Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 547 Xu Xiancheng's Method
On the day of arriving in Dengzhou, Sun Yuanhua hosted a banquet to welcome his two friends.

After the banquet, seeing that Xu Xiancheng and Li Xin looked tired, Sun Yuanhua had already prepared guest rooms for them so that they could have a good rest for a day and discuss the rest tomorrow.

Xu Xiancheng and Li Xin naturally would not refuse Sun Yuanhua's arrangement, but after Sun Yuanhua left, the two did not rest immediately, but sat in the house drinking tea with worried looks on their faces.

"Brother Chuyang is taking it for granted..." Li Xin shook his head and sighed.

Xu Xiancheng agreed with Li Xin's statement. In fact, they had already reminded Sun Yuanhua today, but Sun Yuanhua felt that their concerns were completely groundless and unnecessary.

Sun Yuanhua said something today, which is "If you throw me a wooden peach, I will repay you with a jade pendant."

In Sun Yuanhua's view, he treated the Liao people and Liao generals so sincerely, and the other party would certainly return the sincerity. This idea is not wrong, but the problem is that people are different. There are so many selfish people in the world. The result you get when you treat others with sincerity is often not what you imagined. There is a saying among the people that "a little rice is a favor, a peck of rice is a grudge", and there is even a slang saying that conscience is fed to the dog.

"I didn't expect Brother Chuyang to be so naive. It would be fine if nothing goes wrong, but if something does happen, it will be a big deal." Xu Xiancheng said worriedly.

"Yes!" Li Xin nodded in agreement. It was not because he had a prejudice against Liao generals, but it was the fact. The way to employ people should be to use both kindness and power, and even when employing people, one must be on guard against them secretly. Even if it is not revealed on the surface, one must be prepared for the backhand.

But Sun Yuanhua was fine. He wanted to give his heart to him. It was absolutely fine to be friends with such a person, and he could trust him 100%. But as an official, especially as Sun Yuanhua was now the governor of Leiden and a senior official in charge of local military and political affairs, he was probably the only one in the world who did this.

They had originally planned to meet Sun Yuanhua after arriving in Leiden, and then take a tour of Leiden before going to Shanhaiguan, but they did not expect Sun Yuanhua to give them such a "surprise". Worried about the possible consequences of Sun Yuanhua's actions, Xu Xiancheng and Li Xin discussed and decided to stay in Leiden for a few more days, especially to get to know the situation of the Liao generals and people taken in by Leiden, so that they could help solve any problems as soon as possible if they found any.

On the second day, the two men met Sun Yuanhua again and directly proposed to inspect Denglai. Sun Yuanhua would naturally not refuse this request. Although they were all good friends, Xu Xiancheng and his men came with the emperor's order, and they were considered half imperial envoys. Inspecting the place was their job, so Sun Yuanhua naturally agreed.

Sun Yuanhua not only agreed, but also asked Xu Xiancheng if he needed soldiers to protect him, after all, he didn't have many people with him. Xu Xiancheng thought about it and agreed, but he asked for Shandong soldiers to accompany him, because Shandong soldiers were familiar with the place and could be used to inspect the local area. In response, Sun Yuanhua allocated a Shandong soldier from his subordinates to Xu Xiancheng to ensure the safety of Xu Xiancheng and others' inspection.

This Shandong army was the army of Zhang Keda, the general. There were not many soldiers, led by a centurion, and there were only about 80 people. Together with Xu Xiancheng's original troops, there were about 100 people in total. After that, Xu Xiancheng and Li Xin discussed and divided them into two groups, Xu Xiancheng stayed in Dengzhou, and Li Xin went to Laizhou. The two of them acted separately and inspected the local areas.

In the blink of an eye, a few days passed. When Li Xin returned from Laizhou, Xu Xiancheng also finished his inspection in Dengzhou.

When the two met, they saw worry in each other's expressions. They sent their entourage away, closed the door and talked in detail. They also exchanged their respective inspection situations and opinions. The results were not optimistic.

"The situation was very bad on my way to Laizhou, because a large number of Liao people have poured in recently, and Leiden is unable to better accommodate them. The Liao people who arrived in Leiden had many conflicts with the local people for survival. The local people in Leiden were full of complaints about the Liao people. Even the sergeants in the Shandong army were extremely dissatisfied with Chuyang's heavy use of Liao people." Li Xin said.

Li Xin told Xu Xiancheng that tens of thousands of Liao people pouring into Leiden had put great pressure on the local area. Although Sun Yuanhua had spent some effort to resettle the Liao people and even allocated food for relief, the problem was that these Liao people who had lost their homes had nothing and could not even get enough food. The food was just a drop in the bucket and could not feed them at all.

In order to survive, these Liao people naturally did many things that disgusted or even disgusted the local people, such as occupying the land of local people, stealing the food and property of local people, and even the fierce Liao people banded together to directly rob the local people's property.

Although they did this for the sake of survival, it actually affected the normal life of the locals and brought losses to the local area. For this reason, in order to protect themselves, the locals had conflicts with the Liao people from time to time. In the past month alone, there were nearly 100 deaths and injuries caused by conflicts and other reasons. These are the ones that have been investigated. If the number of uninvestigated ones is included, the number will be even higher.

Because of these reasons, the contradictions between the local people and the Liao people became more and more serious. In their eyes, these Liao people were a group of bandits, a group of bandits who invaded their homes uninvited. Although the government continued to restrain and mediate, the effect was not good, and these contradictions became more and more serious over time, and there were signs of irreconcilability. As for the Shandong army, at the request of Xu Xiancheng, Sun Yuanhua sent a Shandong army to protect them, so Li Xin got acquainted with the Shandong soldiers accompanying him on the way to the inspection, and also got a lot of very pessimistic information from them.

Soon after Sun Yuanhua took office, he not only took in a large number of Liao people, but also took in many Liao generals and placed them in important positions, which made the Shandong army even more dissatisfied.

In the eyes of the Shandong Army, Leiden was the territory of the Shandong Army, and the Liao generals and the Liao soldiers they brought were all foreign troops. How could they not use their own people but use foreigners? Now, the foreign generals have become the hot cakes, and their own army has been thrown aside. What's more terrible is that the influx of Liao generals and Liao people has not only affected the local area, but also the Shandong Army. The Shandong Army's military pay and military rations were originally insufficient and had never been fully distributed. But now the number of Liao troops has exceeded that of Shandong Army, squeezing out the Liao troops from the already insufficient supplies, resulting in the Shandong Army itself not being able to eat enough.

This situation made the Shandong army extremely dissatisfied with Sun Yuanhua. According to the Shandong soldiers who accompanied Li Xin on the inspection, the Ming Dynasty had never had an official like Sun Yuanhua, who used Shandong's materials and money to support outsiders, causing complaints from the Shandong army and civilians. Instead, he sold them out to the Liao generals and people. How could this be possible?
"What Brother Chuyang did is fraught with hidden dangers. There are signs that the conflict is intensifying. If the resentment of the Shandong military and civilians is not quelled quickly, something big will inevitably happen." Li Xin concluded. In his opinion, Sun Yuanhua is already sitting on the mouth of a volcano. Once the volcano erupts, it will be a huge event.

Li Xin's views are consistent with Xu Xiancheng's. He never expected that Sun Yuanhua was so politically naive and would make such a decision.

After all, among the three, Sun Yuanhua is the oldest, and he has led troops before. When Sun Chengzong was in power, Sun Yuanhua was Yuan Chonghuan's deputy. During the Battle of Ningyuan, Sun Yuanhua personally fired cannons on the city wall to bombard the Jiannu.

Before taking over as the governor of Denglai, Sun Yuanhua was the military governor of Liaodong, a position that also led troops, and he had rich experience in fighting the Jiannu. But why did he make such an unwise decision after arriving in Laiden? Didn't he think about the consequences of doing so? And didn't he consider the overall changes?
It is too late to say these things now. Sun Yuanhua has done everything he should do, and the Liao generals and the Liao people have all accepted it. It is hard to reverse what has been done. The fait accompli cannot be changed. Facing the current situation, we can only find ways to alleviate it and deal with subsequent problems as soon as possible.

After Xu Xiancheng and Li Xin discussed it, they felt that they could not let Sun Yuanhua continue like this, nor could they watch Sun Yuanhua fall into the pit and be unable to climb out.

But they all knew Sun Yuanhua's temper. Although Sun Yuanhua looked like a good man on weekdays, he was very difficult to deal with once he got stubborn. Especially when it came to his own decisions, Sun Yuanhua had a blind confidence. If they told Sun Yuanhua directly and asked him to take a series of measures, I'm afraid Sun Yuanhua would not listen to anyone when he got angry and would insist on going down the same path.

As friends, they knew Sun Yuanhua too well. So Xu Xiancheng considered and decided to write a memorial to Emperor Chongzhen, suggesting that the court should disperse the Liao people in Leiden and relocate them around the capital.

Because of the previous Ji Si Rebellion, the capital area was a scorched earth. Huang Taiji and the Mongols who followed him looted everywhere in the capital area, not only killing many civilians, but also abducting hundreds of thousands of people.

At present, only one in ten villages in the capital area remains, and the original people are no longer there. It would be better to settle these Liao people, redistribute the land, and let them cultivate it. This would at least give them a feasible way out, which is better than staying in Leiden and disturbing the people.

As for the Liao generals and Liao army, it is not that they cannot be used, but that they should not be used in this way. Xu Xiancheng knew the situation of the Liao army very well, and he understood the control of the Liaodong generals over the army. At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, it was fine. As time went by, the Ming army inevitably declined, especially the local garrisons. Now many garrisons have become military institutions in name only, but in fact they are local rich people. The garrison generals are landlords, and the garrison soldiers are tenants and servants. They have long lost their combat effectiveness.

As for the border troops, the situation was not much better. Because of the situation of empty salaries and the fact that the civil officials were more important than the military officials in the Ming Dynasty, the border troops had a serious problem of supporting family servants. In addition, the foreign wars had been going on for many years, and the situation of military leaders in the army continued to emerge. The situation of the Guanning Army, also known as the Liao Army, was particularly serious.

Mao Wenlong before, Zu Dashou later, and Wu Xiang and his son now, all of these people have similar situations, otherwise Zu Dashou would not have had the confidence to lead the Guanning Army to retreat despite the obstruction of Emperor Chongzhen during the period of defending the king. Now even if Zu Dashou lost Dalinghe, it should be no problem to chop off his head directly for his crime, but Emperor Chongzhen only took away Zu Dashou's hereditary position and demoted him to remain in office, which was not a big deal.

The reason for this is that Zu Dashou and others are representative figures of the Liaodong generals. Once Emperor Chongzhen severely punishes Zu Dashou, it will inevitably arouse resentment among the Liaodong generals towards the court, and even cause more serious consequences.

At present, such situations are common in the border troops of the Ming Dynasty. There are also many cases where military generals treat soldiers as their private property. The military leaders are showing signs of developing into warlords. In order to be cautious, Emperor Chongzhen could kill Yuan Chonghuan but did not dare to kill Zu Dashou. This is the reason.

(End of this chapter)