Chapter 1071: Zhong Yan

Wang Yan swung his knife and cut three aspects.

The first is committing crimes and breaking laws and disciplines, the second is to start collecting his exclusive cleaning fee, and the third is to survey the land and check the household registration.

Each of these three points is fiercely resisted, let alone doing all three things at the same time. In addition, this is a border area, and the government's style of doing things is already very wild, and the big families will only be wilder.

But it doesn't matter, because even if the three things are done together, they are actually mainly about committing crimes and breaking laws and disciplines. After all, the people are dealt with first, and the people who take the lead in opposition are dealt with. The rest, whether it is cleaning fees, land, or household registration, are all incidental matters.

The resistance is suppressed by the Xiang army, and no one is pardoned. If you run away, it doesn't matter, you can run wherever you want, anyway, the family business is there. At this time, there is no flexible financial system like a thousand years later. Wealth can become a string of numbers, which can circle the earth 180 times in a short time and finally disappear without a trace.

If we have to classify them, Wang Yan likes those who accept their fate and don't resist, and those who like to run away. In the end, he has no choice but to deal with those who resist. Because if you want to resist, you have to use swords and weapons, there will be casualties, and he will have to allocate a sum of money and food for pensions, which is not good. If you have this fate, how good it would be to go to the front line to provoke trouble.

So what Wang Yan followed was to plow the courtyard and sweep the holes, like the autumn wind sweeping the fallen leaves, suppressing the big families in the country at the fastest speed and with the least casualties.

He sat in Fushi and issued orders one after another. The soldiers were divided into eight thousand-man teams and scattered throughout the state, blocking the mainland passages and suppressing the counties. The confidants selected by him in the state government went to the counties to preside over the work. The large number of staff needed was the poor scholars in the local area, and then promised to arrange jobs for those who performed well. The old guys in their forties were all in a hurry.

The style of study in Yanzhou is definitely not as good as that in the peaceful areas in the interior. There are also few places here, and no Jinshi has been produced for several years. There are not many opportunities for other various examinations. Many people have lost their family business due to studying too much, and have wasted half their lives.

Let alone becoming an official, Wang Yan just opened the door and added more clerk positions, and these people were so happy that they didn't know what to do. Not only is it decent, the treatment is good, and it is still promising. And at this time, class transition has been achieved to a certain extent.

After all, there are thresholds and monopolies for being a clerk, and it is not so easy for outsiders to get in. Even if outsiders come in, they will be squeezed out by other petty officials, and they will not be able to work for long.

But it is different when Wang Yan is in power. Petty officials will also be raided and uprooted. The original ecology is completely broken, and everyone is trembling, but they don't dare to make trouble.

So under the leadership of Wang Yan, the officials in the state were forced to work together and operate the government machinery efficiently. In a very short time, they filled up the prisons in various places.

To use the words of others who reported Wang Yan in the court, that is, "officials have a hard time making a living" and "people have a hard time making a living", as if Wang Yan wanted to ruin Yanzhou, as if Xixia could seize the opportunity to invade at any time.

These people are also cheap skins. When Wang Yan was in the capital, no one said such words. Except for someone reporting that the Sheng family and others lent money at high interest, he was praised in the court. He was said to be fair and strict, make a lot of money, loyal to the Song Dynasty, loyal to the emperor, etc.

Now that he was driven out of the capital, this group of people flooded again, and reporting on him, Wang, every day became a leisure and entertainment activity. It seemed that if he was not reported, the court meeting would be in vain, and there would be no work.

These things were told to him by Feng Jing in a letter. Basically, it was thunder without rain. The capital played the capital, and Yanzhou played Yanzhou. After all, there are eunuchs sent by the emperor, supervisors from the Political Affairs Hall and the Privy Council, and the seat of the local government is here. Various senior officials are also working in Fushi. Although Wang Yan handled the officials of the road yamen together, various inspectors are trembling.

In fact, generally speaking, the governor of Yanzhou is concurrently held by the Shaanxi pacification envoy, which is convenient for overall decision-making and centralization. But Wang Yan is special. They are afraid that he has no power, and they are afraid that he has too much power and is difficult to manage. Besides, it is impossible to let Wang Yan serve as a Tongpan again. What if Wang Yan can't think about it at that time and runs to Xixia?

So this has caused the current embarrassing situation in Fushi City, three yamen, three teams. But although this situation is embarrassing, it is not embarrassing at all to get along with each other in reality, because Wang Yan arrests everyone.

After he took office, he never met those officials who were nominally superiors, but arrested a lot of their subordinates...

When he was a Tongpan, he offended all the road-level officials. When he was a patrol envoy, he dealt with no less than ten road-level officials. Now that he is the prefect, he is not afraid of the road-level officials.

Of course, if he becomes a road-level official, it is unforgivable for the state officials below to disobey him. Wang is also very double-standard.

In fact, the power of the road-level officials here is not great. The most powerful one is the Shaanxi Pacifier, whose full name is the Shaanxi Economic Pacifier, who can mobilize the troops of the five routes of Shaanxi. In other words, he is mainly responsible for the war against Xixia. There is also a transport envoy who is in charge of money and grain. When necessary, a pacification envoy will be set up, and the prime minister will serve as the envoy. That is to say, the overall overall war is in charge, with the power to make decisions on the spot and act at his convenience, and he is the first person responsible for a full-scale war.

In the first Song-Xia war, Fan Zhongyan and Han Qi were the chief and deputy pacifiers, and Xia Song was in charge. They did things together. In the end, the war was not fought well, and everyone was fired together.

Knowing that Wang Yan was the governor of Yanzhou, Fan Zhongyan, who was far away in Qingzhou, wrote a long letter to give instructions. After all, Fan Zhongyan had talked with Wang Yan about military affairs in the past, and he also knew that Wang Yan had the intention of looking north. Seeing Wang Yan transferred to the border area, Fan Zhongyan was also trembling.

After all, Wang Yan had been tossing and turning internally before, although the matter was also not small, even if it caused serious consequences, it could be digested internally. It was different when he was in the border area. If it was not good, it would lead to a full-scale war, which would be terrible. The war against Xixia was of course not just Xixia. There was Liao in the north, Tubo in the west, Dali in the southwest, and various ethnic minorities in the mountains in the south. Because of various high pressures inside, people rebelled from time to time.

Internal and external troubles are not just talk. If they are not handled well, the country will be destroyed.

Fan Zhongyan was really earnest in the letter, for fear that Wang Yan would rush for success and start a war lightly. After all, Wang Yan had soldiers in his hands. Fan Zhongyan, who was far away in Qingzhou, had already thought of Wang Yan holding 20,000 troops. How radical that would be.

Wang Yan also wrote back to Fan Zhongyan. His words were all about Fan Zhongyan's past, lamenting his power, his self-confrontation, and his anxiety when giving orders. In summary, it can be summed up in four words: treading on thin ice.

In fact, Fan Zhongyan was already dead at this time, but because Wang Yan had helped him regulate his body and relieve his heart knots, he also taught him the exercises to strengthen his body, listed a healthy diet, and trained professional chefs. With all these reasons, Fan Zhongyan is now living a good life.

When they parted in Hangzhou, Fan Zhongyan said that his requirements were not high, and he would just collect a cleaning fee in Qingzhou. As a result, he is now an old horse in the stable, and he is still strong. In the past year, he has killed many people in Qingzhou. He is very tough in promoting cleaning fees, measuring land, and checking household registration.

This is not something Wang Yan can persuade, so he can only exchange letters and consult remotely. Fan Zhongyan obviously doesn't want to die early, he wants to solve as many problems as possible. So he is more cherishing, not too impatient to do things, and not too tired himself. It's inevitable that he will be assassinated, and there is nothing he can do about it.

In general, Fan Zhongyan is in good condition. His body is still good, and he can live another ten or eight years. He has found a new way of doing things and devoted himself to it, and worked hard for it, which is great for people like Fan Zhongyan.

Things elsewhere have little to do with Wang Yan. He is just recruiting new soldiers and cleaning up the entire Yanzhou, and he has really gained a lot.

In terms of wealth, the big families in Yanzhou are actually not bad. The wealth of landlords is related to the quality of the land, but that is only for small and medium-sized landlords. Only these small landlords will save money to accumulate family property, which looks quite pitiful. They don't have the strength to break through the regional restrictions.

But when they became big landlords and started business, they accumulated wealth faster and were no longer restricted by the region.

From this point of view, the big families in Yanzhou have more advantages. After all, they are close to Xixia. Whether they are doing foreign trade or smuggling secretly, it is much more convenient and familiar.

At this point, of course, they are not short of connections. It may be said that they don’t have powerful people, but they can still marry and make money. There are many ways. Power and profit are corresponding. If you have one, the other is not far away.

So you can’t underestimate them just because they are in a remote place.

The so-called harvest naturally comes from them. Because some of them sell contraband to Xixia and provide ironware and other things. In fact, it is not just the big families in Yanzhou, but also the more powerful big families in other places. There are also spies and secret agents involved.

This is not unfamiliar, because when Wang Yan was the inspector in the capital before, he also caught some Liao and Xia spies. This kind of infiltration is necessary. Using spies is an effective method of struggle that has been passed down for thousands of years. After thousands of years, counter-espionage struggle is undoubtedly the top priority.

Relatively speaking, Yanzhou is definitely the hardest hit area of ​​infiltration. After all, any action can't be covered up in Yanzhou. So from merchants to officials, even some farmers, and even soldiers and officers in the front-line army. They are either spies, or sell information, or participate in smuggling for profit.

It was also because of this that Wang Yan had his first encounter with the generals of the border army, of course, historical celebrities...

In the official residence of the state government, Wang Yan sat behind his desk and drank tea with a smile. At the bottom, sitting properly and upright, was a man in his twenties in casual clothes. Even wearing loose casual clothes, he couldn't cover up his strong body. The skin on his face was rough, a little dark, and he had a beard. His hands, which were propped up on his knees, were calloused.

Zhong Yan, 27 years old this year, sat very nervously. He led thousands of troops to station in Qingjian, and fought with the Xixia army on the opposite side every day. He was not panicked or nervous.

But sitting in front of this prefect who was a few years younger than him, his heart couldn't help but pounding, because this prefect's record was too scary. It was well known that he valued civil officials over military officials. He also knew it and had felt it for a long time. But the smiling prefect in front of him dealt with civil officials like chickens, let alone him, a military general.

Moreover, in the past few months, he could hear about Wang Yan's awesome deeds every day, because he arrested people and took them to Qingjian City. People who he thought were difficult to deal with in the past were already crying and screaming before the prefect showed up.

Logically speaking, of course he would come to visit Wang Yan early. After all, Qingjian is under the jurisdiction of Yanzhou, and the city defenses, fortifications, etc. there are all the responsibility of the Yanzhou Xiang army and the manpower recruited by the government. Money, food, etc. are also partly borne by the Yanzhou government.

But at that time, Wang Yan's power was so great that he would punish whoever he caught. People would like to travel thousands of miles away, and they would take the initiative to find him. Therefore, he kept in line with the other generals and did not come to find trouble.

But now I have no choice but to come. Because his officers and soldiers were involved in smuggling and betrayed their defense status, this was a fatal matter.

"General Zhong, don't be nervous."

Wang Yan put down his teacup and spoke with a smile. But his words made Zhong E even more nervous. He was so excited that he straightened his back.

He shook his head and smiled: "I know that you are loyal to the family. I must have tried to win over Xixia before, promising benefits, but you have the talent to grow the family and did not agree. Otherwise, why bother to go to such trouble to open the Qingjian to let the Xixia people The army commander just goes straight in. So what happened this time must be that someone under your command was blinded by money and acted on his own."

Zhong E breathed a sigh of relief and cupped his hands: "Zhizhou has made a clear decision. After returning, I will definitely investigate to the end so that Zhizhou can feel at ease."

"It's not to reassure me, but to reassure you. You are a soldier, so I will make this clear to you in front of the Privy Council Inspector."

Wang Yan waved his hand, "Everyone in the world knows that I am a cruel official. I think you are also worried about it. You are not the only one who is engaged in smuggling contraband under your command. You are not the only one in Qingjian. Our Yanzhou defense line is all over the line. Why did I come here alone? It's because you have a good command of the army and rarely do anything against the people.

Our court has such rules, and they have the courage to do so. If there were no rules, they would probably plunder all the way and surround the capital of the Song Dynasty. However, my official powers and responsibilities are limited, and I am already widely criticized. If I interfere in the affairs of the imperial army, there will be a mass criticism in Beijing. Therefore, these people are dealt with by the pacifiers, and their consequences will not be too good.

The reason why you are here is to ask you to lead the Privy Council to self-examination and self-examination. This will prevent us from ending up like others and causing our Song Dynasty to lose a good general. Do you understand? "

Of course Zhong E understood. To put it simply, Wang Yan was protecting him now. If it hadn't been for Wang Yan, he might not have been able to get over this incident easily, and he would have suffered a lot. But Wang Yan's attitude is clear, so the corresponding officials must take care of Wang Yan's face, so that his family can have a safe transition without any danger.

He couldn't help but look at the political hall, the Privy Council, and even the eunuchs sitting nearby...

"Don't look at them, they are imperial envoys. I am dedicated to serving the Song Dynasty. I even asked three of them to testify. I did not ask them to scare you. Don't worry, I will write a letter explaining the matter. You go back After a good inspection, the state government will not want the property obtained from the house. I will send some pigs over to the state government to make the soldiers eat meat and practice their skills. "

"Thank you Zhizhou!"

"Remember, practice your skills well. When the affairs in the state are properly arranged, I will go to the front line. Please don't disappoint me."

Zhong'e cupped his fists and saluted: "I will live up to Zhizhou's expectations."

"Just go."

Wang Yan waved his hand, Zhong E took two steps back respectfully, saluted to the others, and then turned around and left...

He vaguely felt that Wang Yan was trying to win over him, but he was not sure. Because Wang Yan was too cruel, but he admitted that he was indeed fair and strict, and he was really a good official. Before it was dealt with on him, even though he was afraid, he still had a good impression of Wang Yan.

After seeing it today, I came with anxiety and left with joy. He was not sure whether Wang Yan really wanted to win over him on the basis of impartial law enforcement. He really couldn't tell...

Is Wang Yan trying to win over you? He is simply releasing kindness. He believed that if Zhonge had enough brains, he would definitely move closer to him.

It has been half a year since he took office, and everything that needs to be dealt with has basically been dealt with, and now it's time to deal with the aftermath.

Big businesses were raided, and all underworld gangs were wiped out. Let nature take its course, more effort will be put into collecting cleaning fees, clearing land, and checking household registration, dividing the land, and conducting statistics on various figures. There is also the introduction of large external investors. After all, all the powerful people in the state have been wiped out by him, and their assets have shrunk.

There are also more detailed adjustments to the government structure and more detailed planning and construction of Yanzhou. Various resettlement and construction work must begin to be accelerated, and funds and efforts must be gradually invested to gradually improve people's living standards.

The most important thing is that the Xiang army must start training vigorously. After such a long time, the number of troops has not returned to its original proficiency, only 15,000 people. Firstly, there is the issue of military resources, and secondly, there is the financial issue. The expenses of the Xiang army must be borne by the state government. Of course, this is beyond conventional power, and the court provides subsidies. Yanzhou's finances are not good. There are many subsidies, but they also spend a lot of money, which is not easy.

Yanzhou now is actually very dangerous. If one of them is bad, it will really make the people’s livelihood miserable...

Anyway, it can be summed up in four points: dividing the land, attracting investment, building infrastructure, and training the army.

The goal is to make the people of Yanzhou rich and strong, so that the Xiang army can form a fighting force, and then draw them to the north to fight.

This is an established process, so Wang Yan didn't lie to Zhong Yan. After finishing these things and getting on the right track, he really wants to patrol the border. Only after seeing the situation in various places, he knows how big a thing it is to do...

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