I rode and slashed unparalleled in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 779: The noble families work together, Su Yao strikes hard

In the first year of Kaiyuan, in the sixth month of the long summer, in Anyi City.

Just when Ma Teng first entered Bingzhou and the aristocratic families were connecting with each other, Su Yao soon discovered that something was wrong.

"Report to the General!"

Jinyiwei Chief Wang Ling quickly reported to Su Yao:
"The aristocratic families in Hedong suddenly all settled down."

"This is very wrong!"

In the governor's mansion.

Zhang Fei saw Wang Ling's serious face and laughed:
"Brother Yanyun, what's wrong with this?"

"The general is so famous and powerful, they are no match for him."

"Now that those people have finally learned to behave themselves, we can focus on suppressing the bandits and then head north to fight the rebellion."

"Otherwise, if we stay in this city any longer, my snake spear will get rusty." Zhang Fei rubbed his hands and said.

In his opinion, the Baibo Army was not strong enough to fight.

I thought I would be able to fight a fierce battle with their army of 100,000.

But they didn't expect that they were just small fry as the general had said. They were killed by the Baibo bandits in just one wave and became frightened birds.

And the city of Anyi was captured without a fight, which made Zhang Fei, who was only thinking about killing the enemy and gaining merit and having a good fight, very unhappy.

Now, hearing that those noble families had finally behaved themselves, Zhang Fei was overjoyed and exclaimed that this was a good thing.

However, Wang Ling stamped his feet and said, "How can this be a good thing?"

Wang Ling frowned and said to Su Yao:
"When things go wrong, there must be a monster."

"It would be too coincidental and too synchronized to say that they have finally learned to behave themselves."

"In my opinion, this is more like someone is secretly making trouble, and it is the action of a unified organization."

"It's just that we, the Jinyiwei, have no roots in Hedong. We have just arrived and cannot find any strong clues for the time being."

Upon hearing this, Su Yao frowned slightly, looked into the distance with deep eyes, and thought secretly in his heart.

He knew very well that what Wang Ling said was true. The sudden obedience of these powerful families did reveal something unusual.

"What do you think about this, Boda?"

Su Yao turned his gaze to Sima Lang:

"The Sima family is a famous family in the Central Plains, a great family in Hanoi. You are more familiar with the affairs of these aristocratic families."

"Do you have any clues about these people's recent abnormal behavior?"

Sima Lang, who was reading papers at his desk, was slightly stunned when he heard Su Yao's call. He looked up from the file and met Su Yao's gaze with a wry smile.

Sima Lang put down the pen in his hand, rubbed his temples gently, and after sorting out his thoughts, he slowly spoke:
"General, I have heard about the movements of the powerful families in Hedong."

"The Hedong area has been rich since ancient times, with many aristocratic families and powerful people. The aristocratic families have always been led by the Wei, Fan, Yang, and Pei families, while the powerful families include the Li, Cheng, and Hou families. They have deep roots in this area, and they have a great influence in the local area."

"However, these aristocratic families have never been united. Normally, they fight overtly and covertly for their own interests. But now they have suddenly become so united. This is indeed abnormal."

Su Yao nodded slightly, motioning Sima Lang to continue.

Sima Lang continued, "I guess there may be two forces behind this. One is the princes and forces who are dissatisfied with the general. They may have secretly contacted the Hedong family and tried to use the power of the family to fight against the general."

"The second is that someone within the family may have sensed the threat posed by the general and wanted to unite to resist him together."

"Both possibilities are possible, but no matter which one it is, it shows that the movements of the Hedong family deserve our high vigilance."

Su Yao's eyes became more serious when he heard this. He knew very well that the power of the aristocratic families should not be underestimated. If they really united, they would be a force that could not be ignored.

"What Boda said is absolutely right." Su Yao said in a deep voice, "We must find out the movements of these families as soon as possible to prevent any trouble."

"Wang Ling, continue to send more people and make sure to find out the actions behind these noble families." Su Yao instructed Wang Ling, "At the same time, strengthen the security of Anyi City to prevent the noble families from suddenly launching an attack."

"Yes, sir!" Wang Ling bowed and accepted the order, turned around and left in a hurry, ready to continue his in-depth investigation.

Su Yao looked at Sima Lang again: "Boda, you are familiar with the situation in Hedong, would you like to come with me and meet these noble families in person?"

Sima Lang's heart moved when he heard this. He knew that this was a great opportunity to learn about the Hedong family and show Su Yao his abilities.

"The general has given the order, how dare Sima Lang disobey?" Sima Lang bowed and responded with a determined light in his eyes.

Su Yao nodded slightly, then stood up and prepared to set off. First of all, their target was naturally the Wei family, the head of the Hedong family.

Among them, Wei Ji, a member of the Wei clan, had made great contributions in helping to surrender the city, and had been appointed by Su Yao as an official in the General's Office to help him settle the affairs in Hedong.

Now that the Hedong family is acting abnormally, Su Yao naturally thinks of him first.

On this day, Wei Ji was at the parade ground outside the city, dealing with the issue of the surrendered soldiers of the Baibo Army together with Hou Cheng, who had just been promoted to General of the Hedong Guard.

In the previous battle, more than ten thousand surrendered soldiers of the Baibo Army were captured. After Su Yao took over Hedong, the resettlement of these people quickly became the top priority in the local area, except for the reform of the official system.

According to Su Yao's original intention, these people will be divided into three groups, among which those who are physically strong and brave in fighting will be selected by Su Yao to join his entourage in preparation for future battles.

The remaining two groups of people stayed in the local area and Hanoi, becoming garrisons in the local garrisons and establishing settlements and garrisons.

However, in actual operation, Su Yao soon discovered the problem and this plan was difficult to implement.

"General, we don't have any land here!"

At that time, Hou Cheng, the newly appointed Lieutenant General of the Guard, came back to Su Yao with a bitter face to complain about the land issue within a day.

This caught Su Yao, who usually only assigned tasks and acted as a hands-off manager in internal affairs, off guard.

"Hedong is a rich place in the Central Plains, but it's just a place to settle less than 20,000 people. Can't you solve it?"

Facing Su Yao's questioning, Hou Cheng smiled bitterly and explained:
"I just found out about this, too."

"Although the land in Hedong County is fertile, due to the rampage of the Baibo Army in recent years, many farmlands have been abandoned. To this day, half of the county's land is still in the hands of the Baibo bandits."

"Except for the land controlled by the Baibo bandits, the lands east of the Sushui River under the rule of the imperial court all have owners, and they are all well-known local aristocratic families and powerful people."

"If it's just for a thousand people, we can use the land we confiscated from the traitors, but we really can't afford to farm for about 20,000 people."

After listening to Hou Cheng's words, Su Yao realized that he had overlooked a problem.

The implementation of any system must take into account the characteristics of the times and local actual conditions.

The Ming Dynasty's Wei Suo system, which was inherited from the Cao Wei military farming system and the Tang Dynasty's Fubing system, was a system that prioritized quantity, integrated soldiers with farming, and maintained the maximum size of mobilized troops. Its core was to closely integrate soldiers with the land, achieve self-sufficiency, and reduce the financial burden on the court.

In order to implement this system, the amount of land directly controlled by the court determined the upper limit of its military support.

Whether it was Cao Wei, Sui and Tang or Ming Dynasty, they all implemented policies after experiencing turbulent times, greatly alleviating the contradiction between population and land through war and plague, and the government obtained a large amount of free land that it could control.

Take Cao Cao for example. In the first year of Jian'an (196 AD), after experiencing the Dong Zhuo Rebellion and the great war between the princes in the Central Plains, the land of the Central Plains was covered with bones exposed in the wild and no roosters crowed for thousands of miles.

At that time, after Cao Cao defeated the Yellow Turban Army in Yingchuan and Runan and seized a large number of oxen, farm tools and labor, he, at the suggestion of Zao Zhi, used these farm tools to reclaim land in the Xuchang area and implement military farming to solve the food problem.

But now, due to Su Yao's activeness, Dong Zhuo's destruction of the Central Plains is limited to the area around Luoyang, and the escape of the noble families in the Central Plains has not occurred. In the Three Rivers area, except for some unowned land in Luoyang, the lands of Henei and Hedong are almost all in the names of local noble families and powerful people.

Therefore, the local government recruited soldiers through the conscription system and issued orders to support the soldiers, simply because there was no land to be distributed locally.

Therefore, there was no soil to carry out Su Yao's plan to establish a garrison in Henei and Hedong.

It is no wonder that Hou Cheng was so anxious, as he was left alone.

"General, this won't do!"

Hou Cheng said anxiously:

"We defeated Hanoi with our military prowess. He was able to get some land and set up garrisons in the cities."

"There is no land here. We can't live in the training ground outside the city every day."

"Then, isn't there any difference between me, the Lieutenant Colonel of the Guards, and those Colonels and Sima?"

Although Hou Cheng's mind was full of his own status and face, Su Yao also discovered the seriousness of the problem.

"Don't worry, General Hou. I have my own ideas about the land issue." Su Yao said in a deep voice, already thinking of a countermeasure in his mind.

He knew very well that if the military farming problem was not properly resolved, not only would military reform be difficult to implement, but it would also trigger a series of chain reactions, affecting the stability of Hedong and even the entire Sili region and subsequent plans.

So, early the next morning, Su Yao summoned the accompanying civil and military officials and local officials and announced three things.

The first is to launch a final general offensive against the White Wave Army on the west bank as soon as possible to recover lost territory and make the pie bigger.

Secondly, he ordered Wei Ji to investigate the farmland in the two river areas, measure the land, find out the land ownership and population information under his jurisdiction, register them, and expand the tax base to facilitate the implementation of land reform in the future.

Finally, the Jinyiwei was dispatched to strictly investigate the illegal activities of the local noble families and powerful people, to strike hard and launch a severe crackdown, and to use reasonable means to reclaim the land controlled by the noble families and powerful people, and use the land for military settlements and farming by the people.

As Su Yao's order was issued, an unprecedented storm suddenly broke out in the newly acquired Hedong and Henei counties, and it also marked the beginning of the decisive battle between Su Yao and the local aristocratic families.

(End of this chapter)