Around the Spring Festival of the second year of Emperor Chunyou of the Great Song Dynasty, due to the violent death of the Great Khan's Nest and Kuotai, civil strife broke out, and the Mongol army that invaded the Southern Song Dynasty retreated once and was, and the middle of Sichuan was in ruins.

After nearly ten years of war, the Mongolian army looted and brought devastating damage to the four roads of the Sichuan Gorge.

From Lizhou to the south, through the Mongols still possessed the sword pavilion down, all the way to Xuzhou, Gongzhou area, almost can not find a complete city, whether it is a town or a village, as long as the cavalry can reach, as far as the eye can see, it is a depressed and dilapidated scene, the houses are burned, the city walls are dug down, the people are displaced, the white bones are exposed in the wilderness, the corpses are all all covered with roadsides, the survivors are as thin as hungry ghosts, living among the broken walls.

When it comes to the Spring Festival, the prosperity and extravagance of Lin'an compare with the dilapidated depression of Sichuan, like two worlds.

Wang Kui led his army north from Gongzhou, bumpy all the way, to the city of Chengdu, which was almost a piece of rubble.

He turned a corner on the road, detoured to Rongzhou and joined forces with Changsun Hong, because Wang Kui's command only had more than 4,000 soldiers, most of them were the remnants of the defeated soldiers who were beaten and crippled, and it was okay to deal with the bandits and bandits, and it was not enough to meet a large group of Mongolian stragglers.

The eldest grandson Hong took 5,000 Shimen barbarian soldiers and accompanied him to Chengdu.

The sky was gray, there was no sun, and the winter wind swept by, adding countless sorrows to the vast earth.

"Lord Changsun, look at it, when I and Chen Zhi came here a few years ago, it was still a fertile field, full of grass seedlings, every year in the spring, countless farmers are busy in it, and the grain grown can supply the entire Shuzhong military and civilian degree, and the excess is stored in the treasury and can fill the warehouse."

Wang Kui pointed to the thatched piles on both sides of the post road with a horsewhip that were more than one person high, and said to Changsun Hong.

A gust of wind blew, scraping the grass pile, and a skeleton lying in it was shocked to reveal a deep white skull, and the black hole stared at Song Jun walking on the road, and the mouth with a few teeth was silently open, as if shouting and telling.

The eldest grandson Hong looked at Wang Kui's pointing and exhaled: "Now they are all ghosts." ”

"Yes, if the country is not prosperous, the people will be miserable, and the people will suffer the worst in the war." Wang Kui rode on his horse, shook his head and smiled bitterly: "You and I have traveled all the way, and we can't even see a better town, which shows how tragic the destruction is here." ”

"Adults have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders." Changsun Hong looked far away and saw a city wall on the horizon on the horizon.

It was the city wall of Chengdu City, dark and dreary, and it seemed to be a little shorter. It seems that when the Mongols withdrew, they did not forget to cut it down.

"The court didn't give me anything but an edict." Wang Kui's brows furrowed, thinking of what he heard and saw when he went to Lin'an to receive the order, he was angry: "Shi Xianggong said that Sichuan's wealth does not need to be handed over, and the transfer envoy will not take a penny from Sichuan, and leave it to me for me to rebuild western Sichuan." ”

He snorted in his nostrils: "The words are excellent, I am grateful, but, look, where is there still wealth in western Sichuan?" A few days ago, I sent someone to come over in advance, and counted the household registration of people on Chengdu Fu Road and Tongchuan Fu Road, there are more than 1,000 households in large places, and the small county town can't even find the county order, the county seat is empty, there is no one, where to collect taxes? ”

"You can ask Peng Daya." Changsun Hong said: "Eastern Sichuan has not experienced destruction, the Mongols have not fought over, there should be rich people over there." ”

"Master Peng said, these years to resist the northern captives, draw Ding to increase taxes, the tax in eastern Sichuan has been received the year after tomorrow, and the population is also because the people are afraid of the Mongolian army to fight over, fleeing to Huguang, there is no financial resources and manpower for me." Wang Kui's face turned a little green: "Let me be self-reliant." ”

Changsun Hong looked at him sympathetically and was speechless.

Wang Kui's distress, Changsun Hong understood very well that when he just fled from Hezhou to Shimenfan, facing the towering mountains and the same primitive people as the Shimenfan barbarians, the feeling in his heart should be the same as Wang Kui at this time.

No, it should be said that the situation of Changsun Hong was better at that time, at least Shimenfan still had a population.

"What are you going to do?" The eldest grandson Hong asked, although Wang Kui is five big and three coarse, he is a civil minister at the root, and he has experience in governing and governing a place.

"Recruit displaced people first, and produce grain in the fields, but there is no food, and there is nothing to feed them when you find people." Wang Kui has obviously thought about these questions, and he said it at this moment, which is very logical: "Then restore industry and commerce step by step, increase taxes, and the government has money, so that it can recruit troops and revitalize the army." ”

"These jobs can't be done without years of time." Changsun Hong said: "That's too slow, Sichuan needs a blood transfusion to recover its vitality." ”

"Blood transfusion?" Wang Kui was stunned: "What do you mean?" ”

Changsun Hong patted his head: "It means that the court supports it, the adults should write to the court and talk about the situation here, at least to get the money and food to raise the soldiers, otherwise you will work hard to farm, and if you don't have soldiers against a small group of northern captives, the things you grow will be cheaper than those grandsons." ”

The two believed in the reins of the horse, talking while walking, and the elite Shimen Fan barbarians guarded the front and back, slowly advancing.

"I used this method last time, so I have to say something from Shi Xianggong." Wang Kui said helplessly: "The imperial court is also very difficult, Lianghuai and Jinghu use hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and the cost of raising soldiers is a lot." ”

"Then you can't just ignore Sichuan." The eldest grandson said: "Adults should continue to cry poor, pull down the children, and the children who can cry will have milk to eat." ”

"This can only be done, the envoy still has some foundation, first do the affairs of Tuntian near Chengdu, and will not stop writing letters to the imperial court. When I have time, I will go to the capital in person. Wang Kui said: "Give gifts to the Privy Council and all the deacons, I hope they can take care of this side more and allocate some money to bring it down." ”

He glanced at Changsun Hong, hesitated slightly, and finally seemed to have made up his mind before he spoke: "That...... Lord Eldest Sun, the salt of the Lingjing Supervisor and the Fushun Supervisor, it stands to reason that ...... It should be collected by the envoy of the system, can you let go of your hand......"

Wang Kui's tone was very weak, with a low voice, not at all like the tone of a party envoy to a small group of practitioners.

This is because Sun Hong, the commander of the Rongzhou regiment, has sent barbarian troops to occupy these two places on the grounds of protecting the salt-producing areas and strictly preventing the harassment of bandits.

Rongzhou is in the middle of the two places, and it takes less than a day to go to the prison cities on both sides to take a turn, and the distance is very close.

The governor of Rongzhou didn't have anything to do about it, and he took the money from Changsun Hong, and simply turned a blind eye.

The prisoners in the two places are all newly replaced, and they are unreasonably captive by the barbarians, and there is no way to cry, so they can only find Wang Kui, the deputy envoy of the eastern Sichuan system, to complain and complain about the various illegal acts of Changsun Hong.

Wang Kui knew it, even at the moment when Changsun Hong was about to become the training envoy of the Rongzhou regiment.

The eldest grandson Hong wants to get involved in salt profits.

(End of chapter)