What do you plan to do?
The two brothers sat on the side. The elder brother Chengzu shook his head and said: "Back to my father, at first I wanted to go home and have a few full meals before thinking about anything else. On the way, I beat up a gang of thieves in Qingjian and got a lot of food, grass and property. I don't think so." I know how to plan.”
The mother's surname is Cai, and her given name is Miaoshan. Her natal family is from a small family in Sanyuan County. My grandfather is a Buddhist, so he gave Chengzong's mother this name.
Seeing that the father and son were going to talk about something in the hall, Mrs. Cai was going to clean up the house for the two children. Suddenly after hearing this, she couldn't help but shout: "Hit the thief!"
He quickly turned back and looked left and right until he was sure that his two sons were not injured. Then he took a deep breath, stroked his chest and said, "Don't go to war with those desperadoes anymore. Listen to my mother and don't serve as border soldiers anymore. Live a good life when you come back, our family will not be short of those two mouths of food."
"Tomorrow morning, I will ask you to accompany you two to the Guandi Temple to worship. We will use swords and guns. I am very grateful to Master Guan for his blessing!"
"It's okay, mom, it's not dangerous."
Liu Chengzong smiled and comforted him. He was speaking from the bottom of his heart. After practicing martial arts for so many years, he actually only used bows and swords to fight with people a few times. But his mother, who had not seen much, thought that the border troops fought every day... There are so many in the world. Let them fight the battle.
As for the extermination of Bai Yingzi, it is much easier to deal with than the Hetao Mongols who were encountered during a routine burning of wasteland outside the border wall.
Chengzu was more direct and simply said to his mother: "Don't worry, mother, we are vulnerable to predators."
After that, he clasped his fists at Liu Xiangyu and said, "Father, tomorrow I will lead the border troops to hide the armor. If there is any unowned land in the village, I can find something for them to do."
Seeing that she couldn't persuade her son, Ms. Cai sighed sadly. In fact, she also knew that the world was in chaos and only force could protect the clan. After all, she was afraid that her two sons would be put at risk by wielding swords and guns.
This time I didn't give in to the persuasion and went out to clean up the house.
As soon as Mr. Cai left, Chengyun stood up and apologized, saying with a smile: "Second uncle, you guys talk first, I'll guillotine my brother's horse so that I can save myself the night."
After saying that he couldn't stop him, he opened the door and ran out, making Liu Xiangyu, who was sitting under the landscape painting, laugh dumbly. He shook his head helplessly and said: "This kid is running around with Mr. Accountant. I don't know where he learned it. He only uses his observation of words and emotions for his own family." .”
Before Liu Chengzong could ask about the current situation of the transportation in detail, Liu Xiangyu said with a smile: "Last year, when the new emperor ascended the throne and pardoned the world, the king's lawyer from Fucheng came to get married. I originally wanted to be related to your eldest brother, but the two of you are in Yuhebao, so they are suitable. With good luck, it’s a double blessing.”
"Shredded tobacco, you know, the Gansu frontier army is good at this, and I guess your frontier army is also good at it. The transport company went to Fucheng to bring cut tobacco specifically for you two. Jingyang cut it well and dry it well."
Liu Xiangyu's eyes showed complicated sadness, and he sighed and raised the corners of his lips: "I prepared a lot of silver and twenty stones of millet, and I want to kill the lion's officer."
Chengzu and Chengzong exchanged glances and received double shock.
If you have twenty stones of grain, why should you buy an officer?
Millet is not as valuable as rice, but it is also grain, and it is grain. At this time, Shaanxi was extremely expensive, and its value could no longer be measured in silver.
If you get it in the wealthy Yan'an Prefecture market, selling rice for three coins is worthless; if you get it in the poor and dilapidated Yuhebao, no matter how much money you shout, it will be useless. If they haven't paid military pay for a few years, their silver will not circulate at all.
At most, at most there will be people coming in groups to crowd in the mothers-in-law and the children - hey! This man is selling buns to the point of selling food, and his mother-in-law and baby will definitely be able to drink soup if they follow him.
But this thing cannot be achieved by a high official, even an officer.
Liu Chengzong shook his head and said: "Da, we are very tall. We borrowed three buckets of rice to have the courage to come to the door and buy back the aunt who sold it the year before last... For twenty shi, you can make me a captain or a team leader?" Fortunately He Shoubei dismissed me."
Obviously it's not worth it. He knows too well that the officers of the border army are not worth much now. Even if they don't have enough to eat, the frontier army is also divided into three, six or nine grades. Those who have several years of complete training, sufficient experience, and The hungry veterans with strong fighting ability are all in the hands of the generals' henchmen.
Those who can be obtained through various channels are either bare-bones officers, or, like Liu Chengzu did last year, they are trained as refugees in the command team.
In fact, the latter is not bad. Didn't Liu Chengzu train his team well? But with this year's situation, there is no chance for him to train troops. Even if he manages a team and rushes to the shelves, he will die if he enters the battlefield.
"Silly words, that's official status!"
With a snap, Liu Xiangyu slapped the tea table with his hand, causing the pipe pot to jump up. He glared and said: "The tribesmen in Black Dragon King Miaoshan can still have enough to eat, because your third grandfather and I led the tribe to dig ditches for four months last year! "
"If you, me, have no fame, why would you let me, young and old, build canals? Why would you let me plant refined grains instead of planting millet?"
"The worst has not yet come. The Panlong River is only one foot shallow. What's more, the drought and locusts cannot last through the summer."
Liu Xiangyu was only very angry in the first two sentences, and then his tone became lower. Finally, when he talked about the coming locust plague in his heart, his tone showed deep exhaustion: "No matter how fast the world changes, people's hearts will always be a step slower. The people recognize the official position.”
But even if the people continue to recognize their official positions, it is useless to say this. Liu Xiangyu's words stopped abruptly. He clutched the pipe and the pot but was reluctant to take a puff. He just gently kowtowed his head with the small copper pot and the scarf.
In Liu Chengzong's eyes, his father was a learned man. Unlike the two brothers, who were specially trained for the imperial examination and had only read the Four Books and Five Classics related to the imperial examination. His father read and watched everything, and did different things. There is almost nothing in the world that he does not understand.
At this moment, he saw the paleest sense of powerlessness under his father's tired face.
The feeling of powerlessness comes from the fact that he built canals but was unable to stop the rivers from drying up, and organized the people but could not control the current situation. He could not prevent locusts by planting millet and millet in the new year, and he could not fight the drought by planting peas, flax, and sesame seeds.
Why bother?
Liu Chengzu, who loved order, leaned his broad back against the chair, as if his soul had been ripped out of his spine, and asked, "Why doesn't the imperial court provide disaster relief?"
"Court?"
The only person who answered him was his father who shook his head decisively: "Northern Shaanxi is in chaos. The magistrate does not know the county, nor does it know how many disasters will be suffered within a radius of tens of miles; the prefect does not know the prefecture, nor does it know how many disasters will be suffered within a radius of hundreds of miles."
"As for the imperial court... I don't know."
Liu Chengzong looked at his father. The old Juren said "I don't know" with his eyes closed.
It's probably not that he doesn't know, but that he's unsure or doesn't want to say anything.
Not to mention his father who has the status of being a civil servant, even he, a small frontier soldier, knows what the imperial court has been busy with in the past two years - purging the eunuchs.
In his eyes, party struggle is a confusing thing, because the party is a party of party members, not a party of political parties, and there is no party application, so it becomes a label that can be applied at will.
Regardless of Donglin, Zhejiang, Qi, Chu, Xuan, Kun, or the Eunuch Party, a large number of people in them overlap.
At least according to what Liu Chengzong saw and heard as a frontier soldier, the frontier soldiers all said that during the short-term prosperity of the court in the early years of the Apocalypse, the frontier troops in Yansui Town could indeed receive military pay.
But this is unlikely to happen later. Eunuch Wei has gained power, and the capable people in the Donglin Party have been basically wiped out. Whether Jiu Qian is able to collect taxes from the southeast, he doesn’t know, and the border troops in Yansui Town He knew clearly that the arrears had been re-introduced since that year.
But now that the emperor has dealt with Eunuch Wei, hundreds of officials are once again implicated. Anyone who praises Wei Zhongxian will be terminated, and anyone who scolds Wei Zhongxian will be promoted.
What is scary about party strife is not the party strife itself.
It is terrible to fight against each other and cause chaos in the court, but it is by no means the most terrible thing for a large empire like the Ming Dynasty with a vast territory and a large population.
Looking at the empire, the talented people of the Donglin Party could not be hurt even if they were all reimbursed in the party struggle; but after all the talented people of the Donglin Party were reimbursed, the eunuch party composed of the Zhejiang, Qi, Chu, Xuan, and Kun parties could learn It would be terrible if the people were completely reimbursed again.
Where can we find so many imperial talent reserves in such a short period of time?
Especially since this empire has gone through four emperors and ten chief ministers in seven years, it is enough for a company to change two chairman of the board in a row, which is enough to make everyone panic.
Let alone the drought in Shaanxi, even if there is a nationwide drought, the court will not take care of it.
He is extremely pessimistic about the development of the situation. The pessimism is not only due to the memory of another time and space, but also the result of the reality and the final conclusion in the memory - there is no hope.
"Da, let's go."
Liu Chengzong's words had no beginning and no end, but he spoke very quickly and in an urgent tone: "You can go anywhere, take care of your mother and elder brother, and in a month, twenty shi of millet will be exchanged for a hundred taels of money in Yan'an. It can be less."
"Go to the south of the Yangtze River and sail to Nanyang."
The old Juren sneered, looked at his younger son intently, suddenly laughed for a while, and said softly: "Five or six hundred people in the whole clan are pointing at your father... I'm not going anywhere."
