manynovel Chapter 1177 Lanzhou
Chapter 1177 Lanzhou
Chapter 1177 Lanzhou
Lanzhou.
Since the capture of Lanzhou, the Song Dynasty has been deeply involved in this area.
Not only did they move the seat of government of Xihe Road here, they also built forts around it. If the Dangxiang attacked Lanzhou again, they might not even be able to touch the walls of Lanzhou this time.
After Li Xian left, Wang Hou was in charge of the troops. He, Li Hao, and Wang Wenyu were stationed in Lanzhou to oversee the repair of the fort.
Lanzhou City is now as solid as a rock, and two floating bridges have been built to connect to the other side to facilitate the travel of caravans.
However, recently, there have been many tribes fleeing from the Dangxiang country to the Song Dynasty, and the Dangxiang cavalry patrolled here to capture the fugitives, and even repaired the walls in some places. At the same time, the Dangxiang people also did everything possible to block the news from the Song Dynasty.
Only caravans or envoys approved by the Dangxiang could travel to and from Lanzhou via the pontoon bridge.
Today, the newly appointed Qinfeng Road Transport Commissioner Fan Yu and the Inspector General Sun Lu arrived in Lanzhou for inspection. Wang Hou and others regarded the arrival of Fan Yu and Sun Lu as a formidable enemy.
Wang Hou led a group of Lanzhou generals to go out of Lanzhou City to welcome them personally.
Fan Yu and Sun Lu simply bowed to Wang Hou and other generals, declined all reception, and went straight into Lanzhou City.
After sitting in court, Fan Yu asked Wang Hou, "Why haven't Lanzhou and Huangzhou appointed Tongpan yet?"
The administrative system of the Song Dynasty was from Sansi to Yunyunshi, and from Yunyunshi to Tongpan, and this line was responsible for finances.
Lanzhou and Huangzhou in Xihe Road had never had a Tongpan, which made it impossible for the Zhuanyunshi Road to supervise the finances. This made Fan Yu very dissatisfied, and he questioned Wang Hou as soon as he entered the city.
Wang Hou said: "Before, the finances of Xihe Road were always managed by the Ministry of Finance. In order to facilitate the work, the two states did not have a Tongpan."
Fan Yu said, "It's not that simple. In the past two years, the court has built the most forts in Huangzhou and Lanzhou, and there is no Tongpan to supervise. Please ask the general manager to take out the accounts for us to review."
Fan Yu was so aggressive that generals under Wang Hou, such as Li Hao and Wang Wenyu, were very dissatisfied.
This was almost a direct accusation against them as to whether they had embezzled the money that the court had used to build the fort in recent years.
In fact, when the Zhizhisi was established, Zhang Yue made the Xihe Road General Manager take charge of the finance department for the first time. But now that Li Xian has been transferred, the Zhizhisi is vacant.
Fan Yu, the Qinfeng Road Transport Commissioner who was in charge of the finances of the Qinfeng Road Military Affairs Office and the Xihe Road Military Affairs Office, came to check the accounts after taking office. It was obvious that he was planning to merge the financial resources of Xihe Road back into the Qinfeng Road Transport Office.
If Fan Yu wanted to check the accounts, he could only let them do so. Besides, the other party was accompanied by Sun Lu, the anti-corruption inspector.
Facing Fan Yu's words, Wang Hou could only reply, "Yes, the transport envoy."
Fan Yu checked the account books in person and verified every payment. The prefect of Lanzhou was now Li Hao, who was a military official and was not proficient in account books. He was forced into a very awkward situation by Fan Yu.
He had no choice but to ask the officials below to come up and answer the questions. Soon, officials were called into the hall one after another and answered Fan Yu's questions in person.
Here Fan Yu demonstrated the style and methods of a capable minister, and some officials were immediately caught and criticized for their vague answers.
Sun Lu, who was standing by, arrested the officials in question without saying anything. This scene made the officials in the hall look extremely pale.
Fan Yu looked at Wang Hou who was sweating profusely and Li Hao who was showing an angry look, and he knew what was going on.
"Okay, that's all for today! Everyone else, please leave. I have a few words to say to the steward."
When Fan Yu put down his pen, everyone in and out of the hall felt as if they had been pardoned.
Fan Yu stood up and saluted Wang Hou, saying, "Don't be alarmed, General Manager. I was appointed as the Transport Commissioner by the grace of Prime Minister Zhang. You are his favorite disciple. How could I attack you? I apologize to you."
Upon hearing this, Wang Hou said bitterly, "Cao Envoy, you scared me to death."
Upon hearing this, Fan Yu smiled and said, "General Manager, do you know why Mr. Zhang appointed me to Qinfeng Road as a transport envoy?"
“I haven’t asked yet.”
Fan Yu said calmly, "General Manager, there are three million people in Xihe Road, but only 800,000 are registered."
"If the imperial court wants to take Liangzhou, it must first register the people of Xihe Road and make all the local tribes available to the imperial court."
"As long as we have enough population and taxes, it will be a natural thing to seize Liangzhou."
Wang Hou said: "You are right, Mr. Zhang really has far-reaching plans!"
Upon hearing this, Fan Yu smiled and thought to himself, this is my idea.
Fan Yu did not correct Wang Hou but said: "General Manager, to be honest, you have already achieved success, but I am new here and have not achieved anything, so I am staying here."
Wang Hou knew that this matter was not easy, so he put on a high hat and said, "It is only a matter of time before the grain transport envoys will be appointed to the two governments. I wonder what the plan is?"
"Since we want to recruit the tribes to come down from the mountains, we must provide them with a livelihood. Although the court has a strategy, it cannot support the people without money and grain. As for where the money and grain will come from, Sun Lianfang and I have already figured out a way."
Wang Hou thought for a moment and asked, "Crack down on corruption?"
Fan Yu smiled when he heard this and said, "You can say that, or you can say it's an offering."
"To be honest, I am not ignorant. Previously, the imperial court wanted to defend Lanzhou and advance from there, so it did not supervise the local areas so strictly. The imperial court's money was flowing like the sea, and without supervision, it was understandable that local officials and generals took it."
"But the current situation is different. The battle of Lanzhou is over. The court will not discard the donkey after it has done its work. No matter how great your contributions are, the court will not leave Lanzhou unsupervised. As for me saying that I am here to settle old scores, as long as the officials below cooperate, I can let bygones be bygones. But if you don't know what's good for you, then even if I am easy to talk to, Sun Lianfang will have a hard time getting through this."
Wang Hou was an honest man, and from beginning to end he only said one thing: what the grain transport envoy said was right.
Fan Yu said: "People can't be too easy on themselves. Someone must come and give them some pressure and some cold water."
"After all, the court is doing this for your own good."
...
Seeing that they had received Wang Hou's promise, Fan Yu and Sun Lu continued the operation.
Xihe Road was not supervised before, and there were indeed many loopholes. Now Fan Yulai has made a dirty deal, and it has indeed caused the people below to spit out a lot of money.
As for a few who were stubborn and unyielding, they were directly arrested by Sun Lu and their property was confiscated.
Just a few days after Lanzhou was reorganized, a businessman arrived in Lanzhou City with a message from the Guiyi Army.
When they learned that a group of nearly 20,000 people had fled Liangzhou and requested to go to Lanzhou to submit to the Song Dynasty.
It immediately caught everyone off guard.
Fan Yu, Sun Lu, Wang Hou and other officials sent people to report to the court and summoned all the generals to discuss the matter.
How to deal with it.
Most of the generals, led by Wang Hou, believed that there was no need to accept these people.
They cautiously believed that this was a trap set by the Xixia people.
Even if it is true, they believe that the descendants of the Guiyi Army could not have any real feelings for the Song Dynasty, and might even be a trouble.
Deliberately destroy the current peaceful situation between Song and Dangxiang.
Li Hao said directly, "Since the war started at Xiaoguan, the Hehuang River has cut off the spring in a foreign land. The Han people all speak the Hu language, but curse the Han people from the top of the city."
They said that it was impossible for them to sincerely submit.