Chapter 272: It is a pleasure to have friends coming from afar

In the following days, Xie Yuan and others began to make major adjustments to the entire Tenglong Guard.

They first transferred all the centurions, deputy centurions and other officials of the Tenglong Vanguard. At first, these centurions and deputy centurions were still uneasy, but when they learned that they were just transferred to other centurions, they all settled down.

Although being transferred to the new Qianhu Suo would definitely not be as comfortable as before, at this time they just want to live a stable life. If they can keep their current official positions, they will be satisfied.

As for jumping out to provoke, haha, they are not stupid enough to stand out and seek death.

Then Xie Yuan and others dismissed some officials, mainly some older and incompetent officials, such as Yan Shun, whom Yang Zhengshan had met before.

When the elderly get old, there is no need for them to take up space and waste time. It is better for them to enjoy their retirement at home.

Among them, some people who committed many evil deeds were also arrested.

The biggest cancer of Tenglongwei is the Lan family, but there are also some disgusting parasites among them. No matter how poor Tenglongwei is, there are people who like to suck blood from those poor military households.

Yang Zhengshan could not tolerate such people.

After dealing with those incompetent commanders, Xie Yuan selected two hundred men from the former Anyuan City garrison camp and appointed them.

The entire Tenglong Guard should have twenty thousand-householders, twenty deputy thousand-householders, forty thousand-householders and two hundred-householders. Excluding the hundred-householders and deputy thousand-householders who are still in use in the Tenglong Vanguard, the appointment of two hundred people will almost fill up the official positions at all levels.

As for the general flag and the small flags, there is no need for the Wei Si Yamen to worry about them. Once everyone takes office, they can solve it themselves.

In this way, each thousand-household unit had officials from the former Tenglong Guards, as well as soldiers from the former Anyuan City Garrison Camp, and the soldiers from the garrison camp accounted for the majority, so there would be no problem for Yang Zhengshan to control each thousand-household unit.

A few days later, officials from each thousand-household unit took office, and the Wei Si Yamen began to allocate military households.

Based on the principle of allocating land nearby and avoiding the need for military households and tenants to move as little as possible, the Weisi Yamen redistributed the ownership of the farms and garrisons.

The allocation of military households was the most troublesome, because it involved all the people under the jurisdiction of the Wei Si Yamen, including more than 12,000 military households and almost 50,000 soldiers.

Redividing ownership means redividing the land, which will inevitably cause panic and anxiety among the lower-level military households.

However, the panic and anxiety soon dissipated, because after the division of ownership was completed, carts of grain were transported out of the Acropolis and distributed to every military household.

It was mid-November, the day after the grain was shipped out of the Acropolis, that Yang Zhengshan received two official documents from the Central Military Governor's Office.

In the study, Yang Zhengshan was wearing a jet-black cotton jacket, his black hair combed meticulously, and he was sitting in front of the desk with a calm expression.

Han Fei stood beside him respectfully and placed two documents on his desk.

Han Fei is an experienced officer of the Weisi Yamen. He is usually responsible for the official document exchanges and file organization of the Weisi Yamen.

Yang Zhengshan opened the official documents and started reading. When he finished reading the first document, his eyes lit up.

"Hahaha, good!"

He laughed.

The content of this official document was to use the money and grain confiscated from the Lan family to offset the three-year food and military pay of the Tenglong Guard.

Generally speaking, most of the military offices were self-sufficient, that is, they used the grain harvested from military farms to meet the daily expenses of the office, including food and wages for soldiers, salaries for officials, etc.

In fact, the soldiers in the garrisons did not have much food and wages, because they had to farm. In addition to keeping a portion of the harvest, they could also receive half of their food and wages.

In other words, the military households' farming was equivalent to paying 40% of the rent to the Qianhu Suo. The Qianhu Suo kept 20% of the 40% rent to pay the officials' salaries, and the remaining 20% ​​was given to the Weisi Yamen.

Of course, this is the normal operation. In fact, most of the guard posts in Dayong are not self-sufficient nowadays.

There are many reasons, such as military officers encroaching on military farms and turning military farms into their own private farms. Another example is that there is a shortage of military households in the garrisons. Originally, more than a thousand military households should have handed in grain, but in fact only 800, 500, or even 300 households handed in grain, which naturally made it impossible for the garrisons to be self-sufficient.

In addition, some garrisons had other duties, such as guarding cities or important passes.

Soldiers stationed in cities and passes needed to be paid full rations and wages, which would increase the expenditures of the garrisons, so the garrisons needed to receive a portion of their rations and wages from the higher authorities.

At present, Tenglong Guard has no other duties, but Tenglong Guard cannot be self-sufficient, so it is reasonable for the Central Army Governor's Office to keep the money and grain confiscated from the Lan family in Tenglong Guard.

However, Yang Zhengshan did not expect that the Central Military Governor's Office would be so generous. He originally thought that the Central Military Governor's Office would only leave a part of it for him, but he did not expect that it would actually leave it all to him.

This is a good thing. With this money and food, he can save himself a lot of trouble. At least he doesn't have to ask the Central Army Governor's Office for money and food.

"I never expected that the officials of the Central Military Governor's Office would be so generous. Tsk tsk, I am embarrassed!"

Yang Zhengshan was overjoyed.

He didn't know that this was the emperor's intention, otherwise he would definitely set up an incense table and kowtow to the emperor.

This is hundreds of thousands of taels of silver and 160,000 shi of grain!
But after being happy, Yang Zhengshan carefully calculated and found that the silver and grain did not seem to be much.

The gold seized from the Lan family was about 38,000 taels, silver was about 220,000, and copper coins were about 34,000 strings. If all were converted into silver, it would be about 600,000 taels of silver.

This amount seems large, but if it is considered as military expenditure, it is really not much.

The military pay of the soldiers in Chongshan Town is about 20 taels of silver per year, which means that 10,000 soldiers would need 200,000 taels of silver per year.

This is just the military pay. Yang Zhengshan has no battalion soldiers under his command now, but the money he spends to equip a group of elite soldiers is definitely not a small amount.

An ordinary warhorse costs thirty or forty taels of silver, a set of iron armor costs hundreds of taels of silver, and a spear costs more than ten taels of silver.

If he wanted to equip one armored cavalryman, he would need at least 150 taels of silver, 100 would cost 15,000 taels, and 1,000 would cost 150,000 taels.

Okay, let’s equip the armored cavalry with less equipment, just one thousand people.

If we recruit another 2,000 light cavalry, leather armor is relatively cheap, but it will cost nearly 100 taels to equip one light cavalryman, so 2,000 light cavalrymen will cost 200,000 taels.

Then there are the infantry.

We won't compete with the Yunlong Guards. The Yunlong Guards under Liang Chu have 5,000 cavalry. We will just form 3,000 cavalry and 2,000 infantry.

Six hundred thousand taels of silver is barely enough.

After the accounts were settled, Yang Zhengshan's happiness completely faded. No wonder Liang Chu spent more than ten years to train Yunlong Guards into elite soldiers. It was really difficult to train an elite army. The problem of money and food alone could make countless people give up.

After putting down the first document, Yang Zhengshan opened the second one.

The second official document was about the outcome of the Lan family's handling. All male descendants of the Lan family were handed over to the Ministry of Justice and executed in the autumn, while all female relatives and collateral branches were exiled to Lingnan.

Yang Zhengshan was not surprised by this result. The Lan family had committed many crimes, but it had not reached the point where the entire family should be executed.

"I'll leave this matter to you. When the people from the Censorate and the Military Commissioner's Office arrive, just hand it over to them!"

"By the way, don't forget to hand over the files to the Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple!"

Yang Zhengshan handed the second document to Han Fei and gave instructions.

Han Fei took the document, responded and left.

As soon as Han Fei left, a personal attendant walked into the study, handed a visiting card to Yang Zhengshan, and reported: "Sir, there is someone outside the door who wants to see you!"

Yang Zhengshan opened the visiting card casually, but when he saw the name on it, he showed a look of surprise.

"Liu Zhe! Why is he here?"

He had been waiting for Liu Zhe's reply these days, but unexpectedly, instead of receiving Liu Zhe's reply, Liu Zhe came running over.

Although he was very surprised, he still stood up and walked quickly out of the study to greet Liu Zhe.

As soon as he walked out of the yamen, he saw Liu Zhe, who looked a little embarrassed.

Liu Zhe at this time had changed a lot from the Liu Zhe in Yang Zhengshan's impression. There were more gray hair and more wrinkles between his eyebrows. He looked much older.

But that's true. When he was in Yinghe Fort, Liu Zhe was already in his forties. He was two years older than Yang Zhengshan, and now he should be almost fifty years old.

Plus, he now looks a little tired and older.

"Brother Liu, why are you here?" Yang Zhengshan said in surprise and joy.

It's not surprising that a friend comes from afar.

"Haha, General Yang, I came here uninvited, General Yang will not be unwelcome, right?"

Although Liu Zhe looks much older now, his personality seems to be more free and easy than when he was in Yinghe Fort.

"How could that be!" Yang Zhengshan smiled and invited Liu Zhe into the yamen.

"After several years of separation, Brother Liu seems to be getting more and more carefree!"

Arriving at the tea room, Yang Zhengshan brewed tea while looking Liu Zhe up and down.

There was an unconcealable fatigue between his brows, but he still looked energetic. The key point was that this guy seemed to have a bit more unrestrained spirit.

Well, not as formal as before.

"I'm just an idler, so I live my life freely!" Liu Zhe took two sips of tea casually.

Yang Zhengshan smiled and asked, "Why did you come to my place? And you only brought two servants with you?"

Liu Zhe is the eldest son of Liu Yuanfu, a typical second-generation official. Yet, this old man always travels with two servants. Yang Zhengshan really doesn't understand what he is doing.

"Didn't you ask me to come here?" Liu Zhe raised his eyebrows.

Yang Zhengshan was startled, "I came here to find you?"

"Yes, I came here as soon as I received your letter!" Liu Zhe said as he took out the letter.

Yang Zhengshan was even more confused. He took the letter, opened it and took a look.

Well, he did write the letter.

"I want you to be Lin Zhan's teacher!"

"Yeah, so here I am!"

"No, no, what I meant was that I should send Lin Zhan to Kyoto, not that you should come over!" Yang Zhengshan said helplessly.

Liu Zhe looked at him inexplicably, "Send him to Kyoto?"

"Yes!" Yang Zhengshan nodded.

Liu Zhe said: "Will Lin Zhan not take part in the provincial examination next year?"

"Join!" Yang Zhengshan said, "Although he is still young, I think he should go and experience it first. Even if he fails the exam, he can still gain some experience."

Liu Zhe rolled his eyes and said, "Since I have to take part in the provincial examination next year, what is the point of going to Kyoto?"

Yang Zhengshan was stunned for a moment, then he figured out what was going on.

Yes, I will take part in the provincial examination next year, why do I have to go to Kyoto?

Students must take part in the provincial examination in their native place, which means Lin Zhan had to take part in the provincial examination in Jing'an Prefecture. Now he has gone to Kyoto and will have to come back before August next year.

The journey is more than 2,000 miles, and it would take more than a month to go back and forth at normal speed.

It is naturally better for Lin Zhan to waste more than a month on the road than for Liu Zhe to come directly to Liaodong.

Thinking about this clearly, Yang Zhengshan couldn't help but smile bitterly.

It's because he didn't think carefully.

(End of this chapter)