Han Zuo Gaomen

Chapter 287 Gyeonggi Depression
Throughout late September, Shen Zhezi was busy seeing people off.There may not be too many wise men who are sensitive to the situation in this world, but it is human instinct to avoid risks.Many people from the west to the east spread the word in the capital that Li Yang's troops practiced martial arts day and night on the banks of the Hengjiang River, which inevitably made the people in the capital even more panicky.

Not to mention Li Yang's reputation, but the record is solid.In the early years of fighting chaos and winning consecutive battles, Wang's army was almost completely defeated.This is not an old story, especially for the people of Gyeonggi, many people witnessed the confrontation between the two armies other than Suzaku Daheng in the early years, and they still remember the bravery of Liyang's troops.

It goes without saying that those who spread rumors must have something to do with Liyang, so Taichung also attaches great importance to this.The imperial guards were all over Jiankang City, guarding the main water and land routes. Anyone who found suspicious people or spread such shocking remarks would be detained.

But what's the use of this, these rumorers are not trained military spies, they are just a group of refugees.Shen Zhezi once asked his family to arrest a rumor spreader for a little questioning. He couldn't help laughing and laughing. Liyang drove the refugees to the east, and anyone who spread such rumors would get a few buckets of brown rice as rations.

Shen Zhezi was no stranger to Liyang's situation.In the early years, Zhongshu used political pressure to gradually disintegrate the hearts of the Liyang side, which is not ingenious.The current management and governance structure, no matter how big or small the level, has the same core at its core.

The source of power and strength of the subordinates does not depend entirely on the grant from the superiors. It itself controls a nearly independent tribal army and does not have a particularly strong personal attachment relationship. Therefore, the superiors do not have much jurisdiction over the subordinates. It depends on one's moral quality.

Compared with the existence of righteousness and orthodoxy in the imperial court, the centrifugal force of the refugee commander group is much stronger.Su Jun's subordinates are not so much subordinates as partners, and they hold together to keep warm and start a business together.When hugged together, instead of protecting their interests and gaining a sense of security, they feel a strong sense of crisis, and their internal collapse will happen sooner or later.

And Li Yang's counterattack can also be called fierce, and the basis of its existence is bravery and good fighting. When this beast is about to show its fangs, the opponent will be afraid no matter what.Using a large number of refugees to incite panic in the hearts of the people in Gyeonggi can put pressure on Zhongshu on the one hand, and on the other hand, if they really want to meet each other in the future, the resistance will be much smaller.

Today, the trend of fleeing and avoiding disasters in Gyeonggi is still spreading. In the past, families fled one by one, but as the situation became more and more serious, now they have started to migrate in units of clans.

Shen Zhezi has been out of the city a few times recently, seeing that the previously overcrowded Changganli and other places have gradually become sparsely populated, and the whole market is filled with a sense of depression.The originally thriving prosperity was cut off in the middle, and now the only commodity on the market whose prices have skyrocketed against the trend is food.In the past, Doumi was only a few tens of dollars, but now it has soared to more than three hundred dollars, and it is still rising.

Different from the depression in the city, the roads going south and east are overcrowded. Men, women, old and children wander in the wilderness, heading for a place they think is safe.

According to the latest data obtained by Shen Zhezi, Jurong County alone has received tens of thousands of refugees in the past half a month!This is no longer what a county can handle. The county government is helpless, and the nobles in the county are full of vigilance against these refugees, sending servants to drive them away from time to time.

Under such a situation, even if Shen Zhezi wanted to stay out of the matter, it was impossible, so he could only instruct Qian Feng and others to organize the big clans in the county, and combine the strength of the business alliance in the direction of Jingkou to quickly evacuate these refugees.If they are still allowed to stay near Gyeonggi, once the war breaks out and are taken hostage by the rebels, today's lambs will be tomorrow's jackals.

Considering the pros and cons of gains and losses at this time is already a joke at the expense of one's wealth and life, so at this time, the manpower and material resources saved by the Shen family have been invested almost regardless of the cost, in order to disperse the refugees as much as possible, and where is the best place to resettle them? Minor issue, the most important is not having them all in one place.

Fortunately, the Shen family has been preparing to deal with this situation since a long time ago. A large number of refugees from Jingkou have moved south, which has almost caused a certain degree of labor shortage, and the capacity for refugees has expanded.On the way to Wuzhong, because of the turnover of goods in the early years, the road has already been sorted out, and people can be evacuated quickly.

But the most important thing to evacuate refugees is not these, but the supply of food.Now Wuzhong is also preparing for war, and food is also an extremely important strategic material.Even if there is a large amount of stored grain, it is impossible for Shen Zhezi to pay for it out of his own pocket.This is not a question of morality or not, it has now risen to a political question.If he really dared to do that, Zhongshu probably wondered if the Shen family wanted to turn against Li Yang before Li Yang did.

But if there is no food supply at all, these refugees will naturally form many armed groups to prey on the way to survive in order to survive.Once this armed force is formed and penetrates into the Wuzhong area, it will also be a disaster.

The only way Shen Zhezi can think of now is to use work in lieu of relief and organize production labor along the way.Migration is a flowing process. Naturally, it is impossible to carry out long-term production such as reclamation and planting, so it is mainly felling, gathering and other labor.Nowadays, most of the mountains, forests, rivers and marshes are in the hands of noble families. To carry out such labor, it is necessary to have sufficient communication with these local nobles.

In the past, relying on the strength of the business alliance alone may not be able to convince these big clans.And those refugees who are scattered and have no organizational power are even less regarded by the big clans who occupy the place.But when the two are combined, they have an extremely powerful deterrent effect.

In order not to touch Zhongshu's heart too much, Shen Zhezi mainly entrusted Yu Tiao to do this kind of affairs.With the financial resources of the business alliance and the manpower of refugees like locusts crossing the border, there is no door that cannot be closed along the way.Even the various branches of the Zhou family who were at odds with the Shen family's Dongzong in Yixing territory needed to cooperate obediently and let go of their sealed mountains for the refugees to gather, hunt, fell, etc. for production.

The most important thing right now is manpower. The raw materials obtained can be directly sent to Wuzhong to be processed into products and sold to Jingkou and other places.In this whole cycle, the benefits are actually not very big, but even if it is a loss, as long as it can accomplish a few core purposes, it is still worth it.On the one hand, it prevented the refugees from clamoring for trouble, and on the other hand, to some extent, it also included these people along the way into the framework of the business alliance.

The stubbornness of the family manor cannot be disintegrated overnight.And if the existence of these manors is not disintegrated, the simple deployment of personnel or the flat promotion of the military is only a temporary solution, and it will come back soon.Although the business alliance is now prosperous, it is actually limited to Wuzhong and Jingkou, and its influence is still minimal.

The sprinkling of huge amounts of money is actually to prevent the business alliance from being too deeply affected by the war in the future, and it will not recover from it.From the perspective of the growth of the business alliance, Shen Zhezi did not resist the destruction of the capital and even Wuzhong by Su Jun's rebel army.

It might be a bit inhumane to think so, after all, when wars happen, those innocent people suffer the most.However, the growth of the business alliance must be based on the liberation of productivity and production resources from the family estates, and if you want to snatch these resources from the major families, you cannot completely hope for a peaceful transition. The necessary military means are absolutely indispensable.

This battle with Su Jun in Liyang is inevitable, and Shen Zhezi cannot stop it.And what he can do is to hope that this war will not just consume Jiangdong's vitality, and it will still go around in circles after the chaos. It can pave the way for the future situation management, which is already the best result.

The food needed for the evacuation of the refugees mainly came from Xuancheng.Xuancheng, West Zhejiang, and Jiangzhou are now the most important grain-producing areas in Jiangdong, and they are stronger than Sanwu in terms of the meaning of Gyeonggi.

On the one hand, it is because the clans of the southerners in this line are relatively weak and easy to control by the central government, while the Three Wus are intertwined. Kuaiji, the potential has not yet been fully tapped.Although the scale of land reclamation in Kuaiji has soared in recent years, it has not yet reached the point of stable output.

Earlier, the father sent a letter to Shen Zhezi and said that due to the large amount of grain transported northward by Wu Xing and Wu County to fill the Jingkou market, the reserves have dwindled.On the other hand, Kuaiji prepared the army and even mobilized food from several counties in Jiangzhou in the south and Guangzhou.But this is not a big problem. After all, even if the war comes, the fighting intensity in the east of Gyeonggi is not strong, and it is almost certain that it will not spread to Kuaiji.

The reason why Xuancheng took food was not entirely because of the shortage of food in Wuzhong, but mainly to weaken the supplies of the rebels.As far as Gushu is concerned, Xuancheng is an extremely important food storage area. When the rebels cross the Hengjiang River, this place will bear the brunt of it, and it will inevitably be difficult to defend.Instead of storing these grains for the rebellious army, it is better to embezzle some of them first, which can also save Wuzhong's grain reserves.

However, what makes Shen Zhezi feel more helpless is that Shi Huanyi in Xuancheng is extremely sensitive to the outflow of grain. Earlier, he was only a warning, but now he has mobilized the county soldiers to directly expel Shen's grain purchase team by force.Although this can't stop the outflow of grain, after all, all large households have abundant grain reserves, and as the situation becomes tense, there is also a demand for grain sales, but the price will be much higher.

Huan Yi is an important supporter of Yu Liang in the local area. Although he is not as important as Jiangzhou, as the party directly facing Liyang, his status is not unimportant.But to be honest, this man is lacking in ability, and he should not be overly praised because of the death of the country in history.

Ability is ability, integrity is integrity.His time in Xuancheng was not short, and he was almost doomed to guard against Liyang's mission from the beginning of his tenure, but the efforts and even the results for this mission were not much.Judging from the Shen family's purchase of grain alone, this man's control over the locality is almost zero.To be honest, since he knew that his position was so important, but he couldn't take precautions early, he would die if he didn't die!
On the first day of October, Du Helou, who had been serving as a subordinate of Zhongshu, came to see him at night, and he opened his mouth and said: "The Zhongshu has issued an edict during the day to declare Liyang to return to the capital."

(End of this chapter)