Family Rise: Beginning with Grandfather.

Chapter 615: Rising Army and Expanding
Chen Hengchang was stunned, then looked outside the door, but there was no figure outside.

Just when he couldn't help but want to continue asking questions, footsteps came towards the door.

Two people came, one was someone he was familiar with, Ji Feiyu, and the other was a figure covered in a cloak.

The two walked into the tea room, and Ji Feiyu bowed and said, "Your Highness, I, Ji Feiyu, greet you! I greet the leader!"

Chen Hengchang quickly stood up and helped him up, and said in surprise and joy: "Uncle, when did you come back?"

After Prince Qing died, he entrusted Chen Hengchang to Ji Feiyu. For more than 20 years, Ji Feiyu has been assisting Chen Hengchang wholeheartedly.

"I just came back yesterday!" Ji Feiyu showed a stiff smile, and there was a bit of tenderness in his sinister eyes.

Chen Hengchang happily pulled Ji Feiyu's arm and was about to sit down.

"How has uncle been these past two years?"

"That's good, Your Highness. I'll introduce someone to you!"

Only then did Chen Hengchang pay attention to the figure standing beside Ji Feiyu.

An ugly face and a pair of calm eyes were revealed under the cloak.

The reason why it is ugly is that the face is covered with hideous scars.

Chen Hengchang felt that this person had a character that was completely inconsistent with his appearance.

The scar on his face was extremely ugly, but his eyes were deep and calm. His temperament gave people a feeling of elegance and nobility even though his whole body was covered in a cloak.

"he is?"

"Lü Hua, formerly the commander-in-chief of the Secret Guard Zhenbei Division." Ji Feiyu said.

That’s right, the person in front of me is Lu Hua.

As for why he is with Ji Feiyu.

This is a long story.

Ever since Chen Zhongshu eliminated the people planted by the Shenyang Sect in Kyoto, many secrets of the Secret Guards have been in the hands of the Shenyang Sect, and even many of the Secret Guards' spies have been bribed by the Shenyang Sect.

Later, Wang Zhongzhi rebuilt the Secret Guard, but he did not clean out all the Shen Yang believers hiding in the Secret Guard.

Even as time went by, the power of the Shen Yang Sect in the Secret Guard grew stronger and stronger.

The Secret Guards have been unable to find any trace of the Shen Yang Cult, not because they are not strong enough, but because the Shen Yang Cult has already devoured the Secret Guards.

Later, after Wang Zhongzhi passed away, the Secret Guards completely went out of control and were almost completely controlled by the Shen Yang Cult.

When Lu Hua discovered this, he originally wanted to investigate the Secret Guards and wipe out all the members of the Shen Yang Sect in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, before he could take any action, the Secret Guards captured him first.

He became a prisoner of the Shen Yang Sect, but the Shen Yang Sect did not treat him as food, and Ji Feiyu wanted to subdue him.

He was imprisoned by Ji Feiyu for five years. He had been on Heishan Island for these five years. It was not until three months ago that he decided to surrender.

"Your Highness, I am Lu Hua, your servant. I pay my respects to you!" Lu Hua bowed, but he only bowed to Chen Hengchang and did not salute Lin Fuan.

"It's you!" Chen Hengchang looked at him in astonishment.

Then he looked at Lin Fuan beside him and asked, "The person Master is talking about is Lu Hua?"

"Yes, it's him!" Lin Fuan looked at Lu Hua deeply and said.

Chen Hengchang was a little puzzled. He knew that Lu Hua had been imprisoned on Heishan Island. After all, Heishan Island was his territory. He just didn't understand why Lin Fuan had to wait for Lu Hua to come.

Can a Lu Hua alone influence the overall situation?

Lin Fuan said: "We need him to form the Blood Robe Guard!"

"Bloody Guards?" Chen Hengchang looked at Ji Feiyu.

Ji Feiyu said: "The Blood Robe Guard is a spy organization established on the basis of the Secret Guard. Although we now control most of the Secret Guard's power, we still don't know many of its secrets. The operation of the Secret Guard also requires a familiar person to be in charge, so we thought of Lu Hua!"

They kept Lu Hua because they valued Lu Hua's ability. Rebuilding the Secret Guard is much more difficult than destroying it. Now the Secret Guard has been basically destroyed by them. Many secret lines and spies have lost contact, making it impossible for them to fully control the Secret Guard.

Therefore, they needed a real senior leader of the Secret Guard to rebuild the Secret Guard. Of course, they would no longer be called the Secret Guard, but would be renamed the Blood-Clothes Guard.

"Are you willing to help me?" Chen Hengchang asked.

"I am willing to serve Your Highness at my whim!" Since Lu Hua was here, he naturally would not refuse.

"Hahaha, good, good, with the help of Eunuch Lu, the king is even more powerful, great!"

Chen Hengchang laughed happily and pulled Eunuch Lu to sit down to show his closeness.

He called himself the King because his father was the King of Qing, and he inherited his father's throne, so naturally he was the King of Qing.

Lu Hua sat next to him with a calm expression and didn't say much.

After Chen Hengchang laughed, he looked at Lin Fuan with bright eyes, "Should we start a rebellion next?"

Lin Fuan said: "As long as Your Highness is ready, then let's start the rebellion!"

Chen Hengchang's eyes flickered, "Master, you don't intend to help me?"

He and Lin Fuan are master and apprentice, but not master and apprentice.

Becoming a disciple is just to bring both parties closer together, but everyone understands that they are just in a cooperative relationship.

Lin Fuan shook his head slightly, "The Shenyang Cult is only the backing of His Highness, but cannot stand in front of the stage!"

"The Shenyang Sect has a very bad reputation. If Your Highness raises an army in the name of the Shenyang Sect, he will only be rejected by the people of the world."

"So Your Highness wants to raise an army in his own name, and the Shenyang Church is secretly helping Your Highness!"

This was the experience he summed up based on the previous experience of the Shen Yang Sect's uprising. Although that happened more than 150 years ago, the world still retains the memory of the Shen Yang Sect, and those memories have long formed a stereotype.

If the Shen Yang Sect rises up again, it will inevitably be attacked by the court and various forces.

Therefore, they must not expose the existence of the Shen Yang Sect this time.

For the Shen Yang Sect, raising an army is just the beginning. Next, the Shen Yang Sect will hide behind Chen Hengchang and help Chen Hengchang conquer the world while continuing to accumulate strength.

At the same time, Lin Fuan will also clean up the Shenyang Sect, wash away the dirt of the Shenyang Sect, and let the Shenyang Sect be reborn.

If the Shen Yang Sect wants to see the light of day again, it must stand in front of the world with a clean record, otherwise it will not be able to conquer the world.

He didn't want the Shen Yang Sect to continue to be rats in the gutter. He wanted the followers of the Shen Yang Sect to become human beings and live under the sun.

Of course, doing so would cause the Shen Yang Sect to pay a heavy price, and even lose the foundation for rapid growth, but Lin Fuan was still determined to do so.

Because he had had enough of living in the gutter, he also wanted to be upright and praised by the world.

Simply put, he also wants to be a good person, and he also wants to lead the disciples and believers of the Shenyang Sect to become good people.

It may sound funny that a group of extremely evil people want to be good people. But this is what Lin Fuan wants to do most. He is not born evil, he is just a poor man who cannot choose his life.

It is not difficult to understand that he now wants to break free from the shackles of fate and become a superior person in a legitimate way.

As for those Shen Yang believers, they were nothing more than tools for him to escape his fate.

Therefore, he was willing to cooperate with Chen Hengchang and assist Chen Hengchang.

The sixteenth year of Xingyue, that is, the eighth day of the eighth month of the third year of Jianxing.

Chen Hengchang gathered 8,000 warriors in Jiujiang Prefecture to start a rebellion, and raised the banner of "killing the tyrant, eliminating the treacherous ministers, restoring Dayong, and saving the people."

Chen Hengchang started the rebellion in the name of the grandson of Prince Zhaoyuan, and under the banner of rebuilding Darong, it was considered legitimate.

Emperor Chengping's name was Chen Zhaowu. Before he ascended the throne, Chen Zhaoyuan was the crown prince of Dayong. It was only because Chen Zhaoyuan died of illness that Emperor Chengping inherited the throne.

Actually, Chen Hengchang and Emperor Jianxing Chen Zhaojun were brothers. According to the generation name, Chen Hengchang should be called Chen Zhaochang. In fact, his original name was Chen Zhaochang. He changed his name to Chen Hengchang after Prince Qing was defeated and fled to Heishan Island.

The reason for changing the name was, firstly, because he wanted to sever ties with the Darong royal family, and secondly, to make it easier to hide his identity.

The eight thousand warriors under Chen Hengchang's command are actually the descendants of the Black Mountain Island Navy. Now they are back to fight again.

The Shen Yang Sect and Chen Hengchang were very well prepared.

They started their rebellion on August 8 and occupied Jiujiang Prefecture.

Immediately afterwards, they successively captured two states and nine counties under the jurisdiction of Jiujiang Prefecture. In just one month, they occupied the entire Jiujiang Prefecture.

Moreover, the number of soldiers under his command increased to more than 18,000, and they called themselves the Insurgent Army.

At this point, the soldiers under Chen Hengchang's command and the followers of the Shenyang Sect became one army, and from then on they were the righteous army that rebuilt Darong.

Of course, the Shen Yang Sect is just hiding behind the scenes and has not disappeared.

The high-level leaders of the Shen Yang Sect did not completely submit to Chen Hengchang. Those followers of the Shen Yang Sect who submitted to Chen Hengchang were originally the personnel prepared by Lin Fuan for Chen Hengchang.

They cannot even be called followers of the Shen Yang Sect because they have not practiced the Soul-Refining and Blood-Refining Technique.

To put it simply, on the surface, the rebel army led by Chen Hengchang had nothing to do with the Shen Yang Sect.

……

Early September.

Taiping County was a completely different scene. Longnan Province in the north had suffered from severe drought for three years, and Taiping County had also suffered from a slight drought. But over the past three years, Yang Mingzhao had organized laborers to dig wells and canals, to draw water from underground and from rivers. Not only had the farmland in Taiping County not been affected by the drought, but tens of thousands of acres of paddy fields had been reclaimed.

Even for farmlands far away from water sources, Yang Mingzhao asked his soldiers to organize the people to fetch water for irrigation.

Today, looking around Taiping County, one can see a scene of bumper harvest.

This was the time when the new rice was harvested, and it was also the time when people had to pay the autumn tax.

Without waiting for the county officials to go to the villages to collect taxes, the people would carry their rice to the county town or nearby towns to pay taxes and grain.

In the open space outside the county government office, the people who came to pay their land taxes were all smiling, greeting each other and chatting.

Yang Mingzhao and Chen Buyu stood inside the county government office, looking at the people outside, their faces full of smiles.

The people came forward to pay taxes on their own initiative, which was probably the greatest recognition for them.

In fact, the land tax they set was not low. It was divided into summer tax and autumn tax. In summer, the upper fields were taxed at 7 liters per mu, and the lower fields were taxed at 5 liters. In autumn, the upper fields were taxed at 6 liters per mu, and the lower fields were taxed at 4 liters.

The annual land tax per mu of land was two liters more than Dayong's land tax, but the people were still very happy, simply because apart from the land tax, they no longer had to pay any other taxes.

Farmers need to pay land tax, and people in the city need to pay land tax, that is, land tax is collected according to the residential area, which is almost the same as property tax. An ordinary house has to pay five cents of silver a year. This number is not high but not low either.

According to the labor force in Taiping County, a strong laborer could earn about twenty coins a day by selling his labor, and six or seven coins a month.

That is to say, an ordinary household has to pay one month's salary of a strong laborer as tax every year.

In addition, shops are calculated separately and are also based on the shop area, which is twice that of residential properties.

Then Yang Mingzhao also set up checkpoints on the official roads entering and leaving Taiping County to collect tolls.

Finally, Yang Mingzhao also included salt, iron and tea into government-run businesses. The salt produced in salt wells, the tea roasted in tea workshops, and iron ingots purchased from other places were all managed exclusively by the county government.

But even so, prices in Taiping County are still very stable and people are still very wealthy.

The county government’s tax revenue was very high, which was more than enough to support three thousand soldiers. Every household had food in stock, so food and clothing were not a problem at all.

Today, Taiping County is thriving.

"Young Master, after we harvest the autumn crops, we can send out troops!" Chen Buyu said happily.

Yang Mingzhao nodded and said, "It's time to send troops. Gather everyone here and let's discuss the plan!"

In fact, the plan had already been made, they just needed to reconfirm it.

Quarter of an hour later, Yang Mingzhao's team had arrived.

Civil servants included Ma Yan, Lu Bo, Qi Zhang, Zhang Baichuan, Lin Botao and others.

Ma Yan and Lu Bo were Yang Mingzhao's servants and close followers, but now they are the county magistrate and county magistrate of Taiping County, and also the chief stewards of Yang Mingzhao.

Qi Zhang was a teacher at a private school in Taiping County. He was over 40 years old and an old student, but he was the first scholar to join Yang Mingzhao.

Many clerks in the county government were Qi Zhang’s former students.

These students actually did not have much knowledge, they could only write and do math, but they did a very good job as officials. Yang Mingzhao valued Qi Zhang and his students very much.

Zhang Baichuan was the second scholar to seek refuge with Yang Mingzhao. He was a poor scholar who sought refuge with Yang Mingzhao out of gratitude for the land Yang Mingzhao had allocated to his family.

Lin Botao was the young man who was harassed by the yamen runners and whom Yang Mingzhao met in front of the city gate when he first came to Taiping County.

Now he has also joined Yang Mingzhao and works as a clerk in the county government.

There are more than fifty clerks in the Taiping County Yamen now. Some of them are from Sanjian Valley, all of whom are young people trained in Sanjian Valley. Some of them are students brought by Qi Zhang, a total of seven people. The last part is scholars who took the initiative to come and seek refuge, and their situation is similar to Zhang Baichuan and Lin Botao.

For a county government, more than fifty clerks are definitely too many, but Yang Mingzhao is preparing for the reserve of officials.

In fact, in addition to the clerks in the county government, there were also government offices in several towns in Taiping County, each with more than ten clerks.

In addition, Yang Mingzhao also established many schools in Taiping County specifically for training officials.

This is the only solution they have. Their foundation is too shallow, so they can only try their best to train officials.

Compared with officials, training military generals is much easier.

Whether it is Deng Xing, Han Lin, Li Dagui, and Yang Ze, or young people like Zhao Kai and Zhang Mo, they are all qualified to serve as military generals.

Over the past two years, they have trained three thousand soldiers and taught more than thirty warriors. The number is not large, but it is enough to meet their next expansion needs.

(End of this chapter)