"Why do you drink it when you know it's vinegar?"

Li Mao said: "To appease the thunderous wrath of the generals." ”

Yu Hualong turned around and glanced at the white-faced guy who shrunk his head: "Shouldn't you be punished for coming out of such a basket?" Li Mao said: "The general's majesty is too great, Li Mao, an outsider, is still frightened when he sees the general's tiger might, not to mention that he is a related person, please forgive him for his unintentional mistake." ”

Yu Hualong nodded, and said lightly: "Since you are the gold catcher of Chengwu County, you must be very familiar with the geography and folklore of Chengwu County, I will go to Chengwu County tomorrow, please be a guide." ”

Li Mao said: "Obey." ”

Yu Hualong was very satisfied with Li Mao's attitude, and took the initiative to raise his hand to say goodbye, and the panicked Li Mao and Zhang Ye hurriedly returned the salute.

Out of the guest room, the white-faced guy pounced on Li Mao and knelt down, knocked his head twice, and said: "The villain Cui Rang thank you for the grace of the golden envoy to save him, and the great kindness is unforgettable." Li Mao hurriedly picked up the guy and said with a smile: "The generals are in a bad mood and are just losing their temper, it's not worth anything." Cui Rang said: "I don't know what the gold envoy knows, these garrisons have always been lawless, often violate the ban to enter the city to eat, drink and make trouble, and it is common to hurt people, last month we had a guy here who made them break their legs, and they still can't get up from lying down." ”

As he was talking, a steward rushed over, pointed at Cui Rang's nose and scolded: "I'm still grinding my teeth here, my eyebrows are burning, why don't you go and move the wine quickly!" Cui Rang didn't dare to stay, said goodbye and hurriedly ran away.

Zhang Ye looked at Cui Rang's back, shook his head, sighed, and said to Li Mao with a smile: "You see that he is down today, but he has been wide before." He was the eldest grandson of the Dengzhou house of the Cui family in Qinghe, inherited 100,000 pieces of family assets from his parents, and kept a good life, but he went to learn to do business overseas, the business was not fine, the people were not observed, and he was coaxed by the villain, and he lost his ancestral business in a few years, and he had no face to stay in Dengzhou, so he moved to Caozhou, and lost his entanglement, helpless and scattered on the streets, I saw that he was pitiful and raised him here, but you see, what can you do, you can send vinegar as wine, and he deserves to be unlucky, and he deserves to be unlucky, and he met this gang of killing gods. ”

After nagging around, Zhang Ye bowed to Li Mao and said, "Brother Maohua, I want to congratulate you." ”

"Where does the joy come from?"

"This is unknown, think about it, if the new army town is built in Chengwu, isn't your brother the first to get the moon near the water."

Li Mao listened to the clouds and fog, and his face was dazed. Zhang Ye further explained: "You may not know it, but recently there are rumors that the imperial court is going to divide Ziqing Road into four, Zi, Qing, Deng, Mi, Lai, Qi, Yun, and Yanba Prefectures; assigned Caozhou to Biansong, and built a Xuanwu army festival in Bianzhou; assigned Puzhou to Zheng Hua, and built a righteous army in Huazhou; Haizhou and Yizhou were assigned to Xu Si, and the Wuning Army was established as an envoy, and the seat of governance was in Xuzhou. Alas, it's only to blame that our Ziqing is too big and rich, and there are always some people in the court who want to find our stubble. ”

Li Mao frowned, he didn't believe it very much, the Li family has been running Ziqing for more than 50 years, deep-rooted, after Li Shigu served as the envoy of the festival, he accumulated wealth and goods, trained soldiers, and his power was booming, he did not rebel against the imperial court, and the imperial court had recited Amitabha Buddha, how could he take the initiative to stir up trouble? It's just that considering that he is new to the city and doesn't know the inside story, Li Mao didn't argue.

Zhang Ye saw that Li Mao didn't speak, and he was proud in his heart, so he continued to say according to his own train of thought: "Think about it, if Caozhou is assigned to the Xuanwu Army, wouldn't it be wishful thinking for Yu Hualong to want to build a new military city in Caozhou? It took a lot of financial, material, and mental resources to build a new city, and when the time came, the court made a wedding dress for someone else, not only the city was gone, but it was also pasted with thousands of troops, who would want to do such a stupid thing. ”

Speaking of this, Li Mao interrupted Zhang Ye and said with a smile: "Brother Zhang, this is a matter of swallowing the words, since he is hindered by people in Caozhou and can't build it, what's the use of going to Chengwu County, Chengwu is also under the rule of Caozhou, as long as Yunzhou doesn't let it go, how dare we make a mistake." ”

Zhang Ye said: "Otherwise, Chengwu County was under the jurisdiction of Yanzhou in the early years, and it was only under the name of Caozhou for ten years. At that time, this new military city in Chengwu County was the best way to say! I dare to guarantee that as long as Yu Hualongken builds the new city in Chengwu, Yunzhou will be able to agree. ”

Li Mao nodded, Zhang Ye's words were also reasonable, but he said: "I don't understand something, since Yu Hualong is a soldier and horse envoy in front of the ya, he should be a close confidant of Xianggong, why can't he guess Shangguan's mind in the face of such a major right and wrong?" ”

Zhang Ye smiled slightly and said: "It is true that he is a soldier and horse envoy in front of the Ya, but he is not a Jiedu Guard, and our rule in Ziqing is that if there is no official or military general, he will not be considered a cronie." He has the ability to do this, but his background is a little disgraceful, and he turned out to be a pirate......"

From Zhang Ye's mouth, Li Mao learned that Yu Hualong was originally a pirate who crisscrossed the East China Sea, using Mizhou as a base to raid Silla and Japan in the east, Haizhou and Yangzhou in the south, and Liaodong in the north. Later, Li Shigu's father Li Na was trapped in Mizhou with a strategy, and had to return to the imperial court, Li Na reorganized his department into the Ziqing Qing Navy, and appointed Yu Hualong as a soldier and horse envoy to clean up coastal pirates. Yu Hualong is good at using soldiers, and he was born in a family of pirates, and he has his own advantages in dealing with pirates.

In the past two years, the pirates in Ziqing have been basically eliminated, and the Qing navy has also grown stronger and stronger in the suppression of bandits, with more than 10,000 people, becoming the only foreign town army in Ziqing that can compete with the Pinglu army, which has caused Li Shigu to be uneasy.

Yu Hualong was naturally unwilling to sit back and secretly instigated the Qing Navy to "sabotage", resulting in the resurgence of pirates along the coast.

After several rounds of fighting, the two reached a compromise, and Li Shigu agreed to let Yu Hualong return to the Qing Navy, and concurrently serve as the envoy of Caozhou Chengnanguan as the envoy of the former soldiers. Yu Hualong agreed to carry out a major slimming of the Qing navy, reducing the number of troops from 10,000 to 4,000, and transferring Caozhou from Mizhou. The Qing navy was good at naval warfare, abandoned ships and landed, and its combat effectiveness was greatly curbed, and it no longer posed a threat to Li Shigu's Pinglu army.

Caozhou Chengnanguan was originally just a fort, the place was small, the city defense was dilapidated, and it was impossible to garrison 4,000 troops. Yu Hualong proposed to build a new military town in Caozhou, the reason was reasonable, and Li Shigu was inconvenient to refuse, but the two began to wrestle around the location issue.

In the late spring and early summer, Yu Hualong and Ziqing Jiedu judge Li Gongdu and Jiedu staff officer Jia Zhiyan came to Caozhou to inspect the construction site, and the three of them each fancy a piece of land, Yu Hualong's favorite land is located in Cao Nanshan in the east of Jiyin County, Jia Zhiyan's favorite location is located in Su Xiaodu in Chengwu County, and Li Gongdu takes a fancy to Daya Mountain in Nanhua County, northwest of Caozhou City. The three of them argued, no one could convince anyone, went back to Yunzhou to ask Jiedu to make Li Shigu decide, Li Shigu sent his brother, Jiedu Inspector Li Yi to Caozhou to investigate on the spot, Li Yi tended to build the new city in Caonan Mountain in the east of Caozhou.

However, when meeting with the local government to discuss the matter, Jiyin County cried poverty, saying that the government treasury was empty and could not get the compensation for the demolition under Cao Nanshan, and asked the military government to allocate the demolition money. There are 300 households at the foot of Cao Nanshan who need to be relocated, and the demolition money is undoubtedly a large expense.

After the setback in Jiyin County, Yu Hualong turned to advocate building the city in Nanhua County, the local officials did not cry poverty, but secretly encouraged the people near Daya Mountain to rise up to oppose it, and thousands of people blocked the road and demanded that the military generals who inspected the army compensate for the wheat seedlings that were trampled by the horses' hooves, and the attitude was very bad, and the two sides suddenly clashed, and both sides were injured.

Yunzhou vetoed the construction of a city in Nanhua County under the pretext of discord between the military and the people, and the only place left for Yu Hualong to choose was Su Xiaodu, Chengwu County, which was the location of the city that Jia bluntly said, Yu Hualong was not satisfied, and the issue of the location of the new city was shelved.

After the winter, Yunzhou was rumored that the imperial court was going to split Ziqing, Yu Hualong felt that the opportunity to break away from Li Shigu had come, so he rushed to Caozhou to carry out activities, and wanted to settle the problem of the location of the new city as soon as possible. If it weren't for the Caozhou judicial army, Wang Xun arrived in time to mediate, and it almost caused a rush.

Although Zhang Yeguan is not big, he is a close confidant of Caozhou Assassin Shi, and he has the opportunity to understand these insiders, and he has no door on his mouth after drinking a few glasses of wine, coupled with his frivolous nature and love to show off, but Li Mao has learned a lot of unknown inside information.