"Your Majesty, I have a humble duty." Wang Bian followed Li Daliang into the room hurriedly and saluted Yang Ji.
After he, Wang Wei, Yao Junsu and others arrived in Guazhou, they assisted Mai Tiezhang in reorganizing the officialdom and the army according to the plan before leaving Beijing. Recruiting migrant workers to repair the city wall was also a big move made by everyone to hide their eyes from others, and Mai Tiezhang was eager to do so. Dunhuang was repaired in one day, and everyone hit it off immediately, so they cooperated to make Dunhuang a mess. However, everything everyone did was consistent with the actual situation in Dunhuang.
As for the army, the defenders were brought back to the barracks for training, successfully creating the illusion of being imprisoned and rectified, and the occasional release of military justice barely made it reasonable to recruit troops.
"The recruitment is not going well, right?" In Yang Ji's view, Dunhuang was a place where war criminals and enemies were exiled by the Zhou and Sui Dynasties. The reason why they cooperated with Mai Tiezhang to repair the city wall was that the city wall was closely related to their life safety, so they were allowed to join the army to replace the Sui Dynasty. I'm afraid it would be difficult to work hard.
"The recruitment situation is going very smoothly, exactly contrary to what His Highness said." Wang Bian said with a smile: "After the recruitment notice was released, applicants gathered."
"Why is this?" Yang Ji was surprised.
Wang Bian said: "The nobles who moved to Dunhuang were wealthy families. They brought a lot of property with them, but they did not suffer from it. Instead, they made a lot of money because of the location. When they came to Dunhuang, they fought very hard. It’s amazing. The six major families that stood out from the crowd left many families with nothing. These losers were impoverished, so joining the army became their best choice.”
"Do any of the six major families have children joining the army?" Yang Ji couldn't help but laugh.
These nobles have great connections and reputations in Zhou, Qi, and Nan. Yang Jian can justifiably eliminate them. However, if he is too harsh on these influential nobles, it will make the people everywhere feel disgusted, so he only forcibly relocates them. Leaving their deep-rooted roots did not deprive them of their money.
However, for these nobles who lost their power and protected them, being rich was not necessarily a good thing. When they arrived in Dunhuang, where the mountains were high and the emperor was far away, they began to annex each other and fight for the survival of the fittest.
The six major families of Dunhuang were strong men who fought out from among thousands of troops. They used various means to forcefully seize the wealth and lives of the losers. For the losers, this was a real family feud. Compared with the terrible The dispensable national hatred is tens of thousands of times stronger, but not only have they lost the ability to take revenge, they even find it difficult to survive, so they want to use the power of the government to survive and develop. Sending children to join the army is obviously a very good choice. Although they cannot achieve success in one fell swoop, they still have an official status. This will somewhat make the six major families have some concerns and not dare to rob as aggressively as before.
The country feeling between them had long since disappeared in the fight. If the imperial court wiped out these six major families, not only would the small and medium-sized families in Dunhuang not be disgusted, but they would applaud them.
These may be Yang Jian's true motives for moving the nobles of the Three Kingdoms together and "generously" giving them their property.
Wang Bian shook his head and said: "No one headed by these six major families wants to work for the Sui Dynasty. No one has applied for the conscription, and they are even secretly encouraging others not to conscript. If their hatred is not too deep, I am afraid that the general and others will be responsible." Your Highness has placed your trust in me."
"This group of people has been reduced to nothing, and they still want to cause trouble for the imperial court. I think they are tired of living."
Yang Ji snorted coldly and ordered Li Daliang: "Find a restaurant to host a banquet, and then send a message to the Dunhuang wealthy families headed by the six major families, asking them to come to the banquet tonight. Also notify Mai Tiezhang and tell him not to do it. It’s a feast for the wind, come with me to get military pay tonight.”
"Here!" Li Daliang bowed and retreated.
Yang Ji said to Wang Bian: "General Wang, in order to deal with the reaction of various countries in the Western Regions, I decided to expand the Guazhou garrison to 20,000. However, in this case, it will be against the rules to let Mai Tiezhang be seized by the military and political affairs. I am going to report to the court I recommend you to be the governor of Guazhou, what do you think?"
Although Wang Bian is not well-known, he was promoted based on his military merit. He has rich combat experience and is good at setting up camps, marching, and fighting. What is especially rare is that he is an all-rounder with both military and political skills.
If he came to be the governor of Guazhou, he would definitely know better than the civil servants appointed by the court to cooperate with Mai Tiezhang instead of objecting at every turn. Therefore, Yang Ji decided to recommend a general who knew the military before the court appointed the governor.
"Thank you for your highness' regard for the humble position. However, this is not determined by the humble position. If the prince agrees and the saint appoints me, I will never refuse the humble position."
Wang Bian was very moved. He is already forty-two years old. Although Yang Guang values and trusts him very much, his current status is too low. Even if Yang Guang promotes him appropriately in the future, he has no family background to rely on and it will be difficult for him to stand out; instead of leading troops in the capital with nothing to do, , waiting for a promotion with little hope, it is better to work on the border. If he makes some achievements here, Yang Guang will have reason to want to promote him.
"That's it." Yang Ji nodded. Since he had no objections, he only needed to write a letter to Yang Jian and Yang Guang. It shouldn't be a big problem. Moreover, since Wang Bian was Yang Guang's man, he recommended him and he was not worried that Yang Guang would think that he was forming a gang in Liangzhou.
Next, the two began to discuss the marching arrangements. When Li Daliang came back to remind them, they realized that the sky had darkened.
After cleaning up for a while, the group of people walked towards the Bohai Restaurant where the banquet was held.
…
Bohai Winery is the largest winery in Dunhuang. It is located in the center of the Grand Crossing of Dunhuang City, covering an area of more than ten acres. The main building is a three-story wooden building, with two-story auxiliary buildings on the left and right sides. Large merchants traveling to and from Dunhuang People usually rest here, and its owner is the Gao family who was the first to establish a foothold here.
The Gao family is the head of the six major families in Dunhuang, but the head of the family is a woman named Gao Yan. After she came to Dunhuang with her family, she used her intelligence to help the head of the family win over some smaller Northern Qi nobles. The Cui family, which was already independent, soon fell into isolation. If it were not for the arrival of Zhou and Chen nobles later, the precarious Cui family would have been annexed.
After Zhou and Chen arrived, Gao Yan persuaded the people to put aside their prejudices, suppressed the Cui family instead of coaxing them, and even returned some of the benefits they had taken away before, and then joined forces to deal with those who came later, and soon the Gao family became the first family in Dunhuang. . After the previous head of the family died of illness, the shrewd and capable Gao Yan was elected as the new head of the family.
However, although the six major families are constantly fighting among themselves, they will unite to cause trouble whenever the imperial officials violate their interests. The previous governor strictly implemented the population system. In accordance with the regulations of the imperial court, a population census was conducted in Guazhou, and names were also required to be registered. Even people's ages and dates of birth needed to be registered. This move seriously violated the concealment of a large number of people. The main interests of the six major families, so they united to impeach the imperial court, falsely accusing the governor of doing harm to the local area for their own selfish purposes, so that he was eventually dismissed by the imperial court. When He Ruohuaikuo, who was grasped by the military and political affairs, took office, they spent large sums of money in bribes to make He Ruohuai Kuo not only did nothing during his tenure, but instead acted as a protective umbrella for the six major families to exploit tenants and local people.
In the afternoon, the wealthy Dunhuang families headed by the six major families all received invitations from people sent by King Wei of the Sui Dynasty, the governor of Liangzhou, and the general manager of Liangzhou Yang Ji.
The content was very polite and tactful, but this so-called invitation was actually just a piece of rough bamboo paper with no decoration at all. Anyone who had seen it knew that it was made in a hurry.
But just such a piece of paper made all the families dare not not come.
