Ming Dynasty Strategy Notes [Transmigration Book]

Since Zhang Shou had scouted the road carefully when he came, the journey back to the cliff was smooth sailing, and it only took half a day to reach the cliff before dark.

The three returned at the right time, Zhao Xin was just about to let Wang Zhen take the captured Fan people back to Chengdu first, and he waited here for news from the King of Shu, the King of Shu had already returned, so the plan had to be abandoned.

No matter how arrogant and domineering Zhao Xin, Wang Zhen and others were before, with the King of Shu in charge, they still had to be respectful and respectful, pretending to be booing and asking for warmth, not daring to disobey Zhu Chun's intentions.

Along the way, Zhu Chun had already discussed with Xia Ziling. Whether it was Wang Zhen's obedience and injustice on the battlefield, or his desire to assert power later, Zhu Chun pretended not to care much for the time being.After returning to Yashang, Zhu Chun treated Zhao Xin and Wang Zhen kindly, and ordered that after the group of people were escorted back to Chengdu, the officials of the Third Division of Sichuan had full authority to try them, as long as they reported the results to themselves.

When Zhao Xin and Wang Zhen received this order, they all smiled, thinking that the King of Shu is indeed as refined and kind as the rumors say.He was originally an elegant person who liked to play with words and ink, so it was a last resort to put on clothes and go into battle. He didn't want to get involved in the officialdom's infighting. The one in Chengdu seemed to be thinking too much.

Everyone went back to Chengdu peacefully all the way, and Zhu Chun immediately returned to the palace, never leaving the gate, and as he said before, he never intervened in the trial of the Fanren's rebellion.

After more than a thousand people were imprisoned, because the case involved rebellion and damaged the Black Cliff Pass, Zhang Jing did not dare to be sloppy, and immediately convened a joint trial of the three divisions. The facts of the case came to light, and it was reported to the King of Shu early the next morning.

This group of people came from Xuzhou Prefecture in the southwest of Chengdu. Since the Han and Tang Dynasties, Xuzhou has always been a place where Han people and Tibetans live together, and the folk customs are tough.After these several connected tribes were instigated by the demon boy, they became rebellious and attempted to overthrow our regime.This is the general situation, but in Zhang Jing's documents, the plan of the rebellion, the route of attack, and the list of rebel leaders are all explained in detail. All are given death, as a warning to others.

Emperor Hongwu always adhered to the soft policy towards the ethnic minorities, but this time the Fanren invasion incident razed the entire Black Cliff Pass to the ground and killed more than a dozen guards. There are 30 people including the commander, and the plot is quite bad. Zhang Jing's proposal to put the rebels to death is understandable.

But... only one thing is missing from all the descriptions—the reason for the rebellion of the Fanren.In the memorial, Zhang Jing only included a vague sentence - "the people in Western Sichuan are unruly and unrepentant", but Xia Ziling felt that such a reason was a bit unimaginable.After the demise of Tubo, there was no unified political power in western Sichuan. After the iron heel of the Yuan Dynasty, the ethnic minorities have also settled down a lot. How could several tribes join forces to rebel because of a "unruly" one?In his view, most common people are overwhelmed when they rise up, regardless of whether they are Han people or Fan people, this is the same reason.

After reading the document presented by Zhang Jing, Zhu Chun gently closed it, and said, "Master Zhang is indeed an official. He has investigated this case clearly in a short period of time. My king has no objection to what you have said. Mr. Zhang immediately draws up a memorial to the emperor, and you and I should sign it together."

Zhang Jing was slightly stunned, "My lord... this is a big matter. If it is up to the emperor, it will take a lot of time to go back and forth. I am worried that if the escaped monster is found for a long time, there will be troubles."

Zhu Chun smiled slightly, "Even if you and I kill these aliens first, the monster will not be able to stop them if they find them, so Mr. Zhang can just wait for the emperor's order with peace of mind."

After Zhu Chun finished speaking, his tone was serious, and he continued: "Besides, this king has already drafted a memorial to the emperor. Father must be very concerned about such a major event. You and I will punish you before the emperor's order arrives. If the royal father blames him, will Mr. Zhang or this king be responsible?"

Hearing this, Zhang Jing had no choice but to bow his head and said: "What the prince said is very true. This official acted too hastily. I will let the prince decide everything. I immediately went to draw up the memorial."

After Zhu Chun nodded in agreement, Zhang Jing hurried away.

A moment after Zhang Jing left, Zhang Shou came to report: "My lord, that man is awake."

Zhu Chun and Xia Ziling exchanged glances, got up and followed Zhang Shou out of the Chengyun Hall, and came to a secret room in the backyard.I saw a black and strong middle-aged man of foreign race sitting on the bed, and there was still a bit of Meng Song's color in his eyes.

Seeing the three of them entering the house, the man's eyes immediately showed alertness. Xia Ziling hurriedly said in the Shu dialect, "Don't panic, big brother. You are in the Shu Palace at this time, so you are safe and secure."

The man nodded when he heard the words, and asked with a strong western Sichuan accent: "Why am I here? Where are my people?"

Xia Ziling said: "They are temporarily detained in the prison of the commander of the capital. Their lives are safe, so you don't have to worry. The prince brought you here secretly after all kinds of twists and turns. He wants to know why you rebelled and rebelled. I still hope you Tell the inside story one by one, maybe you can keep your clansmen alive."

It seems that this person understands Chinese, and Xia Ziling really picked the right person.Judging from Wang Zhen's attitude, at Heiya Pass, Xia Ziling already felt that he wanted to kill someone to cover up something, probably because he was afraid that the King of Shu would reveal some secrets in the middle of Shu from the Fanren, and this secret, He had a vague feeling that it would be related to Zhang Jing.After the rebel Fanren were escorted back to Chengdu, if they waited for an opportunity to go to prison for torture, Zhang Jing would definitely be alarmed, and Xia Ziling didn't want to startle the snake just yet.

Therefore, he conspired with Zhu Chun to put the poison of suspended animation on Zhang Shouze alone.Both Zhao Xin and Wang Zhen were warriors, they were not very scheming, after seeing this person's sudden death, they didn't suspect him, so they randomly discarded him in the mass graves along the way.After the army had left, Zhu Chun sent Zhang Shou to lead someone to quietly bring him back to the mansion.

At that time, Xia Ziling saw that this person was dressed in noble clothes and behaved calmly. The prisoners around him seemed to be afraid of his majesty. He was probably an important person in one of the tribes. He should have known something, so he chose this person to poison.

The majestic king of Shu is thousand years old, it is really helpless to torture a prisoner and go through all kinds of twists and turns.But now he forbears, just to bring out more secrets in Shuzhong, so Zhu Chun also agrees with Xia Ziling's strategy.Now that this person has woken up, many things can be revealed.

The man raised his eyes and looked back and forth at the three people in front of him, and finally his eyes fell on Zhu Chun, who was dressed luxuriously, and said: "Since my clan and I have committed such treasonous things, we never thought that we would survive, but rebellion is also death. , to be content with the status quo is death, and the imperial court imposes tyranny, we really can't survive."

Zhu Chun frowned slightly, and said, "The imperial court extorted money? Why did you say that?"

The man smiled contemptuously and continued: "Some people say that the king of Shu is kind. Since the prince entered Shu, we and other tribes have sent people to Chengdu several times, intending to report the situation of the people in Syria to the prince, and ask the prince to make decisions for us. I don’t want to think that several groups of people were killed when they arrived at the palace, and how can sons control the taxes set by the emperor, we really had no choice but to rebel.”

The man's expression was already very excited, but his words did not match the truth. Emperor Hongwu was light on taxes, and everyone knew that taxes in Sichuan were not heavy. During the year since entering Sichuan, Xia Ziling personally I have visited various places in Chengdu, and the people live and work in peace and contentment, and they praise the court endlessly.How could this Sichuanese fan complain to the court?I guess there must be a misunderstanding.

Let him go on like this, it was nothing more than a complaint, and he couldn't understand the inside story, so Xia Ziling comforted him: "Brother, my lord has never seen the envoy you sent, nor did you kill him to envoy. , I think someone must be responsible for this. There are many doubts in this matter, and it is urgent to clarify them one by one. Please calm down and speak slowly, can you start with how much tax you have to pay in a year?"

The man was very surprised when Xia Ziling said that the King of Shu had never seen anyone from their tribe. However, he was also a person who had seen the world when he went out. From the few words Xia Ziling and Zhu Chun had exchanged with him just now, he also felt this. The three of them had no ill intentions towards them, and if the King of Shu was really a person who ignored the common people, why bothered to bring him here?So he patiently explained.

The man's name is Bud, and he is the son of the leader of the Ahe tribe among the four tribes who invaded Heiyaguan.Salt is produced in Syria, and members of several ethnic minority tribes are classified as salt households. The salt tax apportioned by the government to each salt household is five yin per year. Since the common people were unable to make salt, they had to sell the bittern obtained from the salt wells to the salt merchants for uniform salt production in exchange for taels of silver. Among them, the salt merchants had already kept the price very low.

Since last year, the government has distributed an extra amount of salt to each household in the name of paying tribute to the king of Shu, that is, a total of six salts have been collected.The original salt tax had already made the people miserable. After the increase, except for men, the elderly, women and children carried bamboo tubes down their backs day and night to fetch brine from the ten-foot-deep salt well to meet their needs.

The salt households in Syria state suffered unspeakably because of the new taxes, and there were several deadly incidents a few years ago, but the government urged them urgently, and the salt households who did not pay taxes would be detained and imprisoned.The salt households were desperate, so they thought of going to Chengdu to petition the king of Shu.

After this way failed, they were already in despair. A woman in the clan died of exhaustion from her husband a few days ago. After arranging her funeral, she went to the mountains alone to seek death, but was rescued by a boy in a strange costume.After the young man heard what happened to Yanhu in Xuzhou, he became furious and claimed to seek justice for them.After seeing the young man's strange magic, the talents of several tribes rekindled their hope, and wanted to use this to force the court to reduce taxes.

Xia Ziling didn't interrupt Bud when he was telling the whole story, but after he finished speaking, he immediately pointed out the most critical point in Bud's words——

"My lord, according to Bard, even if the new apportionment is not counted, the government collects five salts per household every year. I remember that there are more than 6000 salt households registered in Sichuan, so the salt that Sichuan pays to the court in a year should be It’s nearly 4000 million catties, but last year I looked at the account books, and the collected salt was only [-] million catties, so where did the other [-] million catties go?”

Zhu Chun snorted coldly, and said, "Not to mention before, the tribute salt received by our Shu Palace was only 50 catties last year, so why charge each household an extra salt every year!"

After the vassal king entered the vassal state, it is a tradition to pay tribute to the vassal king from all over the country. The Shu Palace has raised 40 guards, plus various idlers, etc., and the annual salt allowance is about [-] million catties. Zhang Jingduo Zhu Chun paid a little tribute, but Zhu Chun didn't care about it at the time, but he didn't want him to use his own name to collect far more than this from Yanhu.

Not counting the newly apportioned salt tax, the market price of the 4000 million catties of salt alone is more than 200 taels of silver, which is not a small number.

Unexpectedly, such astonishing news could be deduced from Bud's few words, Xia Ziling and Zhu Chun both had serious expressions on their faces.And... this may be just the tip of the iceberg of the Sichuan issue. From this point of view, it is really wise to deal with it in a low-key manner and wait for the arrival of reinforcements from Beijing and China before collecting the nets for fishing.

Thousands of miles away, on Lan Yan's side, she got Zhu Chun's secret order before she left Chengdu, and she was in a hurry, not daring to delay for a moment, unexpectedly it only took less than a month to rush into Yingtian.

At this moment, Princess Lanyan is stepping into Duke Liang's mansion——