The day after tomorrow, Chen Kai and Ye Yiyun carried out the handover in the government, the original Chaozhou prefect returned to the Chaozhou General Military Mansion, rested for a few days, and then set off to South Australia to take office, and the new Chaozhou prefect, after taking over the letter, talked and laughed with Chen Kai for a while, and even personally sent Chen Kai out of the mansion, as soon as he returned to the main hall, he began to deal with official business.

"Wait, move all the files of the prisoners here, and the official will have to re-clarify them now. If you dare to grind, be careful! ”

The day before yesterday, as soon as "peace will be made", the hearts of the officials and officials of the government were raised early. In their opinion, Chen Kai is a character with vicious eyes and does what he says, and he is by no means so easy to fool, and after that time, they probably saw a little bit of Ye Yiyun's temperament, but they didn't expect this person to be so "resolute".

In terms of money and food, when Chen Kai took over the Chaozhou government, in order to ensure stability, he did not investigate in too much detail. These officials are even more anxious to smooth out the deficit, and their minds are all here, so they don't have time to make trouble for the Ming army. Chen Kai mentioned this aspect to Ye Yiyun, and Ye Yiyun naturally knew that even if he investigated, it would be in vain, so the first thing he did when he took office was to re-consult the file, trying to release the goodness of those who were framed among the detainees, which is a great good governance.

The files are complicated, and it takes a lot of time for the case to be retried, and Ye Yiyun is afraid that he will not be able to climb out of the pile of case files in the near future. In contrast, Chen Ding is much more elegant, he is a teacher of the government, and he is to recruit Confucian students, preach and receive employment, supplemented by the great principle of Yixia defense, but he is also not idle.

The two of them are busy, and it is indispensable to stay up late with the lights. However, Chen Kai, after the recent exhaustion, coupled with the life and death struggle with Che Ren, did hurt his heart, and he happened to be forced by Zheng Chenggong to enjoy some sick leave.

At the end of the day, as long as Zheng Chenggong has nothing special or urgent, Chen Kai can sleep until he wakes up naturally, and his idle things are enough in the scenic spots and bookstores inside and outside Chaozhou City, but it is the most relaxed and comfortable few days since he came to this era.

A few days later, Ye Yiyun finally took out a foot from the pile of files, and after leaving the duty, he asked Chen Ding to chat with Chen Kai.

The cases in Chaozhou, especially those in the past two years, basically have nothing that can be called fair, all of them are silver and the right to speak, so angry that Ye Yiyun wants to send someone to arrest those prefecture and county officials back and fight the board. As for Chen Ding's side, it was also very laborious, the Chaoshan people were grouped, and the gentry were mostly attached to the clan, and they sat and watched the situation in this Ming and Qing war. It is easy to impart knowledge, but it is not so easy to attract more scholars.

The two came together, in fact, to relieve some pressure by confiding in Chen Kai. Chen Kai listened to the two of them, and couldn't help but smile secretly in his heart, in history, Ye Yiyun served as Tong'an Zhi County, which was to start from the side of litigation, retry the case, and release those who were framed for goodness, while Chen Ding was to inspire Confucianism with righteousness in the county school, and he was very reassuring.

It's just the beginning, but you don't need to be too anxious about the results, just do it step by step. For Chen Kai, this was enough, Tong'an was within the attack range of the main force of the Qing army at that time, coupled with Zheng Chenggong's habitual bad luck, he could encounter a sudden north wind on the boat, which led to the massacre. Now that Tong'an is no longer in the flames of war, here in Chaozhou, thinking of this, Chen Kai couldn't help but show a smile.

"What good things are you thinking, let's talk to the two of us."

"I watched the sky at night, and recently to the west of Chaozhou, I am afraid that there will be great changes in favor of the Ming Dynasty. The surname of the country can be used to sweep away the thieves, isn't it worth laughing at? ”

………………

At the beginning of the fourth year of Longwu in the Ming Dynasty, the leap March of the second year of Yongli, and the beginning of April of the fifth year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, just as Chen Kai was dealing with Che in Chaozhou, in the city of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, a Qing army escorting Li Chengdong and his subordinates rushed back through Jiangxi, and after several months, he was reunited with his family.

Speaking of this matter, Li Chengdong was just a Qing Dynasty in that year, and served as the chief soldier of Songjiang, and then the army swept south, and his family stayed in the local area, until May last year, Tong Yangjia, the governor of Liangguang and the governor of Guangdong, went to the Qing court, saying that "Li Chengdong, the governor of the post of the governor of Guangdong, must guard the place in Guangdong Town, and the family members are still sent to Songjiang." That is, Du Yonghe and other family members also lived in Songjiang. The officials and their dependents paid their salaries there, and the expenses for this were not reduced. It is better to move to one place, which not only eliminates the cost of overlapping expenses, but also enables the family of the killer to complete the gathering, without internal worries. With the permission of the Qing court, Fang sent Fan Chengen to Songjiang to meet and escort him.

Along the way, from Songjiang River into the Yangtze River, from Jiangxi Poyang Lake into the first month, it coincided with the first month of the Jiangxi Governor Jin Shengheng and the deputy general Wang Deren to raise a province anyway, until today arrived in Guangzhou.

All the generals and their families returned home, but Li Chengdong was not in a hurry to reunite with his family, but instead called Fan Chengen into the study, closed the door, and asked impatiently in a low voice: "Can Jin Shengheng's department fight?" ”

In fact, Fan Chengen had already sent his cronies to report this question when he was in Nanxiong earlier, and Li Chengdong was so anxious that he obviously had a strong interest in it.

"Jiangxi's soldiers are really strong and strong!"

After getting this answer, Li Chengdong nodded, listened to some of Fan Chengen's descriptions, and asked him to retreat on his own.

Since Jin Shengheng and Wang Deren raised troops against the Qing Dynasty in the first month, Tong Yangjia has been urging Li Chengdong to go north to quell the rebellion, while the former university scholars He Wuyu and Huang Shijun, as well as Yuan Pengnian, the political envoy of the Qing Dynasty and Guangdong, have been trying to persuade Li Chengdong openly and secretly, hoping that he can take this opportunity to raise Guangdong Province anyway and rejuvenate the Ming Dynasty.

Li Chengdong has always hesitated about this matter, so he has always had a delaying attitude towards Tong Yangjia's order. However, in order to prevent Tong Yangjia from becoming suspicious, he still sent Shi Lang, Huang Ting, Hong Xishan and other former Zheng group generals to Nanxiong and Shaozhou with their troops and horses to assist in the defense.

These people have been used as cannon fodder by him since they entered Guangdong, and they suppressed Zhang Jiayu, Chen Zizhuang, Chen Bangyan and others to rise up against the Qing Dynasty last year, and they were not missing. But for them, Li Chengdong always blindly belittled them when he talked to the Qing court, obviously never treating these people as real subordinates.

It is still a trivial matter for the people from Fujian to be excluded, but the situation in Jiangxi is of great concern to him, because all this is likely to affect his decision-making and even his future choices.

After Fan Chengen left, Li Chengdong thought about it alone in the study for a long time. It wasn't until a long time later that the wife Zhao who had just arrived from Songjiang came with money, but before it could be saved, the Zhao family began to encourage Li Chengdong to do it anyway.

"Military affairs, how can you allow your wife to talk too much?!"

Li Chengdong was furious, and Zhao had to confess and leave, but sitting in the study, Li Chengdong was bored, and after a while, the news of his wife's suicide came.

Back in the room of the inner house, Li Chengdong saw that the Zhao family had lost his breath. It's just that in the gap of the shirt, there is a bloody letter showing the corner. opened the blood book, and what he talked about was still to persuade Li Chengdong to do it anyway, and even in the end, he also mentioned that he was willing to die to show his will, hoping that Li Chengdong would not let her down.

Judging from the ink, it should have been written a long time ago, and it turned out that the scene in the study just now was Zhao's farewell. Thinking of this, Li Chengdong couldn't help but smile bitterly: "I'm not as good as a woman!" ”

Zhao's death, Li Chengdong only said to the outside world that he was infected with the disease and died violently. Knowing that Li Chengdong was in a bad mood because of Zhao's death, Tong Yangjia did not continue to force Li Chengdong to send troops in the next few days. But after ten days, Li Chengdong still didn't make any moves, as if he had forgotten all about Jiangxi.

"Hu Shuai, Jin Shengheng and Wang Deren are two thieves who are in chaos and besiege Ganzhou, if Ganzhou falls, our Guangdong will be difficult to preserve."

Li Chengdong's name is Tingzhen, alias Huzi, and it is not an exaggeration to call him a tiger handsome. At this moment, Tong Yangjia's painstaking persuasion, Li Chengdong also revealed a color of recognition, but at the same time, the word embarrassment was also indispensable on his face.

"I don't know that the army is in control, the army swept through the two Guangzhou, and last year there were busy suppressing Zhang Jiayu and other thieves, and it was easy to eliminate the war in Guangdong, and then the generals had just reunited with their families. At that time, once the army is defeated, it will not only be a matter of Jiangxi and Southern Jiangxi, but we will not be able to defend Guangdong and Guangxi anymore. ”

What Li Chengdong is talking about is the matter, the soldiers, the major affairs of the country, the use of soldiers along the way, there are many taboos, and there are countless things in history that the grievances of the soldiers have led to the defeat of the soldiers. Hearing this, Tong Yangjia hesitated, but after a while, he proposed a way to reward the army to increase morale.

"To be able to reward the army, the soldiers should be happy. It's just that this matter is going to find Yuan Fantai. ”

Just do it, Tong Yangjia immediately sent someone to send Yuan Pengnian over. But when the latter arrived, Tong Yangjia asked, and the answer he got was that there was no money in the treasury, and he was still waiting for the income from the market, salt tax, etc., and even the summer tax could not afford to wait.

"This governor remembers, isn't there still 80,000 taels of silver in the treasury, how can you say that if you don't, it's gone?"

Tong Yangjia looked puzzled, and Yuan Pengnian was a late lady who didn't know the price of firewood and rice. Next, what is the reward for suppressing the rebels, the pickle subsidy for the officers and men in the army, the opening silver of Shi Lang and others who will go north to the south to assist in the defense, and the cost of maintaining the ships of the Shi Fu Sailors, all kinds of things, not to mention 80,000 taels, if it is not for his careful calculation of Yuan Pengnian, I am afraid that 180,000 taels will not be enough.

"The old man of the army, if nothing else, now even the rats in the domain have begun to move. The lower officials have done their best, and now they are not said to be a reward for promotion, and I am afraid that this month's military salary will not be paid. ”

Hearing this, Li Chengdong immediately expressed his dissatisfaction, and in his words, even if the land in Guangdong was scraped down three feet, it would definitely not be missing military salaries. You must know that in case the military salary is cut off, the soldiers below don't care about anything else, and it's never a trivial matter to make a fuss.

Obviously, he was still persuaded to send troops just now, but now Tong Yangjia wants to appease Li Chengdong's emotions while urging Yuan Pengnian to think of a way again, and say that he will get some more money. After making a fuss all afternoon, Tong Yangjia found that he didn't seem to have accomplished anything, especially the matter of sending troops, and there was still no one settled.

A few days later, on the fifteenth day of the leap month, early in the morning, Tong Yangjia was still having breakfast, but unexpectedly, Li Chengdong rushed over, and there was no food in the army, and the soldiers were clamoring outside the city. To put it bluntly, it's just a salary!

"This, how should this be?"

Tong Yangjia had no experience in dealing with such things, and when he asked, Li Chengdong only said that he would let him go out of the city, and promised the soldiers that it would only be postponed for a few days, and in a few days, the silver from the market and the salt class would be collected, and not only would they be reissued, but they would also be rewarded, so that the soldiers could be coaxed back to the camp.

"By the way, bring the Governor's Great Seal, if you don't get it right, maybe you will have to use that thing as a guarantee at that time."

Seeing this, Tong Yangjia had no choice but to act according to this plan. However, when he left the city, he saw a large army gathered, and iron horsemen were all over the city, and his face was pale at once. But when he just wanted to open his mouth, he was directly stopped by Li Chengdong. And in the next moment, I saw Li Chengdong snatch the governor's seal, and then took off his official uniform by himself, and threw it on the ground, revealing a bare head with shaved braids.

"Wan Sheng!"

"Wan Sheng!"

"Wan Sheng!"

“……”

The army cheered, and then after an order, tens of thousands of troops outside the city directly cut off their braids. At this time, Li Chengdong turned his head again, and smiled at Tong Yangjia: "Controlling the army, the general trend is in the Ming Dynasty and not in the Qing Dynasty." Where to go, listen to the convenience. ”