Zongwu: Madam, please respect yourself

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Lu Wende, the envoy of the Jinghu pacification system!

Wu Gong had some doubts when he first heard the name.

But I soon remembered who this guy was. It turned out that this guy was the former governor of Xiangyang City. Xiangyang City is one of the most important lines of defense in the north, and the generals who guarded it before were not tiger generals.

They are two brothers, Lu Wende and Lu Wenhuan.

The reason why these two brothers are stationed here is because Xiangyang City is the area closest to the Mongolian grassland, and naturally it is also the city closest to the Silk Road. Because it is close to the Silk Road, Xiangyang City can also be regarded as an important pass on a lost silk route.

It is no exaggeration to say that as long as anyone stays in this place and serves as an official, as long as he does not encounter the invasion of the Mongols, he can become rich and wealthy in two or three years at most. There is no need to smuggle anything in person, and there is no need to pay any capital. You only need to sit in the position of the prefect.

Xiangyang City serves as a great pass.

Have the right to sign customs clearance documents.

Therefore, as long as you are an official here, there will be a steady stream of businessmen who want to pass through here. After passing through a small dangerous, but extremely time-saving and labor-saving process, the Mongolian grassland can successfully embark on the Silk Road.

And if you don't go from Xiangyang City, then if you want to enter the Silk Road, you still need to go around the Song Dynasty for ten days and a half. Don't underestimate these short days.

You must know that there are countless caravans walking on the Silk Road every day. If they are delayed for a few days, the price of silk will likely drop significantly. Therefore, they enter the Mongolian grassland through Xiangyang City, and then transfer from the Mongolian grassland to the silk road. Road, to a certain extent, when the Mongols did not officially invade, Xiangyang City was the most serious place for smuggling in the entire north, and the Lu brothers, who served as prefects at the time, were the wealthiest people in the entire Northern Song Dynasty. officials.

Compared with those city lords in the south, they only collected 20% to 50% tax at most. The taxes in Xiangyang City were levied at a minimum of 50%, which resulted in a large amount of gold and silver flowing into the pockets of the Lu brothers like running water.

Of course, most of the wealth was handed over as tribute to a certain official in the imperial court. But this was still represented by the Lu brothers, and the Lu family made a lot of money.

Later, due to the invasion of the Mongols, the entire Xiangyang defense line changed.

Not only did the Lu brothers' income drop sharply, but more importantly, as time went by, the Mongols could be said to be eyeing the entire Xiangyang defense line, and the entire Xiangyang defense line was in danger. The number of businessmen coming here is getting smaller and smaller.

Especially the Lu brothers are extremely greedy. Even though the entire defense line has become so dangerous, they are still increasing the cost of entering the city.

You must know that with the invasion of the Mongols, merchants will encounter serious dangers. Originally, even if most of the profits were used to pay taxes, it would still be enough for the merchants to fight to the death. However, with the invasion of the Mongols, the possibility of encountering Mongolian plunder on the road has greatly increased. But remember, the vast majority of merchants have not made any money at all. They all spend a sum of money as entry fees in exchange for customs clearance documents.

Originally, businessmen were still able to make money. Under the temptation of high profits, they were willing to pay taxes. After all, they could make thousands of taels of silver just by taking a trip. Paying hundreds or thousands of taels of silver is nothing.

But after the Mongols invaded, there was a possibility of losing everything on every trip. Under such circumstances, they still had to pay such high taxes. The businessmen were not stupid. They would rather take a detour than come over and lose everything. .

And the Lu brothers saw that the situation was developing unfavorably for the Song Dynasty.

Not only did he no longer resist.

They were even ready to surrender. Their original plan was to use Xiangyang to resist the Mongols for a period of time, so that the Mongols could offer them a high enough price, and then they would surrender the entire Xiangyang City. Donate it, so that they can get the blessing of the Mongols and get many benefits.

At that time, with the money earned from serving as an official in Xiangyang City for so many years.

You can live comfortably.

But what they didn't expect was that what they thought was a move to increase their social status completely ruined their plan. Because they did not dedicate Xiangyang City to the Mongols in advance, they instead actively led troops to prepare to resist the Mongolian attack.

But how could these two useless men be able to resist the Mongols?

They were no match for the Mongols. It took less than twenty days to wipe out all 40,000 troops and horses in the Xiangyang defense line, leaving only the last 20,000 troops and horses, struggling to defend six The city and the extremely large Xiangyang defense line.

The previous commander-in-chief of the Mongols did not want to enter the Central Plains, otherwise the Xiangyang defense line would have been completely lost before Guo Jing and Huang Rong arrived.

And it was precisely because of these two useless men that the imperial court completely noticed that Xiangyang's defense line had become vulnerable. If it had been Qin Hui who was in power before, these two brothers might still be able to continue to be the prefects here.

But as Empress Wu came to power completely, she understood deeply that if there was a problem with the Xiangyang defense line, Duke Wu in the south would never have a chance to conquer. For this reason, she immediately deposed Qin Hui and dismissed the Lu brothers. Then she sent Guo Jing and Huang Rong to Xiangyang to command and defend, and urgently recruited tens of thousands of troops.

But after all, the Lu brothers were high officials in the imperial court before.

In addition, these two brothers have very good relationships with many important officials in the court. Although these two brothers are greedy and stupid, they are very good at winning people's hearts. In the past, the two brothers spent a lot of money to win people's hearts. Many officials in the imperial court also made huge profits through the Silk Road.

Although, these two brothers offended Queen Wu.

But there were more people in the court who were dissatisfied with the queen.

Therefore, after the queen achieved her goal, she did not kill them all. Instead, she arranged the Lu brothers in Xiangyang City. However, the official title was eliminated to the end. Now it is just a small hundred households, leading a team of soldiers. Originally, Queen Wu was going to let Guo Jing deal with these two people secretly.

But later, because of something happening, Empress Wu had no intention to take care of these two people anymore, so she allowed these two people to survive successfully, and because these two people were the highest officials in Xiangyang before, they were Xiangyang has a very high prestige.

In addition, they were pretty good to the officials in Xiangyang in the past and were not too harsh. Therefore, many officials gave them face, which gave them the right to act as they pleased in Xiangyang City.

The Lu brothers had been the local emperors in Xiangyang City for so many years, so they were naturally full of complaints about Queen Wu's decision. But now that the military power is no longer in their hands, even if they want to give Xiangyang City away, they have no good chance.

As for Guo Jing and Huang Rong, who had taken their place, they were naturally full of complaints. However, what made them completely furious was Huang Rong's discovery of their secret vault where the money was hidden.

They've been here for so many years.

Because they were very afraid that after the Mongols came in, all their banknotes would be turned into waste paper, so while accepting bribes, the two brothers continued to convert the banknotes into silver, which amounted to nearly one million taels. .

Calculating these millions of taels of silver in silver notes, it can only fit in a wooden box. If it is tied to the body, it will not be visible.

But if it were converted into silver, the quantity would have reached a very huge level. This bank note is easy to hide, but the millions of taels of silver are not so easy to hide. When the millions of taels of silver are piled together, they look like a small mountain, and the whole body is emitting a pure white light. Even if it is packed in boxes, it will take hundreds of boxes.

There is no way to hide so much money.

When the Lu brothers were originally governors, there was no need to hide.

But later, with the arrival of Guo Jing and Huang Rong, they had no choice but to hide the money. In order to deceive others, they finally hid the money under the floor tiles of the prefect's mansion. They originally thought that it would be perfect and no one would be able to find it. Discover.

But how could it be possible to hide this from Huang Rong.

Huang Rong is so smart.

Almost instantly, he understood where the money came from.

Although the imperial court also gave a lot of things, there was absolutely no way Huang Rong could give up these millions of taels of silver in vain. So they set up a game, saying that the millions of taels of silver were stolen money from the Mongolians who were going to come in to buy things, and then they confiscated it directly. Of course the Lu brothers couldn't accept it, but Huang Rong was very smart, and she didn't take it privately. Instead, the origin of this money was directly disclosed to the public. With the approval of everyone, this money was credited to Xiangyang City's account.

The Lu brothers wanted to talk to Huang Rong about this matter more than once, but each time they were afraid that Huang Rong would take advantage of the opportunity, so in the end they had no choice but to let it go, but deep down they already held a grudge.

The two people have been fishing for money in Xiangyang City for so many years. This money is their lifeblood. Especially now that their official titles are gone, the money makes them even more angry.

But they didn't dare to say it.

The two brothers cried and sighed every day, only hating themselves for not transferring all the money one day earlier. Under such circumstances, the two brothers wanted to make more money, so they bought a large amount of silk through their previous relationship and wanted to give it a try.

Now that the freight channels are blocked due to the war in the south, they can't get so much silk, and the price of silk is skyrocketing. Regular silk is simply unaffordable. So they could only buy a large amount of silk through their friends' relationships.

To put it simply, official silk is the silk of the imperial court.

To a certain extent, the imperial silk was not allowed to be bought and sold among the people, but was used as silver to be traded as tributes from other countries, or used by the royal family and officials. This kind of silk has obvious marks, so it is very easy to distinguish. In order to safely transport the silk to Xiangyang and then to the Western Regions, but in order to prevent the news from leaking, no escort was hired, but some personal guards were sent to carry out the matter.

I originally thought that this matter would be done quietly and there would be no problem.

But what I didn't expect was that problems eventually occurred.

Because of Wu Guogong's relationship, the Japanese pirates' base camp was destroyed once before.

In order to obtain enough resources to recuperate, Japanese pirates sneaked into the Central Plains and acted as water thieves in the rivers, lakes and rivers. Unexpectedly, the things belonging to the Lu brothers were intercepted.

It would be fine if the other things were there, but this official silk is too obvious.

There is no way to hide it, let alone sell it.

They were originally planning to throw away the official silk, but for the Lu brothers, this was the only chance for them to stand up, so they came into contact with these Japanese pirates. When the Japanese pirates saw two senior officials from the Song Dynasty coming to see them, they suddenly had other ideas in mind. Their network in the Song Dynasty had never penetrated deeply into the court of the Song Dynasty. Even though these two high-ranking officials were in trouble now, their connections could still be used, so they were asked to be traitors before the silk was returned to them.

The two brothers did not hesitate too much. Anyway, for them, there was nothing worthy of their nostalgia in the Song Dynasty today. They just wanted to get enough money and then run away.

So, they agreed. Under such circumstances, they got the silk back, and the Japanese pirates gave them a lot of money in order to win over them.

This surprised the two brothers.

Unexpectedly, these Japanese pirates who just promised verbally actually gave them money.

So he began to sell all the information in the imperial court to the Japanese pirates in exchange for more money.

And with the help of Japanese pirates, they sold these silks to the Western Regions. Although they did not earn as much as they imagined, the money given by the Japanese pirates was enough to meet their expectations.

In this situation.

Instead of running away in a hurry, the two people lurked in Xiangyang City, snooping around for various information about the court and selling it to the Japanese pirates, while secretly accumulating money, preparing to disappear after accumulating a certain amount.

I just didn't expect that in addition to asking them to provide information, the Japanese pirates also wanted their help to help them arrange people to enter Xiangyang City.

In the past, when the two were still prefects, they would have refused. After all, Xiangyang City was their own territory, but now Huang Rong and Guo Jing not only took their places, but also took away all the money they had accumulated before. , which filled their hearts with resentment, and naturally they did not hesitate too much.

He helped the Japanese pirates enter Xiangyang City.