Chapter 116 Merger of Shangluo
Two days after the main force of Black Bear set out, the Cai family fleet once again headed north and arrived in Nanxiang.

Also coming with them were more than 300 people from Zhao Yun's army.

Accompanying Zhao Yun was Sun Qian, an official in the Left General's office.

Zhao Yun was only responsible for military affairs, while Sun Qian was responsible for negotiations among the allies.

The two men had clear responsibilities and had obviously made long-term preparations for this collaboration.

There were only ten wooden stakes left standing on the slope on the east bank of the Xishui River.

A slightly larger grave was dug nearby, where the ten executed spies were buried.

After meeting Zhao Yun and confirming his identity, Song Wu finally put on a brand new red robe, tied a brass belt around his waist, and hung a Han sword.

He came to the grave and was speechless for a long time, not knowing how to explain to his fellow villagers who had died unjustly.

He didn't expect Xu Ding and his men to be so cruel and bold. As a prisoner, they actually dared to beat him to death on the spot.

If he had not been knocked unconscious by the impact, he could have saved the life of his fellow villager Heiyun.

Now, although he has returned to serve under Lord Xuande, he has become a lonely man.

At the foot of the hill, there is the camp of Chief Secretary Chen Zhen.

Sima Zhi, who came upon invitation, wore clothes that were starched and patched, and a pair of very durable clogs on his feet.

A few days ago, when Zhen Mi was inspecting the civilian camp, she specially gave Sima Zhi a piece of silk, which had been made into new clothes for his mother.

Sima Zhi is still satisfied with his current life.

He did not have to travel dozens of miles, as his workplace was within a five-mile radius, and meals were provided while he worked; his mother was also able to join the garment-making team to sew military uniforms and uniforms.

The most important thing is that he can go to Wang Can to listen to lectures in his spare time, and his mother can now have three meals a day.

Having enough to eat three times a day was a privilege his mother did not even have in her hometown before the world fell into chaos.

All we can say is that in the Battle of Xiangyang, Cai Mao fell in front of the battlefield, allowing the White Goose Thieves to eat their fill.

Sima Zhi waited for a while before it was his turn to enter the bamboo and wooden hut.

Chen Zhen currently holds a very high position in the military. He transferred to the Huya Army from Hebei, and Chen Zhen’s previous service and qualifications are obviously valid.

As the first person with a Hebei background in the military, Chen Zhen handles various affairs quite smoothly, and no one dares to disobey.

The collective garrison camp is this big, and General Huya’s Mansion vertically manages every hundred households and every storage point.

These centurions and warehouse managers had little experience and low positions, so they were completely unable to fight against Chen Zhen.

Chen Zhen deliberately ignored Sima Zhi who came in, calmly picked up the brush to write the official document in his hand, put the brush away, and turned his head to look at Sima Zhi while shaking his wrist.

Sima Zhi bowed again and said, "Sima Zhi of Wen County, I pay my respects to the Chief Secretary."

"sit."

Chen Zhen turned his waist and turned sideways to take out a bamboo slip from a rattan box, then turned to look at Sima Zhi: "Zihua is from Henei. The general intends to recruit him as an official. He wants to ask Zihua to temporarily serve as the magistrate of Shangluo County."

Seeing Sima Zhi thinking, Chen Zhen continued, "The official rank of Huya is 600 dan, and the official rank of Shangluo County Magistrate is 1,000 dan; from now on, Zihua will receive two salaries, half in cash and the remaining half in cloth."

When the Later Han Dynasty distributed salaries, half of the salary would be converted into five-zhu coins, with one stone equaling one hundred coins.

The market price of grain was reduced by nearly 200 coins per stone. This measure saved a lot of salary expenses.

After hearing this, Sima Zhi immediately calculated in his mind that a thousand dan was equivalent to a monthly salary of 90 dan, and a six hundred dan was equivalent to a monthly salary of 70 dan.

Adding them together, the monthly salary is 160 dan, which is 40 dan higher than the monthly salary of 120 dan of General Black Bear Tiger Fang.

The 120 shi of money that Black Bear had was basically his personal pocket money. If he had any needs, he would use official expenses.

The salary of other people can be used to support one's family, personal staff and guards after being used for food and drink.

Sima Zhi was a little bit unconvinced that he could really have a monthly salary of 160 shi, which was higher than the 'real 2,000 shi'. The salaries in the Han Dynasty were from high to low: 10,000 shi, middle 2,000 shi, real 2,000 shi, 2,000 shi, and higher than 2,000 shi.

The real two thousand shi means a monthly salary of one hundred and fifty shi. The actual annual salary must be added with routine rewards for seasonal and festival periods... Most of the income of senior officials comes from routine rewards and various unclear but reasonable incomes.

According to Chen Zhen, Sima Zhi's monthly salary should be divided into three parts. Half of it should be converted into five-zhu coins, that is, eight thousand coins per month; one-quarter should be converted into cloth, that is, twenty pieces of cloth, or a smaller amount of high-quality silk fabrics, and forty shi of natural grain.

This was enough for Sima Zhi to hire two or three servants, a clerk, a part-time coachman and groom as a guard, and a horse.

On the premise of not engaging in corruption for money, Sima Zhi, who is currently single, might as well keep two fewer servants and live a simpler life.

In about three years, he could save up 200,000 yuan, which was enough for the bride price and to arrange a wedding befitting a scholar.

Before the chaotic times, in Sima Zhi's hometown, the betrothal gift for a wife from a family of his rank was about 100,000 coins.

The wife's dowry is about 30,000 yuan, no more than 50,000 yuan; plus the expenses for wedding arrangements, 200,000 yuan will be enough.

Having been short of money for so many years, he had to flee to Jingzhou to live under someone else's roof. Not to mention the innocent daughters of scholars, even ordinary families in Jingzhou would not marry their daughters to these poor guys from the north.

Even though these scholars are literate and come from high-class families, they will still have to return to their hometowns in the future.

Therefore, people in Jingzhou are generally unwilling to marry their daughters to northern scholars, for fear that they will be separated in the future.

If a northern scholar living in exile has a wealthy family, it is easy for him to get married.

Sima Zhi really couldn't believe it, and asked, "Then the monthly salary is 40 dan of grain?"

"Yes, taller than me."

Chen Zhen smiled and replied, "I know a little about Zihua's family situation. You have a lot of talent and you shouldn't waste your time. In today's chaotic world, no one knows what tomorrow will be like. Personally, I hope Zihua can serve as an official, take good care of his mother, marry and have children to inherit the family business."

"This happened too suddenly."

Sima Zhi calmed down and said, "Let me greet my mother. If she allows me to serve in the government, why should I care about my life?" Then Sima Zhi asked, "According to the Chief Secretary, the general wants to merge Shangluo and Shang counties?"

"That's right, General, you know Zihua Yanming, and he can lead Shangluo's recovery."

Chen Zhen turned around and took out the letter that Black Bear gave him, then handed it to Sima Zhi and asked Sima Zhi to read it himself.

The letter mentioned the current problems in Shangluo, which are that the big and powerful families have annexed land and forests, enslaved the population, concealed tax revenue, and at the same time colluded with bandits to persecute the people and righteous officials who dared to resist; they also used the bandits to abduct people from other places and use them for mining.

To put it simply, they hoped that Sima Zhi would kill the local tyrants, suppress the bandits, and restore normal production order.

It doesn’t matter whether he is an official or not. Sima Zhi is simply interested in tormenting the powerful.

As a descendant of a branch of a famous family, how could he not feel resentment towards the powerful after following principles and keeping his chastity for so many years?

The Sima clan, who studied the Book of Han, had their own opinions on why the world was in such chaos.

It’s because there are too many powerful people, big and small!

How can we clean up the world if we don't get rid of these insects?
If he wanted to be an official, he would have served under Liu Biao's rule long ago.

What's more, in order to get him on board, Black Bear offered him the highest monthly salary in the group.

Now the Tiger Tooth Army group is included in the Han Dynasty official system. After application, the top official rank of Black Bear is two thousand stones, followed by military advisor Liu Ye and chief secretary Chen Zhen, both of whom are ranked one thousand stones; the other Tiger Tooth Sima with a rank of one thousand stones is vacant.

The Henghai Commander commanded by Gan Ning was a miscellaneous commander, with an official rank of two thousand Dan. The chief secretary, Sima and battalion commander of the Commander Department were all six hundred Dan, and the commander of a hundred men was three hundred Dan, three levels lower than the battalion commander.

The salary of a team officer is above 200 shi, and people above the team officer level are no longer given rations and are paid based on a monthly salary.

Otherwise, if everyone gets the same ration, how can we show the difference between the upper and lower levels? How can we motivate the grassroots officials to work hard?
It was normal for the temporarily established Shangluo County Magistrate to have an official rank of Qianshi, as the salaries of county officials in Sili were already higher than those in other states.

The rank of an ordinary small county chief is three hundred dan, while the rank of a county chief of Sizhou or a large county chief of another state is four hundred dan; the rank of an ordinary county magistrate is six hundred dan, while the rank of a county magistrate of Sizhou, the princess, the empress, the county magistrate of Tangmu, and the county magistrate of a province are all one thousand dan.

Dao Ling is the chief of a small living area specially set up for subordinate tribes, such as Yi Dao Ling and Di Dao Ling. For larger areas, there are various vassal state commanders.

If the rank is higher, it would be such as Protector of the Qiang Colonel, Protector of the Xianbei Lieutenant, Protector of the Wuhuan Colonel, and General Du Liao.

Sima Zhi had already decided to become an official, but he decided to go back and ask his mother first.

Worried that Chen Zhen might have misunderstood, he asked, "I heard that the Wuguan Road is long and narrow, and Shangluo is a hundred miles away from Shangxian. Is the county in Shang or Shangluo?"

Chen Zhen was not sure, but after thinking about it, he said: "In the future, our army should focus on the development of Danshui Canal Transportation. Moreover, Shangluo should be based on Shang County. As for Shangluo, we can just set up a northern county lieutenant."

The two counties were merged into one, and only the personal salary of the county magistrate Sima Zhi was increased, but the number of officials in the two county governments was reduced.

The Dan River between Shangluo and Shangxian is not suitable for large-scale water transport, but it is still suitable for small-scale water transport.

In the future, all taxation and the like will rely on the transportation of the Dan River to the north.

The cost of taxation will not increase due to the merger of counties and towns.

"So, Zhi understands."

Sima Zhi stood up and bowed: "Wait a moment, Chief Secretary. I will go and consult my mother right away."

"Well, wait for Zihua's good news."

Chen Zhen stood up to return the greeting and watched Sima Zhi leave the house.

He started out as a magistrate of a county with a salary of 1,000 stones, and his monthly salary was nominally higher than that of Black Bear.

With such great sincerity, if Sima Zhi still refused, he would be really courting death.

Since the Later Han Dynasty, only those who repeatedly refused to be recruited and maintained their reputation for more than 20 years could quickly break through the huge invisible obstacle of a thousand stones after entering officialdom.

Sima Zhi tried to slow down his pace and take in the beautiful scenery of mountains and rivers on both sides of the river. He couldn't help feeling relaxed and happy, and also felt that the world was vast.

Before they knew it, they had returned to the centurion assigned to them and their son. Except for a small number of children, most of the women in the centurion were basking in the sun and sewing clothes together.

The cutting and sewing of fabric are separate.

Women sew clothes, also on a piecework basis.

There is no supervisor on site, and the main thing during acceptance is to check whether the stitches are fine, dense and solid.

Sima Zhi stepped forward to greet his mother and talked about his trip to the east bank of the Xishui River.

The old mother put down her needlework, put her hands on her knees, and said without a smile: "If a man meets a wise master in this world, he should sacrifice his life to repay him. My son serves at home and is unknown to others. The general values ​​my son so much and shows such appreciation. Why should I hesitate?"

"But why is mother..."

"At home he is a filial son, and out of the house he is a loyal minister. I am delighted that my son has found a wise master, but I am also sad that he will repay his master with his life."

Looking at her son, she patiently warned him: "My son, you should not think about personal matters when you are away as a minister. Since you want to follow the general to do great things, you must not think about retreating when things go wrong."

From the moment we responded to Wang Can's call to come to Nanxiang, there was no way back.

The Sima family has been studying the Book of Han for generations, and the children in the family would talk about various stories of the Han Dynasty when they had free time.

The essence of the story of the Han Dynasty can be summed up in four words: winner is king!
Even Sima Zhi's mother, who had heard many stories about the Han Dynasty, was most impressed by the various coups and major events.

While the mother and son were talking, the women nearby also understood what was going on and gathered around to congratulate the old lady.

These women, along with their families, belong to Black Bear's private property, but they and their families have no objection to this.

This means that the only ones who can bully them are Black Bear and the centurions appointed by Black Bear.

Even if Sima Zhi went out as a county magistrate, he could not do anything to them.

(End of this chapter)