"Yuan Chang, have you been doing well all these years?"

Qiang Yuanming had just arrived in the capital, and the first thing he did was to entertain Cai Jing, who was currently the chief secretary of Liunequan.

Cai Jing raised his glass, "Hidden season, I can't imagine that I haven't seen you for a few years, but my demeanor is still the same." ”

"It's far inferior to Yuan Chang, you can ride the horse." Qiang Yuanming's words were faintly filled with envy and jealousy, but the old friendship made him not have to worry about too many words.

The two of them are Jinshi who were admitted at the same time, and Qiang Yuanming is still up and down in the sea of election, but Cai Jing is already a Beijing official. Since Xining was admitted to the Jinshi in three years, Cai Jing only did six years of selection and successfully became an official, and this speed is actually running on a horse.

"The foolish brother was just lucky, and he met Xiong Botong." Cai Jing smiled slightly, and his handsome smile stunned the prostitute who had just walked in and was about to sing a song.

Over the years, the Great Song Dynasty has been in the process of expanding its territory and has achieved success in three directions.

One is the Hehuang Extension Border in the northwest dominated by Wang Shao, which is the most effective model; One is the south, Jingnan, which is in charge of Zhang Dan, not only pacified the Jingnan mountain barbarians, but also easily beat back the 100,000 Jiaozhi army; The last one was in the southwest, led by Kumamoto Kumabotsu, who led the pioneering action against the southwestern Yi.

Compared with Wang Shao and Zhang Dun, Kumamoto is lower in fame and official position, and his merits are inferior. However, Cai Jing wanted to accept Kumamoto's favor, and he won the praise of Kumamoto who came to inspect the place when he was the official of the Shuzhou regiment, saying that he was pure in learning and doing, and soon after he got out of the bitter place on Kuizhou Road and returned to Beijing. Now Cai Jing is the master of Liunequan. Although the position is still not high, it is located in an extremely important position and is in charge of the selection and dispatch.

Qiang Yuanming wanted to invite Cai Jing, and naturally while reminiscing about the old friendship, he also had another idea. Now outside the Que Pavilion of Liunequan, a group of officials to be elected can't nod their heads to Cai Jing, the main bookkeeper, but they are also respectful. And the prostitutes who came uninvited, drinking and sitting at the table, singing songs, were also glancing at Cai Jing with their eyes—albeit for another reason.

Qiang Yuanming, who looked a little unsatisfactory and was still rolling in the sea of selection, was bored for a while, and looked left and right towards the street downstairs. Suddenly, I saw a group of riders hugging an official wearing a three-rank costume, straddle the horse and pass downstairs. There was another person next to him, and he looked at the past, but it was Qiang Yuanming who had seen him from afar, and it was next to the king of Wang Anshi's family.

Wang Yan had just passed away, and Wang was still in service. But now he has replaced Mai and changed into auspicious clothes, what is the reason for this, just look at the group of people he is with, and the reason is unknown. And at a young age, he was wearing a purple robe and a rhino belt and a goldfish bag tied around his waist, which naturally would not be someone else, and there was only one outlier among the courtiers.

"Yuan Chang, is that one Han Yukun?" Qiang Yuanming pointed to the purple-robed dignitary downstairs.

Cai Jingyi lowered his head, and when he saw Wang Anshi's second son, a person next to him also met his eyes. The memory of passing by in the West Taiyi Palace in the old year suddenly became clear again, "It's him!" It's Han Yukun!"

Let the little guy who was guarding outside the box take the money to invite the prostitute who sang the song to go out, Cai Jing said: "He is going back to Guangxi." ”

"About Annan, the chief should have heard about it, right?" Qiang Yuanming leaned closer, and his voice was lowered.

Cai Jing nodded, picked up the wine glass and moistened his throat. The Khitan helped fight Fengzhou, which came out of the palace after the early dynasty today. Since the Khitan is unstable, the Hebei army cannot move lightly.

Qiang Yuanming said with a smile: "Han Yukun calculated and calculated, but he didn't expect that the Khitans would send troops to aid Western Xia. At present, the troops of the northern roads cannot be mobilized at will, and the western army that can move south is only 5,000. ”

"One thousand and five can break 100,000, and five thousand can't sweep the Shenglong Mansion?" Cai Jing asked rhetorically.

"That's because the Jiaozhi army has been tired under the city of Yongzhou, and the credit is Su Mian, who stuck to Yongzhou, and Su Ziyuan, who persuaded Guangyuan to be handsome, and it was not all Han Gang's ability. There are only 5,000 Western Army, plus 1,500 Jingnan Army, and the rest are all indiscriminate. ”

"Yin Ji, do you think Han Yukun can't do it?" Cai Jing asked slowly.

Qiang Yuanming opened his mouth, but he didn't dare to say no. After so many years, so many things have happened, and now no one can underestimate Han Gang, "Straight bachelor, transfer envoy, if you can't do it, the imperial court will really promote him in vain." ”

Cai Jing looked out of the building, and Han Gang and Wang were already far away.

Han Gang is five years younger than Cai Jing. But Han Gang is now a straight bachelor. Cai Jing knew that he wanted to climb to that position, even if he had a first-class luck, it would take almost ten or twenty years of hard work, and it was impossible not to be jealous. However, Cai Jing is an extremely realistic person, and he has no plans to get along with Han Gang, and he will never blurt out the jealousy in his heart.

Qiang Yuan knew that Cai Jing's temperament was in the Dao Dao, so he didn't say anything more, turned around and asked, "Didn't Han Gang's father say that he had arrived in the capital a few days ago, is it in charge of you, Yuan Chang?" ”

Cai Jing smiled indifferently: "I heard that in the six states of Xihe, there are as many as 10,000 hectares of newly opened fields in recent years, and the ditches opened up add up to thousands of miles, irrigating hundreds of thousands of acres of fields. Although it must be exaggerated, Xihe Road has been self-sufficient for two or three years, and this point cannot be faked. The Taoshan supervisor in Minzhou is making iron money, and the money and grain can now be prepared on the road. And Xihe Road is not just rich and grainy, the specialties there, presumably you also know the way in the hidden season,"

"Hexi Jibei." Qiang Yuanming didn't know.

"This is all the credit of Han Gang's father, the families on Xihe Road have made an unknown amount of money by relying on this Jibeibu, Wang Shao, Gao Zunyu, and Han Gangke are all involved in it." Cai Jing sighed, "Now I heard that several guilds in the capital are going to learn from Xihe Road to hold the Keju League, and the leading cotton store is tens of thousands of pounds down, buying a field and a house. The wealthy households in Xihe are all worth hundreds of thousands of yuan. ”

Qiang Yuanming understood what Cai Jing wanted to say: "I didn't expect that Han Gang's father and son were not only prosperous in official luck, but also prosperous in finance. ”

"Millions of acres of fields, more than 1,000 miles of large and small ditches, of course Han Qianyi can change from a candidate to a Beijing official, but I recently heard that he resigned from the new appointment of the East Court of the judge, claiming that he was too old and sick to do anything, and planned to return to his hometown."

"With Han Gang's son, it is better to go home and be an old man than to be outside in the wind and rain."

"It would be nice if Fujian could do it as easily as the Xihe River." Cai Jing somehow suddenly sighed.

"Yuan Chang, you're talking about Mulanpi, right?" As Cai Jing's close friend, how could Qiang Yuanming not guess what Cai Jing was talking about now, "Qian Siniang committed suicide, Lin Congshi also lost his family business, I don't know if Li Hong, who you said to move, can repair Mulanpi?" ”

Cai Jing is a native of Xianyou County, Xinghua Army, Fujian. The Xinghua Army has Mulan Mountain, a river that flows out of Mulan Mountain, called Damu Creek, also known as Mulan Creek. This Mulan Creek is only hundreds of miles long, but because it originates from a high place, the stream is turbulent. When a heavy rain falls on the mountain, Mulan Creek will swell and cause flooding. When the tide rises, the sea water will invade again, and it will be traced up the Mulan River to close to Xianyou County, turning the fields on both sides of the river into salt brine land.

There are floods in spring and summer, sea tides in autumn, and the disasters of the Xinghua Army continue year after year, and how many people want to build a seawall for this purpose to stop the seawater; Build a dam so that the flood does not overflow – that's why Mulan Pi was built.

Cai Jing also wanted to repair Mulanpi, and Cai Xiang had previously built Luoyang Wan'an Bridge in Quanzhou, which gave him an inspiration.

Cai Jing learned from the letter he received from Li Hong that Li Hong and his assistant Feng Zhiri had identified the key to the first two failures, and for this purpose they had chosen another location where the stream was shallow, the tide was difficult to reach, and the bottom of the river was made of stones.

It's just that the construction of Mulan Pi is too difficult, the previous two times were destroyed in one fell swoop, Li Hong was invited by Cai Jing deeply and earnestly, and he brought seventy or eighty thousand yuan with him as funds, but in less than a year, the money has been used up.

"The water potential of Mulan Creek is too urgent, Qian Siniang and Lin Congshi failed twice before, both of which were not built well, and they were washed away by the water after the worst. Li Hong wrote a letter the day before yesterday. The letter said that he had worked out with several master craftsmen how to build the dam so that it would not be washed away. It's just that to build the weir, at least 30,000 to 50,000 pieces of boulders need to be used, and just one piece is picked from the mountains and transported to the Mulan Creek, which is always more. Just buying these stones cost all the money in Li Hong's hand. It is necessary to build the weir and dam manually, and the embankment also needs to be repaired manually, in addition to digging ditches and washing salt brine, at least six or seven hundred thousand yuan. ”

"Six or seven hundred thousand?!" Qiang Yuanming was taken aback, this is a large amount, "Yuan Chang, you may be able to raise it again?" ”

"It's hard!" Cai Jing shook his head and sighed, "Brother Fool has already been on the book yesterday, and I want to ask the Son of Heaven to give Mulan Pi a name, so that I can move more people to come." ”

Compared with the other houses of the Xianyou Cai family, Cai Jing's vein can only be regarded as an ordinary rich family, and he can't make much money. However, Cai Jing is quite famous in his hometown, and when he was the captain of Qiantang, he said that Li Hong would continue to build Mulanpi. But now that the money is gone, if you want to continue to boil this matter, you can only rely on the township.

"But you can't expect too much......" Qiang Yuanming also sighed. Six or seven hundred thousand yuan is enough to bankrupt a few wealthy families who are willing to pay.

"Actually, it's not too much. It is said that in the Keju League in Xihe Road, each family competes for a top spot, and even the Fan Department is throwing tens of millions, and the number of bets to win is more. The color of Cai Jing's eyes almost turned into a dark color of copper coins, "If you can take a head from it, presumably the income of the official will never be less." ”

Qiang Yuanming blinked: "...... Yuan Chang, are you planning to open a juju league in Fujian?! ”

Cai Jing smiled freely, and the row of white teeth that were exposed seemed to be flashing: "Don't you think it's useful?" Imagine where did the money come from for the cattle and horses and farm tools of the Xihe River? ”

"Tempting gambling, immoral, ...... history"

Qiang Yuanming's words came to his mouth, and when he saw Cai Jing smiling, he suddenly realized, how could Cai Jing go to the book by himself? His mouth can bring the dead back to life, and he can bring a fool to control the Keju League to make a profit from it, and if something bad happens, he can also pull himself out. However, there must be a lot of people interested in this matter, such as a few tiles in the capital, in which cockfights, dogs, sumo wrestling, but there is a background of Kaifeng Mansion.

Perhaps, it can really give him success! ’