Chapter 746 Crisis breaks out
Chapter 746 Crisis breaks out
There is a ten-acre residential house outside Puyang County. That morning, three hundred internal security soldiers surrounded the house.
The Salt and Iron Bureau kept detailed records of all the official salt sold in each county. Compared with the same period last year, that is, compared with November last year, more than 20 counties along the Yellow River sold 12,000 stones of salt more. Therefore, it can be basically judged that the 12,000 stones of salt were Dou Jiande's smuggled salt.
At present, 6,000 stones of salt have been seized, and half of it is still outside. It is impossible to transport all of it across the Yellow River. There must be a large amount of salt stored in the counties along the Yellow River.
The salt shops had already begun limiting sales to each household, so finding these five or six thousand stones of stock became the biggest task for the Internal Guards.
This private house was reported by a coachman who had transported several carts of salt into this mansion. So in ancient times, this kind of reward for reporting was very scary. It was not like now, where you can drive a van, load and unload the goods by yourself, change the license plate, and find a private garage to park it for a few months, and no one will know about it.
In ancient times, you had to hire people to move things, you had to hire a ox cart, and your neighbors would watch your every move. So as long as the government offered a reward for reporting, it would be profitable and there would be no responsibility, so all kinds of insiders would come forward. Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty encouraged informing, and the whole Chang'an was in chaos. Fathers reported their sons, and wives reported their husbands. They were not in it for the money, but for fear of being implicated.
So this courtyard was reported by the ox cart driver, and the three hundred internal guards stationed in Puyang County immediately surrounded the house.
An inner guard climbed over the wall and opened the gate. Hundreds of inner guards rushed in and quickly arrested more than a dozen people, including the leader and servants of the caravan, who were knelt in the yard.
The soldiers would have been fine if they hadn't searched, but the search terrified everyone. Every room in the backyard was filled with bags of salt, one stone in each bag, weighing 120 kilograms.
After counting, there were a total of 5,200 bags, which is 5,200 shi. The difference was only 6,000 shi, so we got 5,200 shi here.
It is estimated that most of the remaining 800 shi have been transported across the Yellow River, so it is not a big problem even if they cannot be found.
Five days later, Li Luming reported the incident in Puyang County to Emperor Xiao Xia.
"According to the accounts of the people arrested at the scene, we have successively arrested more than 180 people, spread across Jibei County, Dong County, Xingyang County and Qi County. According to their accounts, they found an abandoned official road through the Yellow River in Puyang County, and the internal guards did not set up a checkpoint, so they concentrated all the salt in a mansion outside Puyang County, preparing to cross the Yellow River in the next few days. Unexpectedly, they were reported."
Xiao Xia nodded approvingly and said, "The driver who reported this deserves a big reward!"
"We doubled the reward and gave him a thousand strings of cash."
Li Luming added: "According to the calculations now, there are at most two or three hundred stones of loose salt that have not crossed the river. Currently, the sale is restricted. Do we need the internal security to continue to check?"
Xiao Xia said slowly: "We only counted the salt sales data along the Yellow River last year, but not the data from the Central Plains. They bought salt from the mainland, so the difference is more than 800 dan, so we need to continue the investigation for three months."
"I humbly obey my orders!"
The crisis in Hebei was finally coming. Xiao Xia deployed 100,000 troops in Baima County, Puyang County and Lu County, and built more than 100,000 tents to welcome the large-scale exodus of people.
It was December now, and the people had been out of salt for half a month. The army of more than 200,000 people also faced a salt crisis. The daily salt ration for each soldier was reduced from half a tael to one qian of salt.
Many auxiliary soldiers even ran out of salt. Dou Jiande was extremely worried. The smuggling of salt from the Central Plains was also cut off. After half a month of hard work, he was able to obtain 700 stones of salt. This amount of salt could only sustain 200,000 soldiers until the end of the year.
That is to say, by the end of the year, their more than 200,000 soldiers would not have a single grain of salt to eat. The truth about the salt shortage began to spread wildly in the counties of Hebei. King Xia's father-in-law, King Lei Yan, sold all the 100,000 stones of salt in the government's inventory. When winter came, salt could no longer be mined by the sea, which led to the salt crisis.
The people are angry, the government is angry, and the army is angry. When the emotions accumulate to a peak and burst out, it is a popular force that cannot be stopped by anything.
Under the survival crisis and the tacit approval of the government, Hebei's unprecedented salt crisis finally broke out.
The people of Hebei fled south on a large scale. People from every county and prefecture fled south. The official roads were filled with people fleeing south, dragging their children, driving carts, and carrying loads on their shoulders. Ji County, Wei County, Xiangguo County, Wu'an County, Wuyang County, Qinghe County, Pingyuan County, and even Zhao County and Xindu County where the capital was located also saw people fleeing in large numbers.
Not only did the people flee, but the troops stationed in various counties also fled. They did not just flee to the south bank of the Yellow River. Hundreds of thousands of people also fled to Hedong along Jingxing and Fuyangxing. The Hedong army and officials received an order from the court that as long as they did not carry weapons, the people were allowed to enter Hedong. The county governments placed the refugees in vacant houses or temples.
Prime Minister Xiao Yu and Fang Xuanling rushed to Hedong and coordinated with the counties to accept the refugees.
Prime Minister Zhang Yunqiu and Wei Zheng rushed to Dongjun to coordinate the acceptance of refugees.
The Sui Dynasty had precise control over this salt war, which had to end before the beginning of spring, the people had to return home, and spring ploughing had not been affected. In other words, Dou Jiande's regime had to be completely destroyed in January.
Dou Jiande was forced into a corner and had to publicly execute the Lei father and son and send his concubine Lei to become a nun.
But at this time there was no way to save the situation, and Dou Jiande convened the fourth emergency military meeting.
Not only his staff participated, but six main generals including Sun Anzu, Liu Heita, Zhang Jincheng, Wang Xuba, Hao Xiaode and Lu Mingyue also participated in the meeting.
Among the six main generals, except Sun Anzu and Liu Heita who were his direct generals, the other four were separatist warlords who surrendered. This was Dou Jiande's biggest weakness, his unprincipled tolerance.
Even if Xiao Xia did not kill the surrendered rebellious generals, he would deprive them of all their troops, send them to live in southern Xinjiang, and arrange for special personnel to monitor them.
Not only did Dou Jiande not deprive the surrendered leaders of their troops, he also increased their troops. For example, no matter how serious the crimes committed by the Lei father and son were, Dou Jiande would not pursue them. This was unprincipled tolerance.
His advisers Song Zhengben, Kong Deshao, Ling Jing and others tried to persuade him many times, but Dou Jiande always insisted on his own opinion and treated others with kindness.
Zhang Jincheng was extremely dissatisfied and said, "People are fleeing, local governments are letting it happen, and the prince is indifferent. This is a sign of the country's demise. If the prince wants the country to be destroyed, then I will not accompany you!"
Liu Heita stepped on the table, drew his knife and shouted, "Zhang, if you dare to say such treasonous words again, I will kill you with one blow!"
Zhang Jincheng stood up, glared at Liu Heita and said, "All the people have fled. It's useless for you to kill me. Will the country not perish?"
Everyone quickly stood up to persuade the two to leave. Dou Jiande sighed and said, "Sit down! Listen to me."
(End of this chapter)