Not to mention the frequent wars and chaos in the Hehuai River in the past two years, even the prefectures and counties that have maintained a neutral and wait-and-see posture and have not yet been involved in the war have also suffered a great reduction in the summer and autumn grain harvests because of the severe drought in recent years, and the displaced people have been starving and dying endlessly, wandering all over the wilderness and migrating in all directions.

Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang could recruit young and strong people from the displaced people and expand his troops and horses, but at present, the Sima clan of Xu Si is still silent, so that the prefectures and counties sandwiched between Xu Si and the rebels of Weizhou still choose neutrality, and it is naturally extremely difficult to support the more than 130,000 Hehuai Liang troops including the Caizhou army, the Shouzhou army and the Bianjing army just by returning to the eight southern states ruled by Bianjing.

More importantly, after Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang ascended the throne, he obtained the Book of Heavenly Craftsmen from Zhao Kuo, and in order to facilitate the control and more effective and large-scale use of water resources, the Ministry of Industry of Liang and the workshops that would be supervised for several years were mainly concentrated in the Heluo area at the northern foot of Funiu Mountain.

These workshops, the mining mines, and the large number of craftsmen and craftsmen, along with the fall of these places, all fell into the hands of the rebels.

It is impossible for Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang to rebuild the armor production system in Bianjing in a short period of time, which will also directly lead to the supply of armor and weapons of the Liang army in Hehuai, and there will be a serious shortage for a long time.

Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang led a strange army to sneak out of Guanzhong and enter Caizhou, severely damaging the soldiers and horses of the Weizhou rebels in the western wing, and the prestige of Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang over the years is enough to make the Weizhou rebels panic and float, if it is only to fight with the Weizhou rebels on the western front, there are some shortages in the grain and armor and weapons, it is not too big a problem, and the high morale can make up for these.

The problem was that the Mengwu people reacted very quickly, not only ordering Wang and Tian to strengthen the pace of attacking Yongzhou and Huazhou from Hejin, but also directly sending generals to lead elite infantry to cross the Yellow River and enter Xingzhou to fight with the Weizhou rebels.

At this time, the Hehuai Liang army was short of food, armor and war horses, which actually greatly weakened their strength in frontal field battles with the Mengwu soldiers and horses, and they could only rely on the city fortress for defense.

Although the Liang army in Guanzhong still has nearly 50,000 soldiers and horses to defend Yong and Huazhou, the geographical advantage in the north is lost, Wang Yuankui and Tian Weiye have more than 80,000 soldiers and horses to advance to the south, and nearly 10,000 cavalry of Pingxia people have penetrated into both sides of the Tong River to plunder and harass, and the situation in Guanzhong really cannot be delayed for too long.

Guo Duanduo's main purpose of making peace with Chu this time was to borrow food and armor and weapons.

Of course, Tangyi has secretly lent a batch of grain and armor and weapons to the Hehuai Liang army, but even if he wants to continue to lend grain, armor and weapons to the Liang army in Guanzhong, he must get Li Zhihe's permission.

And Emperor Liang wanted to continue to transfer a group of elite soldiers and horses from Guanzhong, especially a group of veterans and elite grassroots military attachés to Hehuai to participate in the war and strengthen the combat effectiveness of the Liang army in Hehuai, and it was even more necessary for Liang Chu to conclude a formal peace agreement - at present, Liangzhou was completely under the control of Li Zhihe, Li Changfeng and others.

Shen Yang has almost already grasped these relevant situations, and I believe that the news of Cishou Palace and Huaidong will not lag behind Shangshu Province, but how much money Tangyi has borrowed and plans to borrow in the future, the specific number is still unknown to the outside world.

These numbers are unknown to the outside world, but after the birthday, Han Daoming and Han Daochang are going to report it to Qiao Chen and other family members.

Han Qian wanted to ensure the balance of Tangyi's financial revenues and expenditures, and ensure that the construction and development of Tangyi would not be interrupted by the aid to the Hehuai Liang army, and planned to list these loans and loans to the official money bureau.

That is to say, the official money bureau funded and supported the Chishan Society to purchase grain, armor and weapons in Huaixi, and then transported these strategic materials to Xuzhou, Chenzhou and Bianjing in the core areas controlled by the Hehuai Liang Army in the form of low-interest loans, through the two main waterways that communicate with the Huai River and Huaishui, such as the Shaying River and the Wushui River.

The scale of the loan has also been agreed long ago, and it is temporarily limited to four percent of the agricultural output of 120,000 people in the three counties of Fengtai, Shouchun, and Huoqiu.

This is also the condition for Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang to return the three cities of Fengtai, Shouchun, and Huoqiu, and at the same time order Xu Mingzhen not to move the people out.

After the Heshuo Shock, Tangyi recovered Huozhou, the counties in the central and southern parts of Shouzhou, as well as the two states of Guangzhou and Haozhou, but did not directly besiege the three cities of Fengtai, Shouchun and Huoqiu, nor did they send troops to attack and disturb at all.

120,000 people, more than 900,000 acres of cultivated land, ditches and water conservancy and other facilities are much more perfect than other places in Huaixi, and the annual summer and autumn grain production is about 2 million stone.

This also means that if Tangyi fulfills the agreement, the official money bureau needs to lend 600,000 stone grain and 200,000 stone grain and armor and weapons worth a total of 200,000 stone grain to the Hehuai Liang army every year.

If it is said that Tangyi directly collects money and grain in these three counties according to the old regulations, it is not that it cannot gather so many materials to support the Hehuai Liang army.

However, Han Qian wanted to abolish many of the old systems that Xu Mingzhen had implemented in these three places as soon as possible.

These three places and the area in the middle have always been the core areas controlled by the Shouzhou Army before, Xu Mingzhen has been operating hard for many years, and the farming conditions are so good, but most of the more than 900,000 mu of land is officially owned tuntian, which is cultivated by driving soldiers and slaves.

It is precisely because of the direct skipping of the family clan lord's central exploitation that Xu Mingzhen was able to directly levy a large amount of money and grain in these three core counties to raise soldiers and horses, and at the same time raised a group of craftsmen and craftsmen to ensure the supply of basic armor and repair ships; Its status and importance are equivalent to the adjacent areas such as Donghu, Liyang, Wanshou and Tangyi at this time, and currently bear about half of the current financial revenue of Huaixi.

Now these three counties should promote the new policy as soon as possible, distribute the acres of land evenly to the households, and the officials, slaves and maids, as well as a group of tunhu families who have been heavily exploited, should be given cheap and good, so that the three counties can be completely integrated into Huaixi as soon as possible.

In that case, it will be difficult for the total productivity of the three counties to increase rapidly during the transition period, and the actual total tax scale will need to be directly reduced by half.

Even if these taxes are collected, they still need to be intercepted to the prefectures and counties, mainly for local construction, which means that Han Qian does not expect these three counties to make a direct contribution to the revenue of the government in a short period of time, and more indirect income is generated from bulk goods such as coal, iron, salt and cloth.

Therefore, Han Qian can only let the official money bureau be responsible for fulfilling the loan to Liang Jun at present.

Of course, the official money bureau undertakes such a large-scale loan of grain, armor and weapons, and the conversion of money and grain is not as terrifying as imagined.

In order to ensure that food resources are not lost outward, or to ensure food security in Huaixi, the system

At present, the government is implementing the policy of unified grain marketing and unified purchase from the prefecture and county to the township department.

Under this policy, only the prefectures, counties and township departments in Huaixi have the right to purchase grain from households or sell grain to households; Grain merchants from other places can only trade with the prefecture, county, and township departments when importing or exporting grain, and are not allowed to trade directly with private households.

After the recovery of the main areas of Huaixi, the grain harvest in the four seasons has been completed, the grain pressure in Huaixi has been completely alleviated, and the grain price in Huaixi has actually dropped to 800 yuan per stone after the policy of unified sales and purchase is established.

This is a lot lower than the neighboring Huaidong, Gangdong, and Gyeonggi.

As a matter of fact, the big township tyrants in Jiangdong and other places control the localities, monopolize the local grain trade, and buy grain from the people and keep the price extremely high, in an attempt to sell it at a high price for a profit.

In the past, when there was a shortage of grain in Huaixi, the government did everything possible to buy cheap grain from Xuzhou and other places, and sold it to the households by the prefecture, county and township divisions, which was far lower than the grain price of 2,000 yuan a stone in Jiangdong, so as to ensure that the urban people's livelihood was not affected by the fluctuation of grain prices as much as possible.

The whole territory of Huaixi has had four seasons of bumper harvests, and after that, an additional sixty or seventy stone or even one or two million stone of grain will be exported every year, which will not cause a shortage of food resources in Huaixi at all.

This will also make the scale of the official money bureau's borrowing of the Hehuai Liang army actually controlled below 700,000 yuan per year.

This is already within the scope of the official money bureau.

In addition to the increase in the total capital of the official money bureau in the past two years, the total amount of money and grain borrowed from Huaidong reached 600,000 yuan, and the amount of money and grain borrowed from Shouwangfu reached 800,000 yuan, and the total interest income of these two items was about 300,000 yuan per year.

Regardless of the ups and downs in the relationship between Huaidong, Shouwangfu and Tangyi in recent years, there have been many turns, and no matter how easy it is to borrow money and "difficult" to repay the money, the interest paid by Huaidong and Shouwangfu on a quarterly basis can be said to be a heavy burden for the two families, but they can still fulfill it as scheduled.

Shangjia has no borders, and the accounts behind this are clear, and Chen Qiao and other family members don't think that Tangyi is secretly colluding with Liang Jun to settle anything, and they all claimed to support Liang Chu's peace proposal to drive Hu Lu away.

Of course, they also knew in their hearts that the money and grain they lent, especially whether they promised to borrow 300,000 yuan of money and grain from Shu every year, or 700,000 yuan of money and grain from Liang Jun every year, if they wanted to be able to continuously recover the money and interest and ensure that the principal was worry-free in the future, the most fundamental dependence was Tangyi's military strength.

In addition to returning Fengtai, Shouchun, and Huoqiu as conditions for borrowing money, grain, and soldiers, the Liang army and Tangyi secretly concluded a peace agreement with Tangyi, and also agreed to open the sales channels for Tangyi's coal, iron, salt, cloth, medicinal materials, oil soap, and other bulk materials in the southern states of Liang and Bianjing.

At present, the production system of the southern states of Liangjing and Bianjing has been severely damaged, and it has recovered in a short time, and the people are also in urgent need of these materials to alleviate the increasingly dangerous people's livelihood; Even if the initial scale of entry of these materials will be very limited, it can provide an additional tax revenue for the Hehuai Liang Army, alleviate the shortage of military expenses, and allocate a certain amount of money from it to pay the interest on the loan.

Such conditions were favorable to Tangyi, and it was also beneficial to the Hehuai Liang army at this time, in addition to obtaining extremely scarce supplies, it could also effectively weaken and limit the military potential and ambition of Xu Mingzhen's troops, forcing it to advance and retreat together with the Hehuai Liang army, otherwise Tangyi's soldiers and horses could cross the Huai River at any time and attack the core areas it currently controlled, Qiaozhou and Yingzhou.

In addition, the prefectures south of Bianjing have been affected by drought and war, and a large number of hungry people and refugees have fled their homes, and the Hehuai Liang army is currently only able to absorb young and strong people to supplement the shortage of soldiers and horses.

Although the hungry people who went south to Jianghuai would be mainly old, weak, women and children, and there were also a large number of epidemics, which would be regarded as a burden wherever they were placed, Han Qian had nothing to be picky about.

In the middle of the previous dynasty, the Huainan West Dao people multiplied, once there were more than 3 million households, but when the Great Chu opened the country, the population of Huaixi had dropped to 780,000, and then in 16 or 7 years, Emperor Tianyou moved into Huaixi a large number of military households and private households, and only slowly recovered about one million people.

Anning Palace failed to flee north, although a large number of people crossed the river and moved into Huaixi, but after several years of military confrontation and war, the population loss was not few; Not counting the generals of the Shouzhou Army, the total population of Huaixi in the first two years was less than one million.

In the past few years, Han Qian has spared no effort to recruit and resettle the displaced people in the territory, and has also incorporated more than 100,000 households in the Huaiyang Mountains, and moved in more than 200,000 hungry people from Jiangdong, Huaidong and other places, and finally made the total population of Huaixi barely exceed 1.3 million, but it is still too far from the heyday of Huaixi.

In order to accommodate these hungry people who went south, the government first set up a number of settlements in the sparsely populated areas of Hoju, Shouju, and central Gwangju......

…………

…………

The cold wind howled, the night was pitch black, and not a single star could be seen, which made people suspect that the first snow after the beginning of winter this year would drift down at any time.

The Han Mansion was still brightly lit until late at night, Yao Xishui sat in the carriage at the entrance of the alley, opened the curtain of the car, and saw that there were still people who left the Han Mansion at this time - these people stayed until now, obviously they didn't just come to the birthday banquet tonight.

"There should be four shadow guards in the Han Mansion who have touched it." At this time, the curtain of the car in front of him was opened, and Ye Feiying's figure was like a dexterous wild cat, retracting into the carriage and saying to Yao Xishui.

"Let's go!" Yao Xishui put down the curtain of the car, knocked lightly on the wall of the carriage twice, and showed the unexpected driver to leave here.

During the most difficult two years of Tangyi, the size of the Han Mansion was reduced by nearly half, and even if the servants used in the palace were hired, there was not much difference, but the number of servants and guards in the mansion was reduced by more than half.

However, at this time, there was a small team of shadow guards stationed in the Han Mansion, which made the Han Mansion's escort ability not only weakened, but actually strengthened a lot.

Regarding the origin of Tangyi Shadow Guard, Yao Xishui only knew that it began with the training of Xi's youth, and it was originally Zhao Wuji and Guo Nuer who were in charge successively, and after Guo Nuer died in battle, the Shadow Guard seemed to no longer exist, and no obvious traces were exposed.

However, Yao Xishui knew that it was not that the shadow guard no longer existed or was disbanded, but that the situation after that was not urgent to the point where Han Qian needed to use the shadow guard deeply.

The role of the shadow guard is mainly to spy on information and protect key people, so it is completely hidden behind the military intelligence staff department and the guard cavalry battalion, and it is difficult for the outside world to capture the traces of their actions, but Yao Xishui believes that the shadow guard must be strengthened in Tangyi.

During the Chenzhou crisis and Han Qian's encouragement of the township marquis usurping the throne, they had a number of scout messengers in charge of inter-regional liaison disappear inexplicably, and now they are still corpses

The capital can't be found.

Anyway, it is not appropriate for them to have a direct conflict with the Han Mansion and Tangyi in Jinling City at this time, and the Han Mansion Shadow Guard came out to expel them, and Yao Xishui could only choose to avoid it first.

The carriage of the weaving bureau could ignore the patrolman who walked slowly in the middle of the night in Jinling City, rolling the dirt road that was frozen hard at night, and it seemed that Yao Xishui could not sleep in this dark night.

Turning east and west through several alleys, the horse-drawn carriage stopped at the side of the street, where a beggar shivered with cold shivering curled up in the corner of the eaves of the pharmacy.

There were no hanging lights along the street, only the bright corner lights hanging from the corner of the carriage could only vaguely show the beggars dressed in tatters, and their faces were hidden under the shadow of yīn, which was completely unclear.

Yao Xishui opened the curtain of the car, threw a copper coin over, the black light was blind, the beggar reached out but took the copper coin in his hand, stood up and said, "The county lord, please come with me", and walked to the other side of the street.

Yao Xishui asked: "What about the money in your hand?" ”

"The county lord is really cautious." The beggar laughed, turned around, took out a copper coin from his bosom and threw it into the gap in the window of the car where the curtain was opened, and threw it with great precision.

This did not wait for Yao Xishui to confirm, so he turned around and walked to the west alley first.

Ye Feiying didn't say anything, she didn't even know who Yao Xishui was going to see tonight, she just silently stayed by Yao Xishui's side, and she couldn't imagine how many people in this world would know the true life experience of Miss and Li Zhihe.

Yao Xishui took the money, did not hit the flint, touched the lines, confirmed that it was correct, tapped the car wall twice, and motioned to the driver to drive to follow.

After rounding two alleys, the carriage followed the beggar directly into the backyard of a nondescript deserted house.

The carriage stopped in the backyard overgrown with withered yellow grass, and the coachman and the two guards remained; Under the guidance of the beggar, Yao Xishui and Ye Feiying passed through the hall and walked to a deserted garden in front of them, and saw a slender figure standing under a pavilion with broken eaves tiles, looking at a pool of dry lotus in front of him.

There was a lantern hanging in the garden, so as not to attract the attention of the left and right, but the light was dim, and Yao Xishui was also taken aback when he saw the appearance of the people in the pavilion after approaching, and asked in a lost voice: "Why are you?" ”

The people in the pavilion turned around, looked at Yao Xishui and said: "I came to Jiangnan twice when I was young, and it was the spring and autumn seasons, which was the most charming time in Jiangnan. I lived in this house twice, sitting in the pavilion and watching the green lotus in the pond all day long, I didn't expect to go back to Chang'an after the second time I went to Jiangnan and encountered the disaster of the White Horse Station, Xiao Cui Zhu's family and thousands of small slaves in the Lu Wangfu were washed in the blood of the king of thieves. After that, he took the remnants to avoid the disaster in Mobei, so many years have passed in a blink of an eye, and I dreamed of returning to Jiangnan, but I didn't expect to come back this time, people are not things. I still remember that when I left Chang'an, the county lord was only so tall, but I couldn't wait to smash this thief in my eyes, but when I left Chang'an, the county lord also called me uncle, I don't know all these years, why is it so angry? ”

Ye Feiying only confirmed the identity of the person in front of him at this time, and he was also startled, seeing that this person may be in his forties or less than fifty years old by looking at the dim light, but his white hair is tied behind his shoulders with a green cloth belt at will, and in the middle of the cold night, he is only wearing a rather thin cloak, standing in front of the deserted pond.

"I came here this time, passing through Huaixi, and there was a delay of three or four days on the way, you and Zhihe still can't fight Han Qian after all, can't you still make up your mind?" The pavilion man said.

The people in the pavilion only stayed in Tangyi for three or four days, so they had such a judgment, and Yao Xishui could only be silent.

The people in the pavilion continued: "With the mentality of Shen Yang, Yang En, Yang Zhitang and others, most of them will advocate transferring Zuo Wuxiang's army back to Jinling, and then persuade Yang Yuanpu to use Zhou Bingwu and Du Chongtao, you really don't have any chance in Jinling......"

"How do you say that?" Yao Xishui said unconvinced.

"yīn scheming and trickery will never come to the table, your master has been laying out for so many years, and he can become a little powerful, but he is just borrowing the momentum of others, otherwise when Anning Palace usurps the throne, you will not be able to hold on, do you need me to say more?" The people in the pavilion laughed and said, "Your only chance now is to seek Shu, and I will also arrange for someone to lobby Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian, and return to Shuzhong by taking the yīn flat road, how can you be seventy or eighty percent sure of this matter." And after the two families get Shu, you won't even be able to fight Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian. This is also your last chance, and when Wang Yuankui and Tian Weiye take Yongzhou, many things will not be up to me. ”

"Uncle has seen the eldest brother?" Yao Xishui opened his mouth jerkily to call the people in the pavilion.

"Zhihe is the concubine of the palace, but he is not related to our Xiao family, he won't listen to me, what should I do when I go to see him?" The pavilion man said.

"Since Uncle knows that the eldest brother will not listen to persuasion, then what's the use of us making up our minds?" Yao Xishui said, "Besides, the eldest brother really intends to conspire with Zhao Mengji and Wang Xiaoxian to seize Shu, Tangyi will inevitably drag us back, what can we do?" ”

"Xiangbei remnants, why worry about abandoning them?" The pavilion man said.

Hearing what the people in the pavilion said, Ye Feiying was also secretly frightened, thinking that his wife had secretly planned for all these years to enable Li Zhihe and others to occupy the Xiangbei Prefectures, but he didn't want to be a remnant of land that could be abandoned at any time in the eyes of the people in the pavilion.

Seriously speaking, if they can take Sichuan Shu, Xiangbei can give up, but the question is whether they will be able to take Sichuan Shu away?

And before that, who could really be willing to take the initiative to give up Yingxiang and Deng Sui Prefecture just because they wanted to separate themselves from the Tangyi army, so that Tangyi would not have a chance to drag them back, and at the same time it was convenient to concentrate troops to attack Shu?

Don't talk about Ye Feiying, Yao Xishui obviously didn't agree with the suggestion of the people in the pavilion, so he changed the topic and asked: "Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang colluded with Han Qian, at this time, Tangyi has a large amount of grain and ordnance every day through Yingshui and Vortex River to the north, and receives hundreds of old and weak women and children every day to alleviate the hunger in Chen Xu and other states, can the soldiers and horses of Weizhou really hold Heluo?" ”

"Emperor Zhu Yu's ability to use soldiers is indeed rare in the world, but Liang Shixiong only needs to stay in Heluo until next spring." The pavilion man said.

"Why, before the spring flowers bloom next year, Wang Yuankui and Tian Weiye will be sure to capture Yongzhou?" Yao Xishui asked suspiciously.

"When the spring flowers bloom next year, you will know," the people in the pavilion would not tell Yao Xishui everything, and said, "And by then, if you can't make a decision, I'm afraid you won't even be able to seize the last chance......