Chen Qiyu sighed and said, "I have thought of giving me a book to the emperor, but Shi Liang, have you ever thought about it? Now the Ming Dynasty is full of internal and external troubles, and there are many crises. My emperor is dressed and fed overnight and worked day and night for state affairs, and he is exhausted both physically and mentally. As a minister, we don't know how to share our emperor's worries and problems, and we have to seek various support from our emperor when we encounter problems. What's the use of us?"

Chen Liangmo stood up and bowed to Chen Qiyu solemnly, "The words of Futai make the officials ashamed! Our emperor is responsible for the peace of the world and is responsible for the peace of the people. How can we take care of everything in every detail? We read the books of sages and learn the policy of governing the country in order to protect the people of the emperor and make the people of poverty, illness and support, and have a heart of fullness and warmth! The officials in the past have returned to the upper class. But what the officials said just now is different from those clay and wood-sculpting? Thank you for your teachings on Futai!"

Chen Qiyu said intimately: You are just a gift. What I am afraid of is that I will lose points in front of the emperor and leave an impression of incompetence and mediocrity. How can I return to the court to the court in the future?

Chen Qiyu smiled and said, "Shi Liang is so serious, but the teachings are not worthy of being taught. It's just a sentiment. The most urgent task is how to deal with unpredictable disasters, otherwise Fengyang might be the place where you and me can bury your bones!"

Chen Liangmo admitted frankly: "The officials knew nothing about military affairs. They were famous for their great talents in the fight against the thieves a few years ago. The officials admired them very much. But they had a strategy, so they could follow them!"

Chen Qiyu thought to himself: I don’t plan to discuss with you, you are just a provocative censor. When it comes to military and political affairs, I will leave you three streets. Today I coax and deceive you, just to be obedient. After two years in the imperial prison, Chen Qiyu, who was originally showing his strength, became smoother. He didn’t want to enter that dark place again and suffer the harshness of the prison guards.

Thinking of this, Chen Qiyu said: "Since you want to use the troops of the garrison to defend the enemy, the Fengyang garrison must be observed. The Zhongdu left guard office includes Fengyang Right Guard, Zhongwei, Huangling Guard, Fengyang Guard, and seven garrisons and thousand households, including the Central Guard, Changhuai Guard, and Huaiyuan Guard Hongtang Qianhu Station. According to the ancestral system, these six garrisons plus one thousand households will be added, and the soldiers and horses will be accounted for more than 30,000 people. Haha, in fact, Shiliang, you should also know how corrupt the mainland garrisons are! This official estimates that it would be good if the soldiers had 30% of the original organization!"

Chen Liangmo said: "Although the lower officials have always served in the capital, they have heard of the corruption of the garrison systems in various places and the cowardice and incompetence of the generals and soldiers. According to the lower officials, if they want strong soldiers under the Futai, they have to use iron fist to suppress them. In troubled times, they need to use heavy punishments. Only by strongly suppressing, eliminating the bad horses in the army, and supplementing them with gentle means can the soldiers be enhanced in fighting spirit and morale, and not dispersing when the bandits are in a hurry."

Chen Qiyu clapped his hands suddenly and said, "Well! Shi Liang's intention was to coincide with my official! Let's do this, I secretly visited each garrison, and chose a garrison general who had a shallow background but was deeply evil. Most of the soldiers were dissatisfied with his bad deeds. After exploring his bad deeds, he would publish his crimes at a date and then behead him! The charge was to embezzle military pay, enslave soldiers, and almost mutiny! The aftermath of this garrison, I would first report to my emperor, and then deal with it after my emperor's instructions!"

Of course, Chen Liangmo knew what the aftermath refers to, that is, his property. If the emperor agreed to be a servant of Fengyang Fuya, he could take out part of the money and pay it to the soldiers to show the court's rewards to win people's hearts. There is another advantage in this: the soldiers of other guards who were in similar situations would have serious dissatisfaction with their own officials.

We are not worried about the lack of widows but the unevenness. We are all the same. The court's salary has been owed all year round. The officials and soldiers are like slaves, who are poor and cannot get enough to get married. Suddenly, the local tyrants are fighting over the land and sharing the land. The money is getting, and the wife is coming soon. Why do we continue to be exploited and continue to eat braised vegetables?

At this time, if someone encourages it, it may cause a lot of sāo     luàn. Then the governor's yamen can legitimately rectify the garrison. If the means are effective, the military power of the entire Fengyang garrison will be completely controlled by the governor.

Chen Liangmo smiled and said, "You are a good method! If the progress goes smoothly, not only will you have troops to defend the enemy, but you will also greatly shock the local tyrants and evil gentry. You will lay a good foundation for you to manage Fengyang in the future. I admire you! But..."

Chen Qiyu smiled and said, "Is Shi Liang afraid of stirring up a mutiny and causing trouble?"

"That's exactly what it means! The officials are afraid that if they are not careful, the situation may be out of control! The consequences are unimaginable!"

Chen Qiyu said with great enthusiasm: "I am trusted by my emperor and have supervised tens of thousands of soldiers in the five provinces. Those are not comparable to those of the soldiers of the garrison. They are all soldiers on the border! Such strong soldiers are often short of food and pay, but they are afraid of the power of the court and dare not have the idea of ​​mutiny, let alone these soldiers in the garrison who are not much stronger than farmers!"

"Mr. Futai, you should act cautiously! After all, things in the world are unpredictable. If the worst happens, Fengyang and even Nanzhili will not be able to withstand it!"

"Shi Liang relaxed, and my official was always cautious in doing things. The first thing was to obtain the consent of our emperor. Secondly, I have written the Nanjing Ministry of War. On the grounds that the imperial tomb was insufficient, the imperial tomb needed to be stationed. On the grounds that the disaster in Chongzhen's eighth year happened again, I asked Nanjing to send troops to aid. It was not that my official exaggerated. If the imperial tomb was once again traitors, Yang Yipeng and Wu Zhenying's head blood had not dried up, and I wonder who would follow in the footsteps!"

Chen Liangmo laughed and said, "Great! The day when the reinforcements in Nanjing arrived is the time for someone to give him the title! Futai is such a great talent!"

Chen Qiyu made a secret decision in his heart that if he wanted to make some political achievements in Fengyang, he would have to chew a tough trick this time, so that he would completely shock the gentry and businessmen.

In a large mansion in Fengyang, the eunuch Yang Ze, the eunuch of the tomb guard, the minister of Zhu Guozheng, the commander of the Fengyang central guard Chen Hongzu, and the commander of the imperial tomb guard Chen Qizhong were drinking in the flower hall.

After the incident in which the bandits attacked Fengyang and burned the imperial tomb in the early eighth year of Chongzhen, the then governor Yang Yipeng and the inspector Wu Zhenying were all executed by the imperial edict. Yang Ze should have been among the beheadings, but he gathered a lot of money to send them to the eunuch of the godfather Sili Supervisor Wang Dehua. Then Wang Dehua came forward to persuade Wang Zhixin, Gao Qiqian and others to plead for Yang Ze in front of Chongzhen, lying that when the bandits captured Fengyang, Yang Ze was working in Nanjing, and had little to do with this matter. Chongzhen was extremely dissatisfied with foreign ministers, but trusted his family slaves very much, so he believed the lies of several people. Yang Ze finally ended up being in prison and continued to use his own punishment.

Last time, he bribed his godfather and the big kids in the palace and spent 50,000 taels of silver. Most of the family property that Yang Ze had accumulated over the years was spent, which made him extremely painful, but in order to save his life, Yang Ze could only bear the pain and cut his flesh.

In the past year after the settlement of this matter, in order to recover the lost losses, Yang Ze became more greedy in money and his methods became more unscrupulous. He reported to the palace several times that the thief burned 67 houses in Longxing Temple with the inscriptions of Emperor Taizu, 24 houses in the office, 24 houses in the high-walled army, and hundreds of barracks in the tomb guards. These buildings require 300,000 taels of silver and 2,000 civilians, and took two years to complete the renovation.

Before Zhu Zhenqing traveled, Chongzhen was an emperor who was extremely respectful of face. After receiving several reports from Yang Ze requesting funds to rebuild the imperial tomb buildings, he ignored the fact that there was a major gap in the money needed to eliminate the thieves, and still allocated 100,000 taels of silver from the treasury to deliver it to Yang Ze, so that he could repair the damaged imperial tomb buildings as soon as possible and restore the old appearance of the imperial tomb as soon as possible. He would raise the funds himself.

Chongzhen's stupid move made Yang Ze feel like a fish in water. He immediately summoned the gentry in the name of the palace to raise funds and donate. Zhang Heming, the Minister of War, who was 80 years old, gave 5,000 taels of money. His younger brother Zhang Heteng, the deputy envoy of Yunnan Censor, also donated 2,000 taels of money. Under the leadership of these two respected ministers of retirement, the others donated silver and grain one after another, regardless of whether they were voluntarily or bèi      pò, and finally raised 30,000 taels of silver and more than 5,000 stones of food. Although the difference is very big from Yang Ze's psychological goal, it is already a considerable fortune.

Then Yang Ze forced the Fengyang Prefect Li Qimei to recruit civilians to repair the destroyed buildings, and asked Chen Hongzu and Chen Qizhong to summon their soldiers to participate in the work. In order to prevent civilians and soldiers from being lazy, Yang Ze sent his godson, Xiao eunuch Hou Dingguo, as the supervisor, to monitor all the civilians and officials involved in the matter.

If Yang Ze used the emperor's money allocated and raised to use for this revision, although there was still a shortage, it was barely enough. But Yang Ze would not miss such an opportunity to make money. All the requisitioned civilians not only had to bring their own food, but also did not pay any money. The soldiers of the government and soldiers were deducted by Shangguan in their daily lives, and now they still had to work hard to do hard work. The food was sorghum rice that was difficult to swallow, and a small piece of coarse grain salt for seven days. They consumed a lot of physical strength all day, but their nutrition could not keep up. If they were slack, they would be scolded and whipped by Hou Dingguo and his minions. Over time, both soldiers and civilians, dissatisfaction gradually accumulated.

Masonry and wood are inevitable to use when building walls and houses. Although some bricks and stones of the destroyed buildings can still be used, the wood gap is huge, and it costs a lot of money to buy it at the market price. However, Yang Ze had already made up his mind to put the renovated money into his own pocket, so he was reluctant to spend money to buy it. After discussing with Chen Hongzu, Chen Qizhong, Hou Dingguo and others, Yang Ze sent someone to ask for it directly from the merchants who operated various woods in the name of levy.
Chapter completed!