Lin'an Never Night

Chapter 743 Spring is coming
Yang Liangao presented a gift to Wei Cangling.

These were all purchased during his visits to Tibet and the Song Dynasty.

Seeing the generous gifts, Wei Cangling's dark, thin, wrinkled face showed a sincere smile.

So, Yang Liangao arranged for two of his trusted confidants to serve as officials in Liangshan Prefecture, and Wei Cangling agreed immediately.

Basically, officials in various parts of Dali were not appointed by the Dali emperor.

Officials from all over Dali were leaders of the largest local tribes.

They already had the ability and power to rule the area, and it was just a matter of getting a letter of appointment from the Dali Emperor to make it legitimate.

Even if the Emperor of Dali Kingdom did not issue this appointment, it would not affect his being the one who actually controlled the area.

Therefore, arranging some small local officials and clerks was simply a matter of a word from the local big local officials.

For an empire like the Song Dynasty, such a situation would be impossible to occur.

Even if he is a ninth-rank official, even a provincial governor like Yang Yuan, he cannot transfer money privately.

If the Ministry of Personnel does not issue the appointment letter, this person cannot hold the position and exercise administration.

Yang Liangao made this request during the visit and gift-giving period.

Only after the matter was settled did they really start chatting about family matters.

Suddenly, Yang Liangao was overjoyed when he heard Wei Cangling say that cousin Shu Yao was also here.

Is cousin Shu Yao here?
Even without the bonus of being the daughter of the hereditary prime minister Gao family, Yang Liangao would still prefer his cousin Shu Yao to be his queen.

Like him, cousin Shu Yao possesses tantric magical powers.

Moreover, cousin Shu Yao is practicing the "Mingfei Six-Aspect Great Prajna Heart Method", and will be his best partner in practice.

Cousin Shu Yao was born with fox eyes, natural charm, and unparalleled beauty. Her appearance was completely worthy of her position as the head of his six concubines.

For so many years, he never married, just to wait for cousin Shu Yao to grow up.

Yang Liangao could no longer sit still.

After waiting for a while, he hurried downstairs, on the pretext of visiting his aunt, and headed for the bamboo forest behind.

……

Tanzhou (Changsha), the prefectural government.

The spring rain is continuous.

The apricot blossoms on the branches were washed by the rain, looking delicate and beautiful.

Liu Qi, who was over 60 years old and dressed elegantly, let a man in a straw raincoat into his study and closed the door.

Outside the door, two of the eight straw raincoat guards brought by the straw raincoat man immediately stood in front of the door with their swords drawn.

The other six people patrolled to the left and right along the corridor.

The man in the straw raincoat in the room took off his rain hat, revealing a middle-aged face with a pale complexion and no beard.

The rain dripped down his straw raincoat onto the blue brick floor, quickly forming a small puddle.

He took out a secret letter wrapped in layers of oil paper from his bosom, held it high in his hand, and said in a deep voice: "Secret decree from the emperor."

Liu Qi took three steps back, lifted his robe and knelt on the ground. Although he was over sixty years old, his movements were still agile.

During the Song Dynasty, officials in the capital only needed to listen to the emperor's general edicts and did not need to kneel to receive them.

But when it came to local imperial edicts, officials had to kneel to receive them.

In addition, if it is a major imperial decree involving personnel appointments and dismissals, even princes and prime ministers must kneel to receive it.

Liu Qi is now serving in a local position, so naturally he does not need to ask about the rank of the imperial edict, he can just kneel down.

The man in the straw raincoat solemnly handed the secret decree to Liu Qi.

Even he did not know the content of this secret decree.

Liu Qi held the secret decree in his hand, bowed slightly to the angel, and said respectfully, "Angel, please take a seat."

The palace eunuch nodded modestly, sat down on the guest seat and brought the tea.

Liu Qi walked to the desk and calmly checked the wax seal before picking up the cutter and carefully cutting it open.

There was actually enough light in the room, but Liu Qi still lit the lamp first, moved the lamp closer, and then calmly took out the secret decree.

The eunuch was drinking tea and watching Liu Qi's movements out of the corner of his eye.

Seeing Liu Qi with his fluttering white beard so calm, he couldn't help but praise him inwardly, thinking that this man really had the demeanor of a great general.

Liu Qi, courtesy name Xinshu, was from Deshun Army (now Jingning County, Gansu Province).

He and the three generals of the Western Army, Wu Jie, Yang Zheng, and Guo Hao, were all fellow villagers and from the same county.

When this old man was the Protector General of Longyou, he fought against the Western Xia and won every battle. A child from the Western Xia cried at night, and it was really his mother who threatened him to shut up by saying "Protector General Liu is here."

When Zhang Jun inspected the border troops, he appreciated him very much and promoted him further. He served in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu for a long time.

In the eleventh year of Shaoxing, there was a battle with Jin Wushu. The commander-in-chief Zhang Jun (note: not Zhang Jun) sent Liu Qi away to win credit, and he and Yang Cun Zhong showed off their troops on the Huai River.

As a result, because they underestimated the enemy, Yang Cunzhong and Wang De were ambushed by Jin's troops and suffered a great defeat.

Zhang Jun fled south across the river in panic, and the situation of a crushing defeat did not occur to Liu Qi's troops.

Liu Qi "positioned his troops according to their positions, arranged the flags, and finally marched slowly". He stationed his troops in Liyang, and only after requesting permission did he calmly cross the river and return to Taiping Prefecture.

This comparison made Zhang Jun seem even more incompetent, so he held a grudge against him.

Soon, under the slander of Qin Hui, Emperor Gaozong dismissed the military power of three generals, Han Shizhong, Zhang Jun and Yue Fei. Seeing that the situation was not good, Zhang Jun decisively defected to Qin Hui.

Liu Qi became disheartened and asked for retirement. He was stripped of his military power and appointed as the prefect of Jingnan Prefecture (now Jiangling, Hubei).

Ten years ago, he retired and enjoyed a glorious life as the director of Jiangzhou Taiping Temple.

However, three years ago, Wei Liangchen believed that such a famous general should not be idle for long, so he recommended Liu Qi to be the prefect of Tanzhou (Changsha).

So, Lao Liu stayed in Tanzhou and served as prefect for three years.

Now, as his term of office was about to expire, Ben had expected that the court must have other arrangements for him, but what the arrangements would be was beyond his knowledge.

The eunuch watched and saw Liu Qi carefully read the secret decree.

This secret decree does not look like an ordinary appointment decree.

Because he watched it for too long.

Liu Qi read the long secret decree word by word, carefully considering each sentence, and then gently spread it out on the table.

The yellow silk, made of the finest quality, shone like gold under the light.

The coiled dragon pattern on the yellow silk is faintly visible.

He was given the title of Grand Marshal and appointed as the General Manager and Pacification Commissioner of Kuizhou Road. He worked with Yang Yuan, the General Manager and Pacification Commissioner of Tongchuan Road, to quickly resolve the internal disputes between the Wen and Guo families in Lizhou East Road and to carry out a comprehensive reorganization of the garrison in Lizhou Central Road... Liu Qi extracted the key points of the secret decree and thought about it for a long time.

Finally, his thoughts suddenly turned to another question.

I am the Grand Marshal, but the emperor wants me to work with Yang Yuan.

As expected, Yang Yuan is the candidate for prime minister in the emperor's mind.

At his current age, as long as he doesn't fall, he will be the brightest and longest-lasting star in the political arena of the Song Dynasty in the future.

Thinking of this, Liu Qi couldn't help but smile slightly.

Although he had little contact with Yang Yuan, he had heard of Yang Yuan's great achievements.

He admired this young man very much.

……

Construction in central Sichuan is in full swing.

There was no break even during the New Year's Day.

It took the Qin State more than two years to build the Qin Straight Road.

But Yang Yuan is leveling, reinforcing and widening the existing roads.

He also adopted unified standards and recruited investors in stages.

The local governments were responsible for supervising the construction, and Wu Yuan was appointed as the general inspector.

At the same time, he did not require the road to be built according to the strict standards of the Qin Straight Road.

Because he is in a hurry.

By this calculation, the highway project can be basically completed in one year.

At most, some sections of the road will be delayed for a period of time due to the special mountainous and geographical conditions.

Then it will basically not affect his mobilization of the army.

In Jianzhou, a new government office is also being built for the Governor-General's Office.

Wang Changsheng also served as the "chief engineer". He went to the seat of Jianzhou Prefecture to inspect it, and simply merged the original government office and the mansions of three powerful families in the surrounding areas, using the method of minor adjustments and repairs.

In this way, the completion date will be many times faster.

As for the three powerful people, they not only moved away very happily, but also only collected a symbolic amount of demolition fees from the government.

A favor from Yang Fushuai is more valuable than a generous demolition fee.

Just look at the current Wu family in Pengzhou and you will understand.

In this situation, who would choose to ask for money?

They only wanted something more valuable: Yang Yuan's face.

Yang Yuan's plan to build a school, academy, and museum also received unanimous support from all walks of life.

In fact, it is very easy to do this. We just need to bind everyone's interests and meet the needs of all parties.

But no one has done this before. Ultimately, it is a problem of the vision or thinking direction of those in power.

A person who can grasp the key to a problem can just draw a circle and everything within the circle can be turned into gold.

The plan for four major palaces has now been exceeded and has become five major palaces.

This was because Yang Yuan took into consideration the issues of teachers and students and prohibited local tyrants from signing up enthusiastically in order to expand the construction of the academy.

Among them, the first to be built was the "Pengzhou Academy".

The news that Mr. Mu Yi, a master of Shu studies, will give lectures at Pengzhou Academy on March 3rd of the new year has spread throughout the world.

The emperor was originally a believer in Shuxue. He was overjoyed when he heard this. He personally wrote a plaque and ordered someone to send it to the Pengzhou Academy.

Therefore, the plaques and couplets needed for the Pengzhou Academy were all written by famous Confucian scholars from all over the country.

Only the position for the plaque in the main hall of Pengzhou Academy is still empty. It is the space reserved for plaques inscribed by officials.

As for what the government wrote, no one knows yet.

Yang Yuan's family left Lin'an at the same time as the plaque of Pengzhou Academy.

In this spring season with flowers blooming, Luxi finally brought her family to Sichuan to meet her lover.

The Pengzhou Firearms Factory is currently under construction. As this place is listed as top secret by the Wu family, all kinds of confidentiality measures have been taken.

The workers in the core manufacturing sector are all prisoners whose freedom can be restrained by force, and their sentences are at least ten years.

Even if they are just working on the peripheral assembly line, they are in contact with parts of uniform specifications every day. Ordinary workers who have no idea what they are doing are also introduced by people who know each other well and take responsibility for each other.

Moreover, the supervisors of each department are all members of the Wu family.

Of course, people in Santaishan, Tongchuan Prefecture, did not just sit there waiting for the completion of the Pengzhou Firearms Factory.

During this period, weapons such as muskets, rockets, grenades, and landmines were constantly being manufactured here.

Yang Yuan asked Gan Quan to take over the command of the local militia in Tongchuan Prefecture.

As for the new firearms, they learned how to use, maintain, assemble, and repair them, and conducted drills with firearms against the Western Xia army.

Problems discovered during the process are constantly corrected, especially corrections and improvements to tactics and strategies.

Yang Yuan has been really busy these days, and he is feeling restless and irritable.

However, due to his hard work, Yanran and Duozi both became pregnant.

However, Princess Dao of Dali and Meizhen of Pengzhou have not yet sent the bride over.

Fortunately, Yang Yuan was too busy with so many things to do, and these things were so stressful and laborious that he was able to suppress his anger.

Otherwise, with the excessive yang energy caused by the martial arts he practiced, if he weren't involved in so many energy-consuming things, he would probably get sick.

Wu Youyao still shaves her hair every few days.

Perhaps it was because he came into contact with more and more worldly things after coming down the mountain, and the young master began to feel shy.

She felt that if she suddenly started growing her hair when both of Yang Yuan's wives were pregnant, people would laugh at her for being shameless.

However, every time she looked in the mirror, she could not help but imagine what she would look like with beautiful hair.

She even secretly dressed up in the dead of night using the makeup powder left by Meizhen's niece.

She drew her eyebrows, put on lipstick, and applied powder, then looked at herself in the mirror with curiosity.

If you just watch her actions in front of the mirror at midnight from a distance, it has a bit of the horror flavor of "Painted Skin".

This is truly a restless spring.

(End of this chapter)