had been fooled and was very angry.

Xue Wanche knew that Wu Huaiyu must be behind this incident, and he hated this guy even more.

There are even big cocks, black dog blood, donkey hooves, everything you need.

No matter who wins in the end, one of the Xue family's bets will always win.

"It's not important," Xue Wanjun reminded his brother.

"We'll just wait and see for three years."

"Come on, come with me to pay tribute to Wu Huaiyu."

······
"The voice of the old lady is still there. May the deceased rest in peace and have a safe journey,"

"I also hope that you, Mr. Xue, can express your condolences."

Wu Huaiyu burned incense, and then comforted the Xue brothers who came to entertain them.

Xue Wanjun and Xue Wanche were full of filial piety and thanked Wu Huaiyu.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Wu, for taking time out of his busy schedule to come and pay homage to the deceased mother. Thank you."

"Why are you saying such polite things? We are all ministers of the same palace."

Xue Wanjun said words of thanks, while Xue Wanche stood there without saying a word.

Wu Huaiyu asked the two of them aside.
"There is something that has been hidden in my heart for many years. I believe Duke Ze Guo knows it now. In the ninth year of Wude, something happened during the Xuanwu Gate Incident..."

"Are you talking about Mrs. Song Guo's assassination of me?"

"It happened for a reason. Her fiancé died outside Xuanwu Gate, under Xue Gong's horse. It's understandable that she avenged her fiancé, right, Duke Lu?" Xue Wanjun looked at Wu Huaiyu, turned to look at his brother, and reached out to pat him. He patted his brother and said, "What Prime Minister Wu said is that it is all in the past. It has been more than ten years and it should not be mentioned again.

At that time, everyone was their own master. If you killed Jingjunhong and his son, it is normal for Mrs. Fan to want to avenge her fiancé.

The assassination was unsuccessful, and Mrs. Fan did not take action again afterwards. The matter was over. "

Xue Wanche looked at Wu Huaiyu and said, "Prime Minister Wu has been hiding this from me for many years. At the beginning, I was very grateful to Prime Minister Wu for helping me."

"It's true that I helped Mr. Xue. If I hadn't stopped her at the beginning, maybe Mr. Xue would have been assassinated. Or maybe if I hadn't bandaged Mr. Xue and given medicine in time, Mr. Xue might have been seriously injured and died. That's what Duke Lu said. , let the past matter go by, we still have to look forward, right? "

With brother's previous persuasion, Xue Wanche was not so angry at this time.

He stared at Wu Huaiyu for a long time,
Wu Huaiyu held out his hand to him with a smile on his face, "General Xue, how about we turn our hostility into friendship, shake hands and make peace, and from now on we will serve as ministers in the same palace and look after each other."

As long as Mr. Xue is willing to give me a chance, I will definitely compensate Mr. Xue in the future.

I dare not say anything else, but Mr. Xue and your brothers will stay at home with peace of mind for three years. At the end of the three years, I will help your Majesty recommend and arrange good jobs for you. "

Xue Wanjun first stretched out his hand, held Wu Huaiyu, and shook it vigorously a few times, "Then we brothers must thank Mr. Wu."

Xue Wanche gritted his teeth and finally stretched out his hand to hold it.
Three big hands clenched and shook vigorously.

"It's a word."

This is also equivalent to a high-five.

Although everyone may have their own thoughts, at least at this moment, everyone seems to have reached an agreement and shook hands to make peace.

Wu Huaiyu laughed,
Xue Wanjun also laughed,

Xue Wanche smiled a little reluctantly.

When leaving Xue's house, I happened to meet my brother-in-law Ma Zhou who came to express his condolences, so I waited for him to return to Xuanyangfang together.

"Did you really shake hands and make peace with the Xue brothers?" his brother-in-law asked him on the carriage.

Wu Huaiyu made tea for his brother-in-law.

There was a silver pot sitting on the small clay stove, and the bricks of Sanyuan Fu tea were put directly into it. After boiling for a while, the aroma was fragrant. Then the pot was lifted and the tea soup was poured into the silver cups in front of the two of them.

"Although Xue Wanjun is crazy, he still has some sense. But Xue Wanche is just a reckless man. Although he shook hands and made peace today, in fact, at best, he has temporarily stopped fighting."

"Since you know, why do you still want to make peace?"

"If I can get the Xue brothers to stay out of trouble for three years, it's worth it. Anyway, I won't lose anything,"

Ma Zhou was holding the tea and smiled when he heard this. Indeed, his brother-in-law has always been smart, how could he make a loss-making business?

Anyway, the Xue brothers left Ding You for three years and couldn't do much in these three years. Wu Huaiyu shook hands with him and everyone stopped fighting for three years. It seemed that everyone was fine.
But Wu Huaiyu was able to focus more on dealing with Hou Junji.

"With these three axes, you directly cut off several important allies of Hou Junji, Zhang Liang, Xue Wanche, Xue Wanjun,
Who are you going to fight next? "

Wu Huaiyu tasted the tea carefully, "Hou Jun gathered Wang Gui Wei Ting Du Chu Ke Chai Shao Liu Jie Cui Ren Shi Cen Wenwen, and dealt with them one by one, divide and conquer, and defeated them one by one."

"Will I make too many enemies?"

"So you have to pull when you need to pull, and you have to fight when you need to fight. It depends on who can fight for it and who has to fight to the end."

"Is it really necessary to start a war?" Ma Zhou asked seriously.

"The struggle is life and death. I thought at first that with His Majesty confirming the throne of the crown prince, there would be no more Wei royal cliques and no more fights for the crown prince. But now it seems that I was still a little overconfident and underestimated the enemy.

In fact, there are always people who will pick up the flag of the Wei Wang Party and gather together.

If we show mercy to them, they will not be polite to us. We must defeat them if we have the chance. "

"I heard that His Majesty went to your house today?"

"Well, Your Majesty asked me to adopt Princess Jinyang as my adopted daughter, and also asked me to take the princess home to raise her," Wu Huaiyu said with a bit of helplessness when talking about this.

"Then you have to take good care of her. She is a golden branch and jade leaf, His Majesty's favorite daughter.'

"Of course I know,"

Uncle Lang and his wife were drinking tea and lighting a small stove in the carriage. The carriage was driving slowly on the streets of Chang'an City.

The shops on both sides of the street finally opened for business again, and the city gradually returned to life.

"Have the affairs of the Ministry of Civil Affairs been sorted out?" Ma Zhou asked.

"It's not bad. The imperial court's revenue and expenditure have been pretty good in the past few years. Although this disaster is a once-in-a-century disaster, it's not a big deal."

People have food in their homes and don't panic. The same goes for the imperial court. There is money and food in the treasury, and the emperor and ministers are also not panicked.

Wu Huaiyu, the prime minister who is also the minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, is rich in wealth.

"When you take office as a new official, why don't you start reforming?"

"What needs to be changed? Hasn't the imperial court been reforming the New Deal in recent years? The most basic new tax law has been established. It just needs to be done step by step." Wu Huaiyu didn't want to mess with it this time, because he Not sure how long this reappearance will last.

"I can give you a suggestion, that is, the matter of seizing money and ordering history. The matter of seizing money and ordering history to seize public money, lend it out and collect interest, has been repeated over the years, and it is not often abolished.

There are more than 70 yamen in Chang'an, the capital, and there are more than 600 official officials with money-grabbing orders. Although there is no history of money-grabbing orders in various places, they actually have them. Even the various government offices in the capital, in addition to the more than 600 money-catching officials in public, there are also several times more in private.

In addition to catching real public money and lending it out, there are also countless amounts of private money that are caught and loaned out.
This public money is actually usury. You should be very clear. Since the imperial treasury is still full now, the history of public money lending and money-catching orders should be completely cancelled. "

In the past few years when Wu Huaiyu was in Lingnan, he had already canceled the local money-grabbing order and did not lend public money.

The local tax is three-thirds, and a sum of money is reserved for public expenses, official welfare, etc. Moreover, the Lingnan area not only relies on retained fiscal and taxation allocations from above, but also has some government-run businesses with reserved funds.

Whether it is mines or workshops, they make full use of local resource conditions for development, and even introduce private capital, etc., using full government-owned or semi-government and semi-private joint ventures, etc., which not only promotes local development, but also creates fiscal and tax revenue. Camp dividends can also provide the local government with more public capital, official welfare, and some additional special local expenses, such as bridge repairs, road construction, disaster relief, and so on.

This method of making money through government-run or jointly-owned mines, workshops, or buying goods is more effective than directly taking public money and handing it over to money-catchers for loan sharking.

Not only can you make a lot of money, but it will not disturb businessmen and people, and will not cause the money-grabbing order to forcibly distribute loans to businessmen and people who do not need it.

In fact, the imperial court had canceled it a few years ago, more than once, but it was quickly restored.

Over and over again, in the final analysis, firstly, it failed to solve the problem of the huge public money gap. The court was unable to allocate funds every year, and it could not allocate that much. The second was the issue of the private interests of the people below.

First of all, there is the huge group of money-catching officials. These people are all nobles, that is, the children of officials. When they become the money-catching officials, they can not only mix their seniority and become officials based on their money-catching performance, but they can also take the bus to work. Taking high interest on private money,
If the public money lending is cancelled, the money-catching order will be cancelled. Then these high-ranking people will have to serve in other sex services, and there will be no shortcuts for making money and becoming officials. Of course, some people are not willing to do so.

Moreover, each yamen lends money by itself, and officials can also use private money to lend, and they can make a fortune both inside and outside. The yamen have their own small treasury, and the money is convenient and comfortable. It all depends on the allocation from above, which is not so smooth. , and there are many supervision and verification of uses.

Therefore, over the years, the public money lending and money-catching officials have been repeatedly abolished and re-established.

Ma Zhouzao saw the shortcomings in this and suggested to Wu Huaiyu, "This time you return to the prime minister and also take charge of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, why not first completely cancel the history of public money lending and money capture? If you can do this well, This is something worthy of being recorded in the annals of history and praised by all people.”

"I'll think about it." Wu Huaiyu did not agree directly.

(End of this chapter)