Guiyang County, Chen County County Office.

Zhang Xian was sitting in his study room. There was an unfolded map on the desk, which marked all the counties, warehouses, arsenals, Houtian, and valley roads in the four counties of Jingnan... The description was very detailed.

In the late Han Dynasty, there were not many detailed maps covering the vast area of ​​dozens of counties in Banzhou.

Being able to own such a skin map is equivalent to owning half of the area on the map for a superior person.

"Liu Biao, you have a pair of good nephews." Zhang Xian tapped the table gently with his fingers, thinking about it and sighing.

At this moment, footsteps sounded outside the door.

"Who?" Zhang Xian raised his head and looked out the door with a frown.

What he saw was his son Zhang Yi.

"Father, why are you still up so late?" Zhang Yi stepped in and said to Zhang Xianyan.

Zhang Xian waved to him and asked him to come in.

"Yun'er, there is information from Changsha that Liu Boyu, the son of Liu Biao, has entered Jingnan."

Zhang Yi smiled disdainfully and said: "Is it him? I've heard of this person. Liu Boyu is just a weakling. He relied on his father to join the alliance to protect the emperor and became famous in Sili. What's there to fear? It's said that he came to Jingnan. It's just building a school and moving people to farm fields...could it still be a threat to my father?"

Zhang Xian shook his head and said: "Of course there are threats. My father has served as the governor of two counties, and he has the support of the scholars in Jingnan. The person he relies on is our Zhang family, a famous Confucian family in Nanyang. If Liu Boyu established a school in Jingnan, If something is accomplished the next day, the reputation of father and son will surely be higher than that of others in Jingnan scholars. When the time comes, the scholars of the four counties will look to Liu. Who should you and I, father and son, assist in Guiyang County?"

Zhang Yi frowned and said: "But after all, my father has been running business in Jingnan for many years and has good relations with most of the people in the four counties. Are they just outsiders and will fall in love with the Liu family overnight because of the establishment of a school?"

Zhang Xian sighed: "Of course it won't happen in the short term, but if it goes on like this, it's hard to say. Besides, Liu Boyu is farming in Jingnan. Once he succeeds, Jingnan will have abundant grain and grass, and Chengnan County will have warehouses in the rear. At that time, Liu Pan If we can recruit soldiers in Changsha to block our march northward, how can we succeed in Guiyang?"

Zhang Yi smiled and said: "Isn't my father worried too much? I think Liu Boyu came here purely to start a school, and was not specifically targeting my father."

Zhang Xian shook his head and sighed: "You must be careful. Have you forgotten how your uncle was captured alive?"

Zhang Yi frowned and said, "Which uncle?"

Zhang Xian said: "That's the one from Nanjun..."

"He!"

Zhang Yi smiled disdainfully upon hearing this.

In his heart, Zhang Fang, a concubine of the Nanyang Zhang family, was not worthy of being his uncle.

After all, he was a powerful and powerful member of Nan County, and was on par with the Cai and Kuai clans of Nan County. However, he was defeated by a weakling in a short time. It was simply a shame for the Zhang family of Nanyang County.

"Father, don't worry, Liu Qi was able to hold a banquet to pacify the Nanjun clan, but he was just relying on concealing his identity and using clever words to deceive him. He was able to make a banquet to kill the Nanjun clan once. Is it possible that everyone in the world is a fool, and he can be one of them again? "Conspiracy? Father doesn't need to worry... With the 30,000 strong soldiers we have recruited in Lingling and Guiyang over the years, no matter what Liu Qi does, it is all useless... He can do nothing to my father."

Zhang Xian sighed and said: "Having said that, I am still worried as a father. We cannot let this son stay in Changsha for too long, so as not to cause trouble... We still need to find a way to get him back to Xiangyang early."

Zhang Yi secretly thought that his father was really suspicious by nature. He was just a weakling. What should he be afraid of?

Are you still worried about this?

But after all, Zhang Xian is his father, so Zhang Yi can't say much to him.

"May I ask father, what should we do now?"

Zhang Xian pondered for a moment and said: "First of all, we must ensure that our Zhang family is in an invincible position in Jingnan. Yiner can be my father-in-law and the heads of the famous families who have written the book on Jingnan Confucian classics on my behalf. Huge profits, secret alliances, don't let Liu Qi and his son take advantage of the gap."

Zhang Yi asked again: "Who among the noble nobles my father mentioned should be put first?"

Zhang Xian roughly listed some top choices for him:

"Lingling Liu Ba, his father and his ancestors were all county guards, and they were two thousand stone high gates for two generations."

"Lai Gong, the seventy-third generation grandson of King Lai Shu Ying, is a great man."

"The Jiang family of Jingmen has many extraordinary children."

"The Zhao family and the Bao family in Guiyang must be given a helping hand."

"There are also the descendants of Wu Ju, the Huan family, and the Marquis of Luo in Changsha. We must find ways to contact them. Don't miss any of them. There is also the Changsha County Chancellor Zou Ke. You should secretly send someone to contact him closely and wait and see Liu Qi. Action...the remaining tribes can follow suit."

"promise."

…

After Liu Pan finished handling official duties at the county office, he went to Liu Qi's residence to look for him.

The two of them had wine and food in the dormitory and talked to each other about their experiences in the past six months.

Liu Pan was envious and admired Liu Qi's experience during his stay in Shangluo.

When he heard the wonderful points in Liu Qi's statement, especially after he teamed up with Sun Jian to capture Hu Zhen alive, he couldn't help but clapped his hands and shouted happily!

But after Liu Qi heard Liu Pan's experience, he was not so happy.

"Three thousand people?" Liu Qi looked at Liu Pan in surprise and said, "The number of soldiers you can command in Changsha County is only three thousand people?"

Liu Pan's dark complexion was a little red, and he muttered: "It's quite a lot. If all three thousand men and horses are trained into elite soldiers, they can be called a strong army in the border counties!"

"The problem is..." Liu Qi looked at Liu Pan dumbfounded: "When you left Nanjun, Yan Jun gave you 2,000 soldiers as a team... Have you only recruited a thousand soldiers in the past six months? "

"Not enough money!"

Liu Pan said angrily: "You don't know how many barbarians there are in Jingnan and how difficult they are to deal with. Moreover, there are too many rebellions. There are news of barbarian rebellions and invasions in counties almost every month. Just by the county, The national army has no way to deal with them. I can only counter the rebellion according to the powerful families in each county! But if I rely on them, I have to give them convenience and huge profits. But if this is the case, I cannot thoroughly investigate the households and collect taxes. If the tax is sufficient, the county treasury will have no surplus. If there is no surplus, how can we raise an army? If we cannot raise an army, then..."

"There's no way to suppress the rebellion, right?" Liu Qi said calmly: "So, this is an endless cycle?"

Liu Pan nodded and said, "That's it."

The situation Liu Pan mentioned actually exists in all states, counties, and townships, and it is a common phenomenon in all dynasties and generations in history. In order to solve the problem of taxation, emperors of all dynasties have

And in a lifelong struggle.

The land annexation by the powerful forces caused many Guizhou heads to lose their fields and had to sell themselves to the wealthy families and become their vassals.

These attached households were used by the wealthy families as a 'hidden population' to generate income for their own private use. However, even if they were hidden, the number of these households still existed on the household registers of the county offices and county offices.

Existence exists, but because the tax recipient is a large household and cannot collect the tax, the local county government has to graft the tax money onto other ordinary Guizhou Qi people, but as a result, those ordinary people have to work hard to make ends meet.

They went to sell land, and eventually became dependent households of the rich family, and to a certain extent, became a hidden population.

This is a common problem in all dynasties and generations. In order to solve this problem, every dynasty and every generation spared no effort to reform various policies, striving to no longer rely on household registration and only rely on land expropriation.

The law of exemption from service, the whip, the landowners' share of grain and never increase in taxes, etc., are changed over and over again, all because those in power want the country's land to have a direct revenue relationship with the government.

In Shanyang County, where Liu Qi and Liu Pan live, the local wealthy families will not go too far with the government to a certain extent. Everyone can make concessions to each other.

They would hand over money in proportion to the number of households they own, help local county magistrates complete part of the above-mentioned assessments, and sometimes even help their households bear part of the garrison-free money (the Han Dynasty's border guarding system was only for garrisoning the county at the beginning.

The border distance is short, so the total period is only three days. In the later stage, it developed to the point where it was impractical to have to garrison the border counties. However, the decree did not change, so three hundred coins were used to exempt the garrison.)

However, in Jingnan, especially the current Changsha County, the county government headed by Liu Pan obviously has very weak control over the county because of the unequal strength and local power, so it cannot allow the local wealthy families to make compromises. In addition,

There were frequent barbarian rebellions in Jingnan, which actually caused the tax revenue of Changsha County, which had a household registration of one million, to the point where it could not make ends meet.

There is not enough money, let alone recruiting soldiers.

Liu Qi looked at Liu Pan helplessly and asked a question that slightly chilled him.

"How many soldiers and horses does Zhang Xian have at his disposal?"

Liu Pan lamented: "Zhang Xian has been deploying in Jingnan for too long. At present, he can mobilize no less than 30,000 soldiers in Guiyang and Lingling alone."

"Thirty thousand versus three thousand? Brother, do you think we have a good chance of winning?" Liu Qi took a long breath and said helplessly.

Liu Pan nodded seriously and said: "Originally, the chance of winning was not great, but for some reason, as soon as Boyu came to Changsha, I felt that I had at least 100,000 elite soldiers in my hands... Boyu, I have confidence in you.
Chapter completed!