Walking in the wild for half an hour, the group climbed a slope, all the way, the road is not steep, over the dry river valley, Zhang Zhuo pointed to the slope with some excitement and said: "It's there!" ”

Li Tong looked in the direction and saw that there was a stone embankment on the hillside, and there was a mill under the water dam. Seeing this, the accompanying soldiers couldn't help but be a little disappointed, and pointed at Zhang Zhuo and scolded with a smile: "Zhang Guoyi said a lie, let's go around for dozens of miles, and the horsepower may not be a pity, but if His Royal Highness is punished by surprise, we will not show mercy!" ”

Zhang Zhuo ignored other people's jokes, just looked at His Royal Highness King Yong, and said eagerly in his eyes: "The dai mill here was originally just a turbid spring on the ridge, although the water in spring and summer is fierce, but it can neither be drunk, nor can it be irrigated by an open channel. However, after hundreds of villagers built water eyes and built canals, the villagers could get this benefit. When the water is abundant in spring and summer, dozens of acres of surrounding fields can be irrigated, dozens of wheat are milled a day, and there are more than 100 living households! ”

After Li Tong heard this, he dismounted and climbed up, and walked not far, and a few people with sticks rushed out of the grass hut on the side of the hillside, and when he saw that this group of people and horses were well armed, there was no lack of fear on his face for a while, but a young man standing in the center still had the courage to say loudly: "The villagers are poor, and they only rely on this place to live, and I beg the nobles to be tolerant, and don't harm the ......vitality of this place."

"Zhao Erlang, what nonsense! This one is the noble heir of our Tang family, His Royal Highness King Yong, don't hurry up and ask for sin! ”

Zhang Zhuo was also shocked when he saw this, and first stepped forward and snatched the staff from the young man's hand, and pressed it to kneel on the ground, and he also knelt in front of King Yong and kowtowed: "Please Your Highness, don't blame these vulgar villagers, after the dam is set up here, it has been quite annoying to the township mansions, in order to prevent it from being destroyed, so it is necessary to guard it day and night......"

"Get up."

Li Tong is not surprised by this, human nature is greedy, occupy scarce resources, grinding and other important production and processing tools, is not only an important means of profit-making for the powerful people, but also a great magic weapon for them to control the situation of the countryside, naturally not allowing ordinary people to add it privately.

Even at the level of the imperial court, water conservancy facilities such as mills are not allowed to be added at will, and there are many records in the history of the Tang Dynasty about the destruction of powerful mills, and in the countryside, it is the strong control of the villagers, which is that the big fish eat the small fish, and the small fish eat the shrimp.

He no longer paid attention to the villagers who were afraid of asking for sin, but approached the past, and then found a stone tablet on the side of the mill, which was engraved with the words "old clothes and righteous milling", so he pointed to the stone tablet and said to Zhang Zhuo with a smile: "This is why you brought me here?" ”

After hearing this, Zhang Zhuo paused and said: "I know that I am reckless, but I really want His Highness to see with his own eyes the deeds of the Ancient Clothes Society, a rural righteous society. This is just one of them, so the clothing society is still righteous to help the poor, only in the past year, it has been built by the Guannai to build righteousness and hundreds of bridges!

Most of the water and fertile fields in the Guannai are occupied by the rich, and the small people do not know how many people break their homes. There is not much that we can do, but we also hope to donate our modest efforts to help the poor, but we dare not stir up rural struggles, so we can only find life at the end of this kind of Sawada. Although it is just an ordinary thing, it is all blood and sweat to build a mountain and build stones......"

On that day, he recklessly mentioned the existence of the Ancient Clothes Society, and Zhang Zhuo was uneasy, especially when he talked about this festival with other members of the army in the army, he was also complained by everyone, only thinking that it was difficult for a born dignitary like King Yong to understand the social meaning of their Ancient Clothes Society, and rashly exposing the Ancient Clothes Society in front of King Yong, perhaps it would also inspire King Yong's dissatisfaction with their rural chivalrous power.

Therefore, Zhang Zhuo was also remorseful in his heart, and he had been trying to find a way to remedy it, and finally got this opportunity today, so he wanted to change His Royal Highness Yongwang's opinion of the Old Clothes Society through real deeds.

"The old clothing club is indeed good. Don't make false noises, don't coerce the people's feelings, and can deeply feel the difficulties of the villagers, and do things in practice. But if you can hold righteousness in your heart, why bother subdividing it into the court or the opposition. After entering Xijing, Zhang Guoyi can invite the person in charge of the township community to come and meet. ”

Li Tong held back a smile, walked in front of the painstaking Zhang Zhuo, bent down and patted him on the shoulder and said.

Zhang Zhuo was even more overjoyed when he heard this, and said again and again: "I will live up to His Highness's expectations!" ”

After seeing this place, the group went down the hillside and rode their horses to the camp.

Li Tong's mood is also really good, originally he was still worried that those noble portals in Xijing have been operating in the customs for a long time and are not easy to uproot, but through this Zhang Zhuo, he can really feel that the old clothes society has developed very well, whether it is in the army or in the people, which is definitely a big reliance on his profound management of Guanzhong in the future!

Those nobles in Xijing have gradually languished in terms of potential, and now they no longer even have the advantage of hometown, so they are afraid of a bird!

Thinking so, after Li Tong returned to the camp, he ordered another 2,000 cavalry to be sent to Xijing, camped in Leyouyuan in the east of the city and announced the period of the army, first to carry out a preliminary deterrent to the chaos in the city.

When this group of soldiers was still preparing to pack, Li Zhan had already returned to the Lanqiaoyi camp, and immediately entered the account to meet him, handed the registration book presented by the Xijing family to the desk of King Yong, and carefully described the attitude of those people.

Li Tong took the book and took it casually, and then sneered: "These stupid people, are they treating my army as a begging wanderer? It seems that if you don't give them a little color, they are really fearless! ”

Li Zhan's eyes lit up after hearing this, and he hurriedly said: "This is also the case with humble duties, if it is not for the orders of His Royal Highness, it is really unbearable to bear the condescension in his chest!" These nobles and nobles rely on the grace of their ancestors, and they don't know what to fear and obey, and the honor and disgrace of a lowly person are not enough to say, but since they are military envoys, they still have to have respect for them. But after a night in Xijing, all I saw was cold-eyed, and even a warm meal was not served! ”

Li Tong laughed when he heard this, pointed at Li Zhan and said, "The general will not send hungry soldiers, you will enter the camp to eat." After a short rest, he returned to Xijing with the army. This time, there is no need to enter the city to meet again, so he will patrol around the Xijing City, and all the weirs and mills set up by the waterway will be recorded in the book. Hmph, insulting our military envoys, how can you spare them! ”

Li Zhan was also overjoyed when he heard this, and hurriedly paused: "Humble and orderly, we must strictly investigate everything, and never miss a place!" ”

After Li Zhan left the account, Li Tong picked up the list again and looked at it, the corners of his mouth were quite playful.

Judging from the heart, the goods and goods sent by the Xijing people this time are quite sincere, and there are as many as 100,000 grains of rice alone, and the rest of the money and silk and other military resources and various military materials are also very expensive.

But these materials are not as good as Li Tong's magic eye, not that he is insatiable, but he clearly knows how many goods Wu Youyi looted from these Xijing people when he was left behind in Xijing.

Now he is leading tens of thousands of troops back to Guanzhong, nominally wiping their butts, but these guys are going to send themselves like this, which is obviously looking down on him! Lao Tzu would rather you not send it, so that there is an excuse to clean you up, and now I send such a little, do you think I am not as good as Wu Youyi?

Although Li Tong made up his mind to clean up these people, the specific entry point and scale were still a little unclear, but what he saw and heard today gave him an inspiration.

For those who were born in the later generations of material abundance, there are some who cannot understand the significance of these hydraulic facilities in ancient times. But it is not without analogies, that is, land prices and house prices.

Even the milling is closely related to people's livelihood, and its importance is far greater than that of a house in later generations. It is a common means to control a small amount of non-replicable and renewable resources in order to grab the maximum amount of social wealth.

The Haoqiang controlled the milling, mastered the processing capacity of food, and even directly restricted the planting scale of wheat in Guanzhong. Therefore, the construction of the clothing society also has to guard against the secret destruction of local mansions.

As long as these mills are controlled, the powerful people don't even have to run the estate, and they directly kill the economic lifeline of the peasants. No matter how hard you work and how much you harvest, what is the use, unprocessed wheat is not worth anything at all. With this, they were able to sit back and share the profits, and directly hoard wheat and other crops at low prices and process them into higher-value products.

Large-scale mills built near important rivers can process hundreds of wheats a day, after all, as long as the river flows endlessly, it can be processed day and night. How could these powerful people who occupy the mill have so much land to harvest so much grain, and the vast majority of them are naturally the fruits of the labor of the small people!

Even if Li Tong wants to crack down on these nobles and heroes, he can't count every private treasury, but he can set a standard for blood drawing through the number of mills owned by those people.

If you own a few mills, you will honestly hand over tens of thousands of grains to me!

In this way, the people who can blackmail are painful, but they will not directly break the bottom line, after all, in addition to these grinding tools, their families also have their own large-scale granges, which is the foundation of their family business.

If you don't pay these protection fees, then you will have to break your foundation next!

Of course, even if you pay it, it is not safe, after all, Li Tong does not directly attack their land at the moment, mainly because he has no energy and time to organize production for the time being, it is better to let them plant first for the time being, and save another wave for themselves.

Moreover, controlling these mills in their hands first can ensure that ordinary people will not be instigated by those nobles and heroes to the greatest extent. After all, this is related to the people's livelihood, as long as the spring flood comes, the milling starts, and the processing cost is greatly reduced, no one will go against these tangible benefits.

In the final analysis, we still have to stand with the broad masses of the people.

As for these materials that the Xijing people took the initiative to serve, Li Tong did not intend to refuse, and they could be used to pacify the chaotic people in Xijing. After all, the army is also used in a certain amount at the moment, and the follow-up materials have not been transported in large quantities at the moment. If you want the rebels to return to peace as soon as possible, you naturally have to take materials nearby.

In the afternoon, the newly dispatched 2,000 cavalry set off for Xijing again. At the same time, Li Tong also began to mobilize all the troops in the battalion, and ordered the commanders to control the communication arteries around Xijing to prevent the rebels from fleeing the countryside, so that the riots continued to expand.

As for himself, he needs to wait for the news that Tang will choose to take the position first, and ensure that the Dahe Cao Road is unblocked, so that he can directly attack the Xijing City. Of course, this time will not be too late, after all, the road between the two capitals is quite smooth.