"The time of the day is in the morning, and the time of the year is in the spring", spring is the season of sowing, which is very important for agricultural production. It is true that "spring sowing, autumn planting, summer harvest, and winter storage", which season goes wrong, people's livelihood will be affected, but if you get off to a good start in spring, it is often half the battle.

Therefore, Pei Gai was really worried about Tao Kan and Xiong Yuan, and planned to go to Xiapi and Pengcheng to go around and inspect the agricultural production situation. Tao Kan's ability is beyond doubt, but when he came to pay his respects that day, he found that the old man was in a very bad mood, and whether he would lose his motivation because of this and affect the effectiveness of his governance of Xiapi, it was really a matter of not being able to guarantee it. As for Xiong Yuan, as his name suggests, he is indeed lofty, and he still needs to put a big question mark on the specific level of government affairs ability.

For Linhuaiguo, Pei Gai was not too worried, when Yu Yin came to visit, he also asked about the other party's policy program as he did to Tao Kan and Xiong Yuan later, Yu Baowen really opened his mouth and couldn't say anything complete. Pei Gai smiled slightly, and immediately threatened him: "Linhuai is not as good as Jiangzuo County, for the royal Hukou and the people from the north, the people of the counties are very fierce, I led the army to calm down before, but I am afraid that I will not kill enough, if Baowen is too urgent, I am afraid that I will take risks......"

When Yu Yin heard this, he couldn't help but have a slight cold war. Pei Gai changed his words and took the opportunity to comfort him: "Linhuai is initially decided, if people are dyed and harsh, the needle medicine will take effect. It is the way of governance, and we should uphold Lao Tzu's meaning of 'doing nothing' to make the people self-governing, so that the wind and waves will be calm, and Baowen can live in peace. ”

Yu Yin breathed a sigh of relief at this time, and hurriedly replied: "I know what to do, the government of the envoy will not be changed easily, and he should also communicate with the magistrates of the counties signed by the envoy, and focus on stability." ”

So theoretically, Yu Yin didn't dare to make any big moves in Linhuai. Linhuai is very large, half of it is south of the Huai River, half of it is north of the Huai River, and the county is in Xuyi County in Huainan. Pei should treat the counties in the south of Guangling, basically by their autonomy, do not interfere in political affairs, only collect taxes - because it is too close to the Yangtze River, I am afraid that if it is strongly involved, it may have a conflict with the Jiangzuo regime, so it is better to set it aside as a buffer zone - he hopes and believes that Yu Yin's treatment of the six counties in Huainan of Linhuai State should be similar management methods.

To put it bluntly, it's just laissez-faire, basically nothing.

As for the northern counties of Linhuai Kingdom, Pei should go to Xiapi and Pengcheng here, and he must pass through, and he can also inspect it by the way.

Before leaving, he deliberately gave a few more orders. When he first arrived in Xuzhou, in order to boost morale, Pei Wenyue wrote a lot of blank checks, and it should be time to cash them, otherwise it will cause confusion. However, the goods under his command are too low--or the family is acceptable, but they belong to the distant branch or the concubine--it is impossible to directly sign as the commander of a county, and can only temporarily take charge of the county. For this reason, Pei Gai and Bian Yan greeted each other in advance, and to paraphrase a later term, they invented the position of "knowing a certain county affairs" in advance, which can be regarded as an expatriate official of the state agency.

Wei Xunwei knew that Yandu County was engaged in Huaihai, Concubine Sheng was aware of Sheyang County and Tian Cao, and Zhou Zhu and Zhou Zifeng were engaged in Linhuai County and Shi Cao.

Theoretically speaking, even if the original background is low, you can work for a state for three or five years, or take the county for three or five years, you can also become a legitimate county magistrate, this year, the separation between the family and the cold family is not as tight as in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Dynasties, and the glass ceiling is thinner - otherwise you look at that Xiong Xiaowen?

Because he remembered Xiong Xiaowen, after Pei Cai returned to the inner room, he immediately summoned Pei Lin and Pei Guo and said to them: "I have a word in advance, as long as you are wholeheartedly loyal, once you make meritorious service, you will definitely be released as a commoner, and you will have to ...... with you and other officials."

When the two of them heard this, they immediately knelt down, patted their chests to show their loyalty, and said that we only want to serve our masters for the rest of our lives, and we are slaves and maids, and we have no ambition to be officials. The words were quite touching, but the excited flames that erupted from the four eyes of the two people completely betrayed the true thoughts in their hearts.

Pei Gai smiled slightly, and deliberately took the words back: "It's just that even if you are a civilian, your background is too low, and I am afraid that you will not be able to become an official ......."

Seeing that the eyes of the two of them dimmed, Pei Gai continued: "Peng Cheng Xiong Xiang, who came to pay homage to him a few days ago, and you have also seen it, do you know that his grandfather was once a slave with others? ”

Pei Du and Pei Lin couldn't help but be stunned when they heard this, and then quietly exchanged glances to each other - what does the master mean, do we have to wait until the next generation or even the next two generations to have the possibility of getting rid of the civilian status, becoming a scholar, and then becoming an official?

Pei should see the two of them suffering from gains and losses, and couldn't help twisting his beard and looking up to the sky and laughing. After laughing, he opened his hole cards: "I like Pei's family, the world's highest, but it's a pity that the ancestral home fell into the hands of thieves, and the dependents are scattered, I'm afraid that people will become thinner and thinner...... If you are willing to give up your old surname, join the clan with me, and enter my Pei family, you will have the hope of becoming an official. ”

Pei Lin reacted first, and quickly knocked his head down again: "Where did the villain get his surname in the past?" The villain is surnamed Pei, life after life, forever surnamed Pei! ”

Pei should say okay, then you can be my nephew, don't call me "master" in the future, change your name to "uncle". Pei Du immediately changed his words: "Uncle is above, please accept the little nephew!" "Pei Lin is ingenious, saying that I have never seen my father, how can he be qualified to be a brother to his master?" Uncle is above, little nephew to meet! ”

Pei should immediately take the slave contract of the two, burn it in front of them, and give the two of them their own words: Pei Lian's character is quiet, Pei Du's character is Hengzhi - what Pei Lian and Pei Du were in the Tang Dynasty later, he couldn't remember what Pei Du said at all, so he had to draft it now - and both of them were given the position of record.

Immediately, Pei Gai took these two new recruits, plus two slaves Pei Jia and Pei B, as well as four subordinates and fifty soldiers, and left Huaiyin City on horseback, crossed Huaishui, and went north along Surabaya to inspect the two counties of Xiapi and Pengcheng.

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The successive fierce battles of the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" basically revolved around three points - that is, Chang'an in Xijing, Luoyang, the capital, and Yecheng in the east, and the places where the fiercest battles before and after the "Yongjia Rebellion" were also these three points - the Hu Han army first burned Luoyang, and then attacked Chang'an, and Shile crossed the river to the north to attack Linzhang and Tunxiangguo - so China was miserable, that is, with these three points as the center, it gradually spread to the outside.

In other words, the closer to Sandu, the more people's livelihood will wither, and it will be difficult to see people for hundreds of miles; And the farther away from Sandu, the people in many places are still farming, and they don't even know the changes in the world.

Because of the war in the Central Plains, a large number of people helped the old and the young, left their hometowns, became displaced people, and gradually injected into the four regions: Youzhou, Bashu, Jiangzuo and Jiangyou, to a certain extent, these places became more prosperous. Later, the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Dynasties were able to stand in the first place, and the Li clan occupied Shuzhong for nearly 50 years, and the former Yan entered the Central Plains according to Youzhou, all thanks to these displaced people.

Relatively speaking, the Qing and Xu prefectures under Pei Gai's nominal jurisdiction were not very fierce before, but because of the voluntary abandonment of the Jin Dynasty government, the management was chaotic, and the ability to withstand the famine was reduced to the minimum, so there was no way to retain the displaced people. The counties closer to Jiangzuo are in slightly better condition, and the farther ones, for example, south of the Huai River, are like purgatory compared to the hell on earth in Zhongzhou.

Previously, he led his army to calm the two counties west of Surabaya, Xiapi and Pengcheng, and roughly counted the household registrations, which were estimated to be only one or two thousand, about one-third of the records recorded during the reign of Emperor Taikang of the Jin Dynasty. In fact, the number of households in Guangling County has exceeded the record of the Taikang period, this is because Linhuai County was assigned to Guangling, the second is the natural growth in the next 30 years, and the third is that a large number of Central Plains refugees went south, and it is impossible for all of them to nest on the bank of the Yangtze River to wait for relief, and many of them were received by the armed forces of the county.

Compared with Guangling, Xiapi and Pengcheng are too dilapidated, which is also an important reason why Pei Gai is unwilling to manage directly, preferring to make the counties autonomous, and then ask a few people from Jiangdong to come over to serve as the internal history.

However, this time I re-entered the second county, but I had a different feeling. One was that he had come in winter, but when he saw that the city was ruined, the fields were deserted, and the villages were ruined, most of the people lived around a few dock forts, which seemed lifeless; Pei Gai destroyed the Wubao and repaired the central city, which led to many common people boldly returning to the fields and villages they had owned for generations, and the population distribution was relatively balanced; In addition, during the spring sowing period, the people are working in the fields, and there is a faint sign of recovery in agricultural production.

But the natural cultivation of ordinary people, and the planned and organized cultivation, Pei should still be able to distinguish at a glance - after all, he has also planted land in Huaiyin for two years. Entering Xiapi first, walking along the road, you can see many small officials in long clothes patrolling the fields and guiding agricultural production. He summoned a few small officials to inquire about it, and they all said that the county had only issued an official document, and listed more than 20 suggestions in detail on how to organize spring sowing, and stipulated the quota -- each county and township, how many acres of land should be cultivated this spring, and how many grains, mulberry hemp, and vegetables should be planted, and there were clear figures -- stipulating that if the acceptance was not accepted at the end of spring, those who temporarily took charge of the county would be reprimanded, and the officials who were specifically responsible would be fined copper.

If you don't get dismissed, but you will be fined, are you afraid?

Seeing this and hearing this, Pei Cai couldn't help but secretly rejoice in his heart - no matter whether Tao Shixing took office with emotions or not, after all, he was still doing things seriously, and he didn't mean to be perfunctory, which is very good. When he came to the outside of Pi City under the rule of Xia Pi State, Tao Kan personally went out of the city to greet him, Pei should see it from afar, so he dismounted, ran quickly, took Tao Kan's hand, and exclaimed: "Tao Jun has been in office for less than a month, and he can make the people live in peace and work hard, and he is really talented!" ”

Tao Kan was still expressionless, and just replied lightly: "I just arrived, I didn't know the situation, and I went to the corner, which made the envoy smile...... "Where is this, do you think I have such a little ability?" But it's just the beginning - "It's just for spring sowing, and it can't be delayed for a moment, it's a hasty order, and I don't know if the politics of Jiangnan can be applied to Huaibei?" I only know how to grow rice, not wheat, so I'm afraid I've missed a lot. ”

Let him enter the county office, Pei Cai asked again: "In Tao Jun's opinion, how long will it take for Xiapi to be governed?" ”

Tao Kan shook his head: "The household registration is scattered, and there are few people in the land, how can you say great governance?" If you can be three years old without suffering from soldiers, and there are no natural disasters, the people can be at ease, and that's it. ”

Pei Gai asked tentatively: "If I want to go north, I don't know when it is appropriate?" ”

Tao Kan thought for a while: "At the age of three, the king led 5,000 elite soldiers to pass through the city, which can barely be used for a month." "I'll have to accumulate for three years before I can help you with the supply of food, and as for conscription...... Don't even think about it!

In fact, there may not be no surplus grain in Xiapi, although the common people are not full, there are still a lot of savings among the landlords and dock forts; The problem is that Pei should have calmed down Pi before, and those who should be levied and robbed were all pulled south of the Huai River without sparing a hand - of course, in order to settle the dependent people of Yuanwubao and make them able to survive the winter smoothly, naturally a lot of relief was also scattered - so Tao Kan really couldn't come up with many special means to resume production as soon as possible, so he could only come step by step.

Pei Gai had no choice but to argue with Tao Kan repeatedly, and finally agreed on the amount of taxes to be paid in Shanggong Prefecture after the autumn harvest - Tao Kan only promised to pay for food, but refused to agree to military service and labor - so he left Xiapi and continued on the road to Pengcheng.