stubborn thief

Chapter 372 Three Requirements
Yang He, Minister of Rites, walked across the bridge alone.

The Lanzhou city behind is still majestic and majestic, and not far ahead is the siege trench of the Western Army. Behind the trenches are countless banners and horses.

He glanced back at the top of the city. Someone was nervously supporting the battlements, as if the governor was practicing state affairs.

Although he told Lian that there is no need to prepare an army for state affairs, Zhang Yingchang is still not at the top of the city. He should have deployed an army in the urn, ready to fight out at any time.

But this was of no avail to Yang He. If Liu Chengzong really wanted to kill him, it would only be a blink of an eye, and no amount of troops could save his life.

Looking forward, he didn't know how many big wind guns and how many artifacts were pointing at him, he just coughed twice, swallowed his saliva and walked forward.

The emperor asked him to reprimand Liu Chengzong and tell Liu Chengzong to withdraw from the army... He lost on the battlefield, so what can he say with his mouth alone depends on whether Liu Chengzong wants to withdraw from the army.

Maybe a certain step is the last step in this life.

But soon, the ditch in the distance was covered with wooden planks, and a general holding a flag rode out of the camp alone, ran towards him, approached him and clasped his fists on the horse: "Old Shangshu, the commander-in-chief invites you to enter the camp."

Yang He nodded, and moved forward a little faster.

As early as when Liu Chengzong was recruiting, he was going to go far away to the West Sea. Yang He knew that such a day would come, but he didn't expect it to come so soon.

At that time, he expected this time in his mind to be ten or twenty years.

In just three short years, Liu Chengzong came out of Qinghai, and he was even stronger than before.

This time alone, Yang He had already arrived in Jingluwei, Shaanxi, but the frontline army fought too fast and was defeated too quickly, which made him unable to move forward. In case Liu Shizi wanted to attack Lanzhou, he would sneak into Lanzhou City is a trap of its own.

It wasn't until the battle line was stabilized in Lanzhou that it was determined that Liu Shizi had no intention of capturing Lanzhou, and then he found the right time to cross the battlefield and enter Lanzhou.

Not long after, Yang He walked through the camp of the training infantry battalion and walked to the commander's tent.

For Yang He, who once served as the governor of the three sides, this handsome tent...is very familiar.

Yang He couldn't help imagining Liu Chengzong's appearance in his heart, imagining what kind of prestige Liu Shizi would give him, and thinking about how to talk, the general who led the way saluted outside the tent.

"Marshal, Yang He brought it here."

As soon as the general's words fell, it didn't take long before the curtain was raised, revealing the smiling face of the young general: "Governor Yang has come from a long way, and we have prepared some water in the tent, please come in for a while." tired."

There is no prestige, there is not even a guard in Liu Chengzong's handsome tent, only him.

This can't help but make Yang He feel a little bit disappointed, this Liu Shizi is too... what is it called, Corporal Lixian, who co-authored my 60-year-old old Shangshu, is he a Corporal in his eyes?

Holding a porcelain pot, Liu Chengzong poured water for Yang He, and then asked, "What is the old Governor's business all the way to see me?"

"General Liu, why did you turn your back on what you said?" Yang He put the water bowl aside and asked, "Since you have entered the West Sea, why did you mess up Hehuang?"

"Grandpa, aren't you joking?"

Liu Chengzong was not as angry as Yang He imagined, but just chuckled and said: "In the past two or three years, I have conquered the east and the west, overwhelmed the pirates and the tribes of Huluochi, and went south to Nangqian to pacify the chieftain Dunyue Duoji, and captured Chuo in the north. Ketu is invading south, in such a situation, as long as there is no war, I will not send troops to the east."

He stretched out his hand to draw a line between the two, and said, "But what did Shaanxi do? They cut off Hehuang's grain and did not allow Hehuang rice grain to be sold into Hehuang. I bought out Hehuang rice grain, and the people rose up." To rebel against the imperial court, the imperial court officers and soldiers took the opportunity to incite the local officials to revolt."

"The battle is what you want to fight. If you lose and complain, why did I send troops?"

Yang He was at a loss for words. According to his understanding, the matter seemed to be what Liu Chengzong said. He frowned and said, "Then why don't you ask the court for food?"

"what!"

Liu Chengzong never expected that Yang He would say this, and suddenly he couldn't hold back his laughter, and then he said: "After defeating the general soldiers of the three towns, I will take down their camp. There is only [-] days of food in the camp, and the frontier troops of the three towns have no food." , I ask the court for food? The old governor thinks about it, will the court give me food?"

Yang He was at a loss for words again, he regretted asking a stupid question.

The court officials and soldiers didn't have enough food, so how could they give it to Liu Chengzong, who was in a state of confrontation.

"Sigh." Yang He sighed heavily as if he had been defeated, and shook his head with emotion, "General Liu has this soldier, if he can serve the country on the battlefield instead of fighting against each other, how good would it be?"

On the way to the camp, he saw Liu Chengzong's army, which had a completely different temperament from the frontier army he had seen, and was even better than the best army he had seen in Gyeonggi.

The best army he had seen before was the left of the Changping Army, not the left of the left and right, but the left of Zuo Liangyu.

At this time, Zuo Liangyu was also a Cao Wenzhao-style character, a native of Shandong, who joined the army in Liaozhen, gained a firm foothold in the army by relying on his solid military exploits against the Eastern captives, and reached He Renlong's current official position in his 20s. Dusi.

However, this person jumped very high in the Ningyuan rioting incident in the first year of Chongzhen. Others were complaining about wages and asking the governor to force them. He led people to rob military supplies.

Afterwards, the looting organizer like him should have been executed, but he had a good brother named Qiu Lei, a military officer who was born as a scholar, who took all the blame for his crimes and went to prison by himself, leaving Zuo Liangyu at large. .

Later, he defected to Hou Xun, served in front of the tent for some time, was reinstated as an appreciative officer, and showed his skills in the Jisi Incident. Attacking one after another, he earned the meritorious service of being the deputy commander in chief.

That year, Zuo Liangyu was 32 years old, and he took all the reward money to save the life of Qiu Lei who was in the prison of the Ministry of Criminal Justice for him.

Yang He had seen the soldiers on the left side of Changping, they were clean and tidy, and they could be called the elite of the time, but even that army was not like the Western Army in front of him at that time.

"The old Governor's words are very interesting."

Liu Chengzong looked at Yang He, heard some other meanings from his words, suddenly laughed, and said: "Is there something wrong with the imperial court in the east?"

Although it was a question, Liu Shizi's tone was very firm. He didn't think that Yang He's words were trying to influence him. It was nothing more than the fact that the imperial court was in big trouble in the east, and he felt a sense of crisis.

"Ok?"

Yang He consciously lost his words, but then he shook his head and smiled wryly, and said: "I'm not afraid that the general will know that there are thieves everywhere in the Three Qin and Three Jin Dynasties, Liao Dongji is always disturbed by the Eastern captives, and Kong Youde from Shandong claimed to be the Marshal of the capital, the situation is very bad. "

Liu Chengzong shook his head slowly, noncommittal, and said with a smile: "You are still afraid that I will know."

Because what Yang He said was all things he knew, and he also knew that the Ming court would still be able to carry on for 11 years after that, these things would not surprise him, not to mention that the situation was bad.

So he firmly believed that there must be something else that he didn't know, which made the minister of the Ministry of Rites feel helpless.

But this was not the case for Yang He. When he served as the governor of the three sides, the rebellion in Shaanxi had just begun. When he took office in Beijing, the rebellion in Shaanxi had already affected Beizhili.

When he returned to Shaanxi, the peasant army led by the general Li Zicheng, a little-known figure, was able to fight against the official army. After he was defeated, he reorganized his army and took the initiative to attack Zuo Liangyu in Wu'an and defeated him. .

Although Zuobu didn't suffer too much loss, Yang He still felt dizzy when the news reached Yang He's ears.

The battle itself means nothing.

However, Li Zicheng's daring to fight this battle meant that after four years of brutal rebellion wars, the gap between the rebel army and the official army was gradually narrowing.

Correspondingly, the imperial court was overwhelmed, the Northwest official army was exhausted in the encirclement and suppression war, and the Northeast official army was divorced after the imperial court failed several times.

This is a war so long that there is no hope of winning. For Yang He, letting the war go to this point means failure in itself.

May I ask that at the beginning of the rise of the rebel army, the national power of the imperial court was the strongest and the rebel army was the weakest. The rebel army did everything wrong and the officers and soldiers did everything right. Even so, the rebel army survived. With the current situation, the court can still win?

Liu Chengzong couldn't understand this feeling, he leaned back gently, and said: "I am not to blame for this battle. If I really want to say that I have any crimes, it is just that the [-]-year-old Master Yang has worked hard all the way. The old governor You didn't come to see me just to tell me a joke, did you?"

Yang He frowned and said, "Why do you call it joking?"

"Serving in the battlefield, heh." Liu Chengzong laughed and asked, "Could it be that the old governor still doesn't understand that it's not us who have problems, but the imperial court?"

Liu Chengzong stood up as he spoke, took the report delivered to him by the carrier from the desk of the military account, threw it on the tea table in front of Yang He, and said: "The three towns have more than 170 troops in the general army camp, and there are only more than 40 shi of food in reserve. , only enough to eat for ten days; my soldiers broke through [-] and eight families, and brought back [-] shi of grain!"

Yang He raised his head abruptly, thinking too much for a moment, so that he hesitated to speak.

He has served as the governor of the three sides, and he knows the population of Shaanxi very well. The population of Lintao Prefecture is small, with a population of 14 and more than [-] households.

Liu Chengzong broke through 170 families and looted 40 shi of grain, apparently robbing more than 100 richest families in Lintao Prefecture.

Yang He gasped, exhaled slowly, and asked, "Are you looking for these people to rob?"

Liu Chengzong sat down again, snorted coldly, and said: "If you don't look for them, it's enough for the common people to suffer from being taxed by the emperor."

Yang He frowned and said: "General Liu, it is too heartless for you to say that, the emperor has treated you with the utmost benevolence."

"The emperor worked very hard, I sympathize with him very much, but if you want to say that you should be kind and righteous, I should say that. I went to Xihai to treat him with the utmost kindness and righteousness."

Liu Chengzong looked at Yang He very seriously: "Da Ming is hopeless, there are some things I couldn't say three years ago, but now I can tell you that when the earth collapsed that day, whoever can live hundreds of millions of trillions of dollars will be the one who will be the most benevolent to the emperor. "

"You..." Yang He shuddered suddenly when he heard this, and almost turned over: "What do you mean by that?"

Liu Chengzong spread his hands and said: "You know better than me how many acres of land there are in Lanzhou and Lintao Prefecture. The annual harvest here is only 200 million shi, but the 170 eight families have 50 shi of grain. I will distribute 40 shi to the people. Isn't it clear that [-] stones can be kept? The imperial court is in a dead end."

As the defender of the old order, the imperial court will never touch the money and food in these people's warehouses.

Not because they are officials' families, nor because they are merchants in collusion with the government, nor because they are landlords who influence local public opinion, but simply because it is legal.

Even though the source of some money, grain and land may be illegal, the result of owning money, grain and land is legal.

The imperial court has the imperial court's tax law. As long as people pay the tax, the remaining money and food will be rotten and legal.

A large family with 340 mu of land paid 90 four shi grains and [-] taels of nine cents silver to the court, and the obligation to pay taxes and grains was fulfilled, and the rest was their own property.

Houjin can be robbed, Liu Chengzong can be robbed, peasant army can be robbed, anyone can be robbed... Only Emperor Chongzhen can't be robbed.

Because the landlord can fix the rent for the tenant, and can also bully the tenant to force the tenant to have no children and grandchildren, but no landlord has ever robbed the tenant.

Liu Chengzong said to Yang He: "Think about it, what will happen when the drought comes in such a situation near Lanzhou?"

Yang He didn't care what else could happen, he just wanted to close his ears.

The emperor asked him to hold Liu Chengzong accountable. He felt that it was useless to hold Liu Chengzong accountable. He only planned to let Liu Chengzong withdraw from the army. Now, Liu Chengzong gave him a big prophecy. Even he felt that what Liu Chengzong said made sense.

If you continue to listen to it, won't he become Liu Chengzong's Minister of Rites?
He regained consciousness, no longer being led by the nose by Liu Chengzong, and said decisively: "There is no drought in Lanzhou, General Liu can no longer continue to march, retreat."

Liu Chengzong felt relieved, and asked Yang He: "That's why you came here at this time. After the battle, come here to persuade me to retreat?"

Yang He nodded, and asked Liu Chengzong: "What do you really want? You want Qinghai to give Qinghai to you. There is drought everywhere in Shaanxi. You can't support people even if you call in."

Hearing Yang He's helpless words, Liu Chengzong wanted to laugh very much. Obviously, Yang He or the court had nothing to do with him.

Liu Chengzong has not yet retreated at this meeting, just to wait for the money and food to be shipped back to Hehuang, but he doesn't mind asking the court for some benefits, after all, they can't afford the indemnity, and he got the money and food himself, he raised his hand and said: "If you want me It is easy to withdraw from the army, three requirements."

Yang He nodded and said: "You say, I will tell the court."

"You don't need to tell me or not. These three things are not very demanding. If you can't do it, just keep fighting. I believe Gongchang Mansion can give me more money and food."

After Liu Chengzong finished speaking, regardless of Yang He's expression, he said directly: "First, this war started because Shaanxi blocked the Yellow River. From now on, Lanzhou and Hehuang trade, Shaanxi must not stop, otherwise it will force me to go east."

"Secondly, since the castle in Lanzhou has been flattened, don't build it anymore. It's useless to build it. Since there is something going on in the east, let the court concentrate on the east."

"As for the third, send me sweet potatoes and potatoes. If my people can't eat enough, they can only fight. If they are full, they will be fine. As long as they are things that can be grown, send them to me... Don't try to starve me to death. Who wants to starve me to death, he must die first."

After Liu Chengzong finished speaking, he raised his hand and tapped twice on the case: "When will the potatoes and sweet potatoes be delivered to me, and when will I retreat to Hehuang."

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)