Shen Gai's approach was not only an order from the Lin'an court to Sichuan, but also a test.
Shen Gai wanted to know whether Sichuan and Shu could still obey the orders of the Lin'an court when Emperor Tiangao was far away.
If the terrain of Sichuan and Sichuan is to be closed and self-contained, the Lin'an court has nothing to do now, so Shen Gai is really worried.
And more importantly, after the Ming Dynasty's round of land cession, the Sichuan-Sichuan Kingdom has become the de facto half of the Jiangnan Kingdom. If it loses control of the Sichuan-Sichuan Kingdom, the Jiangnan Kingdom might as well be renamed the Southeast Kingdom.
Or just call it Soochow.
Shen Gai had a vague premonition in his heart.
In December of the fifth year of Hongwu's reign, this ominous premonition came true.
News came back from Sichuan and Shu, and in the name of Sichuan Xuanfu envoy Wu Lin, he angrily accused Shen Gai of causing disaster to the country and the people, betraying the Song Dynasty and the royal family, and being called a thief of the country through the ages. A mere thief of the country, but he still wants to order Sichuan and Shu?
Sichuan and Sichuan would rather be a piece of jade than a piece of earth. They will never succumb to the lackeys of the Ming Dynasty and Lin'an, and it is impossible to help harm the royal family. Protecting the royal family is the duty of loyal ministers. Shen, a mere national thief, actually wants to harm the royal family. It is simply a wishful thinking. !
In her reply, Wu Lin directly called Shen Gai and his government the lackeys of Lin'an, and made a big mockery, saying that he did not have enough power now. Once he had enough power, he would definitely go out to conquer the lackeys of Lin'an and regain the Song Dynasty.
Not only that, he also said that he would establish a new king to fight against the Lin'an puppet dynasty and maintain the orthodoxy of the Song Dynasty.
Good guy, things have actually come to this?
Wu Lin actually wants to establish a new king to fight against the Lin'an court?
This matter was quickly known to the highest decision-making circles.
Zhou Linzhi, Zhang Shi and others gathered together to discuss for a long time, and came to the conclusion that they really had no way to deal with Sichuan and Shu. Unless the Ming army sent troops to annihilate the Sichuan-Shu Song army with the power of Mount Tai, otherwise they could only rely on The Lin'an court itself could not do it no matter what.
Wu Lin alone is enough for them to drink a pot.
Wu Lin himself was the number one military general in the Southern Song Dynasty in the post-Yue Fei era. As time went by, the generals who fought against the Jin Dynasty in Shaoxing died one after another. After Li Xianzhong died in battle, there was no famous military general left in the Lin'an court. , and where is the opponent of Wu Lin, who has great military exploits?
If left unchecked and allowed Wu Lin to set up a new king to fight against the Lin'an court, the actual power of the Lin'an court would only be greatly reduced and its own interests would be seriously damaged.
After much deliberation, the Lin'an court had only one solution - to call Dad Ming.
But in this matter, Shen Gai was not willing to let Ming Guo intervene.
Because to put it bluntly, this is Jiangnan's own matter. If it is solved by itself, then Sichuan and Shu can still be used by the Lin'an court. But if it is handled with the help of the Ming Kingdom, how much of the interests of Sichuan and Shu will be divided after the settlement is completed? It's hard to say yet.
The profits of Shu brocade are very large. Shen should hope to keep this profit in the hands of the court. In this way, the court can still have some money to do things. If the Ming Dynasty reaches out to Sichuan and Shu to control Shu brocade, then the court of Jiangnan Kingdom will It was hopeless.
So Shen Gai proposed the Huairou strategy.
That is to say, reward Wu Lin generously, give him a high position and title, give him great honor, give him generous rewards, give his family generous rewards, and then ask Wu Lin to send some tributes in the name of Zhao Dun. See See how effective this is.
He hoped that Wu Lin could feel the "warmth" of the Lin'an court.
After another round of fighting, Shen Gai realized depressingly that this method was not feasible, and Wu Lin did not accept this method at all.
Wu Lin refused to accept any of the canonizations offered by the Lin'an court in Zhao Dun's name, and returned all the rewards. He also burned the edict sent by Zhao Dun, saying, "This edict must be a false edict for a national traitor, and must not be believed." .
Then Wu Lin spoke again, saying that Shen should betray his lord, betray the Song Dynasty, and harm the royal family. Sooner or later, he would die without a burial place. He, Wu Lin, would establish a new king with the loyal ministers of Sichuan and Shu, establish a court, and then he would become Shen The gravedigger.
This can be regarded as irritating Shen Gai.
Shen Gai was furious, but his remaining sanity still did not allow him to tell Ming Guo about the matter. He still held on to the last glimmer of hope that he could solve the problem and wanted to mediate again to make Wu Lin obey orders.
He said that as long as Wu Lin returns to the Lin'an court, he can be prime minister, can be crowned king, and can be the leader of ministers. Just ask whoever you want to be an official, and the Lin'an court will do its best to help him achieve this goal.
However, Wu Lin still didn't care at all and was not bothered by Shen Gai's efforts to win over.
Shen Gai finally broke his guard, so he angrily denounced Wu Lin's disloyalty and unrighteousness many times in the name of Zhao Dun, and expressed his intention to depose Wu Lin from his position as Sichuan Xuanfu envoy, convict him, and put him in prison. The whole family was To be held accountable, the people of Sichuan and Sichuan must fight hard and eradicate the national traitors.
However, in March of the sixth year of Hongwu's reign, the situation escalated.
Shen should get the exact news that Sichuan and Shu officials, led by Sichuan Xuanfu envoy Wu Lin and Zizhou Road pacification envoy Ma Yongkang, believed that the Lin'an court was already a lackey court, a court that could not be trusted at all, and that the orthodoxy of the Song Dynasty had ceased. In order to preserve the orthodoxy of the Song Dynasty and be loyal to the royal family, Wu Lin and Ma Yongkang decided to support the new king.
In the later period of Zhao Gou's reign, he began to allow members of the royal family to hold local official positions to reduce the royal family's demand for government expenditures. He hoped that they could make a living on their own and make money by their own skills instead of always relying on the court's salary.
Although a large number of clan children still hope to be able to lie down and eat without moving, there are still a considerable number of self-reliant and self-reliant clan children who have successfully become officials through the imperial examination.
These children of the clan were arranged to serve as officials in various places, which caused a lot of trouble for Shen Gai to deal with them. However, Shen Gai also dealt with almost all the children of the Zhao and Song clan who were officials in the southeast region, and gained a lot.
Most local officials chose to submit. They were under the threat of Ming military power and could not resist. They could only assist the Lin'an court in dealing with clan officials.
There were also a small number of conscientious people who tried to secretly help the clan members escape and hide them, but in the end they were unable to escape. The clan members died, and so did the conscientious officials.
So the rest are hard-hearted.
As for other places, such as Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Fuzhou, and the Jinghu area, they were all handled by the Ming Dynasty. The only thing left that could not be dealt with was the land of Sichuan and Shu. Wu Lin and others were determined to keep the clan in Sichuan. Shen There should be no solution at all.
There are not many clan members who serve as officials in Sichuan and Shu, and there are also very few senior officials. The main reason is that it is generally difficult for clans in the Southern Song Dynasty to become senior officials. Do officials from other dynasties always reject him instinctively, even though they also passed the imperial examination? Officials on the road.
If you can still achieve a higher position under such circumstances, it can only be said that your own skills are sufficient.
For example, the candidate chosen by Wu Lin and Ma Yongkang was the 46-year-old Zhao Buji, a transfer judge on Kuizhou Road and a descendant of the Zhao Song clan.
