8-33 Inverted bucket. Nanchang

"Oh, it's that bastard, the fundraiser is stingy to death, and the bribe is a big deal." Liu Ziguang looked at this rare treasure over and over again, and even more contemptuous of Wang Jiu's shrewdness.

"Pass him in." Liu Ziguang said that he didn't want to discuss the bidding with Wang Jiu, but was very interested in the origin of this ancient sword.

At the gate of Xingyuan, the guard shouted, "Which one is called Wang Jiu?" Master Hou sent you in to speak. Then I saw Wang Jiu tidy up his clothes and proudly walked into Xingyuan in the envious eyes of everyone.

Xingyuan is located on the shore of the East Lake, the scenery is extremely beautiful, the previous generations of Chu kings have spent money to build some pavilions here, for the literati and ink writers to use the style, now the war is in chaos, disasters are repeated, the literati naturally have no leisure and elegance, just cheap Liu Houye, the king of Chu was rescued from Zuo Mengeng's prison, overjoyed, simply gave this place to Liu Ziguang, of course, Liu Ziguang did not take advantage of the poor egg Chu King, according to the actual price gave him 50,000 taels of silver.

Wang Jiuzhi walked proudly on the stone path, he was very proud of his ingenuity, Zhenwuhou is not a greedy person, but he is a martial idiot, the right medicine is the right way, sending those vulgar silver tickets is far less beautiful than sending ancient swords, isn't it, he got the reception of Zhenwuhou with an ancient sword bought from the hand of the captain of the touching gold, which shows that the bidding is a bit eyebrow-raising, and the ancient sword received by spending tens of thousands of taels of silver in exchange for a contract of millions of taels, is worth it!

From Tingtaoxuan north to the Hefeng Bridge, there is a round island, surrounded by water, the island builds a three-storey green tile column of the square pavilion-style building - Xingyin Pavilion. The inscription of the king of Chu hangs high on the pavilion: "Xingyin Pavilion" three words, and the name of the pavilion is taken from "Chu Ci? The Fisherman: "Xing Yin Ze Bank".

Liu Ziguang had already changed into the clothes of the guest and sat in the pavilion, and when Wang Jiu saw it, he immediately bowed down and kowtowed, and said respectfully: "Cao Min Wang Jiu, see Hou Ye." ”

Liu Ziguang said: "Please sit down and watch the tea." ”

Wang Jiu thanked him and sat on the chair, if he was to meet a civil official, then Wang Jiu would only sit on one-third of the chair and maintain a very humble posture, but Liu Ziguang was born as a military general, and he might not like such an unhappy person, so Wang Jiu sat with a golden sword.

Liu Ziguang didn't care about these details, he was concerned about the origin of the ancient sword, and after a few words of greeting between the two sides, he asked directly: "Where did Boss Wang get this sword?" ”

Wang Jiu's heart moved, knowing that the bet was right, Hou Ye was very interested in what he offered, so he replied: "It was received by the grass people from an antique dealer, it is said that this person knows a lot of inverted gold captains, and he has a lot of good things in his hands, if Hou Ye likes it, the grass people can introduce it." ”

Liu Ziguang said: "Very good, you leave that person's name and address to them when you go back, so be it." After speaking, he picked up the tea bowl, and the guard next to him shouted: "Send off guests~~"

Wang Jiu got up and said goodbye, withdrew from Xingyin Pavilion, left the contact information of the antique dealer to Liu Ziguang's guards and left Xingyuan, although he didn't talk about anything about the bidding, but he was not panicked in his heart, Hou Ye is such a person, he summoned Wang Jiu itself represents an attitude, this matter is decided.

The bidding for the river embankment is a big fat meat, and there are many people in the imperial court, who can't tolerate so many interests being controlled by Liu Ziguang and the Ministry of Industry, so after some discussion in the Nanjing court, a brand-new yamen was released, called the river water conservancy yamen, specializing in the dredging of the Yangtze River waterway and the construction of embankments, the chief is called the patrol river Yushi, the yamen is located in Hankou in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and the millions of taels of silver raised by all walks of life and the imperial court are used and supervised by this yamen. This river patrol is none other than Lin Ruhai, who has a lot of fate with Liu Ziguang.

As for Liu Ziguang, he can't let him stay in Wuhan first, he must be busy so that he has no time to take care of the bidding for thousands of miles of river embankments, the Donglin Party found a complicated messenger to him, that is, to quickly sweep the southwest, and kill all those ambiguous princes, Tusi, warlords, etc., those who are willing to obey the orders of the imperial court can keep their original positions, and those who refuse to obey can be suppressed by thunderous means, and the imperial court can allocate grain, grass and ordnance to support it.

There are many ethnic minorities in the southwest region, a large number of hereditary local officials are the same, high mountains and dense forests, miasma and poisonous insects, it makes people's scalp numb when they think about it, Liu Ziguang has heard the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and knows the story of Zhuge Liang's seven captures of Meng Shu, but he thinks that he does not have Zhuge Liang's mind and wisdom, and the effect of his fire cannon in the dense forest will also be greatly reduced.

Liu Ziguang was crowned as the generalissimo of the southwest, and the soldiers, horses, officials and people of Huguang, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou could be dispatched, but in fact, he could only call on only 30,000 or 40,000 people, and there were more than 10,000 recruits in it, and the weapons were mainly broadswords and spears.

Liu Ziguang has his own soldiers, Qingdao's Beiyang Naval Division, Nanjing's Red Shirt Regiment, Shanghai's Weisu Army and Naval Division are all his descendants, but privately transferring troops will be a taboo in officialdom, so he had to adopt the method of secretly Chencang, and took advantage of the opportunity of transporting grain, grass and ordnance to send some elite soldiers of the Red Shirt Regiment to help in the war.

Since the war requires food and food, and the consumption of war horses and ordnance and armor, all of this is accounted for by the Ministry of War, collected to the household department and then approved the silver, part of the silver is allocated to those manufacturers who produce ordnance, and part of it is transported to the front line as military salaries, grain and grass are allocated from the treasury and directly transported to the front line, of course, the troops can also be requisitioned on the spot, in short, fighting a war is extremely expensive, and most of the manufacturers producing ordnance are Liu Ziguang's industry, and under the order, a large amount of silver falls into his pocket, and the truckload of military pay is transported to the front line. It's not that he Liu Dashuai is allowed to embezzle casually, eating empty quotas and drinking soldiers' blood is basically a public behavior in these years, he levied 30,000 big soldiers, reported a quota of 40,000, and then every time the soldiers who died in the battle were not reported, they still received military salaries, which was the way to make money.

Of course, Liu Ziguang will not disdain to eat empty quotas, he can't wait to pay more military salaries out of his own pocket to encourage soldiers to kill the enemy bravely, Huguang and Shandong are different, Shandong is bullied by foreign races, and the people join the army to avenge their hatred, there is a little meaning of volunteers, but Huguang is completely different here, pursuing the purpose of good men not soldiers, good iron and not nails, and the people gathered under the banner of recruiting soldiers are either hungry people who can't eat or gangsters who have committed crimes in their hometowns and run away, and they are all here for food, such an army will naturally not fight hard, The only thing that can encourage them to fight bravely is the economic drive.

The 10,000 strong men recruited in Wuchang were taken away by Wu Sangui 5,000 people, and the remaining 5,000 people practiced day and night, discipline and combat effectiveness have been improved accordingly, the original bamboo pole spear has been replaced by the high-quality red tassel gun produced by the Hanyang Iron Factory, and the miscellaneous clothes have also been replaced by the Songjiang cloth military uniform transported from Jiangnan, and the strong men eat rice and pork stew every day, and they are full of strength to eat one by one, just waiting to go into battle to kill the enemy and work for Zhenwuhou. Everyone knows that the artillery of the imperial court is powerful, and the enemy will be chaotic as soon as the cannon goes down, and then put out their hedgehog spear formation to push it over, it is not a hundred battles, and when the time comes, just find a few corpses and cut off the head, it will be more than three months of hard work at home.

Liu Ziguang sent someone to find the antique dealer according to Wang Jiuliu's address, this person is named Hu Ba, nominally an antique, in fact, he is a captain who touches gold, a Luoyang shovel by a person, can empty an ancient tomb overnight, this year tomb robbery is a big crime, so Hu Ba is very frightened that the government is looking for him, but Liu Ziguang did not intend to blackmail him, just asked him to help dig up some interesting things, such as going to Suizhou to dig an ancient tomb in the Warring States Period, and turning the bell inside upside down.

As for the matter of the bidding for the Qianli River Embankment, Liu Ziguang patted his ass and didn't care, anyway, those silver tickets were sent to the door by them, and they didn't dare to ask for it back, although he couldn't directly intervene in the bidding of the Imperial History of the Patrol River, it didn't mean that he couldn't speak at all, if anyone dared to bend the law and be greedy for silver on the embankment that was related to the national economy and people's livelihood, Liu Ziguang would definitely let him go around without food.

After arranging these things, Liu Ziguang embarked on a journey with 5,000 strong men and 500 red shirts, the target was Nanchang, Jiangxi, the city is located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the southwest bank of Poyang Lake, the shore of the Ganjiang River, surrounded by mountains and rivers, and the scenery is beautiful. West Mountain, north of Meiling, Ganjiang River through the city, since ancient times has the reputation of "the treasure of the world, outstanding people". A magnificent Tengwang Pavilion is located in the north of Nanchang City, the north city is near the river, facing the West Mountain, the Bicheng Danzhu, the carved beams and cornices, the dougong Qihu, the palace lamp hangs high. And the Yellow Crane Tower, Yueyang Tower and called the world's three famous buildings. Of course, Liu Ziguangxing's division moved the crowd to take the army not to enjoy the scenery, but to arrest the traitor Zuo Mengeng, and by the way, to deter King Ning, who had not been very honest.

King Ning is the feudal king of Emperor Taizu, as a prince can have three guards of soldiers, but this King Ning is not satisfied with being an honest prince, taking advantage of the chaos in the world, he expanded his three guards into 30 guards, with more than 100,000 soldiers, countless money and grain, and the officials of all prefectures and counties in Jiangxi are only Ning Wang Ma is Zhan, and there is already a faint intention to the world.