Southern Andong Province, Liaocheng County,

In the inner city of the Luo clan, on the wall of the head of the family's mansion, Luo Zhanrong looked at the fire and the reflection of the blades outside, while most of the people around him, although they wore armor and held the blade in their hands, showed a kind of despair and decline like mourning. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

It wasn't until this moment that he deeply realized that he was wrong, and he was really wrong, thinking that he could keep this family business by defeating and expelling all competitors and potential challengers.

But I didn't expect that in the end, all people wanted was a puppet that could stand on the table. All these years of calculation and hard work are like the biggest jokes and sarcasm.

In order to seize and keep the position of his family, he can be said to have tried his best to make calculations, paid countless costs and broke through the bottom limit again and again, and now it seems that he is just making a wedding dress for others.

Because he ascended to the throne through abnormal means, while wantonly cutting off dissidents, in order to suppress the opposition forces and dissidents from within the Luo family, he had to promote and reuse a large number of new people with foreign surnames to balance the conservative forces of their own family, and at the same time to sweep away and subdue those detached vassals, ministers and acting officials, but he didn't expect that this was also in the hands of those people.

I don't know when, the soldiers of my own family, who I trusted and relied on the most, have become less reliable, and in the process of receiving a steady stream of other support, those retainers and subordinates who swear by them have also become both ends of the head or fear.

Just before he secretly accumulated strength and wanted to gradually exclude the internal external forces and interference forces, the other party had already foreseen that there was a preemptive strike without warning.

So that when he suffered again, except for these people trapped in his family, there was no one willing to respond and support him.

Thinking of this, Luo Zhanrong turned to a young man and said in a low voice.

"Take the seal letter of the upper family and go to Huaidong."

"What..."

There was a certain look of shock on the young man's face.

"Isn't that the enemy of the family?"

"It is precisely because of the opponent that those traitors will not expect that there is so much life."

"After all, no matter how much dispute there is, that Yuanzong is also a descendant of Luo Xiangong."

"No matter how things change, there will still be a place for the survival and continuation of the family."

"It's better than letting this great foundation and the bloodline of my family be cut off from the hands of these foreign thieves."

"If you hear the bad news that I'm waiting for..."

"In the name of revenge for the Luo family in Liaodong. Let's ask them to send troops again. ”

"Your Excellency."

The young man did not seem to have recovered from the shock.

"We can do our best."

"As the last head of the Luo family and the contemporary protector of the capital."

Luo Zhanrong looked at him with a wry smile and said

"A certain self-dang and his family died. Otherwise, how can those traitors be easy. ”

At this, he showed a forced smile.

"Don't worry, there are enough soldiers and food in this city, and there are a lot of relatives who want to obey to the death."

"Maybe I'll hold out until you come back with the team."

After a few hours, looking at the distant fires and noisy noises in the night, the soldiers and civilians guarding the city couldn't help but let out some kind of exhilarating whistling.

"The prince has already led the team to break out."

An old-faced guard hissed

"I'm ready for the next step."

After confirming the news, Luo Zhanrong, who was still full of sadness and determination, said sharply to these real cronies as if he had changed people.

"I'm going to change into the secret passage."

"I hope I can hold on longer."

"But this place can't be left for those traitors."

。。。。。。。。。。

And in Huaibei, in the new mansion in Xuzhou

Yu Yunwen, the magistrate of Zhihu Xing, has just reported to me a development and change that is both expected and unexpected.

It has only been a little more than a month since the return to Huaidong, and the population of the newly opened five states in the west has been rising, and at most thousands of people can be intercepted and contained in one day;

This is not some kind of population multiplication magic, but the flood of the Yellow River and the subsequent chain reaction of the follow-up effects, which directly or indirectly forced out the hidden populations in Duqian Province and Henan Province.

People who were not drowned or trapped spontaneously fled to the higher terrain to the east and had not yet been flooded, so the new boundary line with more than a dozen forts in Yanbian as the core, and the corresponding pressure of quarantine and screening suddenly became greater.

Therefore, I had to set up several new garrison battalions and take a bus or boat from Xuzhou to the local area to maintain order and suppress the situation.

Although these newly acquired populations can only be used as the most basic labor resources until the corresponding quarantine, screening and transformation are completed, they are still a good and unexpected thing for the overall operation of Huaibei Province.

At present, the agricultural output of Huaidong and even Huaibei has been increasing at a steady rate year by year, even if it encounters local poor harvests or periodic small years, it has not been able to slow down this momentum; The biggest reason is that there is still a large amount of undeveloped land in the territory.

At first, it was reclaimed on both sides of the road or near the city with convenient transportation, and then these points and lines gradually expanded outward to become larger points and areas, and then let these extended fields and villages be connected and turned round one by one, and gradually filled the blank space in the original six states.

Therefore, on the premise of a relatively stable external environment, the continuous development and restoration of human resources under the continuous input of human resources will naturally offset the changes in profits and losses brought about by various production reductions and poor harvests.

Although obtaining a qualified army is not a matter of leap and bound, the corresponding base of potential labor and food output is as much as possible, and the more the merrier.

At least, in this era, land, population, and food have constituted the most basic elements and basic prerequisites for the hegemony of any emperor since ancient times.

And Ke Shanmeng reported that there are also changes from business.

Although more than a dozen businesses and clubs have been expelled and banned since last year, they have ulterior motives or suspicious backgrounds; However, in the past few months, there are still a considerable number of businessmen from Fujian, Yizhou, Silla, Andong, Fusang, and even from the coastal provinces of the south of the Yangtze River such as Liangzhejiang, all of whom have appeared in Huaidong to buy land and buy real estate, and make a posture of long-term operation.

Although they are all small and medium-sized businesses that are not in the climate, they obviously also represent a certain value and confidence in the good prospects; Of course, this is also somewhat related to the phased victory of the Second Northern Expedition that the imperial court has just achieved.

According to the special analysis and calculation of several economic groups of my staff group.

Although most of the entire northern land has been dilapidated, it still has a lot of potential benefits and resources to expect, so it has become the first choice to use the geographical advantages and relatively stable local environment of Huaidong as a springboard to enter the huge Central Plains and even the northern land.

However, these diversified commercial elements are still beneficial to balance a large group of old merchants in Dengzhou within Huaibei Province, which can be said to be a matter of two choices.

Although they are still quite compliant, they do not show a tendency to transgress or actively pursue more rights and interests under the Huaizhen system; However, the best way to maintain the current excellent situation is to prevent the gradual elimination of the system and not give people the opportunity to make mistakes.

"What, the Donghai Society sent representatives to come, hoping to reconcile with Huaizhen."

I shook my head slightly, this was an afterthought a little too late.

According to the news and intelligence I have been gathering, the situation of the Donghai Society has deteriorated somewhat in recent years, and life is really a little difficult, otherwise I would not have made up my mind to come to my newly established Huaizhen.

Of course, this result is not accidental, but a certain kind of disputes and contradictions that will inevitably occur under the general trend.

To say that the scope of the Beijing camp of the Donghai Society is almost all-encompassing, but the real profit is mainly concentrated in two aspects;

One is to go to the ocean-going navigation trade between New Island and Macao, through a series of large and small islands on the ocean as a springboard, and the New Island mainland and the large and small Macao exchange of circular trade routes, although the benefits are rich; However, the investment cycle is long and risky, because a round trip can take more than or even several months, so there are probably only a few trial ships in a year. Other times, it's a matter of probability and luck.

Then there are the islands and continents in the South China Sea, to the coast of the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea on the mainland, and in the near-shore transit trade activities along the rivers to the inland; This is also the business with a short cycle and the fastest results.

Therefore, at the height of its prosperity, the Tokai Society could even obtain some kind of permission to organize an army, and from time to time invade the coastal inland of the north to attack the dissidents and those who refused to cooperate, and plundered countless people everywhere and returned with a full load of people;

However, the Northern Dynasties could not effectively restrain them, so they could only set up beacon fire outposts as police and deploy troops to strictly defend and defend passively.

However, because of the drag of the two Northern Expeditions, coupled with the turmoil and changes in the southeastern provinces, such as the banknote changes in Liangzhejiang and Jiangdong Province, almost all the resources and financial resources invested by the Guangfu commercial group headed by the Donghai Society in the interior of the Jiangnan provinces were lost.

Under the turmoil, no one has the heart to farm and mine, generating resources and market demand; The inland areas of central Fujian, which produce precious metals, minerals and timber, are also occupied by the Great Cloud Sect, and the trade activities and interests in the coastal areas have been greatly affected, and have seriously shrunk a lot.

In addition, according to the geographical convenience, Huaidong intervened in the foreign trade of the three feudatories of the East China Sea and even the Andong region, so the corresponding commercial interests and trade activities in the north were further squeezed and affected.

Originally, there was a Dengzhou Town as a transition and buffer, but after the fall of Dengzhou Town, they had not even cultivated and supported their agents on the Northland Continent, and they had already been replaced by the strong rise of Huaidong Town.

However, the Tokai Society itself has a big family and a large business, and the direction of expenditure and the number of people to support are also very large, but it will not be reduced for a while and a half. Moreover, it has to provide military expenses and other resources for Jiang Ningxing many times, and the reconstruction and renovation of the palace project in Stone Town alone has served at least half of it in the name of the Donghai Society.

Now, after all these years of private competition and confrontation, is it finally a little bowed?

Of course, the key point is that Jiangning, as a compromise and compensation, gave Huaizhen a legitimate official name and righteousness, plus the Jiaodong Peninsula itself has the natural geographical advantages of sea and land trade and transit port.

After the importance and status of Huaizhen also rise, it is obvious that if the confrontation continues, there will be no chance and advantage for the Donghai Society, or in other words, it is some vested interest group behind it, and the possibility of forcing the Donghai Society to reconcile with it is not small.

Thinking of this, I looked at the figures in the courtyard who were feeding panda buns again.

I couldn't help but sigh in my heart, this new little guy is really a little heartless, so quickly adapted to the environment, or accepted this status quo. (To be continued.) )