Chapter 591 Motivating Ambition

Since Fan Zigai was fully responsible for the preparations for the second expedition against Goguryeo, Yang Xuangan was recommended by the Minister of War, Hu Sizheng, and was appointed as a Langzhong of the Ministry of War. He joined Fan Zigai's war planning group and was responsible for food transportation.

That afternoon, Yang Xuangan followed Li Mi to Linhe County, Ji County. Linhe County was only thirty miles away from Liyangcang and was a county with developed commerce.

Since Liyang County was mainly composed of official docks and most of the ships were official ships, ordinary merchants chose Linhe County, which was very close to Liyang Warehouse. Linhe County was not only close to the Yellow River, but it also had a river connecting the Yellow River and the canal, making water transportation very convenient.

Linhe County became a distribution center for merchant ships' cargo. Of course, Linhe County also had docks, and hundreds of large warehouses were built to provide merchants with temporary storage for goods.

"Why did Xuan Sui ask me to come to Linhe County?"

Yang Xuangan was responsible for sending grain from Liyang Warehouse. He was very busy every day and it was difficult for him to find time.

Li Mi smiled mysteriously, "Don't worry, I won't let you make a wasted trip!"

In the past two months, Yang Xuangan did not seem to have the same enthusiasm for rebellion as last year. Perhaps Yang Xuangan realized the difficulty of rebellion, or perhaps the emperor began to pay attention to him, which made Yang Xuangan particularly nervous. He behaved very low-key and spoke more cautiously. The Yangwu Society was also in a semi-disbanded state. The name was still there, but they basically no longer met.

The Guanlong nobles noticed the changes in Yang Xuangan and became a little anxious. They had finally found a scapegoat, so how could they stop him from rebelling? They immediately made arrangements to rekindle Yang Xuangan's enthusiasm for rebellion.

The two men rode to the dock warehouse. Li Mi asked his men to stand guard outside, and he led Yang Xuangan into a huge warehouse.

The warehouse was filled with piles of straw bags and wooden boxes. When Yang Xuangan approached, he was shocked to find that the straw bags were full of brand new spears, tens of thousands of them. When he opened the boxes, he saw that they were full of swords, bows and crossbows, leather armor and shields. It seemed that there were 20,000 to 30,000 pieces of each.

"Where did this come from?"

"These were the weapons and supplies that were originally meant for the National Protection Association. They didn't have time to take them away, and they were all seized by Yuwen Shu. However, Yuwen Shu didn't hand them all over to the court. He kept a portion for himself and hid it in Pingyuan County. He hid it very secretly. After Yuwen Shu was assassinated, these supplies and wealth became ownerless. You know that the magistrate of Pingyuan County is my brother Li An, and he also wants to do great things with me. He wrote to me not long ago, and I shipped these weapons and wealth out."

"You mean there's wealth?"

Li Mi nodded and said, "There are still 100,000 taels of silver. You decide, brother! If you give up the rebellion, I will hand over these weapons and wealth to the court."

"what!"

The flame of rebellion in Yang Xuangan's heart was quietly ignited again.

Why is it difficult to rebel? Because in order to rebel, one must take over Liyang Warehouse. However, Liyang Warehouse is guarded by 5,000 troops led by Tu Wangao, the brother of Tu Wanxu. Yang Xuangan cannot deal with Tu Wangao, so he must have an army to defeat Tu Wangao first before he can get the supplies in Liyang Warehouse. In other words, he must have a starting army of his own.

There were only two thousand local soldiers in his hometown. Although they were loyal to him, this number of troops was far from enough to capture Liyang Warehouse. This was the real reason why he was discouraged.

At this time, he saw hope again, and Yang Xuangan began to get excited.

Yang Xuangan suddenly thought of two other important issues: where to get food and manpower. Food was easy, as he was responsible for transporting it. He could withdraw 200,000 shi of food at any time. The key was manpower.

Seeing that he was silent, Li Mi smiled and said, "Brother, you are worried that you have nowhere to recruit soldiers!"

Li Mi smiled and said, "In fact, where there is hatred, there is resistance. The emperor severely punished the people who followed Qi Wang Yang Ling in the rebellion. Weijun suffered the most. Not only were most of the people arrested to dig the canal, but a large number of the elderly, women and children died. Countless young and strong people in Weijun died in Liaodong. The emperor also doubled the taxes in Weijun. The people of Weijun are about to be forced to death. Brother, as long as you take out 200,000 stones of grain to distribute in Weijun, and then call for rebellion, those people who hate the court will definitely be willing to follow you to start an army. Tens of thousands of troops are at your fingertips. Give each person some grain and silver as a resettlement fee, eliminate worries, and then put on armor. You will have an army of tens of thousands of people. Are you still worried that you can't take Liyang Warehouse? As long as we take Liyang Warehouse and raise our arms, the people and major forces against Sui will support us."

These words made Yang Xuangan's blood boil. He punched hard and said, "Let's do it!" Xuancheng County also belongs to the eastern part of Jiangnan. It is mainly mountainous, with poor transportation and not as rich as the Taihu Plain area in the east.

However, with the large number of people fleeing from the north, the population of Xuancheng County increased by more than 100,000, a large amount of land was reclaimed, grain production increased rapidly, and the business in the county towns also prospered.

Xuancheng County is a large county with nearly 100,000 people living around the county seat. Various small businesses are particularly prosperous in the county seat, with a large number of taverns, small inns, and small brothels. Of course, there are also large restaurants and inns, but there are only a few of them.

In the north of the county town, there is a house covering an area of about three acres. Diagonally opposite it is the official residence of the Chief Secretary Wei Liangcai.

There were more than a dozen people living in this house. They were spies from the Security Bureau who came from Jingkou and were ordered to investigate the Chief Secretary Wei Liangcai.

They came here at the beginning of the year and have lived here for nearly a month. Of course, they have made some progress and the housekeeper of the Changshi Mansion was brought here by them.

The housekeeper was named Wang Jin, a native of Xuancheng County. He had a son and a daughter and a large family. Between Wei Liangcai and Prince of Jin, he naturally chose to be loyal to Prince of Jin.

That afternoon, Wang Jin went out to buy vegetables as usual. He bought more than ten kilograms of mutton, and when he paid, he slipped a note to the butcher.

The butcher shop was the temporary contact point of the Security Bureau. Not long after, a waiter returned to the house and handed the note to the leading captain Shi Xiaozhen.

There was only one line of words on the note: 'The Chief Secretary will leave this afternoon and take his concubine out for three days. No one will be in the inner house.'

Shi Xiaozhen was overjoyed; this was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

He quickly said to Zhao Juaner, who had just arrived in Xuancheng County two days ago, "The opportunity has come tonight."

Shi Xiaozhen certainly wanted to find Wei Liangcai's secret letter. Half a month ago, he sneaked into Wei Liangcai's study and found that there was a mechanism in the study. He did not dare to move and retreated. He sent someone back for help, and Zhao Juaner was sent here.

At night, Shi Xiaozhen and Zhao Juaner sneaked into the back house of the Changshi Mansion. The back house was pitch black and the door was locked. Wei Liangcai's wife and children were in Luoyang. He brought his concubine to take office. Wei Liangcai took his concubine out for three days, so the back house was naturally closed.

Zhao Juaner observed around the study for a while, then went straight to the front door, took out a copper wire, and poked the keyhole of the chain lock a few times. The lock opened, and the iron chain of the door fell down with a rattling sound.

Shi Xiaozhen secretly admired this thin woman for being so powerful.

They entered the study room. Zhao Juan'er looked around carefully and said to Shi Xiaozhen, "There is a mechanism, but it is not a defensive mechanism, but a hiding mechanism."

She walked to the southwest corner of the room, clenched her fists and knocked on the wall twice. The floor made a slight "click" sound, and a crack appeared on the floor.

Shi Xiaozhen was cheered up, it turned out that the mechanism was here.

Zhao Juaner lifted the floorboards and found a three-foot square iron plate underneath. Zhao Juaner whispered, "This is heavier. Let's lift it together."

The two of them worked together to lift the thick iron plate weighing three hundred kilograms.

(End of this chapter)

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