Zhu Pingjian, the prince of Shu, sent his personal representative, Lieutenant Zhu Zhihan, to visit the six feudal states of Jingchu, the purpose of which was nothing more than to collect the various resources of the six feudal domains for the use of the Shu domain.

Population, food, gold and silver, technology, and more importantly, people's hearts are all of Zhu Pingjin's interest.

In addition to the finished Xiangwang and Emperor Chongzhen's two uncles, King Hui and King Gui, the other six feudal domains of Jingchu plus a King of Huayang who was involved in Lizhou were all Zhu Zhihan's destinations.

In Jingzhou, Zhu Zhihan was warmly welcomed by the Liao clan and reached an important strategic cooperation agreement. It's a pity that the Liao Domain has been lost for many years, and Zonglu is not good, except for thousands of hungry mouths and thousands of hot hearts, there is almost nothing left;

In Wuchang, Zhu Zhihan was rejected by the old and mediocre King of Chu, but he unexpectedly gained the intention of cooperation at the place of Zhu Shengmiao, the eldest grandson of the King of Xuanhua, and Shi Xu Xueyan, the governor of Chu. But that's the end of it for the time being. Except, of course, the unruly little lord who ignores love.

The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment.

The Chu Domain, the four major feudal kings in the world, refused to cooperate directly with the Shu Wangfu, leaving only the possibility of a marriage, which dealt a heavy blow to Zhu Zhihan, who was once full of confidence.

Discouraged, he went east to Qizhou to visit King Jing, but the gambling trip of trying his luck turned into a lucky trip of winning the lottery first and then paying for it.

The first generation of King Jing Xian was the sixth son of Emperor Renzong, Xuande four years in Jiangxi Jianchang, and later moved to Guangqi Prefecture in the tenth year of orthodoxy, and has been passed on to nine generations and ten kings.

The king of Jing of this generation is named Zhu Ciyan. Wanli was named the son of Jing in the 40th year, and he was sealed in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, and he is about 40 years old this year.

Zhu Ciyan, who had long been frightened by the thieves, saw the envoy of the Shu Domain coming, and was enthusiastically unorthodox. He invited Zhu Zhihan to the secret room of the palace and complained about the suffering for two hours.

Zhu Ci flue, Qizhou is located in the corridor between the Yinghuo Mountains and the Yangtze River, and is close to the old nest of the thieves and the left and leather thieves. If the thief goes down the mountain, he will go to Qizhou in a moment.

In Qizhou, there are only about 300 soldiers of Qizhou Guard. King Jing's Mansion has already been returned to the guards, and there are less than 100 honor guards. Coupled with the people temporarily recruited by the Qizhou government, there were less than 1,000 soldiers in the city.

The thieves descended the mountain, often tens of thousands. If there were no strong army with more than 3,000 battalions, the weak soldiers of less than 1,000 people in Qizhou alone would definitely not be able to stop it for three days.

He really wanted to leave the dangerous place of Qizhou, and he also made a bold and unsuccessful attempt. However, this bold attempt ended in a fiasco.

The magistrate is a land guard, and what he wants is to serve as an official and defend one side. Zhu Ciyan is the lord of a feudal domain, and as soon as he runs, it will cause panic among the clan officials, gentry and the common people, and everyone will run. Therefore, the magistrate's two thieves' bright eyes, one stared at the thieves outside the city, and the other stared at Zhu Ciyan, the lord of the country.

As soon as Zhu Ciyan moved, the ears and eyes of the magistrate immediately discovered it. When Zhu Ciyan walked to the city gate with a mighty team, he found that the city gate was closed. The state official was in his official uniform, staring at his face, and led the sergeant of the brigade to kneel in the middle of the road. The governor not only forbade him to leave the city, but also explicitly threatened him. If he runs away, he will be impeached for the crime of abandoning the country without a will!

Zhu Ciyan said, he is now in a dilemma, and he is afraid at both ends. I am afraid that the country will die and perish in the thieves, and I am afraid that the court will punish the crime and ban it on the high wall of Fengyang. So he hoped that the envoy of the Shu domain would give an idea.

The distress of Zhu Ciyan, the king of Jing, is Zhu Zhihan's happiness. Zhu Zhihan was overjoyed when he heard this, and he immediately told His Royal Highness King Jing: If you bring the gold, silver, jewelry, grain and utensils of the concubines of the sect, Your Highness, you will never want to escape!

Zhu Zhihan's idea for Zhu Ciyan, the king of Jing, was four words:

Abscond lightly!

Zhu Zhihan explained that the so-called light equipment is to dispose of all the cumbersome items such as gold, silver, jewelry, grain, and utensils, and replace them with acceptance bills of Huitong Bank;

The so-called absconding is to dismiss the servants, retain the capable, and escape in stages and batches in accordance with the order of women before men, first people and then His Royal Highness, without alarming the government.

Traveling light is a prerequisite for absconding. How to abscond if you don't travel lightly? Therefore, His Royal Highness's top priority is to quickly dispose of the floating wealth and exchange it for silver. As for real estate such as palaces and fields, it is enough to take the certificate such as the land deed. As long as Da Ming is still around, these things will have to come back sooner or later.

The acceptance bill is a thin piece of paper, of course, it is easier to carry than hundreds of thousands of taels of gold and silver and hundreds of thousands of stones of grain, and everyone understands this truth. Zhu Ciyan himself once sold some valuable items in exchange for better carryable gold.

It's easier said than done, and a very real problem is in front of you.

As the saying goes: a broken home is worth a lot. The family of a feudal mansion amounted to more than millions of taels of silver, how could it be easily undertaken by the strength of a state's gentry and merchants? Besides, those gentry are also dealing with floating wealth, why should they be the culprit?

Although the history of the Jing domain is not as long as that of the Chu and Shu domains, it is not much different. There are thousands of clans, tens of thousands of palace tenants, and hundreds of thousands of fields, how can it be dealt with overnight? It is even more difficult to transport only silver, jewelry, brocade, utensils, grain, and other floating wealth. Qizhou is a place of rice, just the storage of grain, Jingwangfu long storage of rice and the county Wangfu, Wangzhuang, Wangdian in Qizhou city of grain storage, there are more than 300,000 stones. How many ships will it take to transport this, and how much noise will it make?

But these problems are not difficult for Zhu Zhihan, who is always ready to take advantage of the fire.

In the face of Zhu Ciyan's repeated hints, Zhu Zhihan reluctantly said that if the Jing Wang's clan really made up his mind to leave Qizhou and take refuge in Sichuan, then he could buy all the Changcun rice of Jing Fan on behalf of the Shu Wangfu in the name of helping the victims, and then swagger out of the city with Jing Fan's floating wealth as disaster relief grain, and there would be no reason to search or block it if he wanted to come to the government.

Zhu Zhihan's implication is that Jing Fan runs to Sichuan, and I can pull you; If you're running around, I'm sorry I didn't see it.

In this regard, Zhu Ciyan made it clear that he left Qizhou to avoid trouble, and had already reached a consensus within the Jing clan. It's just that where to run, there are still disagreements.

Most people tend to go to Jiangxi or Hunan, and a few want to go to Nanzhi or Zhejiang. But at present, no one in Jiangxi, Hunan, Nanzhi or Zhejiang dares to take over so much of the palace's property, which is also the reason why Jing Fan has not run for a long time.

As long as the Shu clan agreed to accept the property of the Jing domain, they were willing to go along the Yangtze River to Shu, and all the expenses on the way were borne by themselves. It's just that the amount of this bill of exchange is too large, and in order to be able to cash it out as scheduled in the future, he hopes to send a clan envoy to Sichuan to meet the prince of Shu and get a written promise from the Shu clan as a family member.

Since His Royal Highness King Jing is so sincere, Zhu Zhihan naturally said very righteously that Chongqing is a large mansion in Sichuan, and it is a natural risk, which is the most suitable for avoiding danger in troubled times. He will write to the prince of Shu, send a ship to greet him, and build a palace for His Royal Highness King Jing in Chongqing Mansion, and the benevolent and generous prince of Shu will agree. When the thieves occupy Qizhou in the future, when His Royal Highness King Jing will go to the court to explain the situation, presumably the emperor can't say anything, after all, the tragedy of King Fu and King Xiang has just happened.

The meeting went so smoothly on the first day, which made Zhu Zhihan full of confidence in the details of the upcoming negotiations; The failure he had just experienced also made him fully prepared for the extraneous complications in the negotiations.

Sure enough, when Zhu Zhihan met with Zhu Cixuan (KUI), the representative of the other party, and the chief of the palace Shi on behalf of the other party, he regretted the convenience. They made it clear that it was okay to travel lightly, but it was impossible to abscond!

Why? Because King Jing Zhu Ciyan wants him to be the first to escape!

Zhu Ciyan is a signpost, a lighthouse, and a bright light in the night. When he ran away, the local government could not see anyone, and immediately went to the imperial court and caused local unrest. In this way, Zhu Zhihan's plan to empty the Jing Domain will fall through. Zhu Zhihan had to repeatedly explain to the other party the necessity and importance of His Royal Highness King Jing's temporary stay, and even promised to send troops to protect him without authorization.

After repeated negotiations, the two sides finally reached an agreement: the Shu Wangfu would purchase the floating wealth of Jing Fan at a discount at the market price, and the Shu Wangfu would issue an acceptance bill to Jing Fan. Among them, 20% can be paid immediately, 30% can be paid at sight in Sichuan, and the other 50% will be paid in time periods within three years after King Jing's arrival in Chongqing.

There was too much floating money, and it was too late to temporarily recruit ships to move them, and the local ships were at risk of leaking the news, and there was no specific timetable for Qiu Zigong's fleet to return. Therefore, Zhu Zhihan sent Lu San's bodyguards to rent large ships from Wuchang Mansion and Huangzhou Prefecture upstream, while he and Jingwangfu recruited displaced people from around Qizhou to act as porters.

A few days later, when the first batch of big ships arrived in Qizhou, the signing ceremony of the Shu Wangfu to purchase 300,000 stone of grain from the Jingwang Mansion to help the victims was held in the carrying hall of the Jingwang Mansion.

Soon, the first batch of 20,000 stone grain was put on board the ship in the name of disaster relief grain.

As a symbol of the beginning of friendly cooperation between the two sides, Zhu Zhihan gave his boat to Zhu Cixuan, the representative of the Jing Domain, and asked him to bring his own handwritten note to see Zhu Pingjian, the son of Shu; And Jingwangfu sent Zhu Zhihan dozens of good horses and a few carriages to continue to complete the journey to Huxiang.

The first step was taken in victory and continues to expand.

In Changsha Mansion, King Ji (Note 1), who had just been enthroned for more than two years, received Zhu Zhihan very warmly.

Changsha Province is a famous rice area and rice market in the Huxiang region. In Changsha Prefecture alone, the two counties of Changsha and Shanhua accounted for 7.8 million mu of high-quality land.

In addition to agreeing to take care of the money village in Changsha City, King Ji also very kindly sold his 100,000 stone old grain that he could not eat to the Shu clan at a market price increase. Lü Sanda heard an unconfirmed news that King Ji had dealings with King Gui. Zhu Zhihan speculated that once something happened, King Ji was likely to retreat to Hengyang Mansion in the south.

In the Rongwang Mansion in Changde City, Zhu Zhihan received a cold reception similar to that of the Huiwang Mansion in Jingzhou. The only difference is that Yao Daguanren, the maternal uncle of Rongwang Zhu Cizhao (Note 2), came forward to invite Zhu Zhihan and Lu San to drink a meal of flower wine.

During the banquet, Zhu Zhihan accidentally drank high, and in the soft fragrance of the warm jade of the singer, he leaked a little about the benefits of Qian Zhuang and the cooperation between the Shu Wangfu and the Jingchu Palace.

When the Yao officials, whose necks were red, heard that there were so many famous names in this money village, they also gave Zhu Zhihan a little insight into the inside story of King Rong.

It turned out that the wealth of King Rong's mansion, the land Zonglu was only a small head, and the big head came from the tax rights of several important wharves along the Yuan River.

The toll station in Rongfu is different from the car bandit road rage engaged in by Zhu Pingjin, and it is a legal toll station given by Zhu Youshu, the first king of Rongzhuang, by his nephew Emperor Jiajing, that is, it is robbed by order.

The Yuan River is one of the four major tributaries of Dongting Lake, and it is a great fortune to occupy the estuary of Changde, even if it is not a daily income. In recent years, Huxiang has not been peaceful, and the tax and silver on the river have been less, so Rongwangfu has always wanted to engage in some additional industries to turn the silver deposits into more silver. It's just that the world is in turmoil, and it's hard to find a safe investment environment.

The clever Zhu Zhihan understood the idea of the Rongwang Mansion, so he invited Yao Daguan to personally or send someone to inspect the Sichuan Machinery Bureau and other cash cows. As long as Yao Daguan is willing to invest in Sichuan, then the silver of the Rong Fan is equivalent to being deposited in Huitong Bank.

Under the encouragement of Zhu Zhihan and the temptation of huge kickbacks, Yao Daguan really became interested in investing in Sichuan. He promised to persuade his sister, the mother concubine of Rongwang Zhu Cizhao, that instead of hiding the silver in Chenxi County in the upper reaches of the Yuan River, it was better to throw it into Chengdu, where Qianjing was better and safer.

Zhu Zhihan also figured out two things in his communication with Yao Daguan.

First, the affairs of Rongwangfu are decided by the old lady, and the affairs of Ji Sichen are not unique to Shudi;

Second, there was no need for him to go to the distant city of Wugang to lobby King Min.

Yao Daguan conclusively concluded that King Min was brutal, the people were dissatisfied, and sooner or later he would lose the country. The small Wugang Stone City has four layers of inner and outer walls, and King Min is especially not at ease, and he is still grabbing husbands everywhere to reinforce, and he does not give food and wages to the people.

Note 1: The last Ji King Zhu Ci? , Jizhen King Zhu is a son of Tongyan, and Chongzhen was sealed in the twelfth year.

Note 2: The five elements of the word "zhao" also belong to "fire". The son of Emperor Chongzhen, the name of King Yong, is Zhu Cizhi.