Han Jian's leg injury had not healed and he couldn't stay outside for too long, so he asked Lin Xiaoshu to prepare and go to Dongwangfu in the afternoon.

Although Han Jian is now officially in charge of the banner of the East Palace, there are very few people available under him, and the Lin brothers and sisters are trustworthy helpers in his opinion. It's one thing for Lin Xiaoshu to pick the door, but the bookkeeper is a good hand. Lin Zhan once was in the Luoyang Tingwei Mansion Shaofu, and his official position was already very prominent, this time he came to Jiangdu only to enter the army as a temporary deputy general, and he was a little condescending, but after all, Lin Zhan had no experience in the army, and his previous willingness to be able to make a name for himself in the army after he was admitted to the martial arts examination, and this time his wish was fulfilled.

Seeing that it was about to reach the end of the year, Jiangdu had an assassination case, which made the city noisy, and many people who originally came out to buy New Year's goods at the end of the year did not dare to go out.

For several days, the city was heavily guarded, with officials patrolling every day, and soldiers even going door-to-door to search for the whereabouts of the remaining Assassins.

The affairs of the assassins come and go quickly. When Han Jian looked back at this matter, it was just like all the people who pushed back and stopped saying that "it should be" that the Luoyang forces sent someone to assassinate him.

The assassin's case became a cold case for a while, and at the same time, the war, which was originally thought to start after the year, quietly kicked off a year ago.

As some cities in the north and northeast of Jiangdu entered a state of war readiness one after another, Luoyang did not declare war, and sent 30,000 or 40,000 troops to begin to capture some neutral cities. These cities are in the buffer zone between Jiangdu and Luoyang, and many cities did not immediately express their loyalty to which side after Yang Yu usurped the throne, and they were also waiting and seeing. By this time. Yang Yu didn't give them a chance to continue to wait and see.

Luoyang sent troops, half of which were Luoyang's own soldiers and horses, and half were the Northern Wang's army. With Yang Yu's usurpation of the throne, the empress was forced to Jiangdu, and the Northern Wang's army also moved south again, occupying most of the territory north of the Yellow River, and Yang Yu was powerless about it.

Obviously, the Northern King forces are loyal to Yang Yu and work for Yang Yu, but in fact, this is just a kind of use. The reason why Yang Yu was not eliminated by the Northern King immediately after usurping the throne. First, because the Northern King has the right to fight within the forces. Yang Ke, the king of the small north, and the king of the north, who was imprisoned in Luoyang, are also seizing power, and the king of the little north, Yang Ke, has already gained the upper hand, that is to say, now the power of the king of the north has been led by Yang Ke.

Secondly. Yang Yu has his own forces and soldiers.

Yang Yu's rebellion and usurpation were very cautious. After controlling the situation. He did not immediately kill the emperor and stand on his own, but imprisoned the empress very calmly first, saying that the empress was sick. Secretly eradicate the power that the empress once cultivated, replace it with his own people, and slowly carry out his plan to usurp the throne. By the time the East Window incident happened, Yang Yu had already gained a firm foothold, and even if the empress regained her freedom, she would be powerless to return to the situation in Luoyang, and in this case, the empress could only take refuge in Jiangdu temporarily. Yang Yu has soldiers and horses, and he also has capital, so that the Northern King Party does not dare to attack him for a while.

Now that the Luoyang forces and Jiangdu are at war, Yang Yu and Yang Kexin are in collusion, Han Jian Judging from the news obtained from all parties, Yang Ru, the old king of the north, has been more auspicious, and it is likely that in this power struggle, he may have been killed, but for the sake of the internal stability of the Northern King's forces, the matter will be announced to the public.

Han Jian guessed that Yang Ru was originally imprisoned in Luoyang City, and Yang Yu could not have thought of Yang Ru's importance before usurping the throne.

As long as Yang Ru does not die for a day, Yang Ke's northern throne will not be stable, and Yang Yu will sit on the dragon chair of the Luoyang Palace for a day.

In any case, Luoyang did send troops, not many troops, but it also made Jiangdu unable to deal with it. Even if Han Jian and the Dongwang Mansion knew that the buffer cities between Luoyang and Jiangdu were important, if they were not fully prepared, these cities could only be temporarily ceded and allowed to be gradually occupied by the combined forces of Yang Yu and Yang Ke.

With the beginning of the war a year ago, another silent war also took place within Jiangdu.

The price of grain in Jiangdu has increased several times in a few days, and other daily necessities related to the daily life of the people have also risen accordingly.

As prices rise, so do rumors outside. At one time, there were rumors that the army of the imperial court had reached the border of Jiangdu, and the next day some people would say that the soldiers and horses had been killed under the city of Jiangdu and would attack the city at any time. Because there have been searches everywhere in the city for a few days, many people have also thought that the search for assassins or something is fake, but it is actually preparing to loot the people's supplies and prepare to deal with the long-term siege of the imperial court.

The rumors arose, and the people in the city were panicked.

The original search for the Assassins had to be suspended early. At the same time, Han Jian convened successive meetings of officials from the Jiangdu and Luoyang factions to discuss the matter of prices, seeking a good way to stabilize prices.

However, the war is coming, and some things will not help even if they try harder, although the Dongwangfu also issued an announcement, on the one hand, to quell the rumors, on the other hand, it is strictly forbidden to raise prices, but with little effect. After receiving the notice from Dongwangfu, many merchants simply closed their doors and closed their doors, and even abandoned their real estate, and transferred some food and other materials to other places.

Subsequently, the black market prevailed, prices continued to skyrocket, and the Dongwang Mansion was at a loss.

Han Jian knew that the best way to stabilize prices now was to transfer a large number of materials and sell them by the Dongwang Mansion to stabilize prices. However, now that the war is tense and the armaments and materials are not yet complete, how can we allocate a large amount of materials?

Han Jian and Han Song discussed this matter, but Han Song thought that Han Jian should not pay attention to the impact of the initial war in the city, and should start to deal with the upcoming war. But Han Jian felt that in order to resist foreign enemies, he must first stabilize internally, and just some rumors and gossip had already made the lives of the middle and lower class people in Jiangdu unsustainable, which meant that more than half of the battle had been lost before it was fought. What will be dealt with is likely to be a large-scale exodus of refugees.

The problem at this time is that after many years of recuperation and recuperation, the people are rich, and even if they are about to experience a vicious war, they will not be unable to eat in a short period of time. But the problem is that every year the peasants in Jiangdu sell their surplus grain to the merchants, who in turn resell it to those who do not grow grain or grow less grain. Jiangdu's grain reserves are also sufficient, and it is because of people's panic and rumors about the war that food prices have gradually risen. Among them, there are also some black-hearted businessmen who make profits from it. Han Jian learned that a month or two earlier, when he was still in Yuzhou, some businessmen smelled the news and began to buy grain in large quantities.

The twenty-ninth day of the lunar month, the first two days of the new year. Early in the morning, Han Jian got the news from the market, saying that the price of grain had risen tenfold compared to usual. In order to prevent higher food prices in the future, some wealthy households have begun to bite their teeth and buy grain hoards in preparation for the impending famine.

After Han Jian learned about it, he couldn't help sighing, he wanted to make these people believe that Jiangdu had enough food to eat for a year or two, and people outside refused to believe it. The real suffering is not those who collect grain, but they are accomplices, and the real suffering is those middle and lower class people who originally made a living from handicrafts, they don't have much food, so tossed, they may not even be able to survive the winter with the grain in hand. Before the beginning of spring, there will be starvation and even evacuation. When the time comes, the big families will not have mercy on these people.

"Athletes, that's the case every time you encounter a war. Don't suppress yourself too much, these things, Mrs. Gu will find a way. Seeing Han Jian's frowning, Han Songshi explained.

"Erniang, didn't you say yesterday that the envoys of the Qi Dynasty are still in the river and haven't left?" Han Jian said suddenly.

"Huh?" Han Songshi was a little puzzled, looked at Han Jian and said, "Jian'er, what are you going to do?" ”

Han Jian smiled and said, "I want to meet the envoys of the Qi Dynasty." ”

Han Songshi said with a sad face: "Jian'er, it's not Erniang who said that this Zhu Tongjing came to Jiangdu, and he didn't have any good intentions. Now that I am in civil strife, he came to my Jiangdu with great fanfare, saying that there is no conspiracy, who will believe it? ”

Han Jian smiled, he didn't say anything to Han Song, in fact, he had known about Zhu Tongjing's conspiracy for a long time, and Zhu Tongjing had come to persuade him to join Nanqi this time.

"Erniang, you go and arrange it first. This meeting should be made with more fanfare, that is, let the people outside see that we met with the people of the Qi Dynasty, and it was a righteous and bright meeting. Han Jian said.

Han Songshi thought about it, she couldn't guess Han Jian's intentions, at this time, Han Jian was in charge of Jiangdu these days, whether it was military and political or preparing for war, she was on the right track, and she gradually felt at ease to hand over the burden to Han Jian. She thought about it, at the moment when Han Jian wanted to see Zhu Tongjing, except for the officials of the Luoyang faction who would say a few words, no one else would say anything, but it would make the people of the world think that Jiangdu and the Qi Dynasty had become one, which was not a bad thing.

"Then Erniang will arrange it." After Han Songshi finished speaking, he went out with Han Cui.

At this time, Lin Xiaoshu came to the main hall, she had been the housekeeper of the East King Mansion for a few days, and she was not very familiar with many things, and even entered the courtyard of the East King Mansion a little around, as she said, she had never been to the house so much.

"Steward Lin, what's the matter?" Han Jian saw Lin Xiaoshu and asked with a smile.

"There are some things I want to ask a few princesses of the county." Lin Xiaoshu looked around, but he didn't see Han Jian's aunts.

Because Han Jian deliberately found a housekeeper to come back, Han Song and the others also knew that Han Jian could only be allocated manpower, so they handed over some daily affairs of the Dongwang Mansion to Lin Xiaoshu. And in order to make Lin Xiaoshu get started quickly, Han Song's family also found Han Jian's other aunts to explain to her in detail, and in the past few days, they are also helping her to take over.

"You let go of what you're doing. There's something big for you to do. Han Jian suddenly said.

"Big deal?" Lin Xiaoshu put down the booklet in his hand and said with some dissatisfaction, "The little girl has just arrived, and you want to arrange other errands for me?" Isn't that a toss-up! ”

Han Jian smiled and said, "Don't be angry first, Steward Lin, what I arranged for you this time is a major matter related to the well-being of the people of Jiangdu." And there are a lot of officials to dispatch you, and the scenery is very beautiful. (To be continued......)