On the front deck of the ship, two rows of officers of the naval division lined up, and Zhao Xingde was in a handsome position, looking down at the person who had received the guilt in front of the hall.

Jin Sai was originally a thief in the north, and the Liao people could not gain a foothold after entering the Kou, and later wandered in the Huaibei area, and also fought several battles with the Liao army before and after. After Yelu Dashi retreated to Hebei, the Liao army returned north one after another, and the Song Dynasty took advantage of the situation to send Liu Guangshi to gather all the men and horses, establish the Huaixi camp, and follow the Liao army to recover the Huainan two roads. After he defected to Liu Guangshi, Liu Guangshi appointed him as the commander of the Huaixi Army, and gradually relied on him as his right-hand man. When Han Shizhong's troops were transferred to the north, because of the lack of troops, the imperial court asked Liu Guangshi to take over some prefectures and counties in Huainan, and Jin Sai led his troops to Yangzhou, a major town on the left side of the river.

Zhao Xingde squinted his eyes and looked at the people in front of the hall. After Jin Sai pleaded guilty, he didn't dare to speak anymore, he crouched on the ground with his back on his back, his head didn't dare to lift, and his body was even trembling slightly. "I have heard for a long time that Jin Sai is arrogant and domineering, and the remnants of the army are in order. If he doesn't know him today, you can take him first. Law, to deter the arrogant soldiers and fierce generals of Huaixi, and then find Liu Guangshi's theory. Zhao Xingde secretly thought, "This person can actually be a small volt and kill him rashly, but he will lose money, so let's admonish it first and see the after-effects." ”

After Zhao Xingde made a decision, he coughed lightly and said, "Jin Sai, are you guilty?" ”

"The last general is guilty," Jin Sai trembled all over, and buried his head lower, "Please punish Zhao Jieshuai." ”

"You served under Liu Jieshuai's account, and the general couldn't control you, but since you bumped into it today, the general didn't care about it and connived again. Now I will give you two ways, first, bind you to Luzhou, and you yourself ask Liu Jieshuai for guilt, and let him be punished. Second, I will see you throw copper coins into the water, induce beggars to go into the water to salvage, with the intention of humiliating and teasing, and their hearts can be punished, but after all, there is a good thought. In this case, Yangzhou is full of devastation, you pay 30,000 yuan to atone for your sins, buy rice and clothes, help the people, relieve people's hunger and cold, and accumulate some yin virtue. Which one do you choose? ”

"The last general is willing to pay for his sins!" Jin Sai pounded his head like garlic, and immediately said, "Zhao Jieshuai is magnanimous, and Xie Dashuai is not killing." ”

"Who can be without fault? It can be changed later, great good! For example, in the Jin Dynasty, he was notorious when he was young, and later he repented, was faithful and martyred, and he drove Hu Lu outside, martyrdom and death, and became famous for thousands of years. Once a general succeeds and ten thousand bones are withered, we are the generals, the greater the merit, the more killing, and it is good to accumulate more yin virtue. Although the people are weakly oppressed, their hearts are like mirrors, and their mouths are leisurely. Look at the rich world, a hundred years later, it will turn into a few feet of loess. No matter how great a hero you are, how much merit you have, what people leave behind is this false name. Whether it is a hundred years of history or a stench of ten thousand years, in the final analysis, it is not a tablet carved on the stone, but a tablet engraved in the hearts of the people. Liu Jieshuai will be out of the door, and these Daoli must have told you. ”

Jin Sai's face was ashamed, and he knelt down and said, "The handsome man has taught me a lesson." "But people's hearts are separated from their bellies, and they don't know how much they can listen.

"There is no order to learn, I encourage you to do so." Seeing this, Zhao Xingde waved his hand and said, "Go down." ”

Jin Sai went out backwards as if he had been amnestied, the river breeze blew, and he felt that his body was cold, it turned out that the sweat had soaked his underwear just now, he secretly said that he was lucky, and staggered off the boat, and did not dare to go back to the painting boat, so he went home directly and explained the matter of purchasing food and clothes. Since the Liao army invaded the south, the world was in turmoil, Jin Sai took advantage of the situation to plunder, and the looted wealth was also hundreds of thousands, and it would not hurt the muscles and bones to take out 30,000 yuan for relief.

"General Jin," a confidant asked, "Do you really take 30,000 guan to buy rice and cloth?" ”

"Nonsense!" Jin Sai's eyes widened, and he shouted, "This matter is not trivial, if you dare to be greedy for ink from it, see that I don't pick your human skin alive!" "There are some small abacus in the account book, and I am scared of him, knowing that Jin Sai has really done it, although he is bitter in his heart, he does not dare not try his best to do relief. The shopkeeper only said that he retreated, and his face eased when he stepped on.

Jin Sai was stunned for a while, touched his chin, and smiled at the left and right generals: "Zhao Jieshuai praised me for having a good thought......

The news of the eldest princess Wu at the Dongguan wharf spread quickly, and it didn't take long for Yangzhou's Xuezheng, Zhizhou, defense envoys and other officials to rush to the wharf, and the hungry people with yellow faces and thin muscles also came in an endless stream, and the crowd surrounded the wharf. The southern invasion of the Liao State separated many wives, and people's hearts became more and more peaceful. In the minds of many people, the eldest princess of Wu is a person close to the emperor and a symbol of the Song court. The officials of the state government stopped the people outside the trestle, and most of them did not dare to speak, but were reluctant to leave, looking expectantly at the top of the boat.

Zhao Huan never appeared again, she sat quietly in the cabin, worried at the crowd of hungry people on the dock.

In the shipbuilding, Zhao Xingde sat on the left seat, Xu Xiaoyun, the military weapons superintendent, Zhou He, Meng Ying, Liu Wengu and other sailors sat in turn, Yangzhou Xuezheng Zheng Bin sat on the right seat, Zhizhou Tan Zicheng, defense envoy Xie Lingyun, chief bookkeeper Jin Kejian and others also sat on the right. Zheng Bin secretly compared that although the South China Sea Naval Division had not yet formed an army, the demeanor and discipline of the officers were awe-inspiring, which was very different from the Huaixi Army stationed here. Zheng Bin couldn't help sighing slightly, the imperial court wanted to divide and rule, and deliberately assigned the Yangzhou defense area to the Huaixi Army, but it was a bitter pain for the people on this side.

"The eldest princess and the Marquis of Wuchang came to Yangzhou, why didn't they send someone to notify them in advance?"

Zhizhou Tan Zicheng said with a smile: "When the officials heard the rumors on the street, the officials and others knew about it, and they rushed over in a hurry. Although his demeanor was affectionate, he was a little reserved. The magistrates of Yangzhou are all elected by the gentry, and even the prime minister cannot be dismissed at will. called "Xiaguan", but he was just polite to Zhao Xingde. If Liu Guangshi, Jin Sai and other powerful generals are in front of him, he must be calling himself "this official", emphasizing that he and the other party are not subordinate to each other.

"Zhao went to Yangzhou, but he saw that he was devastated, all kinds of waste were waiting to be rebuilt, and there were hungry people everywhere," Zhao Xingde sighed, shook his head slightly, and said, "I privately expect that you adults must be dreaming of sleeping at night, and you will have all kinds of opportunities every day." Therefore, I don't plan to go through red tape, so I will trouble you to come to the dock to greet you. He said politely, but Tan Zicheng's face was ashamed. If an ordinary military general, or even a civilian official, said so, it would not be the same thing for him. But Zhao Yuanzhi said this to his face, and the magistrate of Yangzhou heard it in his ears, but he didn't have a taste in his heart. No one answered the conversation, and the scene was cold for a while.

"Lord Zhao doesn't know anything." Zheng Bin sighed, "Everyone in the world knows that Yangzhou is an important town for Caoyun, a place where businessmen gather and wealth is endowed. However, the Liao army rode south, and the official army collapsed, and there were even rebel generals and rebels, who were willing to be the vanguard of the Liao army. A look of pain appeared on his face, "After Kong Yanzhou surrendered in Chuzhou, the Liao army immediately sent light cavalry to attack our state. The people of the city were panicked, the gentry and the common people were rushing to flee, the people were helping the old and the young, carrying their shoulders and hands, women and children were crying and running around, and there were traitors who took advantage of the chaos to loot and do all kinds of evil. The officers and soldiers who fled in front of them rampaged through the fleeing crowd, and when the roads were crowded, they swung their knives and slashed indiscriminately, and in this Dongganmen area, the old and weak women and children were trampled to death and crushed to death. ”

Zhao Xingde did not interrupt Zheng Bin's narration, and the officers of the Navy Division listened quietly together. The faces of several magistrates were gloomy. They all stayed in Jiangbei, and such a tragic scene was vividly remembered at the beginning, and some of their relatives died in chaos.

"I ran south to the Yangtze River ferry, where more than 100,000 people were crowded, but there were not a few ferries. The cry on the riverside shook the sky, and many people jumped into the water to swim across the river without waiting, drowning countless people, and then for more than a month, the river was full of rotting corpses. Occasionally, a ferry boat returned from the south of the Yangtze River, and was immediately stopped by people swimming in the river, and once these people crossed the river, they were busy fleeing southward, and no one rowed the boat to the north of the river. Don't hide it from Lord Zhao, I was also by the river at the time, so I spent two days and one night, and seeing that there was no hope of crossing the river, I had to take my relatives back to the Jiangbei village to take refuge. ”

Zheng Bin's face was calm, and he couldn't bear to talk any more, Zhizhou Tan Zicheng sighed, and continued: "Not long after, the rebel general Kong Yanzhou led the Liao army to the ferry, and there were still nearly 100,000 people gathered near the ferry, most of them were women and the old and weak. As soon as they saw the arrival of the Liao soldiers, some of them were crying and crying on the shore, and some of them ran into the river in a panic. Kong Yanzhou, this dog thief! Tan Zicheng gritted his teeth and said, "He led the vanguard of the Liao soldiers and thousands of horsemen to rush into the people, wantonly killing and looting, countless people fell into the river and died, from Yangzhou to Guazhoudu, the corpses piled up everywhere, miserable, and the river was full of floating corpses. ”

"The Liao soldiers were stationed in Yangzhou these days, looting everywhere and all the time, returning to the north with their children and jade silks, demolishing the city wall when they left, and setting a fire to burn down the houses in the city, and Yangzhou turned into a ruin." Jin Kejian, the chief bookkeeper, said, "After the Liao soldiers retreated, there were only eighteen households left in the city. The Henghai Navy and the Huaixi Army were stationed in Yangzhou successively, and although the Yangzhou treasury was very empty, we always tried our best to supply the officers and soldiers, just because the Liao soldiers were too brutal. ”

Zhao Xingde nodded slightly, and in retrospect, the states and counties in arrears of taxes and salaries were listed in the imperial court newspaper, but Yangzhou had never been seen. Because of this, he didn't expect Yangzhou to be so dilapidated, and when the Ministry of War decided to put the naval division garrison and ship yard in Yangzhou, he felt that maybe it could replenish some military supplies. Now seeing is believing, Yangzhou is starving everywhere, there are many workers, sailors, and unemployed people, and the people have no way to make a living, begging to live.

Probably this is also the reason why the imperial court also placed the official ship repair in Yangzhou Shipyard. The imperial court set the capital of Bianliang, the so-called "Cao leads the rivers and lakes, and makes the best of the South China Sea", all the tributes of Jiangnan, Huainan, Liangzhejiang, Jinghu, and Lingnan roads must be transported to Bianliang through Yangzhou. When the center of the imperial court was transferred from Bianliang to Ezhou, the goods transported by Cao were greatly reduced compared with before. If you don't think of another way, I'm afraid that this side will not be able to recover without tens or hundreds of years.