Li Wenyuan had just dealt with the affairs of Wuwei County when he received the news that Zhang Juntai had defeated the rebels in Zhangye County. Li Wenyuan gave up checking on the affairs of the captured craftsmen, and directly took Gai Suzhen to select a group of reserve officials and the officials who had undergone the public trial of Wuwei County, and went directly to Zhangye County.

In Zhangye County, Li Wenyuan saw Zhang Juntai and Uderu, who were leading the army to suppress the local unstable factors, and looked at the dried blood between the armor of the two, Li Wenyuan nodded with satisfaction and said, "I heard that you have defeated the rebels under the city of Zhangye County, what are the casualties?" ”

As the presidential commander of this westward counterinsurgency army, Zhang Juntai stepped forward and saluted and said: "Back to the commander, the enemy army in this battle is disheartened. There was no strength in a battle, and only more than 100 of our people fell from their horses and were injured. ”

Li Wenyuan nodded and said, "The army has been stationed here for a long time, but there is a terrain sand table in Zhangye County, so take it quickly." ”

Not long after, a sergeant brought up a huge sand table made of wood-bottomed soil and placed it in front of Li Wenyuan, and the sand table made of clay showed that the scouts of Zhang Juntai's army had drawn the terrain in the surrounding area. Zhang Juntai looked at the sand table, and said to Li Wenyuan: "In the past, the sand table made by Ma Fubo for Emperor Guangwu was piled up with rice mountains, but now we are short of food, so we can only use some sand to make a sand table for the general, and please don't blame the general." ”

Li Wenyuan waved his hand and said: "I have always advocated practicality first, whether it is a mountain of rice or a mountain of earth, as long as it can clearly show the terrain and landform we are currently in." ”

Then Li Wenyuan went around to the other side of the sand table, the sand table in ancient times was all up and down to the north, which was mostly the opposite of the maps he used in later generations. So Li Wenyuan went around in a circle, and corresponded to the memory in his mind from north to south on the entire sand table. After Li Wenyuan racked his brains to search for a long time, he finally found the place he was looking for on the sand table.

Li Wenyuan pointed to the lower left corner of the sand table and said, "Send many scouts to visit here to see if there is a brownstone mountain here, the whole body is made of brown stones, and no grass or trees have grown on it. ”

After listening to Li Wenyuan's description, Zhang Juntai seemed to have an understanding and said: "The general's move is to find the iron ore there. ”

Li Wenyuan nodded and said, "Exactly." Most of the iron ore we use now is transported from the Central Plains. There is also some coal near Wuwei County, and we need an iron mine to meet our needs for building our own weapons. After a pause at this point, Li Wenyuan continued: "In order to ensure the safety of the iron mines that we may have here in the future, and also to further compress Li Liang's activity space, we must ensure that Jiayuguan is under our control. ”

After explaining the movements of the next army, Li Wenyuan had just sent Zhang Juntai and Uderu away, and Gai Suzhen, who came with him, led a thin old man in.

"This old man is the person in charge of the night owl in Zhangye County." Gai Suzhen said.

Li Wenyuan nodded and said, "Then how should I call this one?" ”

"The manager can call me Zhang Yi." The old man said with a smile.

"Zhang Yi?" Li Wenyuan was a little puzzled when he heard this.

"Yes, sir. The biggest fear of doing this is to bring harm to our family, so the housewife will give us a pseudonym when we join. The following Zhang Ben refers to Zhangye County, and as for this one, it means that I am responsible for the related matters of Zhangye County and be a small leader. ”

After hearing this, Li Wenyuan secretly admired Qiu Niang's clever methods, and the master mother he called in his mouth should be Qiu Niang, this Qiu Niang has mentioned to herself, in her planning, the slave contract of the main person in charge of each city must be in Qiu Niang's own hands, even if Li Wenyuan comes in person, he will not go. In this way, these responsible persons are of the same nature as the dead soldiers adopted by Li Wenyuan himself. Qiu Niang gave these people fake names, which not only relieved these people of worrying about harming their families, but also made personnel management much simpler because of the rules of these names.

Li Wenyuan came back to his senses, looked at the old man in front of him and said, "What are you trying to tell me when you came to see me today?" ”

The old man took out a booklet from his bosom and handed it to Gai Suzhen. Gai Suzhen checked that there was nothing unusual before handing it over to Li Wenyuan. This step was forced by Qiu Niang to Li Wenyuan, in Qiu Niang's own words: What you Li Wenyuan is doing now will definitely arouse the resentment of countless people. There will definitely be people who use various methods to assassinate Li Wenyuan, and he is attached to Li Wenyuan, and his life is quite comfortable, so naturally he will not let these things happen, so this security guarantee must be there.

The old man saw Li Wenyuan flipping through the booklet, and added on the side: "The contents recorded in this booklet are the names of the corrupt officials and the relevant stolen money hidden in the eyes of the master's mother who asked us to investigate. ”

"I see, I'll tell your housewife that you've done your job satisfactorily." Li Wenyuan nodded, and after he knew this, he asked the old man to go down to receive the reward.

Li Wenyuan then asked Gai Suzhen to find Qian Wentong, one of the reserve officials who went to Zhangye County together, and said to him: "I have a list here, which records some corrupt officials who oppressed the people, and some rebels who have their hearts set on Li Liang. You take the official constitution and check these people carefully. If it is true, they will be detained on the spot, and they will be tried together after the entire investigation is completed. ”

Qian Wentong took the pamphlet handed over by Li Wenyuan, carefully put it into his arms, and then retired. led the official constitution of his fellow officials to check whether the evidence of those officials' crimes was true according to the map. Although Qian Wentong wanted to make things bigger, so as to pull some high-level officials in Zhangye County as much as possible to get off the horse and strive for more benefits for himself, he didn't dare to do so in the end. After all, the lessons of Wuwei County are still vivid, and during the public trial in Wuwei County, some people wanted to play some tricks and frame some officials out of nothing. As a result, he was arrested by the official constitution and was directly dismissed. If you want to be an official again, you have to participate in the imperial examination honestly.

Looking at Qian Wentong's distant back, Li Wenyuan also squinted his eyes and fell into deep thought. This Qian Wentong is also a son of a local aristocratic family, but although he is also a son of a nobleman, this person really did not rely on any help from his family, and passed the imperial examination with his real talent. Although Li Wenyuan is also very disgusted with things like internal determination, he also has to admit that in this era, the children of aristocratic families can enjoy more generous educational resources and are more suitable for some high-level official positions. If he meets his own requirements, he should be appointed as the new county guard of Zhangye.