After the winter in October, the atmosphere in Huainan, especially in Shouchun, is much worse than in previous years, and the most obvious point is that there are fewer travelers, not to mention that the busy scene after the victory in the Central Plains last year is much worse than even the previous two years.

There are many reasons for this phenomenon. One reason for the optimism is that the development of Huainan has reached a critical point, after sparing no effort in previous years to lay trade routes and attract merchants, all those who have the strength to cross the border to Huainan to do business in the north, almost all have the experience of doing business here.

In this process, there are naturally wins and losses, some are eliminated, and some are gradually growing. And the part that benefited from this, at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, in the wave of investment, most of them also turned from businessmen to sitting, and bought a lot of industries in Huainan, as if they had become locals.

There is also the maturity of the Huainan commercial transportation model, from late spring to the beginning of autumn, because of the convenience and prosperity of waterway transportation, it has become a prosperous transportation and storage period. After the autumn, the transportation cost will increase several times, and the local storage in Huainan is amazing, which can basically meet the needs of the market, even if it takes time and effort to transport the goods, it is difficult to obtain rich returns.

Moreover, after a year of development and accumulation, the Huainan Governor's Office has a fairly solid self-sufficiency ability, and the orders issued this year are even less than one-third of last year's.

In addition, several counties such as Yuzhou and Yanzhou in Huaibei have been transferred from the occupied areas last year to the governor's office, and those villagers who were originally buyers also enjoy the care of the governor's decree, so they naturally do not need to purchase in large quantities.

As a result, both the official and private markets have shrunk to varying degrees, so this year's market is naturally particularly depressed. To summarize in Shen Zhezi's words, the window of opportunity of the times has gradually closed, and the golden opportunities similar to those in previous years have become less and less.

Of course, Shen Zhezi himself knew that the sudden decline of the merchants was also related to the change of the decree of the Governor's Mansion. In previous years, in order to attract the northward export of Jiangdong's manpower and goods, the Governor's Office was extremely extensive in terms of management, and except for the strict control of a small number of prohibited goods, there were almost no greater constraints in other aspects.

In particular, in terms of transportation routes and freight rates, which were the most important for merchants, the Governor's Office provided the convenience and security that none of the previous dynasties, including some secessionist regimes, did not have.

However, since the first half of this year, the Governor's Office has become increasingly strict in this regard. For example, the smuggling incident that directly triggered the Hefei incident last year has become a key crackdown this year.

Although the Governor's Mansion has shown its attitude through the punishment of Nayuzhang Luo last year, how many people can restrain this kind of income that is almost for nothing?

As the relationship between the Jiangdong Imperial Court and the Huainan Governorate became increasingly severe, the local clamp on the local government also became larger, and the prestige of the Huainan Governorate was attacked by focusing on punishing this part of the merchants. Therefore, a considerable number of merchants have their goods confiscated and imprisoned for reasons such as this, and they have suffered heavy losses.

Last year's Hefei incident, Shen Zhezi had a reason to have an attack, but this year, although he knew that Taichung had the idea of retaliation, Shen Zhezi could no longer abuse the authority of the Governor's Office to shield these knowingly committed businessmen.

And when it comes to the position under Shen Zhezi's head, he has to consider it as a whole. In previous years, the prosperity of Jia Shi was based on Jiangdong's years of accumulation and lack of exchanges.

However, with the large-scale transportation of goods from the south to the north in recent years, those private reserves are gradually reaching a dangerous critical point.

And the potential of the Central Plains is still there, and the most that is missing is the start-up capital that is waiting to be rebuilt, and if it still needs frequent external blood transfusions to maintain its operation, it has lost the greatest significance of recovering its land.

Therefore, even if there is no suppression from Taichung, Shen Zhezi does not plan to continue to vigorously extract Jiangdong's vitality. Although his basic market will be moved to the Central Plains in the future, if Jiangdong loses too much, it will not be in the long-term interests.

Any ruling structure is spread down layer by layer, and after a ruler's idea is amplified layer by layer, when it is really implemented at the bottom, it will often be unrecognizable. The more bloated the management structure, the more pronounced this distortion will be.

Shen Zhezi also faced such a problem, the people of the world are not his echo worms, and some things are not something he can stop if he wants to. Even if he has such a scale in his heart, not everyone can look at gains and losses from his standpoint.

If the long-maintained route suddenly stops, not only will the people's resentment boil, but even the structure of the Governor's Office itself will be turbulent. You must know that in his governor's mansion, there are many families behind the subordinate officials who are making profits from this, and the policy that has been maintained for many years is suddenly rerouted, which will make many people uncomfortable, and even accumulate disadvantages and collapse from the inside.

In this regard, Shen Zhezi also wants to thank Taichung for its vigorous suppression of Jia Shi this year, and this political confrontation between the two sides has put an emergency brake on the overly prosperous business that has exceeded the level of productivity. While the effect is remarkable, it also allows Shen Zhezi to avoid many moral accusations.

From this point of view, a bottom-line confrontation is not necessarily a bad thing, and if there is really collusion between the inside and outside, the voice of the ruler can easily be coerced by the popular tide, and a steady pace and rhythm cannot be guaranteed.

However, in many cases, confrontation often has no bottom line, and the ideological struggle involves contradictions in interests, which can easily evolve into moral accusations and even personal harm.

Therefore, although Shouchun, as the capital of Huainan, has reduced the management pressure due to the decrease in the number of people coming and going, the defense force has increased a lot, and Mao Bao's department, which guards the chasm, has transferred back 5,000 troops to strengthen Shouchun's guard force. The Shengwu Army, which had originally stayed in the north to recuperate, also withdrew to Huainan and was directly responsible for the personal protection of Shen Zhezi and other important subordinate officials in Huainan.

Even Shanyao, a cool official who was too strict to be popular with Huainan's laws, had more than 200 people with him to protect him when he entered and exited.

Of course, Shanyao was in a dangerous situation, and this time he really took the blame for Shen Zhezi, the metropolitan governor. He proposed a decree that made the officials of the entire Governor's Office complain about him, that is, the officials declared their assets.

This kind of behavior may not be a regular system, but in many cases, officials either out of their own moral requirements or out of political trade-offs, there is no shortage of such actions. For example, Zhuge Liang, the most famous Shu minister, clearly listed his family property in a recital to Liu Chan, the queen of Shu.

Since the fall of China and the DPRK, including the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there have actually been several edicts that restrict the private property of officials, although the execution and effectiveness are worrying, but it can be seen that this is not a taboo topic.

In order to stabilize the people's hearts, Jiangdong Zhongxing mainly focuses on magnanimity in the administration of officials, and the so-called net leakage swallows boats, and the constraints on officials can be said to be extremely relaxed. Yu Liang, including his successor Chu Yu, also has a not very good reputation because of his harsh governance. The Shen family, including Shen Zhezi, are all beneficiaries of this atmosphere, and it is difficult to criticize them on the surface, at least.

Previously, Huainan had almost no rules and regulations in the governance of officials, especially in terms of corruption, especially a large number of temporary positions, which were full of a phenomenon of being a ruler in office and a businessman when he was gone.

This is not only the limitation of the times, but also the intentional connivance of Shen Zhezi, whose main task before this was to exert enough influence on the manpower and material resources of this era as quickly as possible to raise enough capital for the Northern Expedition.

If he follows conventional means, vigorously rectifies the rule of officials after striving for the upper reaches, strengthens the ability of the central government to centralize power and collect money, and does not say whether the political situation in Jiangdong will be chaotic, and then goes on the Northern Expedition when he has accumulated enough strength, at least he will not be able to catch up with the golden opportunity of the Northern Expedition, which is the death of Shi Le, and the turmoil of the Qiang regime.

Everything is delayed because of urgency, it depends on trade-offs, and Shen Zhezi himself is not a lonely saint with private morality and purity, and all means lie in pragmatism. When he made the Northern Expedition his first priority, the dilemma in front of him was that the first power and the second money were all about these two centers.

Now that the phased tasks of the Northern Expedition have been completed, it is difficult to carry out higher-intensity conquests in the short term, and the primary task has naturally become digestion and integration. Moreover, he happened to be the real power of the Imperial Palace, and he was able to convert many of the cheap structures of the Governor's Office into a formal system, and it was natural to take this opportunity to carry out a vigorous internal rectification.

The original Shen Zhezi, as a general of the conquest, the assassin of Yuzhou, and even the quota of subordinate officials of the Huainan Governor's Mansion were retained, but even so, there were less than 100 subordinate officials in the prefecture who really had rank. A large number of other subordinate officials actually participate in the management as temporary appointments such as the head of the officials.

After accepting the system and paying homage, Shen Zhezi is the real military and political monopoly, and he can directly appoint local officials without going through Taiwan orders. Covering the four states, even Xuzhou, Qingzhou and other places have already half-shaken hands, how many official positions with formal rank can be produced?

So although Shen Zhezi is in a delicate political situation at the moment, his power has also reached a new height. Although there are few merchants in Huainan, the number of people who come to seek advancement is surging.

For these people, as long as they don't become officials at the highest level of the Governor's Office, there is no problem of position, even if the Shen family loses in the end of the power struggle, in order to stabilize the situation in several states in Jiangbei, it is impossible for Taichung to carry out a one-size-fits-all approach to the officials appointed by the Governor's Office, and this is a good opportunity to seek a background!

In previous years, he was trapped in the lack of talent selection, but now the supply exceeds demand, and the Governor's own training system has a not weak foundation.

Faced with this situation, Shen Zhezi naturally wanted to ask them, do you want a future or interests!

If there is no hateful existence like Shanyao, Shen Zhezi can only handle it himself at this time, and it is not appropriate to leave this kind of matter to Du He to deal with, and it is very easy to form a knotted faction.

Therefore, after returning to the town from Jiangdong, Shen Zhezi immediately summoned Shan Yao and confided in his ideas.

Shan Yao himself is a mean and lonely character, he has long been unaccustomed to Shen Zhezi's tolerant and conniving style, it can be said that the big knife has long been hungry and thirsty, as soon as he received Shen Zhezi's hints, he returned to the official office and immediately wrote a book, and soon a tooth-gnashing "Letter to the Crowd" was freshly baked.