Zhang Mingyi looked at Xu Shiyang.

After a while, he said:

"I'm not here to make trouble for you."

Xu Shiyang nodded:

"In that case, then please, we need to get to work as soon as possible and don't waste any more time."

Zhang Mingyi brought with him 122 ships carrying a new batch of material aid from the imperial court to Xu Shiyang—in the name of military salaries.

According to statistics, there are a total of 59,000 stones of grain and 97,000 yuan of money.

Zhang Mingyi said that this is calculated according to the 18,000 soldiers and horses in Qi Province, and each person is given 3 stone and 6 buckets of grain and 6 yuan per year.

According to this standard, there is still a difference between the number Xu Shiyang got and the materials transported by Zhang Mingyi, which is easy to explain - drifting.

This is still thanks to Zhang Mingyi's big face as a core member of the main battle faction, he personally escorted the ship, and the official in charge of loading the ship actually only drifted one percent.

You must know that the forbidden army, which is the core force of the imperial court, can usually only receive 7 to 8 percent of the salary, and the box army, which is the local security force or auxiliary army, can receive half of the full military salary, which is considered to be a special favor for officials.

"Shiyang, don't be angry, the situation in the imperial court is not very good this year."

Zhang Mingyi even wanted to persuade Xu Shiyang:

"Normally, the imperial court earns 80 million yuan of stone taels per year, and the annual income is more than 75 million. It can have a balance of 300 to 5 million per year. ”

"Qin Huizhi and his henchmen have been messing around for more than half a year, and they are both coins and relatives, and the rest of the court this year and the money and food saved in the previous years are all gone."

"After that, there was a civil uprising, Fang La has not calmed down until now, in order to deal with him, the imperial court has spent more than 30 million, these are all deficits, it is estimated that it will cost tens of millions to quell the war."

"In the next ten years, I am afraid that the life of the household department will not be easy."

Hearing this, Xu Shiyang smiled and said without any mustard:

"I don't care about this kind of thing, after all, the imperial court has not paid a penny of salary before, and we have survived like this, not to mention that Qi Province is different from the armies in Jiangnan, we have our own army here, and we can gradually make up for our own food."

"If only you could sympathize with the difficulties of the imperial court." Zhang Mingyi continued: "However, I have already given you the food, and you can't make it difficult for me. ”

"What does Brother Zhang want?"

"Military merit." Zhang Mingyi gave a straightforward answer.

As a rare jinshi of the main battle faction, he asked himself to leave the gentle township in Jiangnan and run to the bitter cold land of Qi Province, and this is the purpose.

Now the Jiangnan crowd is raging, whether it is the people or Shilin, the public opinion has completely one-sided demand to break off relations with the Tartars, no longer fulfill any peace agreements signed before, and no longer provide New Year's coins.

Although no one has yet proposed the Northern Expedition, it has become the mainstream idea of the new imperial court to reorganize the army for war.

At this time, whoever has greater military merits in the court will naturally gain a greater future.

Zhang Mingyi took a fancy to this.

He even thinks that if he can get a lot of military merits from Qi Province, who is the second person in the main battle faction after Wen Xianggong between him and Wen Zhong, there is still a discussion.

"If Brother Zhang just wants this, then it's easy to do."

Xu Shiyang said with a smile:

"Qi Province lacks everything, that is, there is no shortage of enemies. In this way, after the beginning of spring next year, I will take Brother Zhang to find trouble with the Tartars, and I will cut thousands of heads first. ”

"Really?" Zhang Mingyi asked.

If it's true, that's great.

Next year, the crown prince will officially ascend the throne and change the yuan, if he can send back a great victory as a gift soon after he ascends the throne, then he Zhang Mingyi is Jian in the emperor's heart.

There is also Shilin Qingyi.

"Of course, I don't lie."

Xu Shiyang said with a smile:

"Let's go to Quancheng first to meet the Governor. After that, I took Brother Zhang to see my troops, and it won't be long before we take them to fight for greater victories. ”

……

Gangnam.

The situation, which had previously been mired in chaos, is stabilizing.

After Fang La led the core of 30,000 rebels to flee south, the hundreds of thousands of rebels he left near Jinling were quickly wiped out by the Zhou army.

Tong Guan knew that he did not have a very good image in the eyes of the new imperial court, so he took the initiative to lead the main force of the Zhou army south to Fujian Province and pursue Fang La.

Leave Xu Shisong, who is more trusted by the new court, on the front line of Lin'an and Jinling.

Xu Shisong's troops swelled very badly, and when they arrived in Jiangnan, he only had 2,000 forbidden troops returning from Jiangbei.

Now, Xu Shisong, who replaced Gao Yu and became the second person under Tong Guan of the Great Zhou Army, has an army of nearly 300,000!

Although there are 100,000 of them are the civilian army recruited by Wen Jiefu, Xu Shiliu and others, more than 100,000 auxiliary soldiers who have been captured and reorganized by the Fangla rebel army, and tens of thousands of forbidden troops left by Gao Yu.

Except for Xu Shiliu's Shunyi army and Xu Shisong's own 2,000 people, the others can be counted as a rabble, but at least the number of troops is there, and no one dares to underestimate him Xu Shisong.

What's more, the crown prince has already issued a decree to give Xu Shisong and Princess Renfu a marriage.

He became a rare colt in the history of the Great Zhou Dynasty who could lead troops, and his political status and power in his hands were rapidly expanding.

Of course, behind the expansion of power, there is also responsibility.

Wen Xianggong's side did not simply hand over the troops to him to command, and in terms of the civilian army, including the Shunyi Army, the actual commander was Weng Shuping, a civilian official of the main battle faction.

There are also other people who are responsible for reforming the captured rebels, and Gao Yu's troops also have civilian officials from the main battle faction taking over, and even Xu Shisong himself has arranged civilian officials to supervise the army around him.

Xu Shisong can directly control the subordinates, in fact, there are only a few thousand, but as the commander of the whole army, he must think about the future and stability of his subordinates.

For example, the issue of military salaries.

This year, the chaos in the imperial court is so great that the treasury is depleted, so that the forbidden army troops to which the former Gao Yu belonged have been in arrears for more than three months.

The People's Army and the former rebel army have not received a penny of military salaries, and even the 2,000 forbidden troops at the core of Xu Shisong have been in arrears for a year since they were incorporated into the Heqin fleet and left Jiangnan.

Xu Shisong calculated that regardless of the situation on Tong Guan's side, just his own subordinates, the imperial court's arrears were already as high as more than 1 million Guan Shi.

There are some complaints in the army about this, but Weng Shuping, a literati who likes to talk about his heart and soul in peacetime, is not a doer, so he can't think of any way at all except to force the soldiers to endure it.

Xu Shisong also had a headache about this.

Therefore, after the situation stabilized a little, he immediately took a few personal guards and hurried back to Lin'an to discuss this issue with Wen Xianggong, Wen Zhong and other new court bigwigs.

At this time, the crown prince was only in charge of the kingdom and had not yet ascended the throne, but the court was already completely controlled by the main battle faction.

Wen Jiefu was appointed as the sole minister of the Zhongshu Sect Ping Zhangshi in the imperial court, and his eldest son Wen Zhong was in charge of the household department (the three envoys of Tongzai were vacant), and Tong Guan was still the privy envoy but not in Lin'an.

Perhaps in order to restrain Wen Jiefu, a Bao Zheng was installed in the court as the governor and the criminal department.

Wen Jiefu, Wen Zhong, Bao Zheng.

Xu Shisong wants to solve the problem, except for the crown prince, for the time being, he only needs to get the support of these three.