Chapter 790 Power

Chapter 790 Power

Chapter 790 Power (Part )

Yang Jian, wearing a wide-sleeved robe and wooden clogs, stood at the gate of a country courtyard, looking at the scenery outside.

The river channel, which was obviously dug artificially, runs through the north and south, and two rows of willow trees on the bank divide the farmland into two halves.

To the west were the fields of the nobles and powerful people in Wei County, while to the east were the farmlands of ordinary people - the fields that were distributed to the soldiers who followed Shi Le during his time.

Further away, there are several orchards, and between the orchards there are half-human-high wormwood grasses, and it is deserted and uninhabited.

This is Yecheng, the most prosperous place in Hebei, but it looks like this.

Early in the morning, many ragged people entered this wasteland, waving their sickles like the moon, cutting down the wormwood, bundling them and carrying them away.

The house where Yang Jian lived had received a lot of grass. Some of it had been transported into the hay barn, while some was still being dried in the sun.

This house is the residence that Yang Dan settled in Yecheng. It is not big, with only four rooms in front and back. Yang Jian is only staying here temporarily for two days. Today he will go north. Many years after Jizhou withdrew the governor, the position was re-established and stationed in Boling to deal with the increasingly severe situation. Yang Jian is going to take up the post.

There were many people who followed him north, including more than 800 staff members, servants, family soldiers, and followers, all of whom were paid for by himself.

Paying for work is the norm nowadays.

Of course, you can also choose not to pay, and it is not impossible to take the job alone, but doing so will greatly constrain your ability to get things done and make it difficult to carry out your work.

Yang Jian's family is well-off, so naturally he doesn't need to do that.

In terms of seniority, Yang Dan is his cousin. He was originally the prefect of Qinghe. A while ago, he was rotated to become the prefect of Anping. He was succeeded by Gai Zhi, the former Anci Ling who had made a name for himself in Youzhou, a kid from a small family.

Yang Dan was in Anping, Yang Jian was in Boling, and the Yang family of Taishan gradually began to set their sights on Hebei.

The reason is not complicated. If they continue to develop in Henan, there will be no space and it will attract attention.

The Yang family is not high-profile and not in a hurry.

As top wealthy families, they have a significant difference from the Pei and Wang families. Although they have a long history of family learning, many of them follow the path of military men.

Everyone in the world values ​​being noble and clean, and military officers are just one of the service classes. Unless you hold a high-ranking military position such as the Central Guard General or the Central Commander, it is of no use to you.

One or two representatives among the civil servants will be enough.

For example, Yang Man, the Minister of the State of Liang, was a close minister in terms of his position and could provide advice on decision-making.

Even though it is just a "suggestion", it can be very effective at critical moments and should never be underestimated.

Another example is Yang Ming, the left chancellor of the Land Administration Department. When the land survey was in full swing, he pushed for a tight deadline, and your land was taken away before you could even start to deal with it, or sold at a low price, resulting in a huge loss.

If he relaxes his grip a little and gives you more time, you can keep more of your interests.

If you are a little more ruthless, you can also attack families or political enemies you dislike - this has been done more than once.

There was also Yang Jiongzhi, the Weiwei of the Jin Dynasty, who was in charge of the Luoyang armory, the various mines, the official vehicles, and the guards. This was also a position of real power.

Yang Chen, the right Sima of the shogunate, was in charge of the military affairs of the General's Office. If he had not been worried about the fear of Prince Liang, Chen Yougen, the left Sima, would have been inexplicably involved in something and dismissed from his post.

With these people around, they can exchange interests and ensure that the Yang family will not be bullied. As the saying goes, they are not aggressive enough but they are good at defense.

Of course, the biggest advantage is that King Liang won’t worry too much and then suffer a blow.

Yang knew very well that Prince Liang was of low birth and had few relatives, so he was very wary of the powerful families, fearing that what happened to the Sima family would happen again. Whoever jumped the most would be the more wary he would be.

The Yang family could have developed locally first, such as Hebei, which was considered a daunting place.

Lu Zidao is old!

Yang Jian laughed secretly in his heart, flicked his sleeves, put his hands behind his back, and walked to the side of the road in wooden clogs.

The Yang family soldiers were wearing iron or leather armor, equipped with swords and spears, and stood by in a majestic manner.

"Governor." Seeing Yang Jian coming out, everyone bowed to him.

"Thirteen, how's the investigation going on the way forward?" Yang Jian asked.

"There are more and more refugees." said the family general Qiu Shisan.

Yang Jian's face changed when he heard this, and the situation became worse.

"How about going by water?" he asked.

"It's very difficult." Qiu Shisan replied, "Nowadays, one ship after another is carrying grain, and there is no empty ship to unload. We have hundreds of people and nearly 200 carts of baggage. It is difficult to find enough ships."

"Does Boling have any soldiers?" Yang Jian asked again.

"No soldiers."

"Where is King Liang?"

Qiu Shisan was a little embarrassed and said, "He has been moving all the time. He was still in Zhongshan at the end of July. Now he may be in Gaoyang or Hejian, or he may have gone south."

"Alas." Yang Jian sighed, thinking that even Cao Mengde was not as busy as you.

The founders of a country are all restless people who like to run around.

It is better to be a king who maintains the status quo. He spends most of his time in the deep palace and listens to reports from all the officials in the court.

"Does King Liang have any soldiers around him?" Yang Jian suddenly thought of something and asked.

"I brought several thousand people from the Silver Spear Camp, as well as more than a thousand personal soldiers and a thousand volunteer cavalry." Qiu Shisan said.

"Not bad." Yang Jian breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Since the water route is blocked, let's go by land."

Qiu Shisan suddenly became nervous and said, "Yes." After that, he immediately went to arrange for the accompanying guards.

******
It's already the fifth of August, and the rain still shows no sign of stopping.

Occasionally it stops for a day or two, and then "retaliates" with heavier rainfall.

The situation in the south is slightly better, but the further north you go, the more the land becomes a water-filled country.

We encountered many forts and manors along the way, and sometimes we would stop and stay for a day or two.

In fact, as early as the time of Sima Teng, the Yang family had begun to infiltrate Hebei, but ultimately failed because neither Sima Teng nor his successors could effectively control the situation in Hebei.

If we fail militarily, we will naturally fail miserably politically.

But after all, the Yang family had run the business before, so they still had some acquaintances in Hebei. It’s just that after so many years, there have been many changes, so the number of acquaintances has gradually decreased.

There were large amounts of wood piled outside many docks.

Upon asking around, I found out that they all rushed down from Taihang Mountains last year.

Gaoyang, Hejian, Boling, Zhongshan, Changshan and other counties organized the people to transport these woods by water to Wei, Bohai, Qinghe, Pingyuan, Yangping and other counties, and sold them to private individuals in exchange for food, livestock and farm tools.

These places were not severely affected last year and life was still possible. In addition, the summer wheat harvest in May was normal, so they were confident. Therefore, many people bought the wheat, intending to dry it in the shade and use it to repair and expand their homes.

But now it seems that most of these woods are just a waste of money.

This year is similar to last year. The disaster in the northern part of Jizhou is serious, and the southern part has also been affected. The yield of coarse grains planted in June will inevitably decrease.

Food suddenly became extremely precious.

The fort commanders and manor owners who used to like to take advantage of chaos to recruit people also closed their doors, and the walls were filled with young men armed with swords and bows, wary of every approaching group of people.

Even when Yang Jian's caravan approached, they were warned by arrows shot down from the wall, meaning that they had no food, were unwilling to accept people, and should get out immediately.

When walking in the wilderness, there is either no one around or you suddenly encounter a surprisingly dense crowd of people.

The refugees came in waves, ranging from hundreds to thousands.

As for a larger scale, we have not seen it yet. But if the government does not do anything, the refugees will inevitably attack and kill each other, and annex each other, and the scale will develop into tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people.

At this scale, ordinary forts could not withstand it, because the refugees had no reason at all, or were in a desperate or crazy mood, and they would probably take down the fort without caring about casualties.

At this time, the leader of the fortress had no other choice but to either be forced to join the gang or have his entire family killed.

When he arrived in Xiangguo, Yang Jian saw a large porridge farm.

He got off the car and took a look. The porridge was very thin, but it was enough to keep him alive.

The biggest problem is that the quantity is seriously insufficient and cannot meet the needs of all the victims.

Perhaps, the prefect of Guangping and even Lu Zidao of Yecheng had this idea: to give the victims hope and let them rush here instead of gathering in groups on the road.

After arriving in Xiangguo, they were under control because there were troops there.

Even if the porridge cannot save everyone and some people cause trouble, it will not be a big deal and will be suppressed quickly.

Once the rebellion was suppressed and people died, food was no longer so scarce.

It was a clear strategy, a desperate measure, because the shortage of food meant that only a small number of people could survive.

After leaving Xiangguo, Yang Jian passed through the southeast of Zhaojun and turned to Julu and Boling.

Along the way, the situation seemed to become more difficult.

There were robbery horse bandits on the road, but fortunately they were not large in scale, with only a dozen or dozens of riders, and they did not dare to deal with their team of nearly a thousand people.

Someone was dragging a corpse and slowly disappeared into the abandoned village.

A mother abandoned her child in the bushes and left crying.

There were also two groups of people who attacked each other because one of the groups actually fled with food.

Yang Jian looked pale and gained a new understanding of the important task of being the governor of Jizhou.

He had been the prefect of Ruyin before. That place was said to be desolate, but there were few disasters. After order was restored, having enough food was not a problem, because there was so much land that you could not cultivate it all. For three consecutive years, you could even cultivate different pieces of land and leave the other two pieces of land fallow, so the yield was really not low.

The biggest disaster in Ruyin was actually war.

But the people in Jiangdong have also had difficulties in recent years. They have suffered from locust plagues, floods, and droughts. Although the severity of the disasters is much lighter than that in the north, the land and population owned by the wealthy families there are larger than those in the north. They are not very willing to use their own money and food to support the army's march north.

The difficulties in Ruyin and Hebei are completely on a different level.

Yang Jian walked and stopped along the way, and it took him a month to finally reach Boling step by step through the mud.

People from the largest local family, the poor Boling Cui family, came to greet them warmly.

Yang Jian took a quick glance and sighed inwardly.

Once upon a time, the Boling Cui family was considered one of the most powerful families in Jizhou, and its influence was only slightly smaller than that of the Qinghe Cui family. Unexpectedly, it has now become a poor family.

Looking at the expressions of Cui's children, their desire to curry favor with them was almost evident in their words.

Haha, Lu Zidao is old.

At this time, Yang Jian received accurate information: King Liang was in Gaoyang.

(End of this chapter)