"Eat and drink enough," Li Sihai pushed the plate, "Let's go." ”

The fifteen officers stood up together and strode out of the 'door'. Outside, there was a goose feather snow again, and a chill entered through the door. Fifteen good horses have been replaced outside the inn, and the water bladders and baggage are tied behind the saddle, so there is no need to tidy them up. Li Sihai nodded with satisfaction, although Henan is in the territory of the Song Kingdom, the master has arranged and taken care of it very properly along the way.

"Let's go!" He lashed his whip. The war horse neighed in pain and galloped.

More than a dozen riders followed, rushing into the snowstorm.

"Arrogant guy." Xia Biao took a sip of wine and frowned, "The little white face that owes cleanup, he 'milk' and 'milk'." ”

Through the open curtains, Jia Yuanzhen also saw the scene outside, and was secretly surprised in his heart. After recovering Henan, although many Liao army war horses were captured, the Song army cherished them very much. Even if Xia Biaogui is in command of the first army, he usually walks in and out, and is reluctant to use horses as a substitute. This group of people actually changed horses and galloped, almost catching up with the treatment of the imperial court's golden plate "urgent foot delivery", I don't know what major military situation it was for. "Who is this? And what? The other officers advised each other to drink and frolic, and Jia Yuanzhen dangled a glass of wine and fell into deep thought.

............

"The whole Bianliang," Cao Liangshi sighed, standing on the bridge of Xiangguo Temple, "there is only this one river left, but it is not the same as the old time." ”

"The son said on the river, the deceased is like a husband, reluctant to give up day and night." Zhao Xingde felt a trace of pain in his heart, and said with a slightly gloomy face, "When the Liao people withdrew their troops, they had already destroyed most of Bianliang. There is no other way, you can't let the soldiers fight with the Liao people with wooden sticks. He sighed, "The lesser of two evils." Otherwise, nothing will be saved. ”

After the recovery of Henan, the Tokyo Left-behind Division expanded the 100,000 forbidden army, 400,000 cantonment camps and regimental training, and the shortage of weapons and armor was extremely short. In addition to the armor carried by the people and horses of the Northern Expedition, the remnants of the arsenals of various states and counties, and the weapons abandoned by the Liao people, most of them are unqualified. The grain and grass transported from the southeast are still insufficient, and the armor cannot be counted on. Cao Di and Yue Fei held each other in Wusheng Pass, and in order to prevent accidents, the Prime Minister expanded the southeast battalion, and the soldiers and armor were given priority to Wang Gui. Many of the newly built battalion leaders in Henan were indeed 'drilled' with sharpened wooden sticks at the beginning.

Nowadays, the markets on both sides of Bianhe Street can no longer see their original appearance. In addition to the slightly tidy east and west warehouse area, Jinxiu Bianliang has become a simple and bad workshop, which is 'messy' and 'messy', full of, 'urine' and 'messy' smells. The White 'Jade' Palace became a good hall, crowded with plague patients and other sick people, and the other remnants of the palace also opened the palace 'gates', and the Tokyo Left-behind Division arranged for the homeless people to live. The monks of Daxiangguo Temple fled, and not only the gold and bronze Buddha statues were removed, but the gold dust on the roof was also scraped off. Because the Liao army set fire to the Hanlin Courtyard and the workshops of the East and West Bazuo before leaving, after Zhao Xingde recovered Bianliang, he did not renovate the palace according to the requirements of the Ministry of Rites, but recruited a large number of craftsmen and apprentices, and converted all the well-preserved mansions such as Daxiangguo Temple and Cai Taishi's mansion into workshops.

Under the guidance of the craftsmen of the Chunyu Iron Factory, high kilns have been erected on both sides of the Bianhe River, and the fire is lit in the dark night, and the smoke is spewed during the day, dyeing half of the Bianliang sky into gray and black. The sound of "ding ding dong dong" striking iron is heard day and night. Nearby houses are 'covered' with a layer of soot. Along the frozen surface of the Bianhe River, scrap copper and rotten iron everywhere, ore from Guanzhong, coal from Hedong, locally burned charcoal, cotton 'flowers' from Guanxi, sheep 'hair' from Hedong, and white nitrate from Gaochang were transported in teams of ice climbing plows, and turned into firecrackers, artillery, iron armor, spears, all kinds of gunpowder 'powder', and cotton clothes in the workshop, and then loaded with climbing plows and transported to all parts of Henan. The water of the Bianhe River is brought into various workshops, and the waste water that comes out is gray and black 'colored' with residue, and even if the river is frozen, the workshops still discharge the sewage under the ice. The whole Bianhe River has become muddy, and the frozen surface of the river is no longer as white as a 'jade' belt, but a dirty and black 'color' like mud. Dead fish and shrimp float under the ice, and the banks of the river smell of rot, stench, charcoal and sulfur.

After the withdrawal of the Liao army, Bianliang had become an empty city, but the left-behind division moved a large number of people into the city to live, which has caused the population in the city to increase rapidly. Taixue 120 fasts, most of them were destroyed in the war, and the rest lived in the people, usually two people in a room, and now some have to live in seven or eight people. Not only Bianliang, but also the whole of Henan, in order to prevent the bandits' from disturbing, the Tuntian officials restrained the people to build a village and live together. Before dawn, the people had to walk as far as an hour to reach their fields, and when it was nearly dusk, they returned to live in the stockades. After quickly pacifying the robbers all over Henan by using this method of 'drawing' salaries from the bottom of the kettle, the 'gate' who stayed behind not only maintained the ban, but also urged the local officials to continue to strengthen and thicken the walled city, and promulgated the construction method for expanding houses. As a result, the entire ground in Henan, at night, the city was noisy and crowded, and the outside of the city was like a ghost, outside the protection of the government. No one dared to live alone outside the cities and villages.

After the passage of Cao Yun, Cao Liangshi set off with the grain fleet and sailed into the Bianhe River in Huaishui for ice and plows. He was so preoccupied that his brow furrowed all the way. This time to the north, in addition to escorting grain and grass, there is also the important task of observing the situation in Henan, what I saw along the way, I only felt full of devastation, I don't know when I can recover, enter the city of Tokyo, this feeling is more and more obvious, and the more I can understand the difficulty of Zhao Xingde to maintain the situation in Henan. Shangshu Province, Kaifeng Prefecture, and the six government offices were all burned down by the Liao army. There are still some remnants of the imperial palace, but it cannot be used as a government office. Anyway, all kinds of Buddha statues in the hall were either removed by the Liao army or smashed into rubble.

"To pacify Henan, Yuan Zhi has made great contributions." Cao Liangshi sat down, didn't even take a sip of tea, and said, "However, someone in the court impeached you for not being in line with the imperial court system. The system of our dynasty is a civil and military approach, with checks and balances at all levels. From top to bottom, the supervisor is in charge of the road, the road is in charge of the state and county, and the state and county are in charge of the size of the county, and the people are kept upright. From the bottom to the top, the township is applied to the county officials, the county is applied to the state, and the state is applied to the transfer and prison division. In addition, the township has a long and upright position, although it is not a regular service, it is also a permanent system of the state. Nowadays, in the land of Henan, although the state and county officials are still the same, the power of the imperial court is not lower than the state and county, and the township head, Lizheng, and the elder are all wasted. With the tun officials, battalion officials, and civil protection officers, etc., they are also in charge of military and political affairs, as if they were in the time of five generations. Gennao: Do you have anything to say? ”

"The matter of Tuntian, it is natural to use the system of Tuntian." Zhao Xingde said with a smile: "The world is changing in time, how can you carve a boat for a sword." ”

"The imperial court system is not child's play," Cao Liangshi sighed, "and we can't give people a handle." ”

"Maintain the imperial system?" Zhao Xingde shook his head and asked rhetorically, "Those who impeach and attack Zhao are probably duplicitous." Brother Cao, it's not that I insist on going my own way, but if I fulfill their wishes, the people of Henan will lose their hearts and the land will not be protected. Henan lacks people, food, and money, and now there are only fields. Frankly speaking, I want to tie people's hearts with the fields and raise enough money and food. Otherwise, the people cannot be firmly grasped, if it is like before, not to mention the official army, the people are scattered sand, once the Liao people cross the river to invade the south, it is as easy as driving cattle and sheep. Not only can Hebei not be restored, but even Henan cannot be saved. After finishing speaking, Zhao Xingde let out a long sigh, and looked out the window, and the heavy snow pressed down the pine branches.

These days, he has been sleeping at night, going all out to raise food and salaries, and to take care of military and civilian affairs. Although there are many staff members to deploy and share the burden, but the overall situation has almost exhausted him. All kinds of affairs have just been put on the right track, and there are bullet seals and flying newspapers in the southeastern prefectures and counties, and then there are rumors that Cao Liangshi, the secretary of the military department, is going north and may replace him. Most of those who attacked Zhao Xingde in the court were wealthy people who moved south. After Zhao Xingde recovered Henan, he sold the land to the people, and although the land deeds and house deeds in the hands of these people did not become waste paper, they could only exchange for an IOU left behind in the 'door' of the Siya. Originally, the family had thousands of acres of fertile land, and even the prefecture and county, and the big families who were rich enough to rival the country naturally refused to take a break. These people are quite powerful in the DPRK, and they first seized on the fact that Henan's governance was not in line with the imperial court system and made trouble. Some other scholars turned up the case of the massacre of monks at the beginning, accusing Zhao Xingde of careless human life, and asking the imperial court to give the people of the world a 'handover' generation. Among the scholars in various states and counties, there are also a lot of people who admire Zhao Xingde, and there is almost a lot of noise in the state and county schools in various prefectures and counties. Although Chen Dong trusted Zhao Xingde, he still deliberately asked Cao Liangshi to go to Henan to observe the situation, after all, he had the identity of Xia Guo.

After being quiet for a long time, Cao Liangshi broke the silence: "Brother Zhao, let me ask you, when you recovered the Central Plains, you sent an envoy to tell you that if the money and grain were not enough, you would borrow grain from the Xia Kingdom. But are you really going to do that? At that time, the Li Society was at a standout with Hou Huanyin, and Cao Di blocked the road to the north. Although Zhao Xingde only sent a message, Wu Zilong had to resign. was replaced by Deng Su as the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, and the Son of Heaven issued an edict to make peace, which temporarily calmed down the dispute between the two parties. Because of this matter, Wu Zilong hated Zhao Xingde. Chen Dong and Cao Liangshi also had a lot of doubts about Zhao Xingde, worried that he would suddenly coerce the entire Henan to fall to the Xia Kingdom.

"Brother Cao," Zhao Xingde took a deep breath of air and said calmly, "Since you and I have learned the way of Mr. Zhoushan, we should know that the world is not the world of one person, nor the world of one day, but the world of the world." Therefore, those who win the hearts of the people win the world, if the court is sympathetic to the people on this side, the people's hearts will be stable, and Brother Cao does not need to ask this question. If the imperial court does not distribute money and food, and sits back and watches the lives of Henan suffer, why should Brother Cao ask more? ”

Cao Liangshi's face froze, and although he did not refute it, there was a strong suspicion in his eyes.

Dawn of the Empire:

Chapter 104 Still Negative Frost Grass-2: