In the Sifu Teahouse in Tielu Lane, Dongcheng, Jianye, the clouds of war are far from dissipating. In the afternoon, a large number of people who pay attention to current affairs are gathered in the teahouse, drinking tea here and exchanging various gossips.

The second floor was even more crowded and there were even disputes.

"Yu Lian, the magistrate of Xichuan, Zhou Li and others are really big thieves - think about it, how many people starved to death in recent years, how many people were desperate and took risks, and how many years did the Dongting Lake bandits rampage the place before they finally recruited pacification and suppression? Just a few of them were greedy for four million kilograms of official grain, and it was not enough to calm the public's anger. The court actually lost the trouble. How can we resist the hungry people who starved to death?"

"Swish - childish. You also know that Yu Lian, Zhou Li's crimes are not worthy of chasing and extermination of family members, but why do the court still have to show mercy? Have you ever thought about the reason? Do you really think that the current saints will show mercy to the zombies that are harmful to the country?"

"It's not that the court is stupid, why is this? You hide it and are sarcastic, but don't explain it clearly. What do people in the world think about it?"

"What's the reason? As long as you are not blind, you can see how miserable the gentry of Jingxiang is. If you want to serve the imperial court and resist the barbarians, who have frowned once, or who has taken less food? The soldiers are working hard in front of you, the people are farming and feeding, the gentry governs the country and the localities, and everyone is responsible for their duties. How can the barbarians be afraid? However, the land, houses and houses that have been saved by so many gentry tribes have worked hard for generations, and they will be robbed if they are robbed. Who dares to say that they are not, and they are all detained as collusion with enemies and persecuted. What kind of world is this? In the case of robbing official grains in Xichuan, Yu, Zhou and others do not want to see the gentry of Xichuan being bullied too ruthlessly, but after saying a few fair words, they suffered this sudden disaster. Some people were fooled and really thought how much they committed!"

"Does your sayings have any evidence?"

"What does it mean to have evidence? You haven't seen how many gentry in Nanyang and Xiangyang have been forced to abandon their land and houses and flee to Jianye in the past two years?"

Zheng Tu sat in the private room of Sifu Teahouse, listening to the quarrel outside, holding his anger in his chest, and his face turned pale and ugly. Unexpectedly, the Ministry of Justice in Dali Temple had just convicted Yu Lian, Zhou Li and others, and rumors that were unfavorable to Jingxiang had spread all over the city.

"That group of people had to rely on the envoy to defend Jingxiang, but they could not make the envoy happy. They could only use such despicable means behind their backs - they only had this trick, don't care." Jin Longquan waved his hand and signaled Zheng Tu not to get angry about this matter, and missed their secret meeting here.

"Fuck these dogs, one day I will deal with them hard!" Zheng Tu spat out the window viciously, suppressing the anger in his chest.

"That grandson had sores in his mouth and spit out. Fuck your grandfather, spit out on his face!" Someone shouted and cursed in the long street.

Zheng Tu shrank his head and said nothing. After the man who had been scolding outside the window left, he asked Jin Longquan:

"The memorial was already in the capital the day before yesterday. I believe the news spread among the court officials. What is the movement around the Jin Zhuangzi minister?"

"I have already figured out their mentality. At present, the barbarians have to rely on their envoys to fight the enemy, but they always want to make trouble in secret," Longquan, Jin sighed and said, "When the merchant group was sent to Dali, I heard from the news that the ministers of Jin Zhuang heard from Wei Chujun, yesterday the official summoned Prince Zhuang to the Chuigong Hall to inquire about the diplomatic relations between Dali. At that time, only Wang Boqian and Yang Maoyan were present. Prince Zhuang took the initiative to mention the memorial, and advocated that the court should formally send envoys to meet with the merchant group, bring the letter of the country to Dali to connect, and request the Dali Kingdom to facilitate the response; Wang Boqian and Yang Maoyan advocated keeping the memorial..."

"If you stay in China, you won't blame Jingxiang for sending the merchant group to Dali Country?" Zheng Tu asked in confusion.

Zhu Han advocated that the court sent envoys from abroad, hoping that the court would seize the initiative to negotiate with the Dali Kingdom and to pick up the Khitan advances who went south, but Zheng Tu was not surprised. This was also predictable by the General Office, but he did not expect that Wang Boqian and Yang Maoyan advocated "staying the memorials" for "staying in the middle".

The so-called staying at the end means leaving the memorial in the forbidden area, not submitting the discussion or criticizing the answer.

To put it bluntly, the court will not interfere with the affairs of Jingxiang's arbitrary dispatch of the merchant group, and will not even issue an order to stop it for the time being. However, the consequences of the arbitrary dispatch of the merchant group may even forcefully enter the territory of Dali. There may be bloody conflicts with Dali domestic products, and all the responsibilities must be borne by Jingxiang. It is not ruled out that the court will finally ask Jingxiang for the crime of this matter.

Just as Longquan of Jin said, Wang Boqian, Yang Maoyan and others had to rely on Jingxiang to resist the enemy in Heluo and the west of Jingxiang, but they would always be highly vigilant against Jingxiang. As long as they had the opportunity, they would secretly stumbling, suppress Jingxiang's reputation from all aspects, and even wait for every opportunity to weaken Jingxiang's power.

"Wang and Yang and the officials still don't believe that the Chihu people would attack Dali with their side troops. They are suspicious of the envoys having other plans," Jin Longquan said with a frown, "and because of the new policy and other matters, most court officials were watching Jingxiang coldly, but after all, they were mostly tempted by the enemy. As long as the envoys can block the offensive of the enemy's soldiers this autumn and winter, or if the envoys can mobilize more than 200,000 troops in Jingxiang, the situation in the court will inevitably change..."

When Chushan was under the most severe pressure, Yang Lin died in Ruyang, Zuo Xiaosheng's army retreated to Xiangyang to rest, Chushan alone blocked the west of Beijing, and the enemy in Heluo was not allowed to recruit 600,000 young and 70% of the young and strong men under his jurisdiction to form a camp. He barely gathered 100,000 troops and stationed in the three prefectures of Ru, Cai and Shen.

At that time, in addition to digging the military potential to the extreme, he also wanted to break up every grain of food. However, with such intense mobilization, Chushan lasted for three or four months. With the arrival of the flood season, the enemy in the west of Beijing and Heluo gradually withdrew troops and lifted the confrontation. Chushan was also eager to lift the mobilization order, disbanded some of the troops and returned to the countryside.

This shows how expensive it is to maintain a large enough elite army in this world.

Xiqin Road and Dongchuan Road maintain a total of about 150,000 troops. There is still some shortage of financial resources in the entire Sichuan and Shu area as support. It has to raise funds on a large scale to buy materials and maintain huge expenses.

In Huaidong and Huaixi, a total of 250,000 troops (including the Guide Army recruited from Dongjing). In addition to the entire Huainan region, the imperial court also took one-third of the taxes collected from Liangjiang, Liangzhe, Lianghu, Guangnan East Road, Guangnan West Road and Fujian Road to maintain it.

In addition, about 100,000 troops, the imperial guards, the garrisons along the river and the navy, and the military pay per year, the merit rewards are as high as tens of millions of stakes.

In the eyes of many people, although Xu Huai successfully forced the court to merge Nanyang, Xiangyang and Jingbei counties into Chushan and officially established Jingxiang Road, the court also saved the extra payment. It was already the limit that Jingxiang could mobilize 70,000 to 80,000 elite troops in Xiangyang, and it could not last long.

Therefore, in the eyes of many people, the court, under the current situation, had to rely on Jingxiang to resist Heluo and the enemy in the west of Jingxiang to ensure that the middle road is worry-free and does not need to be too afraid of Jingxiang. It even felt that the court's tolerance for Jingxiang was only temporary. As long as the attack of the Chihu people was curbed, the court would sooner or later seize military power from Jingxiang.

After all, the imperial court maintained a total of more than 500,000 permanent troops outside of Jingxiang.

Although Longquan of Jin has always been lurking in the dark and never really walked to the front desk, he witnessed the rise of the people of Tongbai Mountain in his early years, and was later ordered to lurk to the side of Jin Zhuangchen. Through Jin Zhuangchen, who is the minister of the Ministry of Rites, he has been exposed to information from all aspects of the court and the public, and his vision is far beyond the point of comparison in the past.

Even because of his special purpose, he had a clearer and clearer judgment on the various Jianye and the new policies adopted by Chushan.

At present, the amount of funds on Jingxiang accounts seems to be small, and the amount of money is about 700,000 to 800,000 yuan per month, but Jingxiang insists on two points:

First, the jurisdiction will fully realize unified purchase and sale of grain, and second, private cast iron coins are strictly prohibited and subway coins are strictly prohibited. Only silver ingots, silver coins and copper coins are allowed to be circulated on the market.

Combined with the policies of limiting rent and tenancy, Jingxiang Road successfully lowered the grain prices in its jurisdiction to the level before the Chihu people invaded the south.

At present, grain is the benchmark for the main price, with low grain prices, and low prices of tea, iron, cloth, salt, etc. - Since Beijing and Xiang strictly prohibit the circulation of iron coins and Jiaozi, foreign countries cannot buy cheap materials by casting and printing iron coins.

This makes the numbers reflected in all the Jingxiang divisions and the accounts are much lower.

To put it simply, Jingxiang’s money is more valuable.

In addition, Jingxiang, the expedition did not occupy land privately and implemented large-scale military farming, which not only ensured the supply of military rations to a certain extent, but more importantly, it reserved a large number of mobilized reserve troops at an extremely low cost; and as long as the war requires, the cost of mobilizing these reserve troops was extremely low.

Therefore, the current internal mobilization ability of Jingxiang is possible to expand the active-service soldiers to 200,000 in addition to the deduction of the two suburbs of Nanyang and Xiangyang.

At present, Jingxiang needs to seize every time to carry out construction, and there is no need to carry out such a large-scale mobilization. However, after the autumn of this year, the Chihu people gathered a large army to forge in Rucai and other places. Jingxiang had to carry out large-scale mobilization. When 200,000 troops were filled into the Yishui-Jishan-Rushui defense line, their true military strength would be revealed.

At that time, will some court officials have some subtle changes in their mentality?

In Jin Longquan's opinion, this is almost certain.

Most people are essentially bullying the weak and afraid of the strong.
Chapter completed!