No one borrowed the debt, the old debt was not paid off, and the treasury was empty.

He still remembered that the last time he borrowed money, he took out a large amount of money and food without any difficulty, and now it has only been more than half a year, and these guys say that they have no money, and Li Cunqiao naturally doesn't believe this kind of nonsense.

"It's still the system of Wu State!"

As the saying goes, there is no harm if there is no comparison, among the forces bordering the Jin State in the past, the main Later Liang is the most powerful, and the system of the Later Liang is similar to that of the Jin State, all inherited from the Tang Dynasty, and the local forces are relatively strong.

At that time, Wu Guoyuan was in the south, and although Li Cunqiao had an understanding of his system, he did not have a deep understanding.

When the Later Liang began to implement the policy of weakening the feudal towns, Li Cunmiao took the opportunity to join forces with Zhenzhou Wang Rong and Dingzhou Wang Chuzhi to defeat the Liang army in Baixiang, reversing the situation of the Jin and Liang hegemony in one fell swoop.

After that, the Jin army joined forces with various feudal towns and Houliang to start a series of battles, and finally became stronger and stronger, and seized the entire Hebei region.

At that time, Li Cunqiao believed that the implementation of the system of moderation and envoys could motivate the whole army to fight to the death against the enemy for the sake of glory and wealth, and those middle- and lower-class officers from poor backgrounds could get ahead and become the commanders of a party by accumulating military merits, so how could they not fight to the death.

It is precisely by relying on this system that the Jin army has strong combat power and is united; Later, the Liang side continued to weaken the power of the feudal towns, but successively forced the feudal towns such as Dingzhou, Zhenzhou, and Weibo, allowing the Jin State to take advantage of it.

However, with the passage of time, especially after the country has entered a relatively stable state in recent years, the system of temperance and envoys that was used to motivate soldiers to fight to the death has now become a major problem for Li Cunqiao's henchmen.

By this time, Wu Guo had already implemented a policy of weakening local forces, which immediately made Li Cunqiao see its superiority.

He still remembered that when Li Sizhao was still alive, he had made great contributions to the Jin State, but as soon as Li Sizhao died, his son Li Jitao and others were separated from the imperial court, and even finally made trouble to the point where it had to be suppressed by force.

He also remembered that Zhu Youqian, the envoy of the Hezhong Jiedu, had relied on the assistance of the Jin army to survive the crises again and again, and survived the attacks of the Liang army and the Wu army, so as to maintain his rule over the Hezhong Province, but as soon as the Wu State issued a threat, he immediately surrendered to the Wu State.

Not to mention that after Wang Rong was killed, Zhang Chujin relied on Zhenzhou to make a rebellion, causing so much trouble to the Jin army, not only losing a lot of military strength, but also Yan Bao, Li Cunjin, and Li Sizhao were killed one after another.

This lesson has long made Li Cunmiao full of vigilance against the local feudal towns, and now that he has borrowed from these people and been refused, the idea of cutting the feudal domain has become even clearer.

In June, Li Cunmiao ordered the restoration of the old system of the Tang Dynasty, sent eunuchs to various feudal towns to serve as supervisors, and at the same time demanded that the summer and autumn taxes be collected in advance, and that the collection be completed within two months.

At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the eunuch forces controlled the government and did evil for many years, and their reputation was extremely stinky.

After that, Zhu Wen killed the eunuch group in one fell swoop, which quelled the disaster of the eunuchs; Although there were a small number of eunuchs in the Later Tang Dynasty in the era of Li Cunqing, there were not many of them, and they only served as internal servants and did not hold real power.

Now Li Cunmiao publicly replied to the Tang system and used eunuchs as supervisors, which suddenly greatly stimulated the feudal towns and assassins in various places, causing extreme dissatisfaction.

These newly appointed supervisors were only subordinates with a humble status in the past, but now they suddenly gained a position of power, and they immediately began to act as a prestige.

The summer and autumn taxes, which were supposed to be paid by June and November respectively, were supposed to be paid by June, but now many of the overseers demanded that the taxes be collected within a month, according to the emperor's orders.

As a result, the burden on the people, who had already suffered a poor harvest, and the fact that the prison guards took the opportunity to reap the benefits, resulted in countless displaced people.

However, if it is only aimed at ordinary people, what is even more speechless is that these prison guards don't know the relationship at all, they think that they can do whatever they want with the support of the emperor, and they actually persecute the officers and soldiers in the army.

Some of the prison guards even privately withheld the money and grain that were originally used to supply the army, and said that they were offered to the emperor, but in fact they all went into their own pockets.

In just over a month, people everywhere have already complained; And the families of many ordinary soldiers were also punished, and the military rations were deducted, resulting in a lack of food and clothing, and the soldiers of the army were resentful for a while.

Fortunately, the local marshals and assassins are still calm, knowing that they can't be chaotic at this time, and if they are chaotic, it will be easy to give Wu Jun a chance to take advantage of; Once the Later Tang Dynasty perished, these powerful figures will inevitably suffer.

Although the system of eunuchs supervising the army has seriously eroded their interests and made them deeply dissatisfied, it has not yet reached the extreme, so these people have no idea of resisting for the time being, and at most they will appeal to the court.

In July, after more than a month of looting, the money and grain from all over the country were finally collected, and the empty treasury finally had some savings.

At this time, Zhang Juhan and others wrote to request that since the treasury already had savings, the debts owed should be returned as soon as possible.

Li Cunmiao agreed, but after returning to the palace, Jing Jin and the others said: "Your Majesty can't, although the treasury has savings now, this is the result of collecting the summer tax and the autumn tax together, and the next tax will have to wait until next year." ”

"With this little savings in the treasury now, it is difficult to say whether it will be able to support it until next year, but if the debt is paid off now, what will happen when the treasury is empty again? Can't you go into debt again? Or will next year's taxes be collected earlier? ”

Li Cunmiao was silent, it was indeed a little early to repay the old debts, and the failure of the debt not long ago made him realize that it was not so easy to borrow from the assassins and the marshals.

If the treasury is empty again, and the debt cannot be borrowed again, the situation will only worsen.

But if it is not returned, it is difficult to guarantee that those assassins and festival envoys will not complain.

With some hesitation in his heart, he asked Jing Jin: "If you don't repay the debt, what if the officials complain?" Between the words, it was as if Jing Jin had been regarded as a confidant.

"Your Majesty, those feudal towns are not respectful enough to the imperial court in the first place, and Your Majesty should have weakened their power a long time ago; Now it is hard to borrow their money and food, which is to weaken their strength; If His Majesty returned the money and food to them, instead of being grateful to His Majesty, they would become stronger than before. ”

After listening to this analysis, Li Cunmiao also had to admit that he was reasonable.

Since he had already thought about weakening the power of the feudal town, this would inevitably make the feudal commanders everywhere feel unhappy, so why pay back the money now? That would only put the imperial court in further danger and allow the feudal towns to continue to expand their power.

"In that case, let's not pay off the debts for the time being, and wait until the treasury is more abundant next year!" Li Cunqiao finally made a decision.

"Your Majesty Shengming!" Jing Jinbai fell to the ground and praised loudly.

After retreating, he hurried back to his courtyard, where an ordinary-looking middle-aged man was already waiting anxiously.

After seeing Jing Jin, the middle-aged man asked expectantly, "Lord Jing, how are things going?" ”

"Brother Yang, don't worry, how can a certain family do things? It's just that in order to convince His Majesty, a certain family spent a lot of money and paid a lot of money, so they invited all the friends in the palace to come forward and finally persuaded Your Majesty. What is the cost of this......" Jing Jin chuckled lightly and said in a long accent.

"Lord Jing can rest assured, how dare the small one let the adults break the bank? I don't know how much it costs, but the small ones will be made up by adults. The middle-aged man's face flashed with joy, and then he said in a deep voice.

"It's easy to say, a certain family doesn't have much money, it's only 10,000."

"Ten thousand? It's a shame that you dare to speak! The middle-aged man scolded secretly in his heart, but his face did not show it at all, he nodded and said: "More than 10,000 yuan, the money on the lower body is not enough, but Lord Jing can rest assured, the small one will send the money in a few days." ”

"Very good, if there is anything to do in the future, you can come to me, the price will naturally be fair, after all, we are friends!" Jing Jin said with a smile on his face.

The middle-aged man quickly said goodbye and left, and after arriving on the streets of Yecheng, he turned left and right for a long time before finally coming to a private house.

This house is indistinguishable from the others, with a few trees planted at the door, a dilapidated courtyard gate, and the sound of barking dogs from inside.

When I entered the back room, I saw an old man dressed in black with gray hair sitting at a table with his eyes closed.

"Lord Qiqi, everything has been done, but that Jingjin is insatiable, and he asked for 10,000 yuan as soon as he opened his mouth, but his subordinates have already agreed." The middle-aged man hurriedly stepped forward and said.

"Ten thousand? It's a little more. The old man frowned when he heard this, but then nodded again and said, "But as long as we can do our big things well, this price is still worth it." ”

"That's what my subordinates think, too." The middle-aged man replied.

The old man continued: "Well, I have long heard that the King of Jin, Li Cunqiao, favored the fortunate servants, but now it seems that it is not false at all!" For such an important matter, he actually obeyed the words of a servant, which was really stupid! ”

The middle-aged man smiled and said: "It's good to be dumb, if the King of Jin is not unconscious, I am afraid that it will be difficult for my army to destroy him." ”

When the old man heard this, he immediately laughed: "Not bad, not bad! ”

Yes, these two people are just ordinary residents in Yecheng on the surface, but in fact they have other identities, it turns out that they are both secret agents of the Changjian Capital of Wu State, and they have been settled in Yecheng for more than ten years, responsible for finding out news for Wu State, and at the same time making friends with some dignitaries.

This time, the Later Tang Dynasty encountered a serious financial crisis, and of course the people of the Long Sword Capital had to take the opportunity to sow discord, and try every means to make the Later Tang Dynasty centrifuge, if they could have civil strife, it would be better.

And to achieve the goal, what could be more convenient than bribing the cronies around Li Cunqiao?