Chapter 271 Loyal General Yang

However, Yang Zhengshan was not very good at writing memorials.

As for writing with a brush, he has practiced a lot over the years. His handwriting is neat and his font is square. Although he is not an expert in calligraphy, he is quite decent.

However, when writing memorials, one must not only write neatly, but also be careful with the wording.

But Yang Zhengshan is really not good at those things.

So he wrote down his ideas, and then asked Lin Zhan to come and help revise them.

That’s right, it’s Lin Zhan.

There is no way. Now the most educated person in the Yang family is Lin Zhan.

Looking at Lin Zhan's vigorous, calm and round handwriting, Yang Zhengshan couldn't help but sweat.

I am not even as good as a teenager!
"It seems I should find you a good teacher!"

In the study, Yang Zhengshan looked at the memorial revised by Lin Zhan and said with emotion.

In terms of martial arts, Yang Zhengshan had no problem teaching Lin Zhan, but in terms of studying, Yang Zhengshan was far inferior to Lin Zhan.

The road to the imperial examination is not so easy. If you want to achieve something in the imperial examination, talent and hard work are only the foundation, you also need the guidance of a famous teacher.

What Lin Zhan lacked was precisely the guidance of a famous teacher.

After hearing Yang Zhengshan's sigh, Lin Zhan's eyes lit up and he asked, "Master, can you help me find a suitable teacher?"

"You kid, you get excited when it comes to studying!" Yang Zhengshan looked at him with some amusement.

It has to be said that Lin Zhan is a really hardworking kid. In martial arts, Lin Zhan works harder than Wang Yunqiao and his skills are also higher than Wang Yunqiao. In terms of studying, he is already a student at the age of fifteen and will be able to take the examination for a scholar this year.

Lin Zhan smiled a little embarrassedly, bowed his hands and admitted his mistake, "It was my disciple who was too anxious!"

Yang Zhengshan stroked his beard and thought about it. Lin Zhan wanted to take part in the imperial examination and achieve something in it because of his father's expectations of him.

Over the years, Lin Zhan has been working hard for this.

Yang Zhengshan also hopes that Lin Zhan can achieve success in the imperial examinations, but it is indeed not easy to find a famous teacher for Lin Zhan.

The most knowledgeable people he knew were Liu Yuanfu and his son. Liu Yuanfu was definitely not good enough as he was the Right Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate and was busy with official duties on weekdays. He probably had no time to teach students. Moreover, he was old and did not have enough energy to teach another student.

"I will write a letter to Mr. Liu Zhe and ask him to be your teacher, or ask him to introduce a teacher to you!"

Yang Zhengshan felt that Liu Zhe was the most suitable person. Although Liu Zhe had never taken the imperial examination, his knowledge was not bad. He did not take the imperial examination because Liu Yuanfu did not allow it. As for the reason, Liu Yuanfu felt that the officialdom was too complicated and did not want Liu Zhe to be up and down in officialdom like him.

When in Yinghe Fort, Liu Zhe had taught Lin Zhan, so they could be considered a teacher-student relationship.

If we ask him to teach Lin Zhan now, he probably won’t refuse.

"Then I'll trouble you, Master!" Lin Zhan said with a long bow.

Yang Zhengshan reached out and patted his shoulder and said, "But Master has something to say first!"

"Master, please speak!"

"Studying is important, but practicing martial arts is equally important. You can't neglect martial arts because of studying!" Yang Zhengshan said earnestly.

If one does not make progress in martial arts practice, one will regress. Now is the time for Lin Zhan to lay the foundation. If he slacks off, it may affect his future achievements in martial arts.

Yang Zhengshan could not guarantee that Lin Zhan would achieve success in the imperial examinations, but he could guarantee that Lin Zhan would become a martial arts expert in the future.

"Disciple understands, and I will never let Master down!" Lin Zhan bowed again.

"Ok!"

Yang Zhengshan is still very confident in Lin Zhan. Although Lin Zhan is young, he has always behaved very maturely and has his own opinions.

After letting Lin Zhan leave, Yang Zhengshan sat down at his desk and wrote a letter to Liu Zhe, and then sent the memorial and the letter to Kyoto.

……

A few days later.

In the study room inside the imperial city, Emperor Chengping saw Yang Zhengshan's memorial.

He had known about Tenglongwei's situation before, but he just asked a few questions casually and did not have a deep understanding.

He knew that the Tenglong Guards were badly derelict, but he didn't expect that the Tenglong Guards were basically completely destroyed.

As for the Lan family, Emperor Chengping would naturally not pay attention to a small martial arts family.

However, after reading Yang Zhengshan's memorial, Emperor Chengping looked a little unhappy.

"What a great Lan family! They deserve to be killed!"

Emperor Chengping was not unaware of the principle that if the water is too clear, there will be no fish. He was in charge of the Secret Guard and knew the family backgrounds of all the ministers in the court very well. Many officials were greedy for money, but as long as they did not go too far, he would generally turn a blind eye.

He is not afraid of officials taking bribes because he can take back the money they have embezzled at any time.

But he hated the existence of the Lan family so much that he even felt angry about it!
Seeing that Emperor Chengping looked unhappy, Eunuch Chen was moved and said quickly, "Your Majesty, calm down. The Lan family deserves to be killed, but General Yang did a great job!"

"General Yang has just taken office and has taken down the Lan family, which has been encroaching on Tenglongwei for decades. He is really decisive and ruthless!"

"With General Yang in Tenglong Guard, I think it won't take a few years for Tenglong Guard to regain its former glory!"

After hearing his words, Emperor Chengping's expression indeed improved a lot.

He was angry about what the Lan family did, but he was pleased with Yang Zhengshan's actions. After all, Yang Zhengshan was the commander of the Tenglong Guards appointed by him personally.

"You old man can talk!"

"But you're right, Yang Zhengshan is a capable man!"

Eunuch Chen's old face was smiling like a chrysanthemum, and he added: "General Yang is not only capable, but also loyal to Your Majesty. The Lan family has so much gold, silver and grain, and General Yang can report it to Your Majesty truthfully. This shows General Yang's loyalty to Your Majesty!" He praised Yang Zhengshan so much not because he really liked Yang Zhengshan, or because he was optimistic about Yang Zhengshan, but just because he wanted to please Emperor Chengping.

But for Yang Zhengshan, these few words made Emperor Chengping have a much better impression of him.

All the anger on Emperor Chengping's face disappeared, replaced by a faint smile.

He looked at the contents of the memorial again, and after a moment's hesitation, he said, "Leave these grains and money to the Tenglong Guards first. Go and inform Duke Ningguo, and they won't have to pay any grain and money to the Tenglong Guards for the next three years!"

Although the Lan family left behind a lot of money and food, Tenglongwei would also have a lot of places to spend money in the future.

If you want to train the Tenglong Guards into elite soldiers, it is simply impossible without investing a huge amount of money.

"Yes!" Eunuch Chen responded and arranged for a young eunuch to pass the message to Duke Ningguo.

……

Tenglongwei.

After a few busy days, Yang Zhengshan finally built the framework of the Weisi Yamen.

The Weisi Yamen was not a small yamen, but a large yamen that included the Zhenfusi, the Jinrisi and more than a dozen departments.

Among them were more than ten officials of various ranks and nearly a hundred clerks and scribes in various departments.

The previous Weisi Yamen was almost completely abandoned. It didn’t even have all the rooms and departments that a regular Weisi Yamen should have, and there were only a dozen clerks and scribes.

It can be said that the previous Wei Si Yamen could not even operate normally.

In order to fill the vacancies of clerks and clerks in the Weisi Yamen, Yang Zhengshan had to select some soldiers from the garrison camp to temporarily serve as clerks and clerks.

This is when the benefits of Yang Zhengshan's requirement for his soldiers to read and write were demonstrated.

Although the soldiers were not well educated, they had no problem handling some paperwork.

After a few days, the Wei Si Yamen was finally able to operate normally, and Yang Zhengshan also shifted his attention to the Qianhu Suo.

In the study, Yang Zhengshan called Song Dashan, Xie Yuan and others over.

"How have you been doing with your investigations of the various thousand households these days?"

Yang Zhengshan sat behind the desk and asked while looking at the yellow book of Tenglong Guard.

"Basically, we have checked everything. Except for the vanguard, the others are basically useless." Xie Yuan said somewhat dully.

The organization of Tenglong Vanguard is relatively complete, and the military households and soldiers in the four thousand-household offices are basically full.

There were only about 30% of the military households and soldiers left in other thousand-household units, and those military households were extremely poor, and those soldiers were also poorly trained.

Yang Zhengshan also knew the situation, so he was not surprised.

"First, transfer all the officers above the rank of 100 in the vanguard, and then deploy our soldiers there, leaving only 200 soldiers to take charge of the defense of the Acropolis!"

Tenglongwei is not only short of military households and soldiers, but also officers.

Yang Zhengshan didn't want to use any of the previous thousand households and hundred households, but Tenglong Vanguard was an exception. In order to avoid causing unrest and to appease the military households and soldiers of Tenglong Vanguard, Yang Zhengshan decided to transfer the officers of Tenglong Vanguard first.

If these people were sensible and did their own work conscientiously, Yang Zhengshan would not pursue them any further.

But if anyone dares to jump out and cause trouble, Yang Zhengshan doesn't mind sending them to keep the Lan family company.

"Return the indentures of the Lan family's slaves and tenants to them, and help them change their status to military households of our Tenglong Guard!"

Yang Zhengshan continued.

The Lan family had more than 2,000 slaves and tenants. They were originally military households of the Tenglong Guard, and now their original household registration was simply returned to them.

As for whether they are willing or not, they definitely are.

No matter how bad being a military household is, it is better than being a slave.

Once you sign a contract to sell yourself, your descendants will all be slaves and will never be able to turn things around.

If they are turned into military households, they will definitely be grateful to Yang Zhengshan.

Yang Zhengshan continued to look at the yellow book, silently counting the number of military households currently owned by Tenglongwei.

There are more than 5,000 households in the front guard, and more than 4,000 households in the other three guards. Together with the slaves and tenants of the Lan family, the total number should be around 12,000 households.

"Redistribute all the military households. Each guard has 3,000 households, and each thousand households has 600 households!"

There will definitely be a shortage of military households and soldiers, and this problem cannot be solved in a short period of time. Yang Zhengshan has no way of attracting nearly 10,000 military households from outside.

But it doesn't matter. Let's first build the framework of the Tenglong Four Guards and make all the thousand households operational.

Fortunately, there are still several months before next year's spring plowing, so Yang Zhengshan has time to rebuild the Tenglong Four Guards.

"After the military households are distributed, we will immediately redistribute the military farms! We must ensure next year's spring ploughing!"

"Yes!"

Xie Yuan responded and said, "Sir, can you allocate some food first?"

Yang Zhengshan smiled and said, "Sure! Go find Zhou Ren later and ask him to open two granaries and directly distribute two stone of grain to each household!"

Releasing grain was necessary, firstly to ensure that the poor military households had enough to eat, and secondly to stabilize people's hearts.

As for whether opening the warehouse would cause trouble, Yang Zhengshan felt that it was not a big problem. Tenglongwei was short of food now, and he did not think that the Central Army Governor's Office would not give him any food.

We should leave some grain from the Sixteen Warehouses for him.

At this time, he didn't know that Emperor Chengping had decided to keep all the money and grain of the Lan family in Tenglongwei, otherwise he would have jumped for joy.

(End of this chapter)