stubborn thief

Chapter 404 Role Swap
The second day of July in the sixth year of Chongzhen.

On the banks of the Zhuanglang River in the northwest of Lanzhou, Bai Yiqing sat side by side with the driver on the donkey cart, looking towards the Wild Fox Fort not far away in the middle of the valley.

He didn't wear official robes, because the crimson color was too conspicuous, but he wore a square scarf, a blue Taoist robe with a straight collar, and a pair of cloud-toed shoes with shallow heels.

Wearing a youthful attire that was popular in the late Ming Dynasty, this middle-aged man's clothes fluttered and he was suave.

The clothes and shoes are not made of expensive materials. The shoes are made of cotton, and the clothes are made of single-layer fine linen. The styles are also commonly used by ordinary people at home. The picture is light and simple, reducing his official air .

Because Bai Yiqing was the governor of Daming in Gansu.

The governor of Gansu has always been chosen more from the north than from the south, but Bai Yiqing is an exception. He is from the Changzhou Prefecture of Southern Zhili. He came from a famous family.

More than half of Bai Yiqing's career as an official was in Shaanxi. He was the deputy envoy of the Shaanxi Provincial Police and the Xining Military Preparedness, and later in charge of the Guannei Road.

Because he had sufficient working time in Shaanxi, was familiar with the customs of the Northwest, and had good political achievements, he was promoted to governor of Shaanxi.

He appeared in this place because Mr. Liu was not the only one who could see the impact of the westward migration of the ministry. In fact, Shaanxi officials in office could get more first-hand information than Liu Xiangyu.

They don't need to speculate, they can draw conclusions similar to Liu Xiangyu's, even more comprehensive.

Because Liu Xiangyu only knew that the rebel army had turned into a disadvantage, but he didn't know when or where.

And Bai Yiqing knew that apart from the Eight Great Kings and King Chuang, [-] government troops had already squeezed a large number of thieves into the Shanxi area.

General Ni Chong and Wang Pu led the [-] Beijing battalion troops to garrison Wu'an, Lu Xiangsheng was stationed in Daming, Zuo Liangyu's support troops were stationed in Xinxiang, Deng Qi led the Sichuan troops in Huixian County, and Chen Yongfu, Henan general Chen Yongfu led Mao soldiers to station troops in Xinxiang. Hanoi on the north bank of the Yellow River.

Judging from the strategic situation, the bandits would be wiped out overnight, but at this moment, Zuo Liangyu's army stopped attacking.

On the one hand, the eunuchs and supervisors dispatched by Lord Chongzhen to various armies arrived, and people were a little unhappy.

On the other hand, just in May of this year, a hurricane hit the coast. Since June, when the Han River flooded, Henan also experienced torrential rain, which finally caused waterlogging.

The left and Deng troops operating in the northeast of Henan could only hide in the mountains. Seeing that the encirclement was about to form, they could not advance an inch. They could only wait for the Shaanxi frontier army to transfer to Shanxi to deal a fatal blow to the bandits.

But at this juncture, the Shaanxi frontier army can't move at will, it depends on whether the officials in Shaanxi let them move.

And the official's decision to let the frontier army move is based on Liu Chengzong's eyes.

It is easy for the Shaanxi frontier army to be transferred to Shanxi, but who will guard against Liu Chengzong?
Let's not talk about Liu Zeitou and Liu Zeitou, which is more harmful; just say, no matter how harmful Liu Zeitou is, it is also in Shanxi. They, Shaanxi officials, are all in Shaanxi.

But Bai Yiqing, the governor of Gansu, worried more than others.

In the past two years, he has watched with his own eyes how Liu Chengzong became the king of the dead land in the northwest.

Except for the three-sided and five-town coalition forces in a sneaky time, the Marshal's Mansion under Liu Chengzong's command captured all the land around Xining that could be fought, and all the troops that could be recruited were gathered under his own hands.

Xining has a radius of [-] li. Except for the hinterland from Lanzhou to Xi'an, the only geographical unit that is not in the hands of the Marshal's Mansion is Hexi.

In fact, Liu Chengzong's non-stop expansion of territory was not the main reason why Bai Yiqing felt oppressed.

Gansu is a complete military town. Compared with the hinterland, the local area has a very strong military tradition, and since the early Ming Dynasty, it has been the main area where high-intensity wars broke out.

Since the Ming Dynasty, there have been more than 270 wars in Gansu, with an average of one war a year.

Because of this, Gansu has always had many generals who are accustomed to fighting, loyal and brave men who serve the death, and Liu Chengzong of the Marshal's Mansion is strong, so why can't the army in Gansu deal with him?

Bai Yiqing thought this way at the beginning, and ordered the whole army to cultivate martial arts in Gansu Town, but sometimes those things don't make sense without looking at them. After checking Gansu Town, it's so rotten, it's shocking...they might really clean it up Not the Marshal's Mansion.

Let's put it this way, in the entire Gansu town, there is no place that can satisfy Bai Yiqing.

The army needs to eat food, which grows in the ground, and the desertification in Gansu is very serious, which is something no one can do.

Bai Yiqing also thought it was a natural disaster at first.

Later he discovered a problem. In Hexi, the biggest problem is actually man-made disasters.

The conflict between people and land in Hexi is actually not that big. Compared with other regions, its population is not large, at least not much compared with ancient times.

The population here reached its peak in the mid-Western Han Dynasty, when there were 70 households, and then it has been declining, stagnating, and recovering in cycles.

In the Ming Dynasty, the population could no longer be measured by household, because households were used as a unit to enlist the army, and households were enlarged to enlist corvee workers, which led to passive resistance by the people. As a result, there are often dozens or even hundreds of people on one account.

Although the government banned the combination of several surnames into one household, it could not prohibit the combination of one surname into one household. Therefore, only the number of mouths was the accurate population number in the Ming Dynasty.

Bai Yiqing's population is only a very vague 160.

He knew that this figure was not accurate, because it was the last count of Zhang Juzheng's population before his death.

After that, the yamen and military castles of various guards in Gansu still updated the yellow book every ten years in accordance with the imperial decree, but basically it was simple addition and subtraction to deal with errands.

Ten years have passed, and the population has increased by 720, and reported it; after another ten years, the population of the last ten years has been reduced by 270, and reported it.

Anyway, it's like playing around, dealing with errands.

Even though Bai Yiqing was the governor of Gansu, he did not get the exact population of Gansu, because everyone would use this method of addition and subtraction to deal with the imperial court, and they would also use the method of addition and subtraction to deal with him.

He can only draw the conclusion that the population in Hexi has roughly returned to the level of the Han Dynasty, but the fields... are far less than that in the Han Dynasty. There are 360 million mu of farmland on the books, but in fact, less than half of it can be used to store grain.

Bai Yiqing was wearing an official robe and patrolling in a sedan chair. People took him to wasteland, dry land and sandy land. He took off his official robe and searched for it by himself, but found that the army's farmland was dominated by the general Haoyou's family.

Those fields were not uncultivated at all, and the sand field method was even used. The harvest was very good, and the usual harvest could be [-] to [-]% higher. Even when there was a drought, other fields could only recover seeds, but they could still harvest [-]% or [-]%. Ten catties of grain.

What's more, using the banner army to cultivate, with little cost and no tax, changing channels without authorization, occupying water conservancy, and even the people's fields are abandoned.

The army didn't even have food for marching, so they didn't even think about going to Qinghai, but they could barely think about occupying a favorable location in Gansu to defend against Liu thieves.

Due to the level that Master Bai Yiqing is at, it is difficult for ordinary landlords to come into contact with him naturally, let alone the members of the Sanjiehui who are at the bottom of Gansu, so that his perception of the people at the bottom is locked, and he does not know about a pool of stagnant water. What kind of turmoil is brewing in Gansu under the appearance of

When he considered the issues of Gansu and the Marshal's Mansion, his starting point was still the military.

The Marshal's Mansion has a certain lag in the mobilization information of the Ming court in the northwest, but it is hard to say that it is ignorant.

When the imperial court dispatched the Shaanxi army to enter Shanxi, the marshal's office would start preparing for the war as soon as it got the information, and a military conflict broke out between the two sides, which was a certainty.

Then the Marshal's Mansion has only three offensive routes.

The west line bypasses the Qilian Mountains, passes through valleys or deserts, and passes through Jiayu; the middle line passes through the ridge passes of the Qilian Mountains and attacks the hinterland over mountains; the east line passes through the river mouths and marches northwest along the Zhuanglang River.

There is no doubt that the western front is tantamount to wasting food and grass and cutting off the way of retreat, and the central line is tantamount to abandoning heavy equipment to die. Only the eastern front is the path that normal people, or normal troops, would take.

Bai Yiqing believes that this war is approaching step by step, and the fate of the imperial court and his wealth and life are all tied to one point - Lanzhou.

Lanzhou is in the hands of the imperial court. Even if the Marshal's Mansion goes up north along the Zhuanglang River, it is difficult for the supply team to invade Gansu before besieging or even capturing Lanzhou.

But the problem now is that the section from Gansu to Lanzhou, where the Zhuanglang River flows into the Yellow River, was occupied by the Marshal's Mansion after the Hehuang War, cutting off the passage between Gansu and Lanzhou.

That's why Bai Yiqing, dressed in casual clothes, appeared at the Wild Fox Fort sixty miles northwest of Lanzhou Hekou, not only to go deep into the folks to investigate the military fields and soldiers along the defense line, but also to cross the Yellow River into Lanzhou by way of the Marshal's Mansion.

It was considered safe along the way. He only brought a book boy and a coachman and guard with him. There were no accidents. People were not interested in people who dressed like an old boy like him.

But here, there is a big problem.

I thought I would borrow another way from the Marshal's Mansion at the mouth of the river sixty miles away, but I didn't expect that the Wild Fox Castle under the garrison of Zhuang Langwei would quietly change its flag.

The red flag of the Marshal's Mansion was flying over the castle.

He, the governor of Gansu, didn't know anything about such an important matter. If he hadn't come here in person, Bai Yiqing would have been kept in the dark!
Before he got angry and ordered the donkey cart to turn around and go back to Zhuanglang Wei Xingshi to question the crime, the defenders in the Wild Fox Castle had already come out, several of them rode fast horses, dragged the dust, held bows and arrows, and the leader wore a red lacquer helmet with the word "Yong" on his head, and a cloth The leader of the masked nails yelled at them to stop.

For a moment, Bai Yiqing, the guards, and the book boy were like frightened little rabbits on the grassland, not daring to move.

It's no wonder that the guards are timid. The governor wants to pretend to be an ordinary scholar. The coachman wearing armor and carrying a bow, knife and musket is obviously against common sense. The cavalry with bows and arrows was obviously helpless.

Fortunately, the coachman who has served in the army can still use his insight calmly, and whispered to Bai Yiqing: "My lord, except for the leader, everyone else is not a veteran."

Bai Yiqing asked in a low voice: "Then, can you fight hard?"

The guard shook his head. This situation has nothing to do with courage or guts. The gap between the two sides is too big, and there is no chance of success.

Bai Yiqing was not discouraged, he just nodded, indicating that he knew, then changed his face, got out of the car with a flattering look and asked, "You are good generals, I don't know why you stopped the villain, why?"

Seeing the leading soldier on the horse looked at him haughtily, he chuckled lightly to the left and right: "You can be regarded as a brave man who dared to step forward."

After all, the soldier got off his horse, stepped forward with a stern face and clasped his fists, and asked him in a northern Shaanxi dialect: "Look at you, you look like a scholar. You come from the north, have you ever met someone who claimed to be a soldier of the commander's mansion, and asked him?" Are you claiming taxes?"

Bai Yiqing first glanced back, to the north is Zhuang Langwei's Hongchengzi, also called Hongchengdun, there is a hundred-household yamen there, and it should be a hundred-household yamen here, but now it is occupied.

He shook his head and said: "Returning to the general, the red city pier in the north is garrisoned by the Zhuanglangwei Banner Army. The villain has never encountered the commander's mansion. If you dare to ask the general, if the villain wants to pass through here and enter Lanzhou, do you know how much tax you have to pay?"

The so-called tariff refers to the banknote pass, which is called the customs pass by the people. It is a customs office mainly established in the canal, Yangtze River, and coastal areas, and the tolls are charged.

Wild Fox Fort is not a gate, but Bai Yiqing thought that the marshal's mansion started as a grassroots bandit, and now he asked their people to stop him, probably because he wanted to collect travel expenses.

Hearing this answer, the soldier wearing a helmet with the word "Yong" seemed very satisfied, nodded and said: "Forget them to be acquainted, let's go."

"what?"

Bai Yiqing was taken aback when he heard the words, it was different from what he had imagined.

The soldier had already turned his head and put his head on the saddle with the saber on his waist, and was about to leave for the fort. When he was taken aback for a moment, he couldn't help laughing, and asked, "Don't you still want to give us some travel expenses? It's all the way to Lanzhou. There is no tax card, there is only a registration at the ferry, and the boatman must pay the boatman money."

"The villain knows it."

Bai Yiqing replied, at this moment, he no longer felt apprehensive or afraid. Although these soldiers from the commander's mansion looked fierce, they had no intention of harming anyone.

Thinking of this, he became more courageous, and asked: "General, what happened to the north to stop the villain?"

Hearing the words, the soldier turned around and gave him a sideways glance impatiently, and said angrily, "If you're told to go, then go, why are you talking so much?"

Then he seemed to think of something, and his expression improved a little. He pointed to Yehubao behind him: "I am a hundred households from the Marshal's Mansion in Hekou Dongguan. , Collecting taxes and asking for money from the merchants in the past, ruined the reputation of the commander, and told me to lead the army to suppress it."

After that, he looked Bai Yiqing up and down, and said: "Look at your appearance, you are a scholar, and you must have some friends in Lanzhou. Go over and tell them that Yehu Castle is the northernmost castle of the Shuai Mansion on the Zhuanglang River. From here Up to the mouth of the river, there is no tax card."

"If someone asks for taxes, it must be the officers and soldiers pretending to be us, so that people don't refuse, lest they seek money and kill them, you can give him some money first, and come to Wild Fox Castle to find me, I have my own way to get the money recover."

Bai Yiqing frowned when he heard the words, "Is there such a thing?"

The soldier looked at him suspiciously, thinking that the old man frowned, but he still had a bit of power, and said with a smile: "You are in charge of the village? It must have been a long time since you went out, and your experience is too short."

"The Hehuang War ended, and the defeated soldiers fled all over the mountains and plains. In the mountainous area near Kushuiyi alone, there were seven people who claimed to be Marshal's Mansion with thousands of households, and there was another dozens of people who dared to call themselves commanders. It’s not finished yet, you don’t know about this?”

grandma's.

Bai Yiqing said it was bad, the officers and soldiers began to pretend to be bandits, and the bandits fell here to uphold justice.

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)