It has been seven days since Chen Wenzhi returned to Longtan County, and during the days of detention in the Metropolitan Procuratorate, Lian Wohuo was afraid that he had a small illness, and today he was much better, so he came to the town to ask for guilt. But the expected rebuke did not fall down, but the marquis of Zhenyu earnestly asked for warmth, let him recuperate well, and only after he could take care of his body can he do a good job, and the burden on his shoulders will become heavier and heavier in the future.

At this time, Mi Yan and a cadre had already withdrawn, and there were only two people in the house, Li Xin and Chen Wenshan. When Chen Wenshan heard Li Xin like this, he couldn't help but burst into tears, which included the venting of grievances in the past few days, and also contained an inexplicable touch. He asked himself that he had never been so energetic as he was now in his more than 20 years of being an official, and that building canals and diverting water was a good thing for the benefit of one party and future generations. But even so, he was liquidated, and he was even more likely to lose his reputation, causing trouble to his children and grandchildren.

Chen Wenzhi had already had the intention of retiring before he came, and after explaining the situation to Li Xin, he would pray to the imperial court for illness and return to his hometown to retire. But after Li Xin's exhortation, his mind was alive again. I just feel that it is really pleasant to follow such a responsible, decisive, and sympathetic person to do things. The only thing that made him regret was that Li Xin was just a martial artist after all, and at the top he was a marquis, and it would be a great grace of the court to choose a peaceful place to support the situation in the future.

"The matter of the diversion canal must be grasped quickly, not only in Tianfu, but also in other neighboring prefectures and counties, if they want to repair the canal, they must do their best to supervise the construction of the yamen!" After greeting for a while, Li Xin finally got to the point.

Speaking of the matter of repairing the canal, Chen Wenshan's face immediately swelled with confidence, he personally led the prison messenger day and night, and knew everything about it.

"At least more than half of the canals in the eight counties of Yingtianfu have been completed and can be connected to the water diversion at any time, but the water level of the canals is much higher than the nearby rivers and lakes, but I don't know how to divert the law?" At the same time, he also raised his own questions.

"Very good, you don't have to wait for everything to be completed, it is urgent to wait for water to irrigate in the field, and it will be connected first when it is completed. As for how to divert water, I have my own way! Li Xin's speech was fast, and he searched for reports on the progress of the canals on the somewhat scattered tabletop.

"The biggest problem now is manpower, and it is a good thing to repair the canal, but in order to meet the construction deadline and levy people's labor, it will only complain, which has attracted a lot of scolding. I'm afraid that someone will take the opportunity to make trouble! In the past, he didn't care about the scolding of the people, but with the case of the Linggu Temple property dispute, he almost lost half his life, so he couldn't help but be careless.

This is really a problem, Li Xin's brow couldn't help frowning. He came to the Ming Dynasty for a long time, and he also knew a lot about the ancient conscription system, although the conscription in the Ming Dynasty had a slightly humane change and was more detailed than the previous dynasties. For example, measures such as the introduction of equalization and other measures have also been divided into force and silver in the shape of shì. But fundamentally, it is still the imperial court that squeezes the people's power for free, and the construction of the canal naturally has to be levied, once the construction period is tight, the intensity of work far exceeds the limit that the people can bear, and the good thing becomes a bad thing?

Moreover, the level of medical and health care in this era, as well as the civilized process, were far inferior to those of later generations, and it was not uncommon for the people to die of illness, exhaustion, and even being tortured to death by overseers. Therefore, in the feudal dynasty, some utilitarian projects not only did not make the people of the time feel sorry, but made the people of the time hate them. Such as the Great Wall in the Qin Dynasty and the Grand Canal in the Sui Dynasty. Which of these two great projects is not so? The root lies in the fact that these bones of hundreds of people are piled up!

How can the people have the far-sighted minds and visions of the political family? They can't see what merit is in the present and benefits in the future. All they could see was the ruthless oppression of them by the imperial court and the greedy exploitation of the officials. And what the people want is not the illusory cake that the ruler painted for them, and even some rulers even save the process of painting a cake, and directly tear off the mask of hypocrisy of "the people are the water, and the king is the boat". The goal of making the people live just for a living has become a luxury, and if the people are treated like this, how can the people not pick up hoes and sticks to resist? Their original intention was just to eat a bite to eat, to survive.

This kind of rebellion is like opening Pandora's box, releasing countless demons and monsters, ghosts and ghosts. As for their original intention of resisting, I am afraid that it has long been thrown to Java, and these meek people only want to rob money, food, and mother-in-law, and fight to the palace to sit in the world. On the other hand, today's Daming country, how can it not be such an embarrassing and cruel tragic situation?

Therefore, the superintendent must no longer use forced labor.

"You go back and count how much manpower is missing, you report it!"

Chen Wenshan replied without thinking about it: "If you calculate with the project of one government, there is at least a gap of 10,000 people. ”

Li Xin pondered for a while, and then asked Chen Wenzhi to go back first and wait for news, and by tomorrow at the latest, he would be provided with enough manpower. Chen Wenzhi finally changed his original intention of retiring and continued to bear the burden of repairing the canal.

After Chen Wenzhi left, Li Xin immediately convened the lieutenant generals and colonels of the army and held a small-scale military meeting, and there was only one topic, that is, to repair the canal!

"What? Let us people with knives and guns resist hoes and shovels? Aren't all hearts scattered? ”

"Seeing that there is a war going on in the west, the brothers are all gearing up to fight, and now we have to talk about repairing the canal,"

Many people shook their heads secretly, and even Cheng Mingjiu, who has always been steady, said they couldn't understand. Li Xin also knew that these people were arrogant soldiers, but they were accustomed to obeying military orders, as long as they knew them with affection and moved them to benefit, they were likely to get twice the result with half the effort.

Li Xin did not intend to try to persuade his generals, because after a long run-in, he found that sometimes the problem was simple and effective to solve problems with authority, and if he always tried to convince people with reason, then he would soon find himself in endless arguments.

"I don't care what you do! Tomorrow, yes, it's tomorrow. I want to see five thousand strong soldiers, ready to ......"

Of course, in order to appease the feelings of the soldiers, Li Xin still made slippers and promised that during the project, he would pay each soldier a double salary. This also set a bad precedent for the future, that is, once there is a need for the Three Guards to participate in the project, the generals with the troops will ask for an additional double salary. This is also something that can't be helped, Li Xin can't completely ignore the feelings of the soldiers under his command.

In the evening of the same day, news came from the Taiping Mansion. The Huangmei thieves attacked Ogigang and were defeated by the Duke of Wei, and the thieves fled in panic.

Xu Hongji, the Duke of Wei, arrived at the Taiping Mansion so quickly, which was really beyond Li Xin's expectations. It's just that this so-called Ogigang victory, according to his estimates, is only afraid that the water in it is not eighty percent but fifty percent. To the east of Hagigang is Jianyang, the prefecture of Wuhu and Taipingfu, and because this is the last western gateway to Nanjing, heavy troops are usually stationed. Therefore, most of the Huangmei thieves, who have never been good at frontal combat between the official and military forces, will not attack Ogigang, and the invading thieves can only be a small group of raiders at best.

The reason why Xiaosheng is said to be a great victory is also easy to understand, first there was a rebellion by King Huai, and then there was Shi Kefa's defeat, which shook the whole of Nanjing, so that it can calm people's hearts.

However, this news made the generals and colonels in the Three Guards lose for a while. A Wei Guogong Xu Hongji won the first battle of the division, even if he couldn't break through, as long as he fought steadily, he would definitely be able to recover Raozhou, and their hope of going into battle would be even more slim. Second, since they have already won the victory, they can't use this as an excuse to persuade the marquis to send troops.

In the eyes of these people, the Marquis of Zhenyu did not seem to care at all about the war in the west, but more concerned about the construction of the canal that should not have been interfered with by these warriors.

On the fifth day of the fifth month of May, the news that King Huai pulled the flag and rebelled in Raozhou, Jiangxi Province reached the Daming Jingshi. He has always been energetic, and the Ming Emperor, who had just passed the year of his establishment, fell ill after hearing the news. King Huai's crusade deeply stabbed the emperor who was known to be in the ambition of Zhongxing, during which there were several cases of Zhu Youzhen's crimes since his accession to the throne, the first of which was the corruption of the situation in Liaodong, and the smoke of the Central Plains was everywhere, resulting in the excavation of the ancestral tomb of the Ming Dynasty. even shouted at the end of the article, asking Zhu Youzhen to apologize......

Zhu Youzhen wanted to refute them one by one, but what he said in the article was true, and he had an unshirkable responsibility as the emperor. However, if the imperial court could not refute it, even if it succeeded in suppressing the Huai king, the authority of the imperial court and the emperor would suffer a heavy blow.

At the time of Shen Zheng, Zhu Youzhen met with Zhou Yanru, the first assistant, and Hong Chengchou, the secretary of the military department, on the sickbed.

Hong Chengchou is more optimistic about the rebellion of King Huai, "The land of Raozhou, Jiangxi, is also the land of four wars, and the Huangmei thief is not as vicious as Zhang Li in the north, so he only needs to transfer a division to exterminate it!" ”

"The old minister also feels that the saint does not need to worry too much, King Huai does not measure his strength, colludes with bandits to rebel, and defiles my ancestors and ancestors will be punished by heaven." Zhou Yanru echoed Hong Chengchou's remarks and did not make any more statements.

Zhu Youzhen's voice was a little weak, "Fortunately, there is Wei Guogong guarding Nanjing, and my heart is a little calm." He suddenly mentioned a dream he had last night, "In the past few days, I have always dreamed of the gods of mountains and seas, and I once wrote a word "have", you can explain it and see what it means. ”

After Zhou Yanru heard this, he immediately knelt down to congratulate him, "This is an auspicious omen, which proves that the thieves will be peaceful!" Hong Chengchou also explained, Zhu Youzhen's mood suddenly improved a lot, and seeing that the time for dinner had come, the two important ministers knelt down to say goodbye to His Majesty.

Zhu Youzhen suddenly felt that something was wrong, but when he turned his head, he found that Wang Chengen, who had been standing by the side, was actually wiping away tears.

"Why are you crying?"

After hearing this, Wang Chengen bowed to the ground and said in a lost voice: "Long live pardoning the old slave and not dying, the old slave dares to say!" ”

Zhu Youzhen was upset by Wang Chengen's crying, "Forgive you for your innocence, it's okay to say it directly!" ”

"The old slave pushes it, the god man shows up to sue the sù long live the lord, and the Ming Dynasty will lose more than half of it!"