In the eighth year of Chongzhen, in mid-February, Xianyang!

Zhu Yuanzhang's army has not yet taken Xi'an, and at present, Xianyang is temporarily designated as the economic and political center of southern Shaanxi, and all the important administrative personnel of Zhu Jun's army are handling the government affairs at hand here.

Li Qingshui buried his head in a pile of copywriting, his eyes were dark, obviously he had not had a good rest for many days, and since he took over the pseudo post of "Shaanxi * Xibu Political Envoy", he has been doing his best to solve administrative problems.

I have to say that as a Donglin Party, he has a lot of advantages. Although he was only a fledgling county magistrate before, through the documents passed between the Donglin party members, and by absorbing and learning the various views expressed by his fellow party members on the world, his vision was much broader than that of ordinary county magistrates. Let's compare Cao Baoxiang, Cao Baoxiang's vision is limited to one county he manages. But Li Qingshui, a rising star of the Donglin Party, often looks at the perspective of the world.

Before he sat in the position of political envoy, he already had a certain understanding of the current public situation in Shaanxi, and he had heard a little about the officials in various places who were loyal, which were traitors, which corpses were vegetarians, and which were slightly talented, which enabled him to quickly start working after taking over the post of political envoy.

And the first thing he did was to promote local taro and sweet potatoes!

Taking advantage of the fact that it is spring, it is the time to sow the early soil taro, mobilize all the forces to promote the soil potato to every city occupied by Zhu Ba.

He didn't do it before he did it, but once he started doing it, he realized the "benefits of power", yes, he has power now!

Not long ago, he was just a small county magistrate, and his decree could not be out of the county seat he managed. Although he has thousands of retributions and thousands of ideas, he can only play in the small county of Baishui. wrote a letter to his mentor Qian Qianyi, wanting to ask Lao Qian to help promote the taro, but he was criticized for a while.

But now he doesn't need to ask anyone, he only needs to write a warrant ordering all the rich families and people in Huaxian County to change to planting taro, and the matter can be executed immediately! Zhu's soldiers walked into Huaxian with his warrant, who dared not listen?

When faced with ordinary court officials, some wealthy families like to pose as "I have a backstage." If you dare to move, I'll get rid of your black gauze hat", the petty officials who are not hard in the background really dare not move them, but these rich families are as well-behaved as rabbits in front of Zhu Jun, and as soon as the decree arrives, they immediately nod their heads. Do so.

Li Qingshui's decree was promoted surprisingly smoothly! Baishui, Chengcheng, and Dali have already promoted the taro, and there is no need to mention it, such as Luochuan, Yichuan, Pucheng, Huaxian and other places, and they are planted, but there is no obstacle at all.

Li Qingshui suddenly found that this was a good opportunity to achieve negative retribution! There is no dumping, no partisanship, no madmen who insist on turning good things into bad things in order to attack hostile parties, and no one stumbles behind their backs...... If he had really fallen into the vast, rotten, and bloated bureaucracy of the imperial court, he would not have been able to do so handily no matter what decrees he had enacted.

He was like a fish in water. He freely sprinkled taro and sweet potatoes on every inch of land occupied by the Zhu army, and in the dead of night, he would even secretly think that it would be nice if the territory occupied by the Zhu army was a little bigger, so that he could spread the new crops a little further.

He felt ashamed of his idea, and even blamed himself. But now that such an idea has germinated, how difficult is it to strangle it? Every midnight dream, he had to fantasize like this, and then slapped himself a few times.

Li Qingshui finished a stack of documents. The door opened, and Xia Erduo walked in wearing a county official uniform.

The two glanced at each other, and they could see the helplessness in each other's eyes, it turned out that after Li Qingshui was coerced to be the political envoy, Xia Erduo was also coerced to be the commander of Baishui County, taking over Li Qingshui's former position. When the two of them saw each other at this time, they couldn't help but feel embarrassed and embarrassed.

"Lord Li Xianzun!"

"Brother Xia County!"

The two called each other by their old names, both feeling awkward, and then sighed together.

"Erduo, why did you come here?" Li Qingshui simply called Xia Erduo by name.

Xia Erduo spread his hands and said: "I sent the taro over, I heard that Master Li needs a large amount of taro as seeds to cultivate in various counties, so I brought all the taro stored in Baishui." ”

Li Qingshui asked hesitantly, "Bai ...... Whitewater...... Are you okay now? ”

Xia Erduo nodded and said, "Master Li doesn't have to worry, Bai Shui is fine...... Alas, the two of us have been deceived so miserably, it turns out that there are no good people in Baishui for a long time, since several years ago, almost all the people of Baishui have joined Zhu Bajun, not so much that it is a county seat, not to mention that it was a thief cave from the beginning, it is impossible for Zhu Ba and his gang to do bad things in Baishui......"

Li Qingshui sighed: "When I first arrived in Baishui, I thought I had arrived at the treasure land, but I didn't expect to enter the thief's cave. ”

"Master Li doesn't have to blame himself! No one can imagine that the thief cave can be like that, and it is not your fault. Xia Erduo sighed lightly: "You see, not only have you been deceived, but I have also been deceived, the patrol press Yu Shi Jinlan has also been deceived, and the governor of the five provinces, Hong Chengchou, has not also been deceived?" We were wrong because we didn't expect thieves to have such means. ”

Li Qingshui was stunned for a moment, and sighed lightly: "Okay, now we are helping the thieves to turn the whole of southern Shaanxi into a thief cave like that......"

Speaking of this, the two looked at each other speechlessly, not knowing what to say.

Xia Erduo got up to say goodbye, Li Qingshui sent him out, he buried his head in the case file all day long, this was the first time he went out in a few days, I saw many people walking around on the streets of Xianyang City, most of them were poor people in tattered cloth clothes, a few days ago, I didn't see these people walking around in Xianyang, why in a blink of an eye, the city was all over the city?

Li Qingshui grabbed a Zhu soldier and asked, "What's the matter with these people?" ”

Although the soldier knew that Li Qingshui was a half-prisoner, he still said respectfully: "Lord Li is polite, these people are all from the poor villages in the poor counties in the west, and they want to come and join our army. ”

Li Qingshui suddenly realized: "It turned out that I came to join the gang!" ”

"Exactly!" The soldier said with a smile: "Our army has lost two large and small Cao, Hong Chengchou, the current reputation is extremely high, several battalions in the thirty-six battalions have sent us letters, to show respect and respect to us, the small group of thieves hiding in the nearby mountains and forests, have come out of the mountains to vote, only a month, our army has increased more than 4,000 recruits, and the number of recruits is still increasing rapidly. Even in the areas of northern Shaanxi controlled by the Hengtian King, the Mixed 100,000 and the Cupola Pillar, there are also small groups of Liukou who have come south to join our army, and they can't stop the Hengtian King, hahaha! ”

Li Qingshui didn't want to laugh when he heard this information, but he felt bored in his heart.

He turned his head to the soldiers who were following his ass and were in charge of monitoring him, and said, "Where is Zhu Ba now?" I want to see him! ”

The soldier smiled and said, "Brother Zhu is in the yamen in the center of Xianyang City, and he has an order that if Lord Li wants to see him, he can go to see him at any time." ”

Li Qingshui was not polite, and walked to the yamen with his feet. When I arrived at Yamen, I saw that Zhu Yuanzhang was here, and he and Yang Hong were busy with Xinding.

Li Qingshui walked closer, glared at Zhu Yuanzhang angrily and said, "What are you doing with so many messy recruits?" ”

"What do you say you want to take them in?" Zhu Yuanzhang said with a smile.

"Fight and rebel! That's why you brought them in, right? Li Qingshui said angrily: "But you also collected too much, right?" Your thief army has good military discipline, but if a large number of such unlimited recruits are recruited, the discipline of the army will quickly collapse, and the people will be taken in by you as soldiers, who will farm the land? ”

Zhu Yuanzhang chuckled and said: "I don't need you to teach this truth, you take care of your own government affairs." ”

"This is also a government affair! Livelihood! Li Qingshui said urgently.

Zhu Yuanzhang laughed: "Do you really think that I will accept people indiscriminately without limits?" After these newcomers are taken in, I will send people to inspect their character and combat effectiveness, and if they are not suitable for joining the army, I will give them a field and let them retire from the army for the people......" Speaking of this, Zhu Yuanzhang took out a list from his arms, which was densely packed with people's names, and he slapped this list into Li Qingshui's hand and said: "Take it, I will give you 2,000 peasant soldiers, you can do it yourself, and it is up to you to decide where to assign them." ”

Li Qingshui took the list, took the list and looked at it carefully, only to see that the title of the list read: "The following list is not suitable for joining the army, it is advisable to cultivate the ......" He waved the list in disbelief, and said stupidly: "You really give it to me?" ”

"Really give!"

"Aren't you a rebel like you afraid that there will be not enough soldiers under your command and want to coerce the whole world into thieves?" Li Qingshui said blankly.

Zhu Yuanzhang said: "If I am really the kind of thief you said, there are still people in Baishui who grow taro?" ”

Li Qingshui was dumbfounded.

Zhu Yuanzhang changed the topic and asked rhetorically: "I've been busy lately, and I haven't come to ask you about your work, how is the management of Shaanxi *xi entrusted to you to manage?" Don't make my people hungry. ”

Li Qingshui was furious when he heard this: "It's not your people, it's obviously the people of my Ming court!" ”

"Aren't my people the people of the Ming Dynasty?" Zhu Yuanzhang said something that only he could understand, and said: "Don't care whose people it is, what I want to ask you is whether they will be hungry this year." ”

Li Qingshui snorted coldly and said: "The promotion of the taro is very smooth, after the early harvest of the taro, the people can solve their urgent needs, and when the taro is harvested this autumn, I dare to guarantee that the people in the area under my jurisdiction can barely make a living...... Give me another two years, and the people of Shaanxi will be able to ensure food and clothing. ”

"Well, that's good!" Zhu Yuanzhang gave him an approving look: "But you should only count our existing population, right?" I suggest you count the extra 100,000 people with food! In case of uncertainty. ”

"How much do you count? In this continuous war, the population will only decrease, and it is impossible to increase, so how can we count more? Li Qingshui was puzzled.

Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head and said: "My Zhu Ba's territory, even if there are wars for many years, the population will only increase, not decrease!" Do you believe it? (To be continued.) )