Late Tang

On July 29, only four days after the Liaonan soldiers set off, the Liaonan soldiers were carried back to Duli Town Port by the four naval battalions of Zhenhai, Nutao, Anlan, and Fubo.In just a few days, they returned with a full load.

More than 100 large and small warships were loaded with the victorious soldiers and horses of the Tenth Battalion in southern Liaoning, and they were also stuffed with countless money and food.

However, the 1000 large ships that Li Jing transferred to them temporarily before the departure of the Liaonan Army had an average load of more than [-] stones. They are full of treasures.

The Duli Town Army and Zhendong Army who failed to participate in the robbing of Youzhou rushed to the pier to watch, and many merchants and common people also came to see it.Hundreds of large ships slowly entered the port, and then one by one approached the pier of Changxing Island.

The first small boat to land was Qin Zongshou, the Fangya Qin Zongshou, Shi Shoucheng and Jiang Ju, the two envoys of the Liaonan Army, Li Xu, the tenth general of the Zhenhai Battalion, and Mei Gen, the tenth general of the Nutao Battalion. , Deputy Ten General Zhu Li, Anlan Camp Ten General Zhang Lie, Deputy Ten General Meng Yang, Fubo Camp Ten General Wu Qian and other officers.

All the officers who had just landed were overjoyed, and when they saw Li Jing, they hurried forward to pay their respects.Qin Zongshou said with a smile to Li Jing: "General, this time the brothers have gained a lot. A total of six counties in Youzhou have been breached, and the other battalions have also looted dozens of market villages. The boat sailed directly into Zhangshui in Youzhou, canals, and Rushui in Baoqiu and Pingzhou. It is a pity that there are too few boats, and many things cannot be loaded. If you can adjust more boats, not too many, only the kind of two For the Hezhou Zai with a capacity of ten thousand stones, ten or twenty would be enough."

Li Jing was also in a good mood, and scolded with a smile: "There are still dozens of Hezhouzai, but the [-] seagoing ships dispatched this time, most of them are caravans from Duli Town, Qingni City, and Dengzhou Port. We borrowed it temporarily. Hezhouzai was originally dedicated to running the canal and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It was not easy to borrow ten this time, but you still want ten or twenty more. Do you want to directly Move Youzhou here."

Shi Shoucheng, a soldier in the left wing of Liaonan, was full of expectations and Li Jing said, "Young commander, the harvest is not enough this time, so I hurriedly counted it while at sea. The copper coins I grabbed were about 100 million guan, and the silk was more than 200. In addition, there are more than 200 million pieces of linen, and more than 3 pieces of other high-grade silk materials such as silk and satin. In addition, there are some gold, silver, pearls and jade jewelry. Valuable goods can also be worth a million or so."

Li Jing smiled without saying a word, just looked at Shi Shoucheng.

Shi Shoucheng didn't dare to hide anything, and continued to report: "In addition, we know that food is precious now, so we specially put the food in the grain depots and stores in the six cities on board, and even the food in the houses , They were all searched out. Good guy, the food in the six cities added up to more than 50 shi. Fortunately, our navy sailed directly to the city, otherwise we really couldn’t take it away.”

"In addition, we also snatched back a hundred thousand young and strong men and women!" Shi Shoucheng felt a little guilty when he said the last point.

Needless to say, Li Jing had already seen that the decks of those ships in the port were crowded with panic-stricken people.Moreover, long before the fleet entered the port, Li Xu and Megan had already sent people back in advance to inform Li Jing of the results of this dispatch.Comparing several comparisons, Li Jing is very clear about the harvest this time.

Li Jing was a little taken aback when he first heard that he had robbed 10 Youzhou youths and came back.This shocked him even more than when Li Jing learned that they had robbed six county towns.Conquering six cities was a bit of a surprise, but bringing back [-] people was really an accident within an accident.

Looking at the expectant eyes of the generals in southern Liaoning, he knew what these people were waiting for. They were waiting for him to fulfill his promise before dispatching troops and give them half of the harvest.

After Li Jing pondered for a while, he said on the spot: "According to what was agreed before the expedition, half of the income of the various ministries will be handed over to the army, and the army will take out [-]% of it to distribute to the soldiers who stayed behind, and the rest will go to the army." The army is supported by the army. The other half, according to the agreement, will be kept by the captured soldiers themselves.”

"The general is wise!" Shi Shoucheng and the others were extremely excited at this moment, and it was beyond their expectation to snatch so much money, grain and property.When they came back, they were both happy and worried, fearing that Li Jing would repent and refuse to give half of the money to them.

At the moment, Li Jing called many staff members and soldiers to help, and carried out valuation calculation and registration of the money, food and goods unloaded from each ship.According to the final statistics, the total value of all the money, food, cloth and goods in the robbery of Youzhou this time is more than 600 million, which does not include the 10 population.Among them, the 50 shi of grain alone is now worth more than 200 million guan, and the silk cloth is worth about 300 million.

They directly robbed six counties that were considered prosperous in Youzhou, and also robbed a lot of villages and villages. Those shops and warehouses on the canal were directly emptied by them.

Li Jing didn't tell the truth, and asked the sergeant on the spot to collect half of the money and food worth 300 million as the army's property. 300 million, Li Jing took out another 60 guan, and distributed it to the 31 Zhendong Army and the [-] Duli Town Army who stayed behind.Calculated, on average, each soldier who stayed behind received [-] pennies this time.Of course, the money is not divided equally, it has to be graded according to the rank, and the ranks go down one level, but the least one of the junior soldiers is also allocated [-] pennies.

Of course, for the sake of convenience and speed, Li Jing distributed the banknotes issued by the Universal Bank to the soldiers.Twenty guan coins, just two ten guan notes and it's over.If you need it, you can buy it with banknotes.

The ten battalions in southern Liaoning did not get all of the remaining 300 million guan. Shi Shoucheng, Qin Zongshou and others offered to share the four battalions equally.Naturally, Li Jing had no objection to this, and the other Liaonan soldiers also felt that it should be done. Without the navy boldly marching directly into the Youzhou Inland River, they would not have achieved such a big harvest.

Fourteen battalions, 4000 people are divided into 300 million, each earning an average of 210 four guan, which is a huge reward even for a middle-level officer.In the end, as usual, Li Jing asked the Zhendong Army to take all the supplies, money and food back to the warehouse, and then directly issued banknotes to the Liaonan Army and Navy.

After 300 million yuan was issued, the lowest-level junior soldiers all got 140 pennies.Although the 140 Guan has only been replaced with a stack of big bills that still smell like ink, during this period of time, the Liaonan soldiers have been in contact with the Zhendong Army for a long time. A kind of banknotes instead of food and salaries.Although it's just a piece of paper, it can still be used for shopping and consumption, and it's much more convenient than copper coins. You don't have to worry about not being able to buy things because it's worthless. Everyone happily accepted it.

The materials on the ship were still being unloaded at the port wharf, but since the Zhendong Army had already sent people and Liaonan officers to estimate the value of the goods, they did not have to wait until all the goods were unloaded, and they had already got a portion of what they had.Although such an estimate is not accurate enough, the actual cargo must be more than a rough figure of 600 million, but everyone has already earned hundreds of dollars for a trip to the sea, so who cares about the remainder.

Now all the money and goods belong to Zhendong Army, and it has nothing to do with everyone.The Liaonan soldiers with banknotes in their arms did not leave immediately.

There are still [-] young and strong people waiting to be allocated. Since the integration of southern Liaoning, senior officers such as Shi Shoucheng, Jiang Ju, and Qin Zongshou, as well as ordinary soldiers, have almost all been allocated a piece of land, as many as a thousand acres. There are less than ten, twenty or thirty mu.Moreover, wasteland is being vigorously reclaimed in various places, and most of the soldiers' homes are also reclaiming wasteland, which is the time when labor is needed.

In the past, the Goguryeo and Khitan people often did this. They plundered the Han people while they were clearing the grass, and became their slaves to farm for them.That's why they snatched so many young men back this time, with the idea of ​​letting these people farm for everyone.

Li Jing knew everyone's plans very well, but even if the people on the other side were Youzhou citizens who had long disobeyed the control of the Tang Dynasty, they were Han Chinese anyway.He can't do this by enslaving his own compatriots.This is different from the face-to-face killing on the battlefield. It's either you die or I die.

After thinking for a long time, he turned his head and looked at Li Zhen's masterminds. Their eyes were also not in favor of turning Youzhou people into slaves.Literati are not like military generals, they read many subsets of classics, and they are influenced by Confucianism after all.

"These Youzhou people who have been looted, I think, each soldier in the left and right sides of Liaonan can keep two, the team leader can keep four at the team leader level, and the generals can keep six at the battalion level. Officers can keep eight, and generals at the Xiang level can keep ten. Brothers in the Fourth Battalion will also follow this, and soldiers from Zhendong Army and Duli Town will be halved according to this." Li Jing said deliberatively.

The officers of the various ministries who had been waiting to carve up the slaves listened attentively, and did not object to such a carve-up ratio, which would be more even.Everyone made a lot of money earlier, so they didn't pay much attention to this.

After listening to the distribution plan, the generals of the various ministries wanted to pick people.

"Wait!" Li Jing said loudly: "I haven't finished my words." He coughed and said slowly: "Although these are the people of Youzhou, they are also our Tang compatriots. If they are Hu people, I don't object to everyone treating them as your own slaves, but for our compatriots, we shouldn't enslave them like this. I suggest that after these people are assigned to each family, they should be treated as tenants, and let them help you open up wasteland and cultivate land, and pay a certain amount of money. Rent tax. The rest of the food is left for them to live on. The rent will be your six and four."

Many generals were a little surprised, they didn't expect that Li Jing would make such a proposal in the end.

Seeing everyone's silence, Li Jing said with some seriousness: "This is a request from me, Li Jing, to you on behalf of these Youzhou people!"

When Li Jing talked about this, although all the generals were not very satisfied, they had no choice but to step forward and say: "I will obey the order!"

Seeing that everyone agreed, Li Jing breathed a sigh of relief.Although in the troubled times at the end of the Tang Dynasty, human life is not as good as a dog, but there are some bottom lines that he still can't give up.

(To be continued)