PFC Chapter 226 The fish is hooked!
Chapter 226 The fish is hooked!
Gu Jingzhi asked several questions in a row, leaving Prince Ge and others stunned.
Seeing this, Gu Jingzhi smiled and said, "Your Highness, actually, coming to Ningzhou this time is not a bad thing for you and the other little princes!"
"Politics is handled in the court, and it's probably easy for you and others to handle, but the way to govern a country lies among the people. It will only benefit you if you pay more attention to what's happening among the people!"
Upon hearing this, the prince laughed and said, "So, not only will these kids have to learn from adults from now on, but we will too."
"Ha ha!"
Gu Jingzhi smiled and said, "Now that we're here, let's make the best of it! Now that we're here, why don't we work together to build a prosperous Ningzhou? This will make my term as an official worthwhile!"
"it is good!"
The prince said: "Then listen to Marquis Gu!"
"Ha ha……"
The three of them burst into hearty laughter.
Afterwards, several children came to pay their respects to their master. After Gu Jingzhi drank the children's tea, he sent them away with Chen Yu.
After they left, the prince suddenly asked, "Just now, Marquis Gu mentioned suppressing the bandits. Is the bandit problem in Ningzhou really that serious?"
“I’m afraid it’s not simple!”
Gu Jingzhi said, "Ningzhou is plagued by serious banditry. There are at least 200,000 people hiding in these mountains..."
As he spoke, he relayed the news he had received from the Lin family and the government files. Upon hearing this, the Crown Prince frowned, "How come we've never seen reports from Ningzhou about such a serious bandit problem?"
"That's the problem!"
Gu Jingzhi said, "I've been sorting through memorials from all over the country in the Imperial Study, and I've never seen a report from Ningzhou about the bandit problem. I guess someone stopped this, or perhaps there was already a response to this matter, so Ningzhou gave up!"
"However, we have only been in Ningzhou for a short time and do not yet know the underlying reasons. This matter needs to be thoroughly investigated!"
"Ok!"
The prince nodded and said, "Since Marquis Gu has already made a plan to suppress the bandits, my Yue family can help. Although my father-in-law and uncle are not currently serving in the military, they can still help!"
The prince is not stupid. Although he has never led an army, he knows that Gu Jingzhi's strategy of luring the enemy will definitely only attract a small number of people!
But to eliminate the banditry in Lianyun Mountain, at least the entire guard team must be mobilized.
In this case, it is inevitable to divide the troops to fight, and at this time the talent of the leader becomes very important.
The Qiao family is a family of military generals, so leading troops is not a difficult task for them!
When Gu Jingzhi heard that the Crown Prince would ask the Qiao family for help, he immediately said, "Then I'll have to trouble you, Your Highness. The army is about to set off, and I'll have to trouble General Qiao and his family!"
……
A few days later.
Lianyun Village, built on a steep mountain, has existed for more than ten years due to the terrain of Lianyun Mountain.
On this day, the chief and second chief of Lianyun Village were talking about something.
"Sister, our spies hiding in several counties have sent us news! They say the new imperial envoy is a greedy man. He just arrived in Ningzhou and summoned the county magistrates!"
The second leader, who looked to be a man of about twenty-four or twenty-five, said, "It's nominally a summons, but in reality it's a request for tribute from each county. Right now, the county magistrates are working furiously to collect money and supplies!"
"what?"
The chief of the village who was sitting there nodding was actually a woman.
Although she was a woman, she was quite heroic. She slammed the table and said, "These greedy parasites! The Great Xia Kingdom has only been established for twenty years, and Ningzhou is already in such a state. And they are still thinking about extorting money!"
"It's really shameful!"
When the Second Chief heard his sister talking about Ningzhou, he couldn't help but say angrily, "Thinking back to when Ningzhou was in the hands of the Yun Kingdom, although it wasn't a wealthy provincial capital, it was still a major city with a population of one million!"
"Now that they have returned to Daxia, their imperial court is not only unwilling to make progress, but they are also only interested in plundering!"
"In the entire Ningzhou now, even if you dig three feet underground, you won't find anything valuable, and yet these corrupt officials are still thinking of plundering!"
The brother and sister were filled with indignation.
"Sister, since they are corrupt officials from Daxia, we in Lianyun Village cannot sit idly by! Otherwise, if we let those corrupt officials continue to plunder, Ningzhou will probably become a deadly place!"
The village chief frowned upon hearing this and asked, "How do you want to manage it?"
"As usual, rob those corrupt officials of their money!"
"This……"
The head of the stronghold hesitated. She said, "But we've received news from the capital telling us not to act rashly for the time being. If we start a war now, I'm afraid it will alert the government!"
"That official is the emperor's envoy after all. If anything happens to him, the capital of Daxia will know about our existence!"
"Don't worry, sister. We'll only plunder the property and not touch that damn official!"
The second leader said, "These are the blood and sweat of the people. Even if we rob them, I'm afraid that the official won't dare to make a fuss, otherwise he won't get any good out of it!"
"The brothers outside said that all this valuables will be transported through the Ningjiang River at the same time and landed at the Ningzhou Ferry! That will be our chance!"
"As long as we're fast enough, we won't leave any tail behind!"
"But what about the imperial guards?"
The chief seemed to be tempted. What his brother said made sense. If they went through the Ningzhou ferry, it would be like a piece of fat meat for their Lianyun Village!
However, they had to be on guard against the imperial guard, as there were a total of 3,000 of them, and there were only about 2,000 young and strong men in their village who could move.
It would be fine if they were in the mountains, but the terrain at Ningzhou Ferry is flat. If they fight on flat ground, they are not sure they can fight against an army of 3,000 people.
They had suffered a great loss before. If they had not entered the mountains in time, Lianyun Village would probably have ceased to exist long ago.
This also resulted in the number of people in Lianyun Village being sharply reduced from 5,000 to 2,000, and these 2,000 people were gradually gathered later.
Without its previous power, Lianyun Village’s control over Ningzhou’s green forests was naturally not as strong as before. This led to other strongholds starting to plunder the people and gradually growing bigger!
The Second Villager naturally knew this bloody lesson, but this time, he laughed and said:
"Sister, you can rest assured about this matter. We've heard that there are only 300 people escorting this batch of treasure. If we go with 1,500 people, we can easily capture them!"
Five against one, even on flat ground, they can finish the job in a quarter of an hour at most.
Upon hearing this, the head of the stronghold frowned and said, "Three hundred people? Even if we plundered the land of Ningzhou, we wouldn't need so many people to escort the collected treasures. Is there some trick going on here?"
The second leader laughed and said, "Sister, I forgot to tell you that this also includes the military pay for their guards. It is precisely because of this military pay that they sent 300 people!"
"Military pay? That's even more wrong!"
The chief of the stronghold said, "Military pay is of paramount importance. In Ningzhou, bandits are rampant. How dare they send only 300 men to escort the military pay?"
"Sister! Are you confused? We know that bandits are rampant here, but their court doesn't know!"
"Uh……"
The village chief slapped his forehead and said, "I forgot about that!"
The second leader laughed and said, "The news about Ningzhou has been suppressed, and there has been no trouble for so many years. This dog imperial envoy is so greedy that he must have not noticed it, so he only sent a mere 300 people!"
"Well……"
The village chief thought for a moment and said, "..."