Late Tang

(Thanks to alan 07 and Mayflower 001 for their support, thank you!)

Hearing Lu Yongzhi casually say the figure of lending 100 million shi, Li Jing could not help but snort coldly. One million shi is not a decimal number. Calculated on the basis of one shi per mu, the output of 100 million mu of land is required.Just to transport these grains, according to the ordinary sea ships of one thousand shi, one thousand ships are needed.Even if you use Wanshi's super grain ship, you have to load a hundred of them.

Even if the food is not as precious as it was in the past two years, 100 million shi of food is still a large amount of precious material.Li Jing himself was still buying grain, so how could he still lend it to Gao Pian knowing that it was a meat bag beating a dog and never returning.

"hiss!"

Li Rang, Cui Zhiyuan and others all took a breath when they heard the words, this Gao Pian really opened his mouth like a lion.

Is it true that Zhen [***] owes him Zhen Haijun?Even if Gao Pian is a famous general and has high qualifications and prestige, he can't say such a thing. He really doesn't regard himself as an outsider.

The harvest in the two seasons of last year and this summer was good, and there are still grains that have been purchased for several years. In addition to the consumption of the people under the rule, there are more than 300 million shi of rice, millet, wheat beans and other grains in the warehouse, plus more than 1000 million shi. Coarse grains such as yams and taro.In addition, there are many canned foods such as meat and fish, dried meat and dried fish, and farmed cattle, sheep, pigs, rabbits, chickens, ducks, and geese.

No matter how much these are, it is the hard work of the people in the town [***], and it is the basis for maintaining the stable development of millions of people.

Li Jing donated 100 million yuan of money, food and materials to the emperor every month, which is worth the money.

But Gao Pian is not Li Jing's boss, he is just a town handsome with Li Jing's status.Even if Cui Yunqing, Cui Anqian, Yang Fuguang and others borrowed food from Li Jing at the beginning, it was only a loan of 20 to [-] yuan, and there were a lot of conditions attached.

Why did Gao Pian dare to ask for 100 million, and still act like he has to borrow it?

Li Jing was angry but smiled instead, looked at Lu Yongzhi and said, "I heard that Gao Situ has the art of casting beans into soldiers, doesn't he have the art of turning stone into gold?"

Gao Pian is good at alchemy, even when he was fighting in Xichuan, he used to open an altar to hold sacrifices before each battle, and he had to make paper figures, paper horses, etc.

It was because Gao Pian was good at alchemy that Lu Yongzhi was able to use deception to enter Gao Pian's tent.Hearing Li Jing's sarcasm, he didn't show any anger at all. With a proud face, he replied proudly: "Just a few days ago, His Majesty the Son of Heaven has already granted Gao Situ the command of all the soldiers and horses in the camp, and Jianghuai Salt. The iron transfer envoy has been promoted to the rank of servant. Gao Shizhong is mobilizing troops and horses, preparing to go to Fujian to wipe out the rebels in one fell swoop. Therefore, a special person came here to borrow food for military use."

There was another burst of exclamation in the hall. Li Jing and others had expected that Gao Pian would eventually become the governor, but they didn't expect it to be so soon, and he also served as the transfer envoy of Jianghuai salt and iron.

However, Li Jing heard another message from Lu Yongzhi's words. Lu Yongzhi came from Runzhou in the south of the Yangtze River. It took more than half a month on the road, plus the time to wait for him, it took him nearly a month to leave Zhenhai.But now he has not received the news that Gao Pian was appointed as the capital, and Lu Yongzhi also said that the emperor conferred the post a few days ago.That means that this news was sent by Gao Pian's side quickly, which means that the matter of borrowing food was decided before Gao Pian was promoted to the capital.

Now Li Jing is also a little confused, whether the figure of borrowing 100 million stone grains was Gao Pian's intention, or Lu Yongzhi added it on his own initiative after learning that Gao Pian was promoted.

With a flick of his sleeves, Li Jing stood up and left Lu Yongzhi in the living room, leading everyone to leave.

Gao Pian's promotion to Dutong means that Tian Lingzi, Lu Xie and others have won another round of victory against Zheng Tian and Ximen Sigong's faction in the court.There will definitely be a series of changes, and Li Jing needs to figure out the whole situation now.

That night, Gongsun Lan received the latest information from Chang'an.

Cui Anqian, the envoy of Zhongwu Jiedu, was dismissed from the post of recruitment envoy, and then was removed from the post of Zhongwu Jieshuai, and transferred to Chang'an as Minister of the Ministry of Officials.At the same time, Cui Yunqing, the Jiedu envoy of Lingnan East Road, did not stay in Guangzhou for long, and was transferred again from Lingnan East Road to Jiangnan West Road. Jiedushi.

At the same time, the imperial court appointed Li Tiao as the Jiedu envoy of the East of Lingnan, Xue Neng as the Jiedu envoy of Zhongwu, and Zhimo, the younger brother of the former Datong defense envoy Zhimo, as the envoy of the probation army.

Li Jing was a little dazzled by the series of transfers of Jiedu envoys, but this was not the end. The two most powerful transfers were after the imperial court raised the ranks to be the commanders of all Taoist battalions and horses, and then raised the ranks. Huainan Jiedu Deputy Ambassador, replacing the incompetent Liu Ye.The original position of Zhenhai Jiedushi was transferred to Zhou Bao, a general from the Shence Right Army, to take over the position of Zhenhai Jiedushi.

However, it is a little surprising that Liu Ye served as the Huainan Jiedu envoy in Huainan, and after Gao Pian took over, he was the Huainan Jiedu envoy.

After this major adjustment, Huainan Deputy Ambassador Gao Pian, Zhenhai Jiedu Envoy Zhou Bao, Zhennan Jiedu Envoy Cui Yunqing, Lingnan Dongdao Jiedu Envoy Li Tiao, Zhongwu Jiedu Envoy Xue Neng, Probation Army Jiedu Envoy Zhi Xiang, the imperial court Once, the surnames of the Jieshuai of the six towns were changed, and Cui Anqian, the former envoy and Zhongwu Jieshuai, was transferred to Chang'an as the Minister of the Ministry of Officials.

Among the six towns, Gao Pian, Zhou Bao, Li Tiao, Xue Neng, and Zhi Xiang are all considered to belong to Tian Lingzi and Lu Xie, except Cui Yunqing.

Gao Pian took the position of Huainan Jieshuai and the commander of various soldiers and horses a year earlier than in history. It seems that Gao Pian is about to enter his peak.

The new Zhenhai Jiedu Envoy Zhou Bao is ten years older than Gao Pian. Zhou Bao's grandfather was a general of the Pinglu Army, and his father served as the defense envoy of Tiande West City.Later, he followed Yin You, the envoy of Tianping Jiedu, to Tianping as a general. During the reign of Emperor Wuzong, he served as a guard.He and Gao Pian are both officers of the Shence Right Army, and they have a very good relationship. Gao Pian calls Zhou Gao his brother.Zhou Bao was very good at golf. He could not be promoted for a long time in the army, so he asked Wu Zong to be a golfer. In one game, Zhou Bao was playing in front of Wu Zong. After finishing the game and winning, Tang Wuzong appreciated it very much and promoted him to General Jinwu.Later, he was promoted to Jingyuan Jiedu envoy. During his tenure, he trained the army with the method of ball training, trained a team of elites, and accumulated 20 shi of grain in the local area, known as a good general.

This time, he was transferred to Zhenhai Jiedushi, and Gao Pian brothers, one in Jiangbei and the other in Jiangnan, occupied the most affluent Jianghuai area in the entire Tang Dynasty.

It would not be a good thing for Li Jing if these two second-generation officials joined forces and came to trouble Li Jing.Although Li Jing doesn't have to worry about what big moves they will make now, at least Li Jing's current business cannot avoid the Jianghuai River, whether it is the Yangtze River, the Huaihe River, or even the southeast coast, if Gao Pian wants to trouble Li Jing, Intercepting the caravan and so on, Li Jing's loss will be great.

The next day, Li Jing saw Lu Yongzhi again.

"Since Gao Shizhong is suppressing thieves for the imperial court, I should lend a batch of grain to Gao Shizhong. However, I have a condition, the food can be borrowed, but Gao Shizhong must hand over the captured captives to me. The old and young women and children are exchanged for a stone of grain. Young women Each person can exchange two stones, and young and strong men can exchange three stones of food. If it is an exchange for the whole family, an additional two stones of grain can be added. We can exchange as much as we have, and the high servants can get the food they need without resettling those refugees. It also gets the population that needs it, the best of both worlds.”

After a night of thinking, Li Jing decided to make some concessions to Gao Pian.This is not to say that Li Jing is afraid of Gao Pian, but that there is no benefit for Li Jing to go head-to-head with Gao Pian.As the saying goes, peace is the most important thing. If it is just to give Gao Pian some face and maintain the current situation, Li Jing is still willing.After all, the town [***] is fully supported by commerce, and half of this commerce is for the states of the Tang Dynasty, and half is for the outside world.Among them, no matter whether it is internal or external, the two towns of Huainan and Zhenhai in Jianghuai cannot be avoided.

However, Li Jing somewhat underestimated Gao Pian's state of mind at this time. As Li Jing expected, Gao Pian was not short of food.Even if there was a real shortage of food, he would never come to Li Jing to borrow food.The so-called borrowing money is just an excuse, the real purpose is to find trouble.Although Gao Pian was promoted to Dutong, he is still brooding about Li Jing's appointment as the county king.

Now that he was promoted to Dutong, and Zhou Bao came to Zhenhai, and the towns of Ganhua, Taining, Tianping, Lingnan, Zhongwu, Xuanwu, etc. were mobilized repeatedly, they all belonged to Tian Lingzi and Lu Xie.With Tian Lingzi waiting behind to fan the flames, Gao Pian naturally came to trouble Li Jing immediately.

Seeing Li Jing's concession, Lu Yongzhi smiled triumphantly and said, "No, Gao Shizhong borrowed 100 million stone grain, and there are no other conditions. But if the county king needs people, he can buy them from Gao Shizhong. Everyone knows that the county king is rich and powerful. Old and young women and children can exchange ten shi for each person, young women can exchange for [-] shi for each person, and young and strong men can exchange for [-] shi for each person. If it is an exchange for the whole family, an extra [-] shi can be added. This price is very fair Bar?"

Li Jing took the initiative to give in a step with good intentions, but he didn't want to be seen as a bully. Lu Yongzhi's meaning was obvious, and the 100 million shi of grain seemed to be the protection fee that should be paid.The subsequent population trading price has directly increased tenfold.This is not the meaning of doing business at all, it is a mess.

"Mr. Lu, there are 20 soldiers in [***], and a thousand warships. Do you think you can provoke us at will?" Li Jing said sinisterly, with anger in his tone.

Lu Yongzhi's scalp was a little numb from Li Jing's stare, but he still insisted on sticking his neck: "The town [***] is 20 yuan, but the county king has forgotten that Gao Shizhong is now the capital of all Taoists. All the towns in the southeast and even the towns in the Central Plains are under his command, although the town [***] is brave, don’t he dare to take the initiative to provoke a war?”

Li Jing gritted his teeth, but tried to refute for a moment.

Faced with a rascal like Gao Pian, is it possible that Li Jing really wants to send troops to attack him?But Gao Pian is not easy to deal with, not to mention his series of brilliant achievements, and Zhou Bao and other town troops.

What Guan Jian made Li Jing afraid was that Li Jing had been trying to develop in a low-key manner. The war in Liaodong was not over yet. It is really surrounded by enemies.Such a result was not what Li Jing wanted.

Throwing a rat, Li Jing really feels like a scholar meets a soldier now!

Faced with Gao Pian's provocation, Li Jing had to find a way to come up with a suitable plan, but now he was so angry that he couldn't think of how to deal with Gao Pian. (To be continued.)