Chapter 104: Calculation
When Qian Yuchuan sent someone to find Master Kang Sheng (also known as Lüzheng), the latter was staring at a painting in ecstasy with his eyes squinted.
"Ruihe Picture"!
The author of this painting is no small matter - he is actually an emperor. Well, it is the Song Huizong, Zhao Ji, who "can do everything except be a king".
In the second year of Zhenghe, on the eve of Shangyuan Festival (the Shangyuan Festival is the Lantern Festival. The next eve is the next day, the sixteenth day of the first lunar month), Zhao Ji held a banquet for all the ministers in Yanfu Palace. While the monarch and his ministers were having a banquet, a group of cranes flew from the northwest and hovered over the palace. Huizong was very excited when he saw this, thinking that the arrival of fairy birds on the occasion of the festival was clearly an auspicious sign for the Song Dynasty. The Holy Emperor was happy, and all the ministers naturally joined in the excitement, so Zhao Ji, who was overjoyed, took advantage of the excitement and painted this "Picture of Auspicious Crane".
However... just over ten years later, the Jin soldiers marched southward. Zhao Ji first "abdicated" the throne to his son Qinzong Zhao Huan. Then, both father and son were kidnapped, and the Northern Song Dynasty came to an end.
"Picture of Ruihe" was copied from the Luo family, and it is said to be a dowry from the natal family of the young mistress of the Luo family. Master Kang was a great connoisseur of goods, and he recognized the distinctive thin gold style of the poem at a glance. Moreover, Master Kang knew that the natal family of the young mistress of the Luo Mansion was Qizhai of Song County, and her ancestors worked in the Lianghuai Salt Administration. I've done this before! Therefore, without saying anything, he took matters into his own hands and carefully took the painting back. Mr. Fu Zun's surname is Qian. True to his surname, he likes gold, silver and jewelry the most. Therefore, most of the cultural relics, calligraphy and paintings that have been copied over the past few years have been returned to Master Kang.
Among all calligraphy and paintings, Master Kang only loved this one "Picture of Ruihe". Handwriting by famous artists is certainly rare, but authentic handwriting from previous emperors is even more extraordinary. Therefore, as long as I have free time, I will watch it crazily and be intoxicated with it. After looking at it for a long time, I seem to realize something: there are eighteen cranes flying in the sky - there were a total of eighteen emperors in the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties. Nine cranes are looking left and nine cranes are looking right - the eighteen emperors north and south The Song Dynasty each took half of the cranes and all the cranes in the sky flew away, but two stood on the owl (pronounced "eat") kissing* and left the group of cranes - the two emperors of Huiqin were kidnapped by the Jin people, and ended up with the other emperors. The two cranes are completely different. The one on the right is standing firmly, while the one on the left is standing reluctantly with its wings fluttering. Generally speaking, the Southern Song Dynasty is more precarious than the Northern Song Dynasty... In the dark, unexpectedly, It seems to reveal some mystery.
Kang Sheng was lost in thought when he heard Qian Fuzun sent someone to invite him and hurried over.
From those who escaped from Shiqiao Bao, Qian Yuchuan had of course known the news that Guan Shengyun's army was about to arrive a few days earlier. However, in his heart, although he was a little worried, he was not as panicked as other local officials before. Magistrate Qian knew very well that he really had some resources that he could rely on.
The first is poverty. If you are a thief, you always have to rob. The entire Nanyang Mansion has been torn to pieces by himself, and there is really nothing left to grab. Lord Qian understands this better than anyone else. Generally speaking, although the city is prosperous, under normal circumstances, the food, grass, utensils and other bulk items that bandits need most mainly rely on robbing the countryside. Now that the countryside is riddled with holes, nothing can be done to replenish it, and even sending a search team is a waste of food and grass. Of course, Qian Yuchuan didn't know that Guan Shengyun's tribe was now extremely rich, and he had no intention of going to the countryside to grab anything anymore - well, not only Qian Yuchuan, I'm afraid no one in the entire Ming Dynasty knew how rich Guan Shengyun was at this time. Including the Shaanxi Third Division who delivered a large amount of supplies to them! Secondly, there are no other refugees inside or outside Fucheng, but there are at least hundreds of thousands of extremely vicious refugees! Even though these people are obedient and obedient to the government, when they play cruel tricks on others, Mr. Qian will be secretly frightened after seeing those kinds of tricks. These are all usable people! Mr. Qian was very confident about this and made arrangements: that is to fight! Some are desperadoes who are so poor that they have nothing to live for, so they fill them all in and let the thieves kill them. No matter how much money is spent, adults will not blink an eye! At best, there are only tens of thousands of thieves, and hundreds of thousands of red-eyed guys are rushing towards them. Can you kill them? When the thief loses all his strength, loses his courage, and cannot lift the knife, he will die without a burial! Mr. Qian is not afraid of mountains of corpses and seas of blood. That would be the best, just to report a three-year tax exemption! I am worrying about how to search for things in the coming year so that I can exceed the target. Just when I had to dig deep into my pocket to clear the air and quickly move to another place, a thief came, which really helped me a lot! If you win, you will be exempted from taxes... If you can't defeat them, you can give the thieves a sum of money and let them go directly to Huguang. By that time, the thieves who have blocked the city gate and are severely weakened will no longer be interested in climbing the wall and chewing on the city bricks, right? Wait for the thief to leave and claim victory!
The government officials sent out reported one after another that except for the people from several townships such as Lihe Dagu Tomb (today's Hanzhong Township) in the east, who were blocked by the thieves in Qishui, the people from various townships and villages in the north, west and south were blocked. People are gathering towards Fucheng. At this moment, there are 40,000 to 50,000 people gathered, and there are more people rushing on the way in angrily! Qian Yuchuan became even more confident after hearing this, and asked someone to invite Master Kang to discuss how to defeat the thief.
Not long after Mr. Kang entered the second hall to talk, Chen Boyen (also named Zicong), the chief historian of the Tang Dynasty, also rushed in anxiously. Before he could enter the room, he heard him shouting loudly: "Master Qian, Mr. Qian, The prince was very worried when he heard that a large group of thieves were coming. Is this possible?"
The king of Tang Dynasty established a vassal state in Nanyang Mansion. If Luoyang's Longevity King Chitose only likes to eat, then this vassal king only likes to eat in one word: play. Anything strange, whether it is an object or a person, must be obtained with great effort. However, Chitose is short-lived. No matter what she gets, she will be happy for a few days and then put it aside and ignore it. Many years ago, the Holy One gave a Western orb. The prince couldn't put it down and played with it for a month. Then he lost interest. Occasionally, he heard someone said that there was a Ma Wei named Guan in the Shou Palace who was very talented. On a whim, he wanted to exchange the orb for another. The little General of Horse Soldiers... of course was not replaced. This is undoubtedly a blessing for Guan Peizhong. The prince just said it casually on a whim, otherwise he would have been replaced by him. At most, he would have watched the horse riding and juggling for a few days. When he got tired of it, he would have forgotten it - just like the orb. , has long since been found, and no one knows where it is.
Earlier, many Jin gentlemen came to the palace one after another to complain about the misfortune of Magistrate Qian. The prince wouldn't pay attention to him. At first, he had to suppress his temper and let people say "the ancestral feudal king will not deal with things" to send him away. Later, more and more people with no eyesight gathered, even kneeling outside the prince's palace, regardless of day or night. He cried so loudly that the prince was not in the mood to play. So he asked the guards to beat him with sticks, and the magistrate Qian also sent officials to arrest him. Finally, no one dared to defeat the prince's interest - the prince is a golden branch and a jade leaf. The Taizu conquered the Ming Dynasty, and his descendants can enjoy the beauty as a matter of course. Life is the right thing. If you wait for ordinary people to survive, what will you do to the prince? As for local officials, if the local government is well managed, the prince will always be the prince. If he is not managed well, the court will naturally change, and the prince will still be the prince! Not to mention that Magistrate Qian Yuchuan, from time to time, he sent some rare things that pleased the prince!
In fact, when there were thieves coming outside the city, King Tang didn't take it seriously at all. On the contrary, Chen Changshi was a little uneasy. After all, the prince was just playing around, and had no memory. He left almost everything to himself. He had dealt with the magistrate's office the most in these years, and he had reaped a lot of benefits. He didn't want any accidents to happen, so he rushed there anxiously under the banner of Prince Tang. Come.
Master Kang hurriedly stepped forward and said, "Haha, brother Zicong, don't worry! Mr. Qian has already planned to defeat the thief. Come on, let's talk about it slowly." Obviously, Master Kang and Chen Changshi had a close personal relationship, otherwise, a The ministers of the fourth-rank magistrates would never dare to address the fifth-rank prince's chief minister directly in the official office.
After entering the second hall and sitting down, Chen Bowen felt a little relieved after listening to Qian Yuchuan's heart-to-heart talk. He picked up the tea cup and took a sip and said: "Master Qian's clever plan is certainly reasonable, but I am still a little worried. Here. There are no outsiders, so let’s open the skylight and speak frankly. The thieves searched the surrounding suburbs and found nothing. After thinking about it for a while, they thought that although there was no food in the wilderness for many years, where would the gold and silver be if they couldn’t be used as food? You can tell with your toes that they are all in Fucheng! There is no guarantee that they will not attack the city in anger..."
Qian Yuchuan laughed: "Brother Zicong, don't worry! Forty to fifty thousand people have gathered outside the west gate and north gate, and there are more people on the way. By tomorrow, I estimate that at least seven or eight people will come again Ten thousand people! The thieves have just camped ten miles away. They are going to attack the city. No matter how fast it is, it will still take a day or two. We have to make ladders or something. Tomorrow we will attack and kill the thieves!"
Chen Bowen was surprised: "We will attack tomorrow? Are you sure, Mr. Qian? Those are ordinary people who have never fought in a war! Besides, Mr. Qian should know the virtues of these people. They are all sallow and thin, and they are all standing It's okay to scare the thief on the wall, but then let him out and attack the thief with a knife and a gun? Aren't you going to die?"
Before Qian Yuchuan could look over, even though there were only these three people in the room, Master Kang still looked around and whispered: "Brother Zicong is right, Master Fu Zun's plan is to let them out to die. ah!"
Before Chen Boyen could express his shock, Master Kang continued: "These people usually scattered in the countryside to fend for themselves. After these years, the fear of the government is engraved in their bones, and they will never cause any trouble. Even if someone shows up. The thought of being treasonous will be sold by the people around you in exchange for mixed bread and eaten in the blink of an eye! This is too much. But when the thieves come to kill, the situation is different. Suddenly they are useful, right? However, they all gathered at once, hundreds of thousands of people, but there are hundreds of thousands of mouths! How much food do you need to eat every day? Not to mention the small area where so many people gathered at once, what if something happened to cause the elbows and armpits to change? , At best, there are only thirty or tens of thousands of thieves, how can we expect tens of thousands or two hundred thousand desperate guys to rush in one after another? If we beat away the thieves, they will all come back to ask for rewards! Brother Zicong, where did we get so many? How much money do you need for food and clothing? Do you think the prince, Chitose, should pay for it, or the master should pay for it? Or should you and I pay for it ourselves?"
Chen Bowen was dumbfounded, and Master Kang continued: "Yesterday, Mr. Qian and Jiuquan made a plan. When one batch comes, we will send out a batch, and each person will be given two mixed noodle buns! Of course, those who come first will die first, but We have a lot of people! Brother Zicong is the thief on the opposite side. If you kill one group, another group will come, and there will be a steady stream. When will you be the leader? No matter how sharp your steel knife is, it will break! This happens every day, who can Aren’t you afraid? The thief is doing us a great favor! Even if we fail to kill the thief in the end, we must have suffered a lot of damage! The end of a strong crossbow cannot penetrate Lu Guan, let alone the high-ranking Nanyang Mansion. The high city wall! We are just reaping the benefits of the fishermen. How should we report to the court later? There is no need to say more below, right? Hahaha."
Chen Bo heard this and suddenly raised his thumbs with both hands: "High! Master Qian is high, brother Lu Zheng is high! Chen admires me! I am relieved, and I will go back to Prince Qian Sui."
Qian Yuchuan took over the conversation: "Brother Zicong, don't leave in a hurry. Now that you are here, can you go with the official to encourage the people? Those guys, if they see the officials of the palace and the official jointly making generous speeches, With great righteousness, I am afraid I will rush out even more impatiently! Hahahaha..."
*Owl kiss: The decoration at both ends of the main ridge of palaces and other buildings, made of pottery or colored glaze, plays a role in fixing the roof tiles. Legend has it that the owl kiss is one of the nine sons of the dragon, which can spray water and rain, so it is made in this shape, which means to avoid fire. In fact, this legend is very unreliable, and it has been subject to various speculations among the people for a long time.
The earliest vertebrate was actually Chi, a legendary sea beast that could spread rain by flicking its tail, so it was used to mean that buildings could avoid fire. Some say the shape of its tail is like a fish, while others say it is like a bird, so fish tails and bird tails come in various shapes. After the late Tang Dynasty, some people felt that only a tail without a head looked unsightly, so they changed the shape and simply added a head to the tail. Later, some people thought that there was a guy in the Nine Sons of Longsheng called Ouqi, who liked to climb high and take risks, and could swallow fire - well, in fact, it not only swallowed fire, but also swallowed everything it saw, so they simply merged into one.
Dragon totems have also experienced thousands of years of evolution: the earliest interpretation of dragons by people in the Yellow River Basin came from pigs (hey, you can’t believe it?), and there are many cultural relics in the shape of pig-headed dragons; coastal tribes worshiped fish, so the tail is like a fish; some tribes of mountain people think that being bitten by a snake is very unpleasant, so the things they are afraid of must have scales; some tribes worship birds, so the dragon claws took the bird claws... Several tribes After a great fusion, everyone contributed their ideas and suggestions, and finally came up with the shape of a dragon.
After all, the father of Ouki is a dragon - and dragons are the result of collective efforts, so Ouki can naturally draw on the wisdom of others and combine various magical powers into one body: climbing high to look out and give warnings, sowing waves and spreading rain, and the inextinguishable fire caused by rain can make this thing Swallow small things...
Others think of Chi (the word is also pronounced "eat", not "li"), a guy who looks like a dragon but has no horns. He has a big belly and can hold a lot of water - water can extinguish fire... Anyway, the two characters have the same pronunciation. , it seems that maybe these two are the same thing, let's just call Chi Kiss...
No one should be too serious, the golden mean is the kingly way.
BTW, there is a saying in northern dialect, "Five spines and six beasts", which describes a person who feels uncomfortable when idle. Interested book friends may wish to take a look at Du Niang to see what the original intention is, it’s the same thing^_^
