Chapter 117: Gentry's Power

The Huguang Third Division received Guan Shengyun's real "heart" from Xiangyang Mansion, and the Prince of Xiang and the King of Chu of Wuchang Mansion also greeted Jingshi and Huguang Sansi respectively. Of course, the most convincing thing is the floating corpses that drifted all the way to Chengtianfu - the Hindu Left-behind Division has jurisdiction over Xianling and Chengtian Erwei, which is theoretically a powerful military command organization. But adults all know that this kind of "mighty teacher" is actually the security guard who watches the grave, and the people around him are naturally self-taught experts under the scourge of extorting and extorting small traders passing by...... If these guys set fire to Xianling, none of the officials will plan to live!

As a result, the officials of the entire Huguang Third Division put down all the differences and stumbling blocks unprecedentedly, united unprecedentedly, and showed their abilities at full speed, and the backers in the court also gave up the intrigue of the past, and worked together in this matter, and Guan Shengyun's army had no suspense to gain a foothold in Gucheng.

The Holy Son of Heaven Taoist Zhu Yunji was confused, and at this moment he also understood in his heart: dare to love the "great victory" of Yulin Mansion earlier, the vigorous "Qin Soldier Great Exercise" of the Shaanxi Third Division, the "Great Victory" of Luofu, and the "Great Victory" of the Third Division of Henan Province...... Those who have been "exterminated" again and again are all the same guys! What the court sees here is victory after victory, but in fact, these thieves are getting stronger and stronger - not only are the local people ambushing them, but now even the big guys in the court are covering up for them!

It's not just anger, it's anger! But there is nothing to be done - every great victory has a real first-level liberation of the Beijing Division, the inspection of the military department is also impeccable, and every time he has sincerely praised himself with great joy, in the end it is himself, and he has been kept in the dark like a fool from beginning to end!

It's good now, it's hard to ride a tiger - this giant army is a stone's throw away from Xianling, and there is really an accident, which is bound to endanger the ancestral tomb, even if it takes the huge risk of the destruction of the ancestral mausoleum, and bears the infamy of the ages...... We can't remove all the local officials in Shaanxi Province, Henan Province, and Huguang from their posts and investigate them in one go, right? In that case, in a few years, these provinces don't have to count on small things, what if a few more bandits pop up in these places! Even if they ruthlessly clean up these guys, what should they do in the backstage? If you don't investigate the backstage, there is no point in cleaning them up, and if you do all of them, won't the administration of the empire be completely paralyzed all of a sudden? Take 10,000 steps back, at all costs, and investigate all these people, who will replace them? Whether it is at the local level or in the center of the imperial court, must all the remaining people be good people? Daozong knew in his heart that whether it was a capital division or a locality, there were many factions, entangled and restrained each other, and the imperial order was maintained under this delicate balance, and if one side suddenly became too big to be repeated, he would be completely hollowed out, and the collapse of the edifice would be just around the corner - as for such trivial things as "who are the heads who came up from the previous great victories", the Holy Son of Heaven never thought about it at all.

It is not without good people in the DPRK and China. For example, Zhao Dongzhu, the right capital of Yushi, cried with tears about the tragic incident of King Tang being killed by thieves. But immediately, a large number of people proved that the Tang King had stumbled and died, and Wei Shixun, the imperial scholar of Zuodu, took out a private letter from Yu Tairan, the waiter of the Nanzhili Criminal Department, and wrote clearly in black and white, "It is reported that Chitose heard that the thief was coming, and he was shocked and stumbled." All the thieves fell to the ground with great regret when they saw it, and howled and complained, 'But I begged to see the king begging for my life, but I really didn't dare to do wrong', and I was afraid that the king's body was committed by the thieves, so they set fire to it...... "The ghost believes it!" Well, the Tang Palace, which was accidentally burned, is more or less likely to be lost...... Not counting the royal guards, there are hundreds of people up and down, and only one Tang Wang Shisun is still alive, what's going on? Moreover, Tang Wangsun also wrote down the experience and sent it to him! But the king of Jin in the Zongren Mansion and the Ministry of Rites, said that this kid was silent, and there seemed to be something wrong with his mind, and he couldn't fully believe what he said...... Looking at the meaning of the Zongren Mansion and the Ministry of Rites, let him attack the prince and rebuild the Tang Palace, and this matter will be over! King Jin said more directly: "In the ancestral system, vassal kings are not allowed to enter Beijing." Daozong knew that King Jin was doing this for his own good-if Tang Wangsun cried in the court, he would really not be able to get off the stage!

Alas, King Jin can also be regarded as a good person - but a good person is useless! What is needed now is a capable person, a capable person who can lead the heavenly soldiers to sweep the army and gather them to annihilate in one drum!

The problem is no-well, it can't be said that there is no, there is no for the time being-the Sun family, who has been a general, is very capable of fighting, and is absolutely loyal, and Sun Jie, who has led the army for a few years, seems to be still above his father. However, at this time, he was fighting with the giant Zhang Hu in the Sichuan and Shaanxi areas, facing Zhang Hu who was hundreds of thousands of people, and Sun Jie, who had only 20,000 or 30,000 troops in the local guards, was still fighting well, and he really couldn't be transferred to Huguang at this moment. Alas, thinking of the Sun family, Daozong couldn't help but sigh secretly: Grandpa Tai killed the ministers too cleanly, otherwise...... As soon as he thought of this, Dao Sect shook his head again and smiled bitterly - otherwise, it would not be his turn to sit on this dragon chair! If it weren't for the fact that Grandpa Tai killed all the capable ministers, how could Grandpa Cheng have a chance to succeed to the unification? In the final analysis, when it comes to Grandpa Cheng, he is not on this branch?

Since it can't be done, then it can only be touched. Alas, after all, whether it is the Guan thief, the Huguang officialdom, or even the courtiers here, they have saved enough face for the Holy Son of Heaven, and they have the right to endure for a while......

Guan Shengyun will not care about the title of deputy general, and will not be satisfied with a corner of Gucheng: the Han River in the northeast (from Yunyang to Gucheng is called Canglang Shui) flows to Guanghua (now Laohekou City, Hubei) and is diverted to the south and southwest is Zhushui from Fang County, and the two rivers merge into the Han River after flowing in Gucheng to Xiangyang Mansion in the southeast (the section from Gucheng to Yicheng is called Xiangjiang), and the three rivers form a "human" shape with Gucheng as the intersection.

This place is rich in products, and it is indeed good to use it as a base area, but strategically speaking, it is also a place of four wars, and there are no natural dangers in all directions to resist the enemy. Therefore, Guan Shengyun will never really stay here honestly. On the contrary, on the grounds that Luo Shifan had already agreed that "our army should establish a guard post in a suitable place", the forces were expanded westward to Yunyang Mansion and eastward to De'an Mansion - Gao Tengdou was stationed in Yunyang, Gong Derun and Zhang Ding were stationed in De'an, Poxiao Camp and the Gangfeng Battalion of Headquarters and Gu Baihua were stationed in Gucheng, and You Futian's two Shuizi battalions were stationed in Fanchengguan of Xiangyang Prefecture to be responsible for communication and response. Judging from the overall situation, Yunyang, Xiangyang, and De'an are located above Chengtianfu (north), if there is any wind and grass, the three armies can go hand in hand, or they can gather in Xiangyang and then wave their troops south, and threaten the "Xingdu" - Chengtianfu, one of the four capitals of the dynasty, at any time!

Whether it was the Yunyang Mansion that Gao Tengdou was in charge of, or the De'an Mansion where Gong and Zhang Er went to work, all the ministries inevitably had a series of "small misunderstandings and frictions" with the local garrison. However, things were forcibly suppressed by the three divisions of Huguang - Luo Yonghao was also a big thing, after achieving an undoubted overwhelming victory, except for letting the generals send a team to the city to monitor the government, the main force was stationed outside the city, and did not really occupy the city. The only difference is that Jiang Zhonggang and other magistrates in the county have more emperors: in addition to reporting to Xiangyang Mansion or Huguang Sansi, big and small things also have to be reported to Guan Shengyun and Shangfeng The tasks of the imperial court can be done or delayed, and the tasks assigned by Deputy Marshal Guan are less nonsense, they have to be done immediately, and they can't be discounted in any way!

The most depressed is the governor of Yunyang, Jian Jingneng (the word is still yong). Huguang itself has a governor, and Yunyang, which is located in the northwest of Hubei Province, is not a big place, so why should the imperial court set up a governor here? In fact, the reason lies in geography. Northwest Hubei is adjacent to Henan, Shaanxi, and Sichuan provinces, and the problem of displaced people in the Qinba region has always been very serious, and even evolved into popular uprisings. Every time there was a mess, officials from several provinces would rush people to neighboring provinces, and it would not be long before they resurfaced and made a comeback. As we have said before, the court of the Ming Dynasty is always patched: if the political envoy can't manage it, he will make up a governor, and if the governor can't manage it, he will make up a governor, and if the "army" of the guard can't fight, he will make up for the "people" who can fight...... There was always a mess in the Qinba area at the junction of the four provinces, and a patch was also put up called "Jingxiang Fuzhi": a governor's official post was set up to manage the three prefectures of Jingzhou, Xiangyang, and Nanyang provinces. However, the effect is not good, and the problem of displaced people is still serious - there are still Shaanxi and Sichuan (Daning, Wushan and other places are now part of Chongqing City) are beyond the reach of the whip! So the patch was stacked on the patch, and in the twelfth year of Chenghua, Yunyang Mansion was placed, and Huguang Xingdu commanded the envoy and the guard, and changed Jingxiang Fuzhi to Yunyang Fuzhi, and the jurisdiction was expanded to eight provinces at the junction of Hubei, Henan, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces (Yunyang Mansion, Xiangyang Mansion, Jingzhou Mansion, Anlu Mansion, Nanyang Mansion, Xi'an Mansion, Hanzhong Mansion, Kuizhou Mansion). Jiang Zhonggang is a seven-grade county, and it doesn't matter if there is a thief and a giant emperor born on it, anyway, if he is an official who is bigger than him, the prefect of De'an Mansion Meng Chao (the word Yueteng) can barely bear it, after all, it is only a fourth-grade title, and the reporting object is the third division of Huguang, just write one more report, but Jian Jingneng is from the constitutional position of the Inspectorate, and when he was appointed governor of Yunyang, he added the title of deputy capital imperial history to the third product, and the reporting object is the center of the court and the Holy Son of Heaven himself! Now it's exactly the same as Qipinzhi County, you have to listen to Guan Shengyun, who is not depressed? But, what can Jian Jing do if the Holy Son of Heaven has acquiesced? No matter how angry you are, you have to swallow it.

At first, Guan Shengyun was under the influence of the generals, and he really had the idea to occupy three mansions in one go, but Luo Yonghao categorically stopped him. In order to prevent trouble, Luo Yonghao specially held a formal military meeting in Gucheng, and invited Jiang Zhonggang, the magistrate of Gucheng, to observe.

Although Jiang Zhonggang, who was as dead as a dead heart, had already accepted his fate, he was so frightened that he almost peed his pants on the spot before the audience could say a few words: You are already considered to be the officials of the imperial court, why do you still occupy the city with a dog-killing official at every turn?

Fortunately, Luo Yonghao stopped the conversation in time: "Generals, please stop this topic." We are now colleagues with Master Jiang, so we are no longer as open-mouthed as in the past. Seeing the disapproving looks of the generals, and noticing that Jiang Zhixian, who had palpitations, was still trembling, Luo Junshi comforted: "Lord Jiang, please rest assured, I specially invited you here today, Luo Mou is really out of sincerity, you can listen to the following words, just know in your heart, if there is, please don't spread it." ”

"Generals, we have discussed before, why our army has been so strong all the way, but it has encountered unprecedented dangers in Nanyang."

"Ahem." It was Luo Shifan who coughed.

"It's okay, Luo said at the time, this kind of thing is difficult to encounter in the future." Luo Yonghao chuckled, and then said, "Master Jiang has his own judgment after hearing it, so there is no need to worry. ”

"The Holy Sons of Heaven of all dynasties will face a problem: how to govern the world? Nuoda Huaxia is impossible to manage by oneself, and someone must be assisted, so there is a center of the imperial court, civil ministers and military generals. All localities must also be managed at all levels, so there are various levels of official positions such as governor, three divisions, prefects, prefectures, and counties. Taizu is eloquent, in order to have an overview of the dynasty, abolish the prime minister, and dismiss the governor's mansion of the five armies, this is to seize all the power in his own hands," as he spoke, he glanced at Jiang Zhonggang, who was sweating profusely, "Lord Jiang, don't be afraid, you can't say it thoroughly." Luo's words do sound a bit rebellious, but it is true. When Luo finishes speaking, you will know that Luo has no malicious intent. ”

"What Taizu Ye did was actually to expand the imperial power and limit the cardinal power, by the way, the cardinal power is the power of the Chinese military ministers. Zhao Gao of the Qin Dynasty was a great lesson in the fall of imperial power. At the local level, the imperial court can only manage up to the level of Jiang Zhixian, and further down, it relies on Lord Jiang to manage through the gentry. Why is this so? Why didn't the imperial court set up several layers of management levels such as townships and villages further down the county? Because of the cost: the imperial court can't afford to pay for it. If these two levels are set up again, the expenses of personnel, carriages and horses will definitely not be able to bear it - don't forget, there are so many taxes on land and salt, how can they afford it? ”

"And the gentry class can fully assume the corresponding obligations, and the court does not need to worry too much about any big mess. Take Lord Jiang as an example, the imperial court needs Huguang to produce a certain amount of grain and silver, and each government will decompose the requirements into counties, and Lord Jiang will decompose them to the gentry in each township and village. On the one hand, the gentry need the recognition and protection of the imperial court, for example, when encountering bandits, the county must send troops to suppress them, and if they can't suppress them, they will report to the prefect and prefect...... On the other hand, the gentry are all famous families in the local area, and it is very simple for them to do these things, whether you send a number of government officials or soldiers to the villages to collect grain, not to mention that they may be catching up with someone to work in the field and meet no people, and they may not be able to collect enough food for themselves! And the gentlemen went down with a word, and when the time came, everyone automatically handed over the silver grain. Not only that, but the gentry can help Master Jiang restrain his subordinates. For example, the villagers are illiterate, and it is clear that the imperial court only needs one stone of rice, but when it comes to the official who collects grain, it may be added to three stones! With the gentry, on the one hand, they will help Master Jiang to complete his mission, and on the other hand, they will also protect their neighbors - don't forget, the reason why they themselves can have this status also depends on the recognition and support of their neighbors. These people are a buffer between the government and the people, as long as they are there, there will often be no major chaos in the local area. They are all wealthy people, and unless they have to, they themselves will never risk exterminating their clan to cause any trouble. ”

"But Qian Yuchuan is different, he wiped out all the gentlemen! Of course, he and his subordinates are fat, our seizure is proof of this, and he can also make the people fight with us without fear of death, and tens of thousands of people were killed by us in just a few days? That's just one side of the story. What about the other side? What has become of Nanyang, everyone has seen it with their own eyes, which of the people is not a dove-shaped hoof? This is because he uses all ruffians. Unlike the clan gentry, these scoundrels themselves are worthless, and suddenly one day they are in power, in order to ensure that they will not return to the broken temple to live, in order to ensure that they will no longer beg for leftovers, what can they do? They know that they can have today because they are useful to Qian Yuchuan! Will they care which people they bring to ruin? That's weird! The people were deceived by Qian Yuchuan and his subordinates, and they fought hard with us, because we happened to come and meet us. Otherwise, wait another two or three years, let's see, how many living people can there be in Nanyang? In other words, Qian Yuchuan got a lot, but he paid a greater price! That's why I said, it's unlikely that we'll encounter such a thing in the future - Qian Yuchuan racked his brains and made Nanyang ruined for hundreds of miles, and he could barely pay the imperial mission of the imperial court, and let's wait for another year or two, and wait until the people of Nanyang cannibalism, what will he pay? In other words, Master Jiang, if the Xiangyang Mansion gives you a difficult amount to complete, and someone gives you an idea: set up a 'farmer' and send it to the countryside to find the villagers to collect it, what do you think? ”

Jiang Zhonggang, who had forgotten his fear and nodded frequently, was stunned when he heard this: "How can this be done?" In the first year, the humble duties will definitely be overfulfilled, as long as they are given iron rulers and chains, and some soldiers are sent to the town, no matter how much they can collect, and the second year may be completed, but I don't know if there will be chaos, the military master just said - they will definitely overcharge, it will definitely make the heavens angry and the chickens and dogs restless. Year 3...... It's time for the people to change, right? I'm afraid that Xiaguan's head can't be saved. But nobody would do such a thing, would they? Tossing like this, why not drink to quench your thirst? ”

Luo Yonghao stroked his palms and smiled: "What Master Jiang said is so right! Generals, the imperial court already has an effective collection system, and our needs can be maintained by this ready-made system. Any other needs, the small Lord Jiang can help us deal with it, and the big ones let's discuss with the adults of the Huguang Third Division. So, there are some things that I should not say in the future......"

Jiang Zhonggang was completely relieved when he left, and gave Luo Yonghao a deep look: "Master of the military division, you are willing to accept your humble duties." There are old and young people in the lowly family, and in the future, I will beg the military advisor to have mercy. ”

Luo Yonghao returned the salute: "Lord Jiang rest assured." ”

Jiang Zhonggang walked a few steps and turned his head again: "Master Strategist, what kind of agricultural errand did you just say, shouldn't someone really do that?" ”

Luo Yonghao laughed: "Luo is just giving an extreme example. Qian Yuchuan didn't do it, how could anyone use such a brain? ”