Without money, what is the point of being a traitor?

Chapter 452 0451 Foundation
Even though Chen Xinjian already had enough confidence in Pei Qianhu, he was still shocked when he heard this decision.

For Chen Xinjian, who grew up in Beijing, he had heard of the notoriety of the Zhang brothers since he was a child.

You have to know that the evil deeds of the Zhang brothers are not just because they are arrogant and willful, but also because there are a large number of villains and accomplices who rely on them and cause trouble everywhere.

The two marquises, Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling, might only be targeting the stronger and more powerful families, but the villains and gangsters attached to the Zhang brothers destroyed ordinary families.

A few years ago, when Emperor Hongzhi was in power, people would impeach the Zhang brothers from time to time, but after Emperor Hongzhi passed away, almost no one impeached the Zhang brothers anymore.

This is not because the moral quality of the Zhang brothers has improved or there has been any change, but because Empress Zhang became Empress Dowager Zhang, and no one in the world can punish these two evil people.

When Emperor Hongzhi was alive, Zhang Heling acted arbitrarily and recklessly, but people all over the world still had hope that they would be brought to justice.

The current Emperor Zhengde was trapped by filial piety and could do nothing about his two uncles.

As a result, Captain Pei now threatened to deal with the Zhang family himself.

Chen Xinjian couldn't help but remind Pei Yuan, "Captain, as long as the Queen Mother is still here, we can't do anything to the Zhang family."

"No matter how flawlessly we do it, if we anger the Queen Mother, she won't even need any evidence to convict us."

"With the Queen Mother standing in the way, who can do anything to the Zhang brothers?"

After hearing this, Pei Yuan threw the last peanut into his mouth, still with an indifferent expression on his face.

After a while, he said to Chen Xinjian, "You will know later."

Chen Xinjian didn't say anything after hearing this, but the worry on his face didn't diminish much.

Pei Yuan's mood, however, was very calm. After the planning over the past few days, he had already come up with a comprehensive plan to destroy the Zhang brothers.

What about Zhang Heling?

So what if she is the current empress dowager?
The real battle is in people’s hearts!
Pei Yuan is already prepared for a fierce attack, but he wonders if they are ready to fight back?

Pei Yuan waited for a while before Tan Tai Fangtu hurried over.

Pei Yuan did not exchange pleasantries with him and directly asked Tan Tai Fangtu about the situation regarding the replenishment of the Jinyiwei of Qianhu Suo.

Tan Tai Fang Tu was quite meticulous in his work. He said to Pei Yuan, "Reporting to the Qian Hu, the Qian Hu Offices in the capital have roughly made up for the vacancies left by the transferees. There are now more than 400 Jin Yi Wei in the capital, and more than 300 remaining soldiers who were screened out."

"I was afraid that the Qianhu would still need more manpower, so I took the initiative to disperse the remaining soldiers to various temples to serve as temporary helpers. When the Qianhu Office is replenished, it will be easier to recruit them."

Pei Yuan was cheered up after hearing this and couldn't help but praise, "Well done, are the origins of these people clean?"

Tantai Fangtu replied, "Most of them are from the military households under the Qianhu Suo, and a small number are relatives of military households with some connection to them."

"Ever since Emperor Taizong moved the capital to Beijing, Nanjing has not been taken seriously, and most of the food and salaries are paid in cash."

"The Qianhu Office could not support so many people, so they had to let many military households fend for themselves. Then they used the money squeezed out from the idle quota to subsidize the rest of the soldiers."

"Over the years, there are quite a few military households in our Qianhu Office who have been in hiding and have never served in the army."

Pei Yuan frowned and asked Tan Tai Fang Tu, "Now that these people have been called back, they won't have any complaints, right?"

Tan Tai Fang Tu smiled and said, "Why complain? The food and salary provided by the court were small, and it was indeed difficult to support the family. There are also many people watching the ways that Qian Hu can make money."

"Instead of being poor and miserable, it's better to let some people go and let them make a living on their own. Otherwise, even if they stay, they might just be dogs for the rich and powerful. What good prospects are there in that?"

Pei Yuan didn't say anything after hearing this.

There were more than 100,000 troops from Beijing who were given food by the imperial court and were seconded to various government offices, not to mention the Jinyiwei who were far away in Nanjing and could hardly be used.

Seeing that Pei Yuan had no more questions, Tan Tai Fang Tu continued, "Now let's..."

Tan Tai Fang Tu paused and quoted Pei Yuan's common phrase, "Now that our Northern Bureau is getting better, and we have enough food and wages, we naturally cannot forget our old brothers. So many hidden military households have sent people to fill the vacancies. Some families have many children and it is difficult to find food, so some have sent two or three people here."

"It's not easy to make a living outside. We haven't forgotten them now that our lives are better. They are grateful to us."

Pei Yuan was very satisfied after hearing this. He asked Tan Tai Fang Tu, "If we want to continue to expand, how much potential can be tapped from the hidden military households in the Qianhu Division?"

Tan Tai Fang Tu had never made an estimate, so he could only roughly say, "If we can afford the money and food, it will be no problem to recruit a thousand or so people. If we can't afford the money and food, I'm afraid we won't be able to recruit anyone."

Pei Yuan pondered for a while.

Zhu Houzhao is now about to conduct large-scale military training in the capital. It is definitely not a wise move to expand the manpower in the capital at this time.

One reason is that it is easy to attract attention from all levels.

Second, the Jinyiwei's combat effectiveness is good for small-scale conflicts, but when the number of people increases, they need additional training for coordinated combat. From weapons and equipment to combat awareness, all are new content.

The confrontation in the capital has now entered a completely new version. Pei Yuan's Jinyiwei, who are holding embroidered spring swords and wearing cotton armor, can't even make a small wave in front of the spears and horses led by Zhu Houzhao's adopted sons.

Pei Yuan’s main business direction in the future will still be Shandong, so it would be better to transfer personnel to Shandong.

Zhang Song's oil press workshop in Huai'an has been built in full swing, and the beans stored in various government warehouses in Henan have also been secretly escorted to Huai'an.

In another month or two, the soybeans in Shandong will also be mature.

By that time, the reserves of various soybean-related industries in the south should have reached bottom, and they should be eagerly waiting for the beans to be harvested in the north.

However, the price of beans in Henan was driven up last time by Pei Yuan who took advantage of the backlog of beans on the front line.

This year, many counties and cities in Henan have given up growing beans.

Some powerful people in Shandong who owned large amounts of land were also troubled by Pei Yuan's plan to "change beans to cotton."

The planting in these two major soybean producing areas has been affected. Only Pei Yuan still controls a considerable number of soybean fields. Even if there are sporadic soybean farmers planting, the scale is not enough to affect Pei Yuan's monopoly.

The soybean fields controlled by Pei Yuan basically came from the lists compiled by Wang Chang in the early days.

After the Luo Sect expanded, it quickly took control of these soybean producing areas.

Pei Yuan has a more rational view on this matter, which is to try to monopolize the channels in the early stage, and then in the soybean industry chain, not to pursue profits, but to focus on supporting people.

First, they purchased soybeans at a good price in small quantities, so that the lowest-level Luo sect members could benefit. Then, relying on the Luo sect's surplus manpower, they took on the task of transportation. After the purchased soybeans were concentrated, they were loaded onto ships and shipped south through the canal to the oil press workshops in Huai'an. The oil press workshops led by Kong Xu were responsible for adding value and reaping rich profits in the form of oil, soybean meal or sauce.

These profits will be returned to Luo Sect after being handled by Pei Yuan.

The "Beiyou Group" led by Luo Jiao has abundant human resources and soybean raw materials, but no money and resources.

The "Nanyou Group" led by Kong Xu can cash in profits, but it is very weak and easy to control.

Pei Yuan can easily control the Luo Sect by using the small to govern the big, and use interests to achieve control over the Luo Sect.

Once the Luo Sect grows stronger and wants to form its own group consciousness, Pei Yuan will be able to easily suppress it when Chen Toutie loses control of the situation and prevent him from acting alone.

There is not much time left before the soybeans mature, and Pei Yuan doesn't know how the preparations are going.

Pei Yuan said to Tantai Fangtu, "The situation is different now. It is not wise to keep a large number of people in the capital. It just so happens that the court asked me to establish five more 100-household offices in Shandong. I will continue to draw people from the capital to expand the five 100-household offices."

It was the first time that Tantai Fangtu heard Pei Yuan talk about establishing five hundred-household offices in the five prefectures of Shandong, and she was shocked.

He asked quickly, "Has the court issued an order? Does Captain Han know about this?"

Pei Yuan replied, "This was approved by the Emperor. It is a special 100-household unit set up to hunt down the Luojiao. I haven't had time to inform Captain Han yet."

Tan Tai Fang Tu thought that as a centurion, he was at least the second tier below Han and Pei. Now, would he need five more centurions? That didn't sound good!
He couldn't help but ask, "Then how should these five 100-household offices be counted in our 1,000-household office?"

Pei Yuan knew Tan Tai Fangtu's concerns, and he didn't want to count these five Hundred Households into the Suppressing Evil Thousand Households.

In Pei Yuan's plan, after these five centurions have been trained and honed, they will be able to become an important force to do the dirty work in Pei Yuan's hands.

After all, Pei Yuan did not have complete control over the Evil Suppression Thousand Households Office, so he had to be on guard against some things.

Pei Yuan explained to Tan Tai Fang Tu, "These five are the acting centurions. Once the Luojiao incident is resolved, they will be immediately withdrawn and merged. So for these five acting centurions, I plan to appoint five trial centurions from my personal soldiers. Let them follow, follow..."

Pei Yuan listened for a long time but still couldn't think of any reliable people to use.

It has only been a little over a year since he rose from the market, and his foundation is still too shallow.

Pei Yuan thought for a while and felt that the soldiers of Xuzhou Guard were the most loyal and had the strongest confidence in him.

Unfortunately, these elite troops have been dispersed by Pei Yuan and used in various places.

Even if Pei Yuan could squeeze out another hundred people, it would still not be enough to set up the framework of five hundred households.

Tan Tai Fang Tu does have 700 men available, but these people have deep ties with the Qian Hu Suo and are not the force Pei Yuan wants, which only obeys his orders.

It would be better if we had more Xuzhou soldiers.

As soon as Pei Yuan had this thought, an idea came to his mind.

Since these guest troops are so useful, it would be better to simply take control of Xuzhou Wei in one's own hands and use it as a source of troops.

The force that Pei Yuan's men trust the most is the 600 soldiers from Xuzhou who had fought through life and death with them.

If we recruit soldiers from Xuzhou Guard and then have these elite Xuzhou soldiers lead them, they should be able to assimilate and integrate quickly.

Their loyalty to Pei Yuan will be much higher than those hidden military households in the Zhenxie Thousand Households Office.

Moreover, after these Xuzhou soldiers joined the Jinyiwei, they were considered guest troops. With no one to rely on, they had every motivation to stick together around him.

It seems that it is time to have a good communication with the fool Guo, no, brother Guo from Xuzhou Wei.

If he could control the Xuzhou Guards, which have a full complement of soldiers, can build ships, and have strong individual physical fitness, and make the Xuzhou Guards willing to provide blood transfusions for Pei Yuan, then Pei Yuan's small Northern Bureau would have a real foundation.

As for drawing blood from Xuzhou Zuowei, Pei Yuan had no such idea for the time being.

After all, that was his own Xuzhou Zuowei.

Pei Yuan had these plans, so he stopped talking to Tan Tai Fang Tu and said, "Let me think about the matter of the five Hundred Households Offices. I will send some of my personal soldiers over there when the time comes."

"In this case, I will be short of manpower. I plan to take the 300 substitutes to Shandong. What do you think?"

Tan Tai Fang Tu didn't care. This expansion was Pei Yuan's request, so she naturally let him do it.

Tan Tai Fang Tu also took the initiative to say, "Now there are more and more temples in the capital that pay money to Qian Hu, so there is no need to keep too many people. Otherwise, Qian Hu can take the 400 Jinyiwei to Shandong, and I will train the remaining 300 soldiers. I should be able to calm the situation here."

Tan Tai Fang Tu and Si Kong Sui followed Pei Yuan to Beijing. Although it was in the name of breaking new ground, it actually had some meaning of exile. He had already made preparations to retire in Beijing and was not entangled with fame, wealth and power.

Pei Yuan didn't hesitate and said directly, "Okay."

Of the 600 elite soldiers from Xuzhou that were gathered, Cheng Leixiang and Ding Hong each took 100 of them to quickly take control of the garrisons they were in. Chen Toutie took 200 people with him to help him control the Luo Sect.

Pei Yuan also kept 200 soldiers with him.

Pei Yuan did not plan to keep these 200 personal soldiers, and directly divided them into five centurions' offices.

In this way, each centurion will have forty elite soldiers from Xuzhou, and later on they will be matched with one hundred additional soldiers from Xuzhou. By assimilating one hundred with forty, the decrease in cohesion will not be too obvious.

When these five hundred households are formed, Pei Yuan will get the right opportunity and can rely on the blood replenishment of Xuzhou Guard to continue fission.

Pei Yuan will have several tough battles to fight in Shandong next. First, he has to severely damage the Lu Wang faction, and then eliminate the De Wang faction. Obviously, this will not work without enough manpower.

Sikong Sui and the centurion unit under his command were to guard Pei Yuan's old nest in Yanggu, Shandong.

With the four hundred people provided by Tan Tai Fang Tu, many of the visible tasks can be done by someone.

After seeing off Tan Tai Fang Tu, Pei Yuan began to think about it.

Judging from the last time they met, Commander Guo of Xuzhou Wei is still very eager to make progress.

But now that the rebellion in Bazhou has been quelled, and Zhu Houzhao attaches great importance to military power, it may be difficult to directly give him a good position like he did when he was the commander of the Left Guard of Xuzhou.

Moreover, Xuzhou Wei is a place with a lot of money, so it seems not so easy to conquer it.

(End of this chapter)