Chapter 2543 Gui Zi Scroll is challenging, sit back and wait

Both the Jizhen and Xuanfu armies were very resentful of Yuan Yingtai's command. They believed that Yuan Yingtai lacked response to the rebel army in the blazing fire. He only knew how to intercept and encircle, but did not know how to separate and attack together and concentrate his superior forces to fight tough battles, which led to the situation being unstable. It was difficult to reverse, and even led to the gradual convergence of rebel armies from the northern and southern prefectures.

In particular, the rebel army in Shunde Prefecture went north to join the White Lotus rebel army in Zhending Prefecture, causing the White Lotus rebel army to surge in momentum. Gaoyi, Lincheng, Baixiang, Zanhuang, and Yuanshi counties all adjacent to the Taihang Mountains fell, forming the White Lotus Rebellion. The army's most powerful base.

Ten months have passed, and Yuan Yingtai has more than 50,000 Xuanfu and Jizhen border troops in his hands, but he has been unable to annihilate the White Lotus rebel army rampant in Beizhili.

 In the past ten months, Sun Chengzong has commanded Shanxi Town and Datong Town to completely eliminate the chaos in southern Shanxi, completely expelled Fengzhou Bailian from the border wall, and restored Shanxi Town's control over the border land.

In the same ten months, Xiong Tingbi also basically wiped out the White Lotus rebel army in southern Shandong, and the rest of the White Lotus rebel army in Shandong were basically driven out and fled to the Beizhi area in the west.

From this perspective, it is not without reason that Yuan Yingtai failed to solve the White Lotus Rebellion in Beizhi. After all, the White Lotus Rebellion that escaped from Shandong amounted to more than 100,000 people, which had a great impact on the already raging Zhending, Guangping, Daming, and The chaos in several Shunde prefectures has added a bit of flames.

However, although the situation in Shandong and Shanxi has been reversed, it does not mean that the entire Shanxi and Shandong are at peace.

The huge trauma caused by military disasters and droughts caused small-scale civil unrest in Shandong and Shanxi provinces to occur one after another. The remnants of the White Lotus Sect are still rampant in many remote mountainous areas, and they will resurge if they are not careful.

So neither Sun Chengzong nor Xiong Tingbi dared to take it lightly, and they were still cautiously carrying out the purge of the two provinces, striving to survive the critical year of the third year of Wantong.

But all this has nothing to do with Feng Ziying. All he has to do is to transport taxes and grain to Shandong and the capital as scheduled in accordance with the requirements of the court. This is just a trivial matter for Feng Ziying, and it comes easily.

During this year, Feng Ziying has not been idle. Since the imperial court has placed herself in the position of governor of Jiangnan, and there have been no wars or wars in Jiangnan this year, and the weather is good, Feng Ziying will naturally follow her own intentions if the weather goes well. to advance something.

For example, in the name of the governor's office, we encourage industry, commerce and maritime trade, and support immigration to Dongfan, Luzon, and Old Port. In particular, we require Jiangnan newspapers to introduce the geographical climate and product routes of Dongfan, Nanyang, Ezo and other places in a targeted manner, and Businessmen were called on to form an exploration and reclamation association and fund to support and support businessmen who were interested in overseas expansion.

For example, to further promote transportation and water conservancy infrastructure such as port construction, dredging rivers, and building embankments, and to use some of the powers of the governor's office to withhold taxes paid to the court as much as possible and use them locally, there is actually a lot of room for maneuver here.

In addition, in terms of education, Feng Ziying knew that it was too risky to touch the interests of scholars, but in the name of setting up relief schools, he successively established four schools in Xuzhou, Fengyang, Ningguo, and Songjiang with businessmen's funding to relieve refugees or orphans. The school mainly focuses on learning calligraphy and learning practical miscellaneous subjects such as arithmetic, architecture, surveying and mapping, agriculture, shipping, machinery, carpentry, prospecting and smelting. It has admitted more than 2,000 children and teenagers. It claims to the outside world that it is to let them After several years of study, you can develop a skill and quickly find a bowl of food to avoid starving to death.

Even such a move still caused a great sensation, because opening a school was not to study classics and poetry, but to study miscellaneous studies that scholars disdained, or even livelihood skills. This was too demeaning. .

However, Feng Ziying also specially recruited some famous scholars and scholars from Jiangnan, and held a symposium in the original Imperial College of Nanjing to introduce his original intention.

The implication is that after all, not everyone can persevere in studying hard for more than ten or twenty years from being a child to a scholar, from a scholar to a scholar, and learning these miscellaneous studies and livelihood skills can also help those who have no land. Children from poor families find an opportunity to make a living in the shortest possible time. This is also considered from the perspective of benevolence and justice to save people, which barely quells these criticisms.

Feng Ziying feels that she has done a lot this year, especially in the field of "miscellaneous education", which she considers to be a perfect start. It is not easy to make a breakthrough in a place like Jiangnan.

Of course, there are scholars here who do not pay attention to this. In their minds, poetry, classics, classics, and current affairs are the core of the imperial examination. This is the eternal truth. As for miscellaneous studies, they are all trivial and not worth mentioning. , it is possible to make a living, but it is impossible to be an official.

In general, Feng Ziying believed that she had consolidated her original business allies in one year, further promoted the transformation of some enlightened gentry into industrial and commercial owners, and at the same time made a start in cultivating talents for the industrial and commercial industries in education.

 Of course, some infrastructure construction that benefits local areas is also indispensable. This is a necessary means to win over people's hearts and minds. Of course, he will not be stingy.

But if it continues like this, it seems that better results can be achieved, but Feng Ziying feels a little boring. He is more eager for some transformative things to challenge himself.

 Liu Dongyang played very well in Shanxi.

Of course, this was due to Qiu Zixiong's sudden rebellion and surrender, which immediately caught the rebels by surprise.

 Especially Liu Dongyang and Qiu Zixiong chose the best time to fight, which can be said to have directly led to the sudden reversal of the entire battle in southern Shanxi.

After this battle, Liu Dongyang led the Northwest Army to take advantage of the situation and attack fiercely, from Jiezhou to Pingyang Fucheng. The rebel army could no longer organize a decent resistance.

Liu Dongyang then took advantage of the situation and penetrated Lu'an Prefecture from the north of Wuling Mountain, dividing the southern Shanxi rebel army into two pieces and annihilating them one by one. The war in southern Shanxi came to an end.

After the situation in southern Shanxi opened up, Sun Chengzong commanded the Datong Army to launch a fierce attack on Fengzhou Bailian, who was located on the line from Piantou Pass to Laoyingbao. Finally, in March of the third year of Wantong, Fengzhou Bailian was driven out of the border wall and re-stabilized. Shanxi Town's border defense line.

The entire Shanxi situation stabilized, and Sun Chengzong once again proved his status as a civil servant and an expert in the army.

At present, among the civil servants and military officials, they are known as the Three Heroes: Feng Keng, Sun Chengzong, and Xiong Tingbi. Feng Ziying ranks first, Sun Chengzong comes second, and Xiong Tingbi ranks last.

But even so, many people think that Xiong Tingbi is not as good as these two. He did not fight well in the Battle of Bozhou and even the later She'an Rebellion. He relied purely on his military strength and logistics to survive. The death of Yang Yinglong and She'an also caused the court to spend several times more food than originally expected.

Thinking about it on the bed, Tan Chun beside her also put her face on Feng Ziying's shoulder, "Do you still want to fight this battle?"

Feng Ziying laughed dumbly and shook her head: "It doesn't make much sense to take over now, unless the situation is really out of control. It's just that Jiangnan seems to be too step-by-step. Some of the things I want to do cannot be done in Jiangnan, nor can I return to the capital. There is no way to do it, so I have no ambition to serve the country, but I can only sigh and sigh."

Tanchun could feel the emotion in her husband's heart, but her husband was too young and had only been in the official position for a few years. It was not easy to get to this point. The next step was to become a minister of the second rank or a royal censor. Even going one step further to join the cabinet cannot be achieved in a short time.

"My lord, I think it would be better for you to stay in Jiangnan and do some things that you think you can do. And haven't the many things you have done in Jiangnan this year been greatly welcomed by the gentry and the people? Yes. Yes, it seems that people from the Shanxi Chamber of Commerce are coming to visit you in the next two days, right?"

Tanchun reminded.

Of course Feng Ziying will not forget it.

Yangzhou salt merchants finally took the first step in transformation. They cooperated with businessmen from Shanxi and Shaanxi, imitated the Gyeonggi Coal and Steel Consortium, and began to establish the first large-scale steel and coal conglomerate in South Zhili in Xuzhou.

Xuzhou has the Liguo Iron Mine that has been mined since the Han Dynasty, and has the richest coal resources in the southern Zhili region. In addition, it is located at the crossroads between the north and the south, with the canal running through it. It is not far from the largest consumer market in Jiangnan. It can be said that Xuzhou is developing. The coal and steel industry is uniquely endowed.

 Shanshan and Shaanxi merchants have long coveted it, but this is the territory of Southern Zhili. Without the cooperation of Jiangnan merchants, they would not be able to set foot here.

Similarly, merchants from the south of the Yangtze River are extremely envious of the booming coal, iron, cement and building materials industries that have emerged in the north. However, given the lack of necessary new iron smelting technology and cement manufacturing processes, they can only watch the development of the north. Iron materials, ironware, coal and cement were transported southward by sea and canals to occupy the Jiangnan market.

With the development of shipbuilding, car-making and other industries in the south of the Yangtze River, the demand for iron materials and ironware is also increasing day by day. Both local iron materials and iron materials from Guangdong are far from meeting local demand. However, Guangdong iron materials and ironware are now rising with the rise of sea transportation. , more began to be exported to Southeast Asia and Japan, so the gap was even larger, and we could only rely more and more on iron materials and ironware from the North.

 So Jiangnan merchants also urgently need to develop their own local iron smelting industry.

Now that Governor Xiao Feng came to Jiangnan, he immediately promoted the cooperation between merchants from Shanxi and Shaanxi and Jiangnan to build a new large-scale coal and iron complex in Xuzhou. Jiangnan salt merchants took the lead, and the Dongting merchant gang also participated with capital.

According to the plan, the scale of such a coal-iron complex enterprise will not be lower than that of the current Gyeonggi coal-iron complex. It will largely meet the demand for iron materials and ironware in the south of the Yangtze River, and will supply the Huguang area in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

"Hey, I say I'm idle, but I'm actually not idle. I just don't think these things are challenging. That's all. That's all, let's get up." Feng Ziying stretched out and said, "Serving Cui Mo, I've had enough of listening to the bed." Now, come and wait on me to dress."

 (End of this chapter)