Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 255

At the same time, Zhu Dadian, governor of Shandong, led his troops to encircle Kong Youde, a rebel in Denglai. Kong Youde was defeated, and led his troops to abandon the city and fled by water.Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming escaped with only a small rebel army. Soon after surrendering, Jin became a traitor.

There are many traitors who took refuge in Houjin, and the most famous one is naturally Wu Sangui.But now Wu Sangui is not yet 20 years old, and he is enjoying the fight with Jin Jin, and Wu Sangui was the vanguard when he pacified Denglai, and he beat Kong Youde so hard that he couldn't find North.

The second most famous ones are Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming and Shang Kexi. The latter two and Wu Sangui were later collectively called San Francisco.

In any case, whether it is Wu Sangui or Kong Youde, after the surrender Jin had more or less reasons, but there was also a hard-core traitor among Hou Jin, Wu Sangui and others were far behind him, this person was Fan Wencheng .

Later Jin was able to occupy the country of Daming, and it was inseparable from these traitors, among whom Fan Wencheng deserved the most credit.

It was Huang Taiji who adopted his suggestion and began to use the Han people on a large scale, laying a solid foundation for the later Qing Dynasty.

It was precisely because Huang Taiji adopted Fan Wencheng's suggestion that Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming surrendered to Houjin smoothly and were reused.

Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming took refuge in Huang Taiji and brought with them a technology, artillery manufacturing technology.

Although their cannon-making skills were not good enough, Hou Jin finally had his own cannon.

Knowing that Kong Youde had surrendered the Houjin, Sun Yuanhua once sighed and told Yuan Keli and Xu Guangqi that he didn't know people, which caused the artillery technology to fall into the hands of Donglu.

I heard that Sun Yuanhua hadn't eaten for two days because of this, so Li Jing went to see Sun Yuanhua to let him relax. At that time, Li Jing smiled and said to Sun Yuanhua: "Even if the Eastern Prisoners have artillery skills, they can't make much waves. If you want to vent your anger, sir, hurry up and produce a new type of cannon, and then let Donglu have a taste of the power of our cannon."

This sentence gave Sun Yuanhua great motivation, and since then he has devoted himself to the production of artillery.

Li Jing solved Sun Yuanhua's troubles, but his own troubles were coming, and not one of them.

The first thing is that the rogue bandits in Hebei became more and more powerful. Shanxi Wang Ziyong, Gao Yingxiang and others couldn't sit still anymore, and they started to move around, making frequent disturbances in various parts of Zezhou. Li Jing was angry and hated about this.

Just when Li Jing was hesitating whether to take action against the rogues in Zezhou now, Zhu Youjian sent a decree, ordering Cao Wenzhao and Li Jing to lead his troops to quickly quell the rebellion in Zezhou, and then march eastward to wipe out Hebei and other places the rogues.

Before Li Jing could make up his mind whether to take action against the bandits, Zhu Youjian sent a second order, ordering Li Jing to deliver 50 taels of silver to the capital as soon as possible.

To Li Jing's surprise, the person who passed the decree turned out to be Wang Chengen.

Ordinarily, at Wang Chengen's level, it is impossible for him to do such a trivial matter as delivering the decree himself.

But Li Jing immediately understood Wang Chengen's intention.

Li Jinggang sent 50 taels of silver to Zhu Youjian, and Zhu Youjian immediately came to ask for money, so he had to send someone with strength to come. In addition, Li Jing learned from Ma Wu that Wang Chengen had always wanted to see himself in Pingyang Mansion How to deal with the salt policy.

In particular, the salt administration in other places defaulted on a large amount of salt lessons, and he was the only one who sent 50 taels of silver to the capital. Naturally, Wang Chengen wanted to see how he did it.

Wang Chengen and Li Jing are also quite admired. Not everyone can do this kind of thing. Compared with the other Cao Huachun who is still above Wang Chengen, Wang Chengen's character is obviously much nobler.

For such a person, even if he is a eunuch, Li Jing still respects him from the bottom of his heart.

Wang Chengen came to pass the decree, and Li Jing was a little bit more thoughtful about the place to receive Wang Chengen.

Ordinarily, it is most appropriate to receive Wang Chengen in Jiangxian County, because when Li Jing first served as a garrison in Jiangzhou, he was later promoted to Shanxi General, and the army is still stationed in Jiangxian County.

However, there are too many hidden things in Jiang County, and Li Jing doesn't want Wang Chengen to see them, and the main purpose of Wang Chengen's trip is to ask for money and to see how Li Jing handles the salt administration, so Li Jing put the reception place in the place of knowing the state's security. Yi County, also known as Yuncheng.

To receive Wang Chengen in Yuncheng, Li Jing had another thought, which was to test Wang Chengen's attitude towards him.

In fact, Yuncheng was not under Li Jing's jurisdiction. Li Jing could only be involved in the Yanzheng. It was actually against the rules to receive Wang Chengen in Yuncheng.

Li Jing wanted to see Wang Chengen's attitude after seeing his unruly behavior. Through Wang Chengen's attitude, we could see Zhu Youjian's true thoughts.

However, Li Jing was disappointed. Wang Chengen was completely indifferent to Li Jing's unruly behavior.

Wang Chengen never mentioned that Li Jing's actions were not in compliance with the rules, and Li Jing only had a wry smile in his heart, knowing that he had been defeated in this round of confrontation.

Because no matter whether Wang Chengen asked or not, he had to explain to Wang Chengen. If Wang Chengen asked, he could find a reasonable reason when explaining, but if Wang Chengen didn't ask, then he would be very passive when explaining.

No matter how reasonable the reason is, if it is a passive explanation, the momentum will be much weaker.

However, Li Jing doesn't care about some small setbacks now. If he didn't have this resilience, he wouldn't be able to be the leader for so many years.

With a smile, Li Jing said: "Eunuch Wang, it is said that the general should receive the father-in-law and his party at the government office, but the general learned that the father-in-law is here to return to Beijing after the salt lesson, so he had to take the father-in-law to the salt factory to have a look. .”

Wang Chengen smiled after hearing this, waved his hands and said: "It's okay, our family came to Pingyang Mansion this time, one is to let General Li raise the salt class for the second half of the year, and the other is to see how General Li manages the salt administration. Our family didn’t understand why General Li not only handed over the salt tax to the account department on time, but also handed over an extra one million taels of silver, while the salt tax elsewhere was in arrears.”

Zhou Hengchen next to him laughed and said: "When it comes to handling government affairs, General Li is really a great talent. Compared with General Li, we local officials can only be ashamed."

Among the group that received Wang Chengen, Zhou Hengchen had the highest official position, being the magistrate of Pingyang Prefecture, and the rest were Zhizhou Zhangli of Xiezhou.

In terms of rank, Li Jing is naturally much higher than them, but in Daming, civil servants are noble and military are inferior, military commanders have to be downgraded by at least a few ranks in front of civil officials, so in terms of status, Li Jing is not even as good as Zhang Li.

But Zhou Hengchen's words were blatantly flattering Li Jing.

You must know that although Zhou Hengchen is Li Jing's subordinate, Zhou Hengchen is Li Jing's superior in the open, so it is a bit too much to do so.

Although everyone despised Zhou Hengchen's actions, they had to admire him for being able to pull his face down and flatter Li Jing. They were not qualified to flatter Li Jing.

And everyone knows that the opportunity to flatter Li Jing like this is really rare. Usually, when they report to Li Jing, they don't dare to say a word outside of work. up.

Hearing Zhou Hengchen's words, Wang Cheng'en smiled, and thought to himself, before, he only heard that Li Jing was covering the sky with one hand in Pingyang Mansion, but now it seems that he is more than just covering the sky with one hand, in Pingyang Mansion, Li Jing may speak better than the emperor.

Taking a sneak peek at Li Jing, he was a thin person, and there was nothing unusual about him.

Ordinarily, when receiving imperial envoys, Li Jing should wear formal attire, but Li Jing only wore ordinary clothes. Looking at his clothes, no one would believe that Li Jing's family wealth is incomparably rich.

In addition, Li Jing spoke calmly, peacefully and docilely, not like a man who leads troops at all.

Wang Chengen has come into contact with countless military commanders, but none of them are like Li Jing, and even those generals who were born as civil servants are more domineering than Li Jing.

Little did he know that after years of hiding his power and biding his time, Li Jing's vigor had long been restrained, and Li Jing had long since stopped relying on power to suppress his subordinates to obey his orders.

Although Wang Chengen didn't see anything special about Li Jing, but Wang Chengen knew that the more Li Jing was like this, the more terrifying he would be.

Compared with Li Jing, Zhu Youjian sometimes seems very impetuous. It may be that there are too many things that don't go well in these years, and Zhu Youjian will lose his temper every now and then.

Suddenly Wang Chengen was startled, how could he compare Li Jing with the emperor?Did he already regard Li Jing as the emperor's greatest enemy?

Shaking his head lightly, Wang Chengen said with a smile: "Our family has heard of General Li's great talent before in Beijing. There is no state capital in Ming Dynasty that pays more taxes under the rule of General Li, let alone a general. To be as concerned about the country and the people as General Li is, he actually donates his own money to help the victims.”

After hearing Wang Chengen's words, Li Jingxin said: "Is this to test me? Or is he trying to set me up? Yes, he wants to see if there are any officials in Pingyang Mansion who are not on the same path as me."

After thinking about it, Li Jing smiled and said: "The prince is too famous, what is Li Jing capable of? Pingyang Mansion can pay so much taxes to the court because of the hard work of all the adults here. As for the last disaster relief, the prince should know, Li Jing With a little money, millions of people in Henan have been displaced. How can Li stand by and watch? It’s just a small effort. Besides, Li Jing did not do the disaster relief alone. Where did so much food come from? Without the strong assistance of the local officials in Henan, Li Jing alone would not be able to do much."

Wang Chengen nodded and said: "General Li's words are true. Without the assistance of all the adults, one person alone can't do much. The last time the officials in Henan were able to do things well, the emperor was very happy, and Governor Wu had already transferred back The left servant of the household department in Jingzhong, and the officials at all levels below have their own promotions. It is said that General Li made such a great contribution, and he should be promoted and reused. In front of the ministers in the hall, there was something difficult to justify, so the emperor had to balance the merits and demerits, did not promote General Li, and asked General Li to understand the difficulty of the emperor."

Li Jingjing nodded, but he sighed secretly in his heart. It was very difficult for him to pull Governor Wu into his camp. He didn't want Zhu Youjian to transfer Governor Wu back to Beijing. Governor Wu might not be able to use this chess piece for a while. Now, the Henan side has to think of a way again.

(End of this chapter)