A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 248 is not a raptor but Jiang

Many people ridiculed Cui Zheng's downfall on the surface, but in fact everyone wanted to be Cui Zheng.

The behavior of those upstarts reveals their imitation of those old nobles everywhere, not to mention that they are willing to marry the five surnames whenever they have the opportunity, even if they pay Gao Ang a fortune.

However, the real direct descendants of the five surnames are still very conservative and stubborn. They look down on the upstarts from the bottom of their hearts.

Taking the emperor's order, Li Jing took Huaiyu and Su Lie to the Ministry of War.

Li Jing has been leading the army all year round, and he is very familiar with the yamen of the Ministry of War, and he is also very familiar with the process of asking for the letter of the leader's talisman.

Du Ruhui, Shangshu of the Ministry of War, is a rather weak scholar, but he is now the supreme commander of the Tang military.

Not only is he in charge of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the Twelve Mansions, but also the tens of thousands of troops led by the Sixth Mansion of the East Palace. Be respectful.

This is not only because he is the Minister of the Ministry of War.

Du Ruhui has never led soldiers to fight, but Fangmou Dujuan is not casually talking about it. As early as the Qin Palace era, Du Ruhui has always been Li Shimin's left arm and right arm. , are all watertight.

Du Ruhui took the decree and read it, stroked his beard, "Does Marquis Wu have any officers you want to call, sign up for me to send you directly."

This is also the special decree given by the emperor to Wu Huaiyu.

"Niu Jianwu, Chen Sheng, and Wei Siren from Baiqi, Xu Jizu, Zhao Changsheng, Guo Zihe, Zhao Gui from Qianqi, and Wu Huailiang from Sanwei,"

"Can you transfer people from Longyou? I have some old troops in Longyou when I fought against the Turks,"

Du Ruhui inquired, seeing that they were only low-ranking officers, he agreed, "No problem."

So Huaiyu reported eight names including Wu Junwei, Chen Xing, Zhao Xin, Xu Siye, Wu Junren, and Wu Xizhe.

These eight people are still military officers in Longyou, and now they are transferred to Yanzhou to guard the border. It is not a good job for the government soldiers to guard the border. It takes at least a year for their turn to arrive, but they belong to the military officers. Of course, Huaiyu's transfer of them is also a chance for them to make meritorious deeds. .

He didn't transfer all his own people from Longyou, Wu Junbo and others still had some of his own family members staying in Longyou, but Yanjing Village in Zhang County had a lot of property, so someone had to take care of it.

"Da Sima, can someone from the family recommend one or two to go to Yanzhou to help with military affairs?"

Huaiyu was reciprocating. On the surface, he asked Du Ruhui to arrange some children to help. In fact, he was arranging jobs for the children of the Du family and giving them the opportunity to be gilded.

Du Ruhui hesitated for a while, and in the end he really recommended a few people to Huaiyu. Except for a few people from the side tribes, one of them was Du Wen, the son of his younger brother Du Chuke.

Du Chuke is a wonderful person with strange moral integrity.

Back then, he was trapped in Luoyang with his elder brother and uncle Du Yan. Because Du Yan was born by a concubine, he had a grudge with his first wife, so he took the opportunity to slander Wang Shichong, killed his elder brother Du Chuke, and almost starved Du Chuke to death. Li Shimin captured Luoyang, and Du Ruhui wanted to kill Du Yan, but Du Chuke tried his best to stop him, and he did not hesitate to force his second brother to let his uncle Du Yan go.

Afterwards, Du Chuke did not accept the call-up to become an official, but went to live in seclusion in Songshan, Henan.

Du Chuke is relatively talented, but he refused to go out after being recruited several times.

Du Ruhui hoped that Huaiyu could take his nephew Du Wen to Yanzhou. It would be better if he could make meritorious service. Even if he could not make meritorious service, at least it was a qualification.

He would rather have his younger brother leave the mountain, but it's a pity that Du Chuke has been in Songshan for five years, and he refuses to go to Beijing.

"Du Gong, I have an unfeeling request, I want Du Gong to help."

Du Ruhui poured Wu Huaiyu a cup of tea.

With his sophistication, in fact, Wu Huaiyu already knew what he was going to say when he opened his mouth, and nothing could escape their eyes.

Sure enough, Wu Huaiyu smiled and said: "Yanzhou has been occupied by Liang Ni and the Turks before, and now we want to restore Yanzhou, but Yanzhou is already poor in land and a large number of people have been lost. It is not easy to restore.

After thinking about it these days, I think that if we want to restore Yanzhou, we have to start with Yanzi.

There are four salt ponds in two counties in Yanzhou, and it is difficult to recover quickly if you want to cultivate land in Yanzhou immediately, so you can only borrow the ponds from these four salt ponds, exchange salt for grain, and exchange salt for cattle, sheep and horses."

Du Ruhui leaned back slightly, and didn't rush to speak.

Li Jing was drinking tea, not intending to participate in the slightest, while Su Lie, the newly appointed guerrilla general and Sima of Yanzhou, was just listening on the sidelines.

"It would be too difficult to restore and control the Four Salt Ponds with the government's manpower, money and food. I have restored Yanjing Village in Weizhou Zhang County before, and I have some experience.

I want to restart salt production and sales in the official saltworks, and at the same time attract more investment, and introduce private merchants to produce and sell salt. More food can be exchanged for more food, and it can also enable the people of Yanzhou to have work to do and earn money to make a living. They can also exchange cattle, sheep, livestock, grain and cloth through the mutual market, etc.

In this way, even if the land in Yanzhou is poor, the rich salt can be exchanged for the food, cloth and livestock we want. "

"Marquis Wu's idea is very good," Du Ruhui praised.

"I have another plan. Our salt in Guanlong used to be mainly supplied by salt from Yanxia and Qinwei, but the production is not stable enough, so we will transport salt from Jiechi in Hedong to sell in Guanlong.

But when it comes to the solution salt, it is not as good as the Qingbai salt in Yanzhou, nor the salt in Qinwei. "

Du Ruhui didn't interrupt Huaiyu.

"Du Gong, I suggest that in the future, the Guanlong region will give priority to using the salt produced by Xia Qinwei itself. The salt merchants sell salt at the salt field, and they cannot buy salt directly with money. They have to transport grain to the border towns of Guanlong, and then receive the grain. Voucher, take this voucher and go to the designated saltworks to get salt..."

What Huaiyu said is actually the method of opening salt in later generations.

Salt merchants transported grain to the frontier, and then went to the salt field to get salt, which was equivalent to transporting grain to the frontier for the imperial court. Later, in order to obtain more profits, the salt merchants no longer simply collected grain from the interior to the border, but directly in the The border gate recruits people to do business and cultivate land, so as to obtain grain from the nearby land, reducing transportation costs and even grain procurement costs.

This is of great benefit to the imperial court, and it will cost a lot to transport grain to the border.

Now Huaiyu also wants to do this in Guanlong. The imperial court controls salt. If the salt merchants want to sell salt, they must first transport grain to the imperial court. money, food.

In this way, the imperial court directly transported money to the border areas without transporting grain.

In this process, it is also convenient to levy some salt tax and crack down on smuggling.

"Since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, I followed the policy of the Sui Dynasty and did not monopolize salt." Du Ruhui said.

"The lower officials also know, but the current situation is special. The troops stationed in Lingyan, Lianglan, Qinwei and Wei borders consume a lot of food and are not self-sufficient, let alone fighting. Once troops are used to fight, the consumption is even greater. Go first, without food and grass, it is difficult to move an inch."

"Wu Inspector, go back and draw up a detailed plan for transporting grain and exchanging salt, and I will submit it to His Majesty for instructions."

Du Ruhui was surprised by Wu Huaiyu's idea, and even admired it, but this matter is so serious that he has to ask the emperor for instructions.

As for Wu Huaiyu's plan to introduce private capital to Yanzhou to open a salt factory to make salt, sell salt, and open a market for exchange, of course Du Ruhui is also very aware of Wu Huaiyu's goodwill.

To put it bluntly, it is to invite the Du family to go to Yanzhou to divide up the interests of the saltworks and redistribute the salt interests of the four major salt ponds, just like what Wu Huaiyu and Lu Huairang Cheng Chumowangda did in Yanjingzhai.

It's just that this time the four major salt ponds in Yanzhou are bigger and more profitable.

Huaiyu is not a person who eats alone, it is more beneficial to invite friends, the Qin family, the Cheng family, the Fan family, the Li family, the Li family and the Lu family are all involved, and the Du family and the Fang family cannot be left behind. The more people who work together, the safer they will be.

This kind of thing does not violate the law or regulations, but after all, it involves a lot of interests, and if it is not handled properly, it will always arouse the envy and hatred of others.

Du Ruhui sent Wu Huaiyu out of the yamen of the Imperial City Military Department in person, which attracted many people's attention.

Back in the carriage, Li Jing sighed.

"Your idea is very bold. If it is really implemented, it will touch the interests of many people."

Su Lie also looked at this junior with admiration. He thought he was young and handsome, but unexpectedly he was really capable. He knew very well that if this plan could be implemented, Yanzhou would really not be short of food or money.

But with money and food, he, Su Lie, is afraid that he won't be able to win the battle?
Yanzhou has been in Liang Shidu's hands for many years, and it's not that the Four Salt Ponds have stopped producing salt, and Liang can't consume the salt. In fact, the salt from the Four Salt Ponds has always been imported into Guanzhong, and even Chang'an.

Liang Shidu controls the salt production in the salt pond, but he still has to trade and sell it through the people of Datang, and even the bulk of the salt profit still falls to Datang.

These sales and purchases have long been divided and very stable. Now that Wu Huaiyu wants to redistribute, it will definitely touch the interests of many people.

"Master, I have also inquired about Taoism here, don't be afraid."

It's not that the Raptors can't beat Jiang.

In fact, Wu Huaiyu also considered maintaining the previous pattern without touching the interests inside, but he studied those people before, and he was not with him.

It's hard to work with them.

It's better to start a new stove, smash the previous set, and recruit a group of new allies to share the salt and benefits. If those people are willing to cooperate, they can also leave some for them.

"I didn't intend to go to Yanzhou this time, but since I have to go, I have to do my errands well. If I want to do my errands well, the breakthrough point is the salt of these four salt ponds.

I also have no choice. "

Of course, to be a good governor and do a good job, and to gain some benefits for myself and my friends by the way, isn't that by the way.

"It's too difficult to rely on farmland alone. We can only rely on salt to eat salt."

Su Lie said with a smile, "You can still grab it. We have [-] soldiers in our hands, so we are not vegetarians."

Huaiyu reminded him, "Two thousand soldiers, one thousand town soldiers, and one thousand state soldiers were transferred from Gyeonggi to Yanzhou, and the other two thousand united soldiers were only on paper."

Even if they rob, Wu Huaiyu feels that Master Liang is so poor, and he will probably suffer from famine by then.

"Erlang, you will bring the award with you when the time comes," Li Jing said.

"Isn't Second Young Master in Zhongnan Mountain?"

"I asked Sanniang to lead someone to tie him back. It's really lawless. Let him serve as a pawn in your army,"

Huaiyu didn't dare to treat Second Young Master Li as a pawn, so he laughed, "Why don't Second Young Master follow Senior Brother Su to lead the troops?"

"Anything is fine," Li Jing was also very helpless towards this son.

Li Jing did not refuse Huaiyu's proposal to ask Li Jing to send some family members to Yanzhou to participate in salt production and sales in the salt field. The wealthy family is not just for learning or fighting for officials, naturally there are countless offshoots and concubines with more There are many servants and slaves, seeking benefits for them everywhere, annexing fields, doing business and selling goods, lending and collecting interest,
The prosperity of the rich and prosperous, it needs countless money to support.

It's just that they don't need to handle these things themselves.

"Don't forget the banquet for Cui Shanwei's family tomorrow, remember it early, don't miss the etiquette." Li Jing reminded him that those so-called old nobles cared most about etiquette.

(End of this chapter)