I studied in modern times

Chapter 920 Cai Jing Takes Office in Guangxi
Yongzhou.

Since the first year of Yuanyou, it has been officially designated as the headquarters of the Guangxi Jinglüe Anfusi Office.

This is because Yongzhou controls the Youjiang and Zuojiang water systems in the upper reaches of the Pearl River.

Whether it is the tea-horse trade of the Dali Kingdom, the sugar cane of the Jiaozhou area, or the tribute rice offered by Jiaozhi.

All of them can be transported to Yongzhou through the many tributaries of the Pearl River.

Therefore, when Cai Jing arrived in Yongzhou.

The Yongzhou City he saw was already a prosperous commercial city with empires radiating in all directions.

A large number of shanty towns even began to appear outside the city of Yongzhou.

There are densely packed ships traveling on the Yongjiang River.

There were not only large government-owned ships loaded with sugar and ramie, but also countless simple bamboo rafts made of bamboo.

The types of goods transported on these bamboo rafts are extremely diverse.

There are fish caught from the Yongjiang River, local products produced by nearby chieftains, and more are commercial goods from the Central Plains.

When Cai Jing saw this, he was also extremely surprised: "Yongzhou is so prosperous!"

Su Ziyuan, the governor of Yongzhou and deputy envoy of Guangnan West Road, who came to greet him, said proudly beside him: "This is all thanks to Prime Minister Zhang!"

"When Prime Minister Zhang governed Guangxi, he was lenient in his administration and loved the people like his own children. He promoted water conservancy, encouraged agriculture and sericulture, encouraged business, and built schools... On the day he left office, officials and people in Guangxi shed tears, and elders competed to see him off respectfully, with a total number of more than 100,000..."

"Especially the boat people in Guangnan, who regard Mr. Zhang as their second parents..."

Cai Jing felt somewhat uncomfortable when he heard Su Ziyuan flattering Zhang Dun.

After all, his predecessor's political achievements were so outstanding that he, as his successor, was under a lot of pressure.

If it were someone else, he would probably have shown a displeasure on the spot.

But the person talking to him now was Su Ziyuan.

The current emperor personally posthumously awarded him the title of Jiedushi of Fengguo Army and bestowed the posthumous name "Zhongwu" on the son of Lord Su Zhongwu.

His name was even written on the screen in front of the emperor by the government, and he was praised publicly many times, saying: If all the military officials in the world were like Su Zhongwu and his son, there would be no worry about peace in the world.
After the victory of the southern expedition last year, the government issued a decree to the world through the capital, stating that the military and civilians of Yongzhou had repeatedly petitioned for mercy, and that the Su Yan Temple was quite efficacious, so the government decreed that Su Yan be named the City God of Yongzhou, and ordered a temple to be built in Guangnan West Road to worship him.

Thus, Su Yan became one of the few ministers in the Song Dynasty who was posthumously canonized as a deity and had a temple built to worship him.

This time, when Cai Jing went south, the emperor personally told him when he took leave of the emperor that when he arrived in Yongzhou, he must worship the City God to promote loyalty and filial piety.

Therefore, the prefect of Yongzhou was a veritable confidant of the emperor's party.

He has the privilege of being able to report directly to the emperor, so in terms of imperial favor, he may not be inferior to Cai Jing.

What's more, the royal favor of Zhang Dun, whom Su Ziyuan praised and extols, is too powerful!
After the announcement of his father's death reached the capital, the emperor suspended court for three days to express his condolences and sent envoys to comfort his wife and children in the capital.

This is already very rare - when a minister's father died, the emperor stopped court to express his condolences. In the 150 years of the Song Dynasty, there were only a handful of similar examples.

Then, there is a series of high-standard funeral treatments.

The funeral expenses given to Zhang Dun alone amounted to 100,000 strings of cash.

And the money comes from the sealing pile fund!
Among the ministers of all dynasties, the only one who could be compared with him in terms of the emperor's favor was probably the Prime Minister Yan Yuanxian of the Renmiao Temple.

So, Cai Jing could only feel jealous in his heart.

Then, he grasped the key point of Su Ziyuan's words: "Tanka people?"

“Are there Tanka people in Guangnan West Road as well?”

As a native of Fujian, Cai Jing naturally knew about the Tanka households.

This is an ancient profession. People have lived on rivers, lakes and seas for generations, making a living by fishing. In the eyes of outsiders, these people are generally in a state of life of "What does the power of the emperor have to do with me?"

But Cai Jing knew that this was not true!
On the contrary, the Tanka people live in extreme hardship.

At least this is the case with the boat people in Fujian - they have lived on boats for generations, and many of them never go ashore in their entire lives.

Birth, old age, sickness and death all happen on water.

Many boat people don’t even have cloth to cover themselves.

Naked on the boat, spending his whole life.

They were uneducated, illiterate, and did not understand the law.

Therefore, they often became targets of extortion by government clerks.

"My Lord, there have been Tanka people in the coastal states of Guangnan West since ancient times..." Su Ziyuan replied, "When Chen Wenzhong (Chen Yaosou) ruled Guangxi, he ordered Tanka people to supervise the boats and transport grain to Qiongzhou to help the soldiers and civilians of Qiongzhou!"

"When Prime Minister Zhang was ordered to march south, after the victory, he served as the chief minister of Guangxi and investigated the people's conditions. He learned that the Tanka people were suffering, so he asked the emperor for an order. After receiving the order, he announced to the Tanka people that the emperor's grace allowed them to land and cultivate land, and granted them land and oxen, and exempted them from taxes for three years..."

"In addition, we established the 'Chenghai Army' from Lianzhou, Qinzhou and other states, recruited Tanka people as soldiers, and supervised the importation of tribute rice from Jiaozhi into Guangxi and the transportation of it to Guangnan East Road, Leizhou, Yazhou and other places!"

"More than 100,000 boat people in Guangnan West Road were overjoyed, and everyone said: Mr. Zhang saved our lives!"

As he spoke, Su Ziyuan pointed to the boats on the Yong River and said, "Look, sir, these boats on the Yong River..."

"Nine out of ten, it's all done by the old boat people!"

No one knows how to sail a boat better than the boat people who have lived on rivers, lakes and seas for generations.

The reason why Nanning has become the trade center of the Pearl River and Youjiang River Basin in just over a year is that

It was all thanks to these boat people who sailed back and forth, transporting goods and commodities from Jiaozhou, Jiaozhi, Dali Kingdom and the southwestern tribes to Yongzhou.

Then, the Central Plains commercial goods were sold to various places from Yongzhou.

Cai Jing was immediately surprised when he heard this and asked, "There are also Tanka people in Fujian..."

"But I heard that the boat people are cunning and their lives are not secure..."

He looked at the ships on the Yong River and asked, "How did Mr. Zhang tell them to obey orders and abide by the law?"

In Cai Jing's impression, the Tanka people were lawless and restless people.

They hated the government's control, but had no choice but to accept its exploitation.

Therefore, whenever they have the chance, they will try every possible means to escape the control of the government.

How is it possible to work for the government?

Su Ziyuan smiled: "Mr. Zhang's plan is very simple..."

"Sufficient pay! Sufficient food!" "The soldiers of the Chenghai Navy will receive a monthly salary of two strings of silver and one stone of rice, as well as salt, tea, cloth, etc."

"If you go out to sea and transport rice to Yazhou or Leizhou, your monthly salary will be increased by one string of silver and two dou of rice will be given as stipend!"

"When the boat people learned about this, they naturally jumped in to join us!"

In the past, the boat people lived on the water, and if they caught valuable fish (such as moray eels), they had to quickly sell them on shore to prevent the fish from dying and being unsalable.

The vendors know this pain point of the Tanka people, so they seize on it and try their best to lower the price.

The clerks also knew this weakness of the Tanka people and took advantage of it to extort money from them.

As a result, the boat people often only had enough money left from selling fish to buy one or two kilograms of rice.

And this one or two kilograms of rice is the food for the whole family for a day - don't think it's too much, because the Tanka people live in family groups.

A couple often has seven, eight or even ten children.

Therefore, the diet of the Tanka people is mainly porridge and rice.

After Zhang Dun arrived, he announced to the Tanka people that if they were willing to go ashore, the government would allocate land to them, rent them oxen, loan them seeds, and exempt them from all taxes for the first three years.

Then, young and strong people were selected from these people and organized into the Chenghai Army.

This made them the transportation force of the water and sea routes of Guangxi-Jiaozhou-Jiaozhi-Leizhou and even-Guangnan East Road.

How could the boat people, who had lived a hard life and were hungry every day, accept such temptation?

In just over a year, hundreds of thousands of boat people either went ashore to farm or joined the army and sailed.

Countless of them ate delicious white rice and wore brand new clothes for the first time in their lives.

Naturally, they would be grateful to Zhang Dun and full of loyalty to the Song Dynasty court.

Cai Jing listened, but his eyes widened: "One stone of rice per month, and two strings of silver in military pay?!"

"Where did Guangnan West Road get so much money and rice?"

At this point, he was stunned.

Then he remembered.

Today's Guangnan West Road is no longer the remote military prefecture with the worst economy in the world that it was last year.

Last year, Zhang Dun led an expedition to the south and was defeated in Jiaozhi, forcing them to sign the Yuanyou Peace Agreement. The agreement stipulated that Jiaozhi had to pay an annual tribute of one million dan of rice, and then purchase another one million dan from the Song Dynasty at market price.

With these two million dan of rice, the government of Guangnan West Road had no shortage of food at all!

If the sea route was not too far, I am afraid that when Huainan suffered a severe drought last year, rice from Guangxi would have been transported to Huainan for disaster relief.

As for money?
Maybe it was missing in the past.

But now Guangnan West Road has received a special decree from the emperor: the copper coins minted by the two largest mints in the Song Dynasty - Yongxing Mint in Tanzhou and Censhui Mint in Shaozhou - are sent directly to Guangnan West Road.

Cai Jing heard in Bian Jing that the two major mints had minted as much as one million strings of copper coins in the previous year alone.

This year it may even reach 1.5 million strings of cash!
With the addition of funding from the imperial court, how could Guangnan West Road be short of money?

Thinking of this, Cai Jing couldn't help but complain in his heart: "Zhang Zihou is really lucky!"

"Two million dan of rice per year, and the imperial court allocates two to three million guan per year..."

"Even if it is a pig, with so many resources, it can rule the country in a harmonious way and rebuild everything!"

However, after thinking about it, Cai Jing became excited.

Because these resources belong to both Zhang Dun and Cai Jing!

Zhang Dun relied on these resources to achieve such great achievements!

With these resources, Cai Jing and Cai Yuanchang will naturally achieve greater and more political achievements!

At least, he must be better than Zhang Zihou!

In this way, one's own abilities can be demonstrated, and the government can know who is the real minister who governs the country well!
With these thoughts in mind, Cai Jing bowed to Su Ziyuan and said, "I was negligent..."

"I have forgotten that last year, Prime Minister Zhang led his army to attack Chou, expanded the territory by a thousand miles, and annexed the eight states of Jiaozhou!"

Su Ziyuan smiled and bowed, "My lord, you are so kind!"

"Speaking of which, my husband has just arrived in Yongzhou and is not familiar with the affairs of Guangnan West Road and Annan Protectorate..."

"Therefore, please go to the Yongzhou government first. After I welcome you, I will introduce you to the officials of Guangxi..."

"Thank you, Mr. Su!" Cai Jing bowed in thanks.

Su Ziyuan smiled and said, "To be honest, sir, there is an old friend of yours who is waiting at the headquarters of the General Manager and Pacification Envoy."

"Old friend?" Cai Jing thought for a moment, then asked, "But Lü Wangzhi (Lü Jiawen)?"

"That's right!" Su Ziyuan bowed.

"Isn't Lu Wangzhi in Jiaozhou?" Cai Jing became curious.

Su Ziyuan smiled and said, "Lü Anfu came to Yong this time to introduce the affairs of Jiaozhou to you, my lord, according to the imperial order!"

"Oh!"

"In addition to Lu Anfu, Gao Fanghu of Jiaozhou (Gao Zunhui) will also come to Yong in the near future!" Su Ziyuan continued.

"Oh!"

Cai Jing had long been aware of the Empress Dowager's cousin.

After all, this man was a very famous extravagant person even in Bian Jing!
Legend has it that he had accumulated a fortune of two or three hundred thousand strings of cash in just two years in Jiaozhou!

This made the people from the Gao family and the Xiang family drool.

only……

Gao Zunhui is coming, shouldn't he come with Lu Jiawen?
Su Ziyuan saw Cai Jing's doubts and said with a smile: "Gao Fangyu went to Fuliangjiang to pick someone up!"

"Who to pick up?"

"Li Taide, Prime Minister of Jiaozhi and Marquis of Chongxian!"

After hearing this, Cai Jing opened his eyes wide in disbelief.

(End of this chapter)