By this time in March of the second year of Chongzhen, Li Banghua, the minister of military aircraft, had already spread to Shanxi Province to join the Jin Governor for the suppression of bandits. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

And Li Banghua before entering Fukou Cheng, he had also asked his general Li Bei to send an outpost to Dongyang Pass to report the news, because when he and Lu Xiangsheng led the army, trekked hard for two days, and finally walked out of Fukou Cheng, when the group came to Dongyang Pass, Yuan Jixian, the deputy envoy of Shanxi military garrison, Guo Jingsong, the prefect of Lu'an Prefecture, and Yan Siyin, the old eunuch of Shen Wangfu who was appointed by Zhu Chengyao, the king of Shen, to wait for him, had already been waiting in Dongyang Pass.

Of course, at this moment, Zhu Chengyao, the king of Shen, didn't know that Li Banghua, the minister of military aircraft, had entered the Jin Governor this time, and brought him and Shen Wangfu the tasks assigned by the emperor, if he knew, it is estimated that he would not have sent a eunuch so easily.

But Li Banghua can't talk nonsense with a eunuch.

At that moment, Li Banghua led Lu Xiangsheng to meet with the Shanxi officials who came to greet him, greeted each other, and let Yuan Jixian and others lead the way, and then took 8,000 troops and 3,000 people under his command to escort a large number of military supplies, food, baggage and other materials into Dongyang Pass.

The appearance of Dongyang Pass is much better than that of Fukou Pass on the opposite side, although the troops are still thin, but at least there are formed Shanxi township soldiers to guard.

In addition, Yuan Jixian, the newly appointed deputy envoy of Shanxi's military garrison, is quite competent, and since he was transferred last year, he has always adhered to the will of the imperial court to train troops, and has recruited 2,000 young and strong township soldiers in Lu'an Mansion, which was originally weak in troops, and repaired the city pass while training.

And because three months ago, the thieves in northern Shaanxi entered Jin in a big way, and the prefectures and counties along the Huang area of Shanxi were quickly occupied, and all kinds of disturbing news came one after another, which also made these state capitals that had not yet experienced the military disaster feel sincerely worried and afraid, and Zhu Chengyao, the king of Shen, also asked Guo Jingsong, the prefect of Lu'an, and Yuan Jixian, the deputy envoy of Shanxi's military garrison, to inquire about the situation and discuss countermeasures.

Therefore, the overall situation on the side of Lu'an Mansion is better than that of Zhangde Mansion on the other side of Taihang Mountain, at least the previous situation of laxity and slackness has changed greatly, and it has begun to be vigilant and vigilant against thieves fleeing eastward.

It was on the night that Li Banghua led his descendants to the mining camp and Lu Xiangsheng's Tianxiong camp to arrive in Licheng, Shanxi, that Yuan Jixian and Guo Jingsong reported to him that the main force of Shanxi thieves had left Yongning Prefecture City and coerced the people into the mountains to prepare for war.

After the report, Yuan Jixian said worriedly: "The elder does not know, Shanxi has been in a major drought since last year, half of the farmland has been harvested so badly, and it is extremely difficult for the government to collect taxes, silver, money and grain, and the slightest carelessness may provoke a civil uprising. Once this happens, the consequences are even more dire.

As the deputy envoy of Shanxi's military garrison, Xia Guan also agreed with the decision of the governor of the province, Lord Zhang, if he did not temporarily stop the construction of fortress fortifications along the Yellow Line, where would the money and grain come from to help the victims.

"And if you ignore the victims of Shanxi, even if the thieves in northern Shaanxi do not enter Shanxi, then Shanxi will also fall into chaos.

"Yes, the lower official has to say a word to the elder of the pavilion, the situation of the money and grain in the treasury of the Shanxi clan is very difficult, and the money and grain of the elder of the pavilion to enter the Jin Governor to suppress the bandits, I am afraid that he must make plans as soon as possible."

Yuan Jixian was born in the Apocalypse period, in March of the first year of Chongzhen, he was promoted to the deputy envoy of Shanxi by the Ministry of Rites, and after the Northern Rebellion in Northern Shaanxi, because of the emperor's order, he was transferred to the deputy envoy of Shanxi's military garrison.

Because he is also from Jiangxi, as early as when he was in Beijing, he met Li Banghua, the highest-ranking official among Jiangxi officials many times.

If you count it like this, Yuan Jixian can also be regarded as Li Banghua's own person in Shanxi officialdom, so when it comes to talking, he doesn't have so many scruples.

After listening to Yuan Jixian's words, Li Banghua nodded, his face was expressionless, he knew that what Yuan Jixian said made sense.

Since ancient times, all the soldiers and horses have not moved, the grain and grass first, and now the will of the imperial court has been transmitted to Shaanxi, Yansui, Shanxi, Henan, seeing that the army of 40,000 people is about to gather in Taiyuan, Lu'an, Shanxi and other places, at that time, if there is not enough food and salary, especially not enough grain and grass, then this battle will not be easy to fight.

He knew that the situation in Shanxi was not good, but he didn't expect it to be like this.

It seems that the emperor let himself keep it as a hindsight, and the method he used only when he had to use it as a last resort had to be used in advance!

Li Banghua pondered these questions, and after a long time, he said, "What Linhou said is right. Your Majesty sent me here to exterminate the thieves, but if the officials forced the people to rebel and cause even greater trouble in order to suppress the thieves' money and food problems, wouldn't it be contrary to Your Majesty's original intention? However, before the official left, His Majesty had already planned in advance. ”

Yuan Jixian, the word Jitong, the number Linhou. As a cabinet veteran and minister of military aircraft, Li Banghua naturally called him very cordial.

Guo Jingsong, the prefect of Lu'an, was still a little apprehensive when he saw Yuan Jixian coming up and poured bitter water on the overseer ordered by the imperial court to talk about the difficulties, and he was still a little apprehensive in his heart, worried that this superintendent would take advantage of this to establish his authority and give these Shanxi officials a look.

However, now it seems that the relationship between Master Inspector and Yuan Bingbei is quite close, and he is secretly relieved and relieved at the moment.

Guo Jingsong and Yuan Jixian can be regarded as like-minded, the two of them have basically the same views on the current disaster situation in Shanxi, and both think that the current situation in Shanxi is like a pile of dry firewood, and someone is almost throwing a fire at it.

After Yuan Jixian pleaded his case to Li Banghua, the old superintendent of the cabinet, he learned that the imperial court was prepared for this situation, and he didn't say anything more at the moment, and Guo Jingsong, the prefect of Lu'an, accompanied Li Banghua for a while, and then left.

Yuan Jixian thought at this time that what Li Banghua said was that he had already prepared, referring to the fact that the imperial court had prepared a large amount of money and grain, and was just waiting to be transferred here, and it was not until soon after that he realized that he was very wrong.

In the next two days, Li Banghua, Lu Xiangsheng and others rested for a day at Dongyang Pass near Licheng, and then left a musket battalion of 500 people in the pass, and together with Yuan Jixian's garrison Kong Daoxing stationed here, they took on the task of guarding Dongyang Pass.

The musket battalion that stayed here was, of course, still from the Tianxiong battalion, and it was Lu Xiangsheng's fourth brother Lu Xiangtong who was ordered to lead this musket battalion to stay in Dongyang Pass.

Moreover, because of listening to the statement of the deputy envoy of Shanxi's military garrison, Lu Xiangsheng suddenly had some worries about the prospect of suppressing the bandits this time, and he took the initiative to leave Lu Xiangtong and his own Chinese army musket battalion to stay here, the purpose was to let the two ends of Fukou and Cheng firmly control in his hands, and at the critical moment, he could send people to quickly go out of the customs and go to the Daimyo's mansion to buy grain and grass.

Although Shanxi and Beizhili are only separated by a Taihang Mountain, the difference in climate is already very obvious, at least in Shaanxi and Shanxi when there is a drought for many years, Beizhili is not so serious.

Although there is also a drought and little rain, it is not a drop of rain, and because there are many rivers here, it is not difficult to reclaim the land for irrigation.

In the past two years, with the help of the opportunity of the imperial court to encourage the reclamation of farmland in Beizhili, Lu Xiangsheng was in the Daimyo Mansion, and later also recruited people on a large scale in Guangping Mansion and Shunde Mansion to reclaim the land, and settled a large number of Jin, Hebei and Henan refugees at the same time, the grain production was also considerable.

In particular, in the summer and autumn of last year, Lu Xiangsheng actively cooperated with the Agricultural Affairs Institute to vigorously promote high-yield crops such as sweet potatoes, corn, and potatoes in the Xinken area of the Yellow River, and achieved two bumper harvests.

In order to encourage more immigrants to continue cultivating these hardy and high-yield crops, Lu Xiangsheng, who was quite prescient, also took out a lot of silver to purchase, lest these things be cheaper after the harvest and fewer people would plant them in the coming year.

At the same time, under his strong advocacy, the taxes collected by the three prefectures of Shunde, Guangping, and Daimyo were not all silver, and were changed to taxes in kind such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn.

Therefore, the treasury of the three prefectures under Lu Xiangsheng was quickly filled for a while, but it was not silver, but sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn and other grains, and the treasury of the three prefectures really became a granary.

In fact, thanks to Lu Xiangsheng's actions, there was originally a famine in these prefectures and counties every year in February and March, but at this time this year, the treasury of the three prefectures had these coarse grains to sell out, which not only stabilized the price of other grains, but also avoided famine.

To this day, there is still surplus that can be used to suppress bandits, which is really a blessing in misfortune.

Although these sweet potatoes, potatoes and other things are coarse grains, when the army is short of food, it is also a good thing that can fill the stomach of the army and continue to fight.

Of course, Li Banghua agreed with Lu Xiangsheng's idea, and immediately asked Lu Xiangsheng to send someone to Fukou Pass to pass the order and reserve grain and grass at Fukou Pass in advance.

And at this time, Li Banghua also understood why Lu Xiangsheng was able to rise to a high position at a young age and was valued by the emperor.

Since then, Li Banghua's opinion of Lu Xiangsheng has improved many times, because in his opinion, only this kind of official who is really worried about state affairs and has a view of the overall situation is an official who is truly useful to the country and the people.