Chapter 481: Chaos in Lin'an Prefecture
Gang leader Jian immediately presented the Beggars' Gang's secret letter to the old beggar and asked the old gang leader to read it.
The old beggar took it and opened it, he was overjoyed, and excitedly told the generals: Shi's son's confidant Yang Daquan has betrayed us, and he is going to start an uprising tonight to rebuild the small court in Lin'an. There will definitely be chaos in Lin'an City, we must set out quickly to capture Lin'an City.
The secret letter was circulated among the generals, and everyone had a look of joy on their faces. It was truly a godsend opportunity.
However, when it came to the Deputy Envoy of Training sitting in the central army tent and leading the troops to follow up, the Deputy Envoy of Training felt that he was too weak and unable to lead the generals to advance.
The female leader was anxious, time was running out. She kept blinking, then stood up and paced back and forth with her hands behind her back, then suddenly stood in front of Guo Jing and clapped her hands and said, "Okay, my husband and I will lead the troops to Lin'an, Brother Jing will charge and fight in the front, and Rong'er will ensure the military supplies in the back."
She immediately began to deploy her troops, ordering Guo Jing's 5,000 elite soldiers to attack Lin'an directly, and she herself led 20,000 central troops to follow up, with Lin'an Prefecture as the target, and no one was allowed to fight.
Then, he invited the Old East Evil and the Old Beggar to the back tent and gave them some instructions. The two old men were overjoyed and nodded repeatedly as they left.
The female gang leader handed the government office over to the Transport Commissioner, asked the Deputy Training Commissioner and the Water Transport Commissioner to help stabilize the rear and ensure the logistics of the army, and personally led the army to the east.
In Huaxi Village outside the west gate of Chengdu, Zhao Yulin and Hu Lan were explaining to the elders how to reform and get rich.
These old people were quite surprised to see that the huge yard had been emptied and Tie Niu was leading a few villagers to dismantle the partitions and walls that had been used to divide the family and to repair the holes in the wall.
Du Bao Lao Yunhai said confidently, "Just wait, the Third Young Master is going to build a new house for us. It will be built immediately and this place will belong to our Third Young Master."
Zhao Yulin smiled and said: "These are all the village's things, so the village should have a number. The size of the yard and the area of the house should be known. Not only that, the size of each new house should be known, and the village should keep records of how much land the yard occupies."
Old Zhang nodded happily and said that he would give the deed of Zhang's courtyard to the third young master. Damn, Old Zhang was smart, but he was thinking the wrong thing. He thought Zhao Yulin was asking for the deed of the courtyard.
Hu Lan said with a smile that the Third Young Master was going to make drastic changes here, and the first item was to straighten the ditches and roads in the village.
Not only do crooked ditches waste land, but when the water gets too high it often washes away slopes and fertile fields, destroying crops, right?
The old people nodded one by one, thinking that what Hu Lan said made sense.
She said the same applies to roads, which are winding and difficult to navigate, and are time-consuming and labor-intensive, and take up space. We need to rebuild the roads and ditches.
Zhao Yulin went on to say: The village is beautiful because of its neat ditches, straight roads and rows of trees.
At present, the fields are of different sizes and odd shapes, making them inconvenient to cultivate. We need to completely disrupt the plan and make them into fields of uniform size and neatly arranged, which will be the most beautiful new countryside.
The old men were immediately petrified. These farmers who worked all day were only thinking about producing more food. How could they have ever considered what Zhao Yulin said?
The straight road with rows of trees is indeed beautiful, but what’s the use of beauty?
Will that fill your stomach?
Can it be sold and turned into silver?
It has nothing to do with them.
Someone asked him: What the Third Young Master said is right. We all agree to build ditches and roads. However, if we occupy the land of the Zhang and Li families, we will have to produce less grain. Who will give us the money?
Who will pay for repairing ditches and roads?
Zhao Yulin said that he would pay for the land used to build roads and ditches, and compensate them according to the highest output in previous years. He would also pay for the labor of building ditches and roads. Each family only needed to pay the corvée labor of that year, and the remaining wages would be paid to everyone willing to work according to the wages of labor in the city.
Everyone was stunned, and some said exaggeratedly: My God, if the whole village does this, how much money will it cost?
The Third Young Master built houses for everyone, so it was a fair deal to get this yard. All the money spent on repairing ditches and roads was not wasted.
Old Zhang said that we have no trees to cut down in Huaxi Village, and no charcoal to dig and sell. There is only the southeast slope and some wasteland around the ponds that no one cultivates, and they are all useless. The Third Young Master will take whatever he likes, and we will give him all the newly cultivated land, and we only ask him to lead us to live a good life.
Seeing that Old Zhang's eyes were full of expectation, Hu Lan
Zhao Yulin felt that he had already spoiled most of what he was going to do next, so he had to let them understand and digest it before he could continue. He slowly picked up the teacup and drank tea.
When Old Zhang saw this, he realized that the Third Young Master was seeing off the guests, and immediately told everyone to go back. The Third Young Master was tired, so they should all go back and rest.
Gradually people dispersed.
He felt that this was a good start, and he said to Hu Lan and A Qian with a smile that the people here were very simple and honest, and they would do whatever we asked them to do, which was very good.
Both women nodded happily.
He warned them to remember that the people were suffering and they should not use their power to oppress them. The people were honest and they should persuade them more when they did not understand. If we explained our strategy clearly, we would always get their support.
The two women smiled and nodded.
Zhao Yulin felt that the current matters would be enough to keep them busy for a while, so he told them to come back in ten days to discuss the next steps, and followed Ke Zhenxie back to the city.
At this time, Lin'an Prefecture in Liangzhe had become a mess. The scene of Shi's son and the false emperor Zhao Bing fighting for power a few years ago was being staged again in the city.
This time it was Yang Daquan, a trusted lackey of Shi's son, who joined forces with several city-guarding generals of the Shi family to rebel, and gathered thousands of people to seize power from Shi's son.
Shi's son could never have imagined that his indecisiveness and wavering mentality would harm him. His subordinates, who were usually submissive, actually gathered together to oppose him and sent public messages to force him to leave and not stop them from continuing to establish their own separatist regime.
Yang Daquan also received great help from Zeng Wudao, a very argumentative person.
Haha, even though Zeng Wudao usually follows Shi's son like a lapdog, when he knew that Shi's son was determined to surrender to the New Song Dynasty, he immediately stood on Yang Daquan's side.
Because this guy knew that Zhao Yulin was a ruthless character. In order to curry favor with Shi's son, he offended Zhao Yulin again and was beaten to pieces on the mouth by Zhao Yulin's guards with the soles of their shoes. After returning to Lin'an, he had been trying to harm Zhao Yulin on behalf of Shi's son.
Therefore, this fellow was afraid that he would suffer a bad outcome after surrendering, so he immediately betrayed Shi's son and became Yang Daquan's die-hard supporter. His mouth, which could make the dead stand up from their coffins, became a powerful weapon for Yang Daquan's restoration.
So, the first idea he gave to Yang Daquan was to kill the entire family of Xie Laosan who was under house arrest, so as to completely cut off Shi's son's idea of turning to the New Song Kingdom in Chengdu and rebuild a small court together.
Yang Daquan saw this trick as a brilliant move, and he avenged Xie Lingyun for taking advantage of him, and immediately ordered a bloodbath at the Xie family. Poor Xie Laosan's family of more than 30 people stayed at home harmlessly, but they were killed by the villains who rushed in in a few minutes, and their property was also looted.
In order to cover up their crimes, the vicious thugs even burned Xie Laosan's house to ashes.
After receiving the report, Shi's son was greatly shocked. He thought that Yang Daquan was so cruel and vicious, how could he dare to dance with them, a group of greedy wolves.
Zhao Yulin, who was determined to abide by the rules, was more reliable. He decisively rejected the olive branch extended by Yang Daquan and his gang, and cursed Yang Daquan and his gang for being treacherous and forgetting their ancestors, and for setting up a new court which was against the will of heaven.
Yang Daquan was so angry that he was trembling with anger and wanted to smash down the door of Shi's son's house and kill his entire family.
Seeing that Shi's son still refused to listen, Zeng Wudao offered another plan: he could use the fact that Shi's son had supported Zhao Bing in his separatist regime to refute that guy and leave him speechless.
Yang Daquan and his gang of rebels immediately found a perfect reason to celebrate and unscrupulously recruited soldiers and horses in the imperial city to strengthen their small court.
This is where Shi’s son was wrong.
At first, he set up his own small court, and those who dreamed of restoring the monarchy gathered around him. All they thought about was how to establish an independent country and become a key minister of the court. Now that this villain sees that separatism is hopeless and that surrender is the general trend, we should actively guide them and eliminate those diehards who still want to restore the monarchy.
However, this guy was too confident that he could control the overall situation. He only thought about how to gain the greatest benefits for himself and ignored Yang Daquan, the most dangerous hungry wolf.
This fellow secretly contacted the notorious garrison commander and launched a sudden attack. He actually succeeded in one move and trapped all of Shi's sons in the city of Lin'an.
However, Shi's son had been working in Lin'an for more than ten years. After learning that Yang Daquan and the garrison commander had jointly mutinied, he immediately mobilized the army's secret guards to assassinate the garrison commander. Although the garrison commander was not killed by Shi's son's secret guards, he was seriously injured.
The garrison in the city was surprised to see this scene.
They all knew that the Shi family had many eccentrics in their family, and they were worried that these people were everywhere. They suspected that there were Shi family's secret agents around them, and they all became frightened birds.
Some who missed the old friendship and had weak wills ran to Shi's son, kowtowed and confessed their guilt, begging him for mercy.
As a result, the defenders in the city quickly split into two factions. One faction followed Yang Daquan and swore to establish an independent court, and the other faction followed Shi's son and wanted to give up independence and return to the New Song Dynasty.
The two factions immediately started fighting in Lin'an City, engaging in a life-and-death battle.
There were few people following Shi's son, and they were repeatedly defeated. They hurriedly sent messages to the surrounding militia for reinforcements, and even sent fast horses to ask the Shenwei Army for help.
Yang Daquan had many people and occupied the old imperial city, which was used as the government office. It was easy to defend but difficult to attack. In order to win the hearts of the people, he found the remaining tributes from the Song Dynasty in the government office and gave them to the desperate people who dared to fight and kill. He won victory after victory, and defeated the surrendering faction of Shi Zizi. Even his own prime minister's residence was captured and turned into the general's residence of the garrison commander.
It seemed that most of Lin'an City had been occupied by Yang Daquan's rebels.
