Chapter 1574 Kublai Khan's Friendship and the Court's Defense
"Everyone, please be patient for a while!"

Li Zengbo didn't want to bear the responsibility of providing food and fodder, but he was more afraid that Su Mingzhe would forcibly recruit 100,000 young and strong people locally!
"As for next year... I will write a memorial to the court later, asking it to allocate money and grain for disaster relief in a timely manner!"

Zhou Dai and others saw that Li Zengbo, the leader of Huaidong Road, had a plan, so they didn't say anything.

End of October.

The prefectures and cities in Huaidong Road recruited 100,000 refugees for Su Mingzhe.

Recruiting refugees as soldiers was a common practice of the Song court.

For local authorities, refugees are a source of instability.

Now that they were taken away by Su Mingzhe, the local officials were overwhelmed with joy.

Su Mingzhe and his three fellow apprentices, led 100,000 new recruits and advanced northward while conducting training.

A month passed in the blink of an eye.

As time entered the twelfth month, a heavy snow blocked the army's advance.

The 100,000-strong army had to rest in Xuzhou.

Xuzhou belonged to Jingdongxi Road.

Among the many official positions given to Su Mingzhe by the imperial court, one was "Governor of Xuzhou".

The Tartars in Xuzhou had already fled when they heard that the "great devil" Su Mingzhe was leading an army of 100,000 to the north.

Even a big city like Xuzhou was left unguarded, and the counties in various places did not even wait for Su Mingzhe to attack, but simply opened their gates and surrendered.

After Su Mingzhe captured the city near Xuzhou, he was not in a hurry to advance because the roads were blocked by heavy snow. Instead, he first carried out some rectification and transformation of the local area.

First, abolish all kinds of exorbitant taxes and implement the simplest law of "killing people and killing people, wounding people and stealing people!"

Secondly, the unowned land will be directly distributed to the local people.

For land with an owner, taxes are exempted for three years, and after three years, taxes are reduced by half.

Third, local people who had helped the Tartars were subjected to labor reform.

Local people who had resisted the Tartars were given various preferential treatments and substantial material rewards.

Fourth, optimize the integration of all ethnic groups.

Whether it was the Khitan, the Jurchen, the Tangut, or the Mongols, under Su Mingzhe's rule, they were all treated equally without discrimination or targeting.

As the measures were implemented one after another, local people quickly returned home.

After the Spring Festival, it was the fourth year of Chunyou.

Seeing that the local people's hearts had stabilized, Su Mingzhe led the army to continue northward.

The Tatars in Shanzhou, Yingtianfu, Xingrenfu and other prefectures in the east and west of Beijing fled one after another, and the rest surrendered.

Early May.

Jingdongxi Road has completely fallen into Su Mingzhe's hands.

In early June, the army arrived in Qizhou.

Qizhou belongs to Jingdong East Road.

The Tatars here still fled at the sight of the enemy.

Wu Xiuwen looked at the majestic Jinan City with its high walls and deep moats, and for a moment he was filled with emotion, and said in a proud tone:

"Brother, these Tartars are really afraid of us. They didn't even dare to fight us and ran away in a flash!"

"Be careful of fraud!"

Yang Guo was suspicious by nature. Seeing that the journey was smooth, he had already begun to suspect that the Tartars were plotting something.

Su Mingzhe, however, held the letter sent by the Qizhou magistrate in his hand and remained silent for a long time.

This letter was sent by Kublai Khan.

Last year, he sent a letter to Kublai Khan asking for an alliance, but Kublai Khan did not agree.

Now Kublai Khan wrote a letter to Su Mingzhe in return, asking for an alliance.

In the letter, Kublai Khan wrote that as long as Su Mingzhe agreed to form an alliance with him, not to invade each other, and even to help each other, he was willing to support Su Mingzhe in "wearing the yellow robe."

To show his sincerity, Kublai Khan had withdrawn all the Tatar troops from the two routes in Jingdong.

"Kublai Khan is indeed a man who founded the Yuan Dynasty. He actually let it go so easily when I destroyed his 300,000-man army!"

"However, you still have to be careful to prevent your home from being robbed!"

Then, several months passed.

Su Mingzhe asked Yang Guo to stay in Qizhou, and he led the army to quickly recapture the east road of Jingdong. The time came to the fifth year of Chunyou.

Su Mingzhe had already completely mastered the two routes of Jingdong, so he wrote a memorial to Lin'an.

The memorial talked about three things in total.

The first thing is to cry bitterly.

After more than a hundred years of war, the two routes of Jingdong, which originally had more than one million households and a population of more than six million, are now reduced to only 300,000 households and a population of more than one million.

Su Mingzhe wrote directly that there were only tens of thousands of households left in the two roads, less than 500,000 people.

This is data halving.

Then he asked the court to move the people who had migrated from the north to the south back to fill the two routes.

The second thing is to request the merger of JD’s two routes.

The reason is very simple. There are nearly a hundred counties and major towns in the two routes, but the population is only more than 400,000. On average, there are less than 5,000 people in each county or major town.

If the merger is not carried out, there will be too many officials.

The third thing is to request the court to allocate money and grain.

The reason is the same as above. The population of the two routes is too small, only more than 400,000 people, most of whom are old, weak, sick and disabled, and are simply unable to support the expenses of an army of 100,000.

When Su Mingzhe's memorial was delivered to Lin'an, heated discussions began in the court.

First of all, Su Mingzhe easily recovered the two routes of Jingdong, which was a mixed blessing for the Song Ting.

The good news is that Su Mingzhe recovered the two routes without bloodshed, and the territorial boundary between the Southern Song Dynasty and the Tatars was pushed northward by more than a thousand miles, greatly improving the security of Lin'an.

What is worrying is that Su Mingzhe's prestige is too high. Even the Tartars dare not confront Su Mingzhe, and the people's admiration for Su Mingzhe has reached its peak.

As an emperor, Zhao Yun was really afraid that Su Mingzhe would come and put on the yellow robe, and then he could only hide in the toilet and cry.

Faced with such a thorny issue, there would naturally be heated discussions in the court.

As Su Mingzhe's backer, Shi Songzhi must give Su Mingzhe strong support.

However, Yang Gu and his men strongly opposed it.

After more than a month of pulling.

April.

The imperial edict was delivered to Qizhou.

In the imperial edict, Su Mingzhe was first praised for his achievements in recovering the two routes of Jingdong, and then his title was promoted from Duke of Jining to Prince of Jining.

This reward is neither too big nor too small, just right.

Secondly, selective approval was given to the three things Su Mingzhe requested.

Among them is the one about migrating people.

Although the imperial court agreed to relocate the people, it also stated that such an undertaking would be costly and laborious and would definitely take a long time.

Therefore, let Su Mingzhe keep 50,000 of the 100,000 troops first, and disperse the remaining 50,000 to various states and fill in various places.

In other words, Su Mingzhe was asked to lay off half of his troops at once.

This means that the imperial court has begun to be on guard against Su Mingzhe.

The second thing is that the two roads can be merged into Jingdong Road.

Su Mingzhe was appointed as the Pacifier of Jingdong Road.

In addition, the appointment of officials in the Xinzhou Prefecture also required Su Mingzhe to submit another memorial, which would be approved by the court.

This was the court's way of appeasing Su Mingzhe.

In this way, all the new officials of Jingdong Road were promoted by Su Mingzhe, which gave Su Mingzhe a good opportunity to expand his power.

The third thing is that money and grain will be allocated, but it will only be allocated according to the number of 50,000 people.

The imperial court was only willing to allocate 50,000 military rations in order to continue to force Su Mingzhe to cut down his troops.

In addition, the court also reprimanded Su Mingzhe for meeting with the emperor and collecting taxes without the court's approval.

Of course, this rebuke is just a lot of thunder but little rain.

After the reprimand, the eunuch Dong Songchen who announced the imperial edict quietly told Su Mingzhe that he was appointed as the Recruiting Envoy of the Two Routes of Jingdong in the third year of Chunyou, and now it was the fifth year of Chunyou.

By next year, that is, before October of the sixth year of Chunyou, Su Mingzhe will need to return to Beijing to report on his work.

After hearing this, Su Mingzhe naturally agreed.

He is not Yue Wumu. Even if he is recalled to the capital, he is not afraid of being wrongly killed in Fengbo Pavilion on the grounds of "false accusation".