Strange Tales from the Northern Qi Dynasty

Chapter 306: Ten Provincial Governors

Yecheng.

The soldiers lined up, carrying large flags with the word "Liu" on them, and strode towards the city.

The flag fluttered in the wind.

The armor collided with each other, making a pleasant sound.

The city gates were open, and the defenders inside the city looked at the soldiers in the distance in confusion.

The knights rode their horses, the sound of horse hooves echoing on the road. The knights marched in rows of four, holding spears and looking straight ahead, and charged into Ye City.

The sound of horse hooves could be heard on the street.

People hid in their homes and looked out at the streets through the cracks in the doors.

They saw knights riding their horses outside. The knights' armor and flags were different from those they had seen before. They did not make any noise or strange calls, but just moved forward in silence. The soldiers quickly went to the various city gates and controlled the twelve large gates of Yecheng.

The knights came all the way to the palace. The soldiers left behind in the palace were a little frightened at this moment. Looking at these knights who were constantly approaching, they slowly retreated.

On one side of the north gate, Gao Yuanhai watched the soldiers file in and looked at Gao Jie standing beside him with a smile on his face.

The young Gao Jie had an indifferent look on his face as he watched his troops gradually break into the dynasty's capital.

Standing beside Gao Yuanhai were many ministers, all of whom were left behind to govern the country when the emperor left.

"King Qinghe."

Gao Yuanhai stepped forward and asked with a smile, "When will the general arrive?"

"So that I can present my gift to the general in person."

"The general has no time to come here and waste time. He has important matters to attend to in the north."

Gao Jie replied coldly.

Gao Yuanhai was a little confused. Going to the capital, wouldn't something like this happen?

What could be more important than advancing into Yecheng?
Looking at Gao Yuanhai's expression, Gao Jie said slowly: "The general always distinguishes the importance of things. Why does this trivial matter require the general to come in person?"

Gao Yuanhai felt the other party's arrogance and the humiliation directed at him.

But he didn't dare to refute.

A fragmented Qi State was no match for the powerful Liu Taozi.

In Gao Yuanhai's view, it was only a matter of time before Liu Taozi usurped the throne.

He smiled and nodded, "You make a lot of sense."

Gao Jie watched the army charge into Ye City and saw these nobles standing by with their heads bowed, but he did not feel the slightest excitement in his heart.

He never thought that advancing into Yecheng was a big achievement.

Da Qi had already rotted away.

Except for the Jinyang soldiers in Bingzhou, the officials everywhere were disunited, the soldiers were incompetent, and they had no resistance at all.

Gao Jie had come all this way without experiencing the feeling of fighting.

Gao Jie looked at the deputy general standing beside him. The deputy general nodded and stood beside Gao Yuanhai and the others with a smile, "Gentlemen, there may still be thieves in Yecheng. You should all return to your residence first. When we have eliminated the thieves, Censor Hu should be here. Then, we can meet him again to discuss important matters."

Gao Yuanhai didn't dare to disagree.

Only then did Gao Jie ride his horse into Yecheng.

The sky in Yecheng is still gloomy. For some reason, the sky here is always so gloomy over the years. Even if there is not much rain, there seems to be no sunshine.

Yecheng is extremely large, several times the size of an ordinary city. It has wide roads and an imperial road built for the emperor to travel alone. The buildings on both sides are mostly tall, and there is no shortage of luxurious buildings among the residential houses.

But everything is broken.

The roads are in disrepair and full of potholes, and the buildings are always covered with a layer of dust and look dirty.

The gate, which should have been magnificent, was stained with unknown blood and emitted a foul smell.

The gate to the courtyard could not be closed, leaving a gap, as if it could be opened with a push.

Gao Jie rode a tall horse and looked at the situation along the way.

The gutters on the street corners were clogged and filled with a lot of filth, even dirtier than the frontier.

Minister Tang Yong proposed a major overhaul of several major cities on the border. Complete drainage and garbage disposal equipment was built in eight important cities. The rest of the counties followed suit. Despite the harsh environment, the cities were clean.

Gao Jie walked all the way to the front of the palace.

Inside the dilapidated and dirty capital, the palace remains the same, luxurious and majestic, a city within a city, with tall walls separating the inside and the outside, and a faint fragrance wafting from inside.

Gao Jie stood at the gate of the palace.

There were no more people in the palace, and the few remaining soldiers did not dare to stop them at this moment.

"General, do you want to go in?"

An officer came forward and asked Gao Jie for his opinion.

Gao Jie looked at the palace in front of him and finally shook his head.

He turned his back to the palace and looked at the city under the dark clouds in front of him. He simply sat down. The steps were relatively clean, so he was not afraid of getting his clothes dirty.

Gao Jie was young and did not have the airs of a prince, so he became familiar with these officers.

Several officers stood beside him, watching the distance with him.

Gao Jie laughed, "I never thought that one day I would be able to lead troops to surround this place."

"But this isn't really a good place."

"Whoever comes will go crazy."

“No matter how brave, kind, or intelligent you are, once you enter this wall, you will no longer be able to see the desolation outside and will become a selfish monster.”

"Anyway, I don't want to go in here again."

Several officers looked at each other, not quite understanding what Gao Jie said. Gao Jie smiled and pointed to the distance, "Let's take care of things outside first. These officials and clerks in the city are really useless. Before General Kou and his men arrive, we should strengthen the guard and let these people stay in the office and don't go out again. Wait until our people arrive."

"only!!"

Gao Jie did not enter the palace, nor did he enter the Santai, but he temporarily requisitioned the office of the Yecheng magistrate.

The officials in the original Yecheng government office were directly detained by him temporarily.

The city was full of frontier soldiers who were patrolling everywhere. Gao Jie summoned the officers several times and asked them to pay attention to military discipline and absolutely not to tarnish the general's reputation in Yecheng.

There was still deathly silence in Yecheng.

It was dark.

A farmer uneasily pushed open the door and looked outside secretly.

Several children hid behind the man and dared not show their faces.

The man looked at the street until he heard footsteps in the distance, then he quickly closed the door.

The footsteps gradually faded away, and the man came into the yard again.

Suddenly, a head popped out from the partition wall.

"Old Xie, what happened in the city?"

The neighbor man was equally confused, "Who's here?"

"I do not know."

"It's been three days, and no officials have come to my house for three days. Yesterday, I opened the door to check and ran into a few soldiers. They ignored me and just walked past me."

"Then do you want to go out and take a look?"

"Wait one more day. If there is still no unusual movement, then go out and take a look."

"to make!"

The people of Yecheng have always suffered from many disasters and troubles, but since the martial law began that day, several days have passed and no officials have come to collect taxes, no soldiers have sneaked in to plunder, and there have not even been any orders that torment people.

This is indeed a bit abnormal.

They waited like this until the next day, when the official's voice was finally heard outside.

An official struck a gong and loudly read out the order, "The general has ordered that no one, whether an official or a soldier, may infringe upon the people! Those who violate the order will be executed!!"

There was just this one order, no extra chatter.

The man stuck his head out to see that those officials were not ordinary county officials, they were military officials, and each of them was unfamiliar to him.

After a few days of peace, people began to go out.

Some military officers could still be seen patrolling the streets, reading out orders over and over again.

Indeed, there were some differences. Military officers had been stationed at the city gate. Their attitudes were not gentle, but they no longer asked for money, nor did they make things difficult for people entering or leaving. They just checked more strictly, and if you couldn't prove your identity, there was no way you could leave the city.

The farmers were the first to leave the city, and they still had crops.

The next group of traders came along and mustered up the courage to reopen the market, hoping to take advantage of the opportunity to make more money.

Yecheng recovered little by little and returned to normal.

It was at this time that Kou Liu led his army to Yecheng. Riding on his warhorse, Kou Liu looked at Yecheng in the distance, with mixed feelings in his heart.

When he was living a hard life in Cheng'an, he never thought that such a day would come.

Some order has been restored inside and outside the city, and just like before, everyone is struggling to survive.

The farmer was still busy working on the barren land. He was trembling with fear when he saw the soldiers passing by him, but his hunger and the children at home overcame the terror. He pretended that he had not seen anything, gave up the idea of ​​escaping, and continued to farm hard.

A woodcutter in the distance was carrying a heavy load of firewood and was so frightened when he saw the oncoming army that he prostrated himself to the side.

It was not until these people gradually disappeared in the distance that the woodcutter stood up tremblingly, muttering the names of various gods and Buddhas, thanking himself for the day's good fortune, and picked up the heavy firewood, not daring to walk too fast.

The two armies finally joined forces.

Gao Jie smiled and went forward to greet them, and they all returned to the Yecheng magistrate's office.

Without much refusal, Hu Changcan took the upper seat without hesitation, with Gao Jie and Kou Liu sitting on his two sides respectively.

"All the governors, prefects, and unqualified officials in the north have been sent to Pingcheng. The only ones left are the officials in Qingdu."

"Liu, you will start catching people next and send them to Pingcheng together."

Hu Changcan looked at Kou Liu, who stood up hastily, received the order, and then asked, "Mr. Hu, how should we deal with the many important officials in the court?"

"Where is the imperial court here?"

"Sent to the Northern Dao Daxingtai for trial."

"only."

Kou Liu walked out quickly. Kou Liu was not responsible for government affairs, but only for arresting and killing people.

Yecheng is no exception. When it comes to man-eating ghosts, Yecheng ranks very high. Those famous villains in other places are nothing but unknown people in Yecheng.

This is where the real big ghost lives.

Kou Liu had a kind smile on his face, his hand tightly gripping the hilt of the knife, smiling complacently.

Gao Yi watched him leave and asked with some concern, "Will General Kou kill too many?"

"I heard that he beat up the governor Gao Ji in Dingzhou. Is this true?"

"fake."

Gao Jie breathed a sigh of relief. "I knew it. How could a man like General Kou do such a thing as beating up the princes? These are just rumors."

"I did it."

Hu Changcan said calmly.

Gao Yi cried out, and looked at Hu Changcan in astonishment, "You hit me? Why?"

"You are disrespectful to the governor, humiliating the general, and humiliating the soldiers of the three armies. I will lash you with twenty lashes for the crime of disrespect."

Gao Jie was stunned for a long time.

Hu Changcan said seriously: "Yecheng is full of evil spirits, it would be better to let the bandits kill more of them."

"This time we set out from Sizhou and successively pacified the prefectures and counties north of the river. Except for Bingzhou, the rest of the places are under the control of the general."

"This is similar to what Zu Ting and others predicted. Zu Ting even arranged the officials in Qingdu, as if he could predict the future."

Gao Jie narrowed his eyes. He certainly didn't believe in any nonsense about predictions. He asked, "Does Mr. Hu think that the emperor's absence has something to do with Zu Ting?"

"I think Zhao Yanshen and Zu Ting are in the same group."

Gao Jie's eyes widened. "Is Zhao Yanshen the general's man?"

"No, I just suspect that he is Zu Ting's man."

"Zu Ting secretly colluded with Zhao Yanshen? I remember that Zhao Yanshen and Zu Ting had a very bad relationship."

"Zhao Yanshen used to be extremely cautious. He would never show up no matter what happened. He never used personal connections when arranging officials, and he never neglected his work."

"But since Zu Ting began to gain power in the North, Zhao Yanshen has suddenly become active. I felt something was wrong with Gao Rui's incident."

"Zhao Yanshen is very careful about his reputation, why would he go after Gao Rui just for Hu Changren?"

"If he had to choose between Hu Changren and Gao Rui, would he still choose Hu Changren?"

"Later, Hu Changren was appointed as the governor of the ten northern states, promoted to general, and even the governor of the Northern Circuit. None of these things had anything to do with Zhao Yanshen's interests. Many of them were even disadvantageous to him, but he still did them. Why?"

"The last one is this time I took the emperor out to Jinyang."

"He didn't let Duan Shao send out troops, didn't let the south send people to support, didn't make plans to defend the city, and didn't even think of letting Duan Shao come over. He wanted to go there himself."

"Give up the entire Qing and force the two incompatible forces to come together in Jinyang."

"In my opinion, it is definitely not a good idea for the emperor to go to Jinyang. The emperor today is not the Emperor Xiao Zhao of the past, and the people in Jinyang are not the nobles of the past."

Gao Yi listened very carefully, and nodded after the other party finished speaking. "Now that Mr. Hu has said this, many things can be explained clearly."

"Zu Ting was always able to see through the imperial court's intentions and even prepare in advance."

"Is it because someone in the temple is secretly helping him?"

"Zhao Yanshen is the best at saving his life, but he has gone against the general many times. Is it because he defected to Zu Ting a long time ago?"

The absurd and disorderly things that happened in the past few months were connected to each other in Gao Jie's mind. Zu Ting and Zhao Yanshen?
Seeing the solemn expression on Gao Jie's face, Hu Changcan said, "Don't worry too much about it."

"These are just my guesses. Anyway, this has nothing to do with us."

Hu Changcan looked at Gao Jie with a much softer look in his eyes. "I have already submitted a petition to the general, requesting that you be appointed as the governor of Qingdu."

"what??"

Gao Jie was even more surprised than when he heard Hu Changcan beating Gao Ji.

"I will serve as the governor of Qingdu?"

"But I never have."

Gao Jie was subconsciously a little afraid. Qingdu refers to the capital area, and Qingdu Yin is the governor of the capital area, but his status is higher than all the governors.

Thinking of his age and qualifications, Gao Jie suddenly felt a little uneasy.

Hu Changcan laughed and said, "Don't worry too much. Qingdu is just a name now. The situation here is complicated. It's hard to say if it's handed over to others. You are just the right person."

"Besides, you are different from other members of the royal family. There is no shortage of wise men in the royal family of Da Qi, but most of them have obvious shortcomings. Only you have good abilities and a stable personality. You are neither arrogant nor conceited, neither humble nor overbearing, and you are neither too weak nor too tough."

"I think you have a bright future. Perhaps you are more suitable than Gao Yu to be the prime minister to govern the country."

"Prime Minister."

Gao Jie's eyes widened. Gao Jie had great ambitions and had thought about doing great things, but being the prime minister was still a little beyond his ambitions.

Hu Changcan was very optimistic about this young prince.

"Being a governor is not that difficult. You don't have to be afraid."

"From now on, your subordinates will not be the bunch of good-for-nothings like they are now. There may be some bad people, but mediocre people will be rare."

"I can teach you how to govern Qingdu well."

"Please tell me, Mr. Hu!"

Hu Changcan said seriously: "When you govern this place in the future, don't focus on the people, don't focus on the petty officials, just focus on those senior officials."

"The purpose of a governor is to investigate an area, not to govern it. The governance can be done by a few officials in Qingdu. You just need to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't do evil or break the rules. As long as you can keep an eye on them, they can keep an eye on their subordinates, and then you will be successful as a governor."

"While you are still young, watch more, observe more, and ask more questions. You should be like an evil ghost, haunting these high-ranking officials, making them restless, making them feel that someone is watching them no matter what they do, so that they dare not act recklessly, and dare not indulge their subordinates."

Gao Jie rubbed his hands, feeling a little excited.

"Do we need to appoint provincial governors to various places?"

"I heard from Zu Ting earlier that he wanted to divide the northern states into ten."

"Hengzhou remains unchanged and will continue to be directly managed by the general."

"Tian Zili, the governor of Shuozhou, has governed Shuozhou as a chief secretary in the past and has learned administrative methods at the Xingtai. Shuozhou is the general's hometown, so there should be no need to worry if he governs it."

"Yanzhou Governor Shi Yao, Shi Yao was a prefect in Liyang in the past, and he did an excellent job. He was also close to the general, and was able to implement benevolent policies and had great righteousness."

"Yuan Yuxiu, the governor of Yingzhou, is a fair and honest person, upright and just, benevolent and righteous, and loves the people. When he was a local official in the past, he was deeply loved by the people."

"Tang Yong, the governor of Youzhou, is a cruel man. He governs harshly, suppresses the powerful, is fair and reasonable, and is decisive in his actions. When he was the governor, none of his officials dared to break the law."

"Jizhou Governor Cui Jie is honest, frugal, diligent and prudent. He employs people properly and handles affairs in a proper way. He once governed Qingzhou and has a lot of experience."

"Li Zhilian, the governor of Zhaozhou, is a senior official with rich experience. He is intelligent, has good governance skills, is known for his fairness, and has a record of governing the local area."

"Wei Jiong, the governor of Bingzhou, has been with the general for a long time. He has governed many places including Beishuo in the past, and his achievements are outstanding."

"Qingzhou Governor Gao Wei is a royal prince. He is fair and just, and never harms the people."

"Gao Changgong, the governor of Lingzhou, cherishes the people's strength and is good at fighting. It is the safest choice for him to be in charge of the front line."

"With you included, that's the list of candidates from all over the country."

Hu Changcan laughed, "With you added, the Northland will be complete."

"How about it, do you want to compete with them?"

(End of this chapter)