In the last few days of April, Zhao Hongrun requisitioned a batch of grain and grass from the Ministry of Households, and asked officials from the Warehouse Department under the Ministry of Household Affairs to be responsible for loading it on cargo ships and transporting it along the Cai River and Yingshui to Shangshui.

Nominally, this was the military rations for the Shang Shui Army stationed in Shangshui, but in fact, Zhao Hongrun had already sent a letter to Gu Liangwei, the commander of the Shang Shui Army, ordering him to transfer this batch of grain and grass to Chen County or Xiangcheng, and secretly deliver it to Xiong Hu, the Pingyu Jun.

Yes, this is the first batch of grain and grass that Zhao Hongrun secretly supported Xiong Tuo, the monarch of Xuancheng.

I have to say that this is an act of the enemy, although Zhao Hongrun is to support Xiong Tuo, the monarch of Xuancheng, and promote his internal struggle with Xiong Sheng, the monarch of Liyang, and Wei Tianzi has already acquiesced to this matter, but even so, this matter should not be publicized, if it is spread out, even if it is him, the famous 'King Su', I am afraid that he will be pointed out by the thousands of people of Wei.

Fortunately, in Shangshui County, it was the general Gu Liangwei and the Shangshui Army under his command, and the loyalty to Zhao Hongrun could still be guaranteed.

In fact, although Gu Liangwei's talent is far inferior to that of Qu Cheng, the commander of the Yan Shui Army, he has no ambition in this person, and this is also the case with his deputy general Wu Majiao, who can be regarded as two honest generals.

Of course, this is not to say that the generals of the Yan Water Army, such as Qu Cheng and Yan Mo, are not trustworthy, if you have to say it, it can only be said that Qu Cheng is a person with great ambitions, who is bent on getting ahead in Wei and creating a Xiong Qu family in Wei State.

Don't look at Qu Cheng's obedience to Zhao Hongrun's words now, this is because Zhao Hongrun has a high status and authority, and he can decide Qu Cheng's life and death with one word, but if Zhao Hongrun loses power one day, it may not be that Qu Cheng will obediently obey.

To use an inappropriate analogy, if the grain is a dog. Qu Cheng is a wolf, he can't feed the wolf's belly, God knows if the wolf will one day turn around and gnaw the flesh and blood of his master?

Fortunately, Qu Cheng's deputy general Yan Mo is honest, and the Yanshui army is stationed in the center of Fenchengsai, Shangshui County, and Anling County, and is in a state of encirclement, otherwise. Zhao Hongrun was really a little uneasy, so he put Qu Cheng and Yan Shuijun outside.

Of course, Zhao Hongrun saw this kind of thing very thoroughly: as long as he always held the power that was enough to destroy Qu Cheng, then Qu Cheng would never and would never dare to betray him, after all, Zhao Hongrun had already warned them with actions when he said that he would surrender these generals.

It was only at this point that the war that had been triggered by the attack on the envoys of Chu last year and its follow-up had finally come to an end near May this year.

The estimated gains and losses are that the Great Wei Dynasty has lost many loyal martyrs who are loyal to the country, and has also lost nearly 100,000 gentlemen and people in Yingshui. However, because Zhao Hongrun lured more than 400,000 Chu people from Chu after the war, the total population of Great Wei increased a lot.

The only thing that will cause contradictions is that the current Yanling, Changping, and Shangshui counties are all inhabited by the original Chu people, while Anling, Zhaoling, Huaiyang and other places are all Wei people, and many of them are Wei people who have personally experienced the last Chu-Wei war, so it is not difficult to guess that the two groups of people in these cities will be in a state of indifference to each other, or even hostile to each other, for less than seven or eight years. I am afraid that it will be difficult to overcome this barrier of mutual perception.

Of course, to reconcile and resolve the contradictions between these two groups of people. Zhao Hongrun lost it all to the household, after all, the household took so much money and things from Zhao Hongrun, so he had to do something to show it, didn't he?

At this point, the Ministry of Rites also made a contribution, sending two Lang officials to personally lead a number of people to Yanling, Changping, and Shangshui counties, and brought a lot of books from the Great Wei.

It's not hard to guess. The officials of the Ministry of Rites planned to adopt the method of "royal Taoism" to teach the people of Chu to recognize the characters of the Great Wei, learn the language of the Great Wei, and adapt to the humanistic customs of the Great Wei. Then, these Chu states will also gradually integrate into the Wei people.

In addition, in order to alleviate and resolve the contradictions between the two groups of people, the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Household jointly launched a work to encourage Wei men from Zhaoling, Anling, and Huaiyang to marry Chu women from Shangshui, Yanling, and Changping counties, and gave various preferential treatment to them.

For example, if a Wei person marries a woman from the Chu State, his family can reduce some taxes, and local officials will give certain material subsidies and so on.

There is no way, after all, Xiong Tuo, the king of Xuancheng, and Xiong Hu, the king of Pingyu, had recruited 160,000 strong men before attacking the Great Wei, but the only survivors were more than 50,000 Yuan Pingxuan troops who surrendered to Zhao Hongrun later, and a full 110,000 men were killed in the battle.

What does this mean?

This means that if every Chu soldier who died in battle is married, it is equivalent to 110,000 widows.

Of course, in fact, the number of widows is not as many as 110,000, but conservative estimates, I am afraid that there are also 40,000 or 50,000 people, not including those who are not married to the Chu women, this situation makes Yanling, Shangshui, and Changping descend to Wei and Chu people, and there is a serious imbalance in the ratio of men and women, often a widow and girl who lost her husband in the war leads her young children, such a combination, even in the Wei State, where the tax is much lower than the Chu State, it is difficult to survive.

Therefore, the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Household joined forces to work in the hope that those widowed Chu women would marry the Wei people, which would not only help ease the conflict between the Chu and Wei people in Yingshui County, but also enable those orphans and widows to get a man who could support their families so that they could survive.

However, Zhao Hongrun only learned a little about this matter, after all, this work will take some time, and at present, he does not have the time to clean up the aftermath of the war.

In addition to the gains and losses in terms of national population, the Great Wei generally earned in terms of vested interests, not only earned a lot of wealth from the Chu State, but also signed an agreement with the Qi State and the Chu State afterwards, I believe that in the next three to five years, as long as the Qi Wangxi is still alive and firmly controls the Qi State, then the Great Wei will be in a rare stage of peace and recuperation.

Unless the king of Qi knew that his fate was imminent, in order to prevent the state of Chu from counterattacking him after his death, he would strike first and organize the alliance of Qi, Lu and Wei to launch the final round of attacks on the state of Chu, in order to inflict heavy losses on the state of Chu, otherwise, there should be no war in the south of Great Wei.

Especially in Xuancheng Jun Xiong Tuo privately reached a tacit understanding with Zhao Hongrun, and Zhao Hongrun arranged heavy troops in the Yingshui Army, so Yingshui North County will no longer be the weakness of the Great Wei.

Now the threat of Great Wei lies in the north.

Although South Korea in the north did not take advantage of the fire to rob the Great Wei when the Chu State attacked the Great Wei last year, whether it was Zhao Hongrun or the officials of the court, it was generally believed that it was not the South Korea that raised the noble hand, and the more convincing reason was probably the inconvenient transmission of news: by the time Korea was ready to take advantage of the fire to rob and attack the weakened Wei State, Zhao Hongrun had already led the army to the territory of the Chu State and killed the fiefdom of Xiong Tuo, the king of Xuancheng.

Under such circumstances, how could Korea easily send troops to Wei? Aren't you afraid that Zhao Hongrun, who was in the prime of his army at that time, will lead his army to take advantage of the victory to fight them in South Korea?

The Koreans could only sigh to themselves, lamenting that they had lost the best opportunity to attack Wei.

It is undeniable that if when Zhao Hongrun and Xiong Tuo, the king of Xuancheng, were still confronting Yanshui, Korea would send troops to attack Wei, then Wei would not only lose the few remaining cities in Shangdang County due to the lack of troops, but even Hedong County would be in danger of falling.

It's a pity that South Korea is a step late, and when they are ready to send troops, Zhao Hongrun is also busy here, and he can transfer the army north at any time to assist the Southern Yan Army, one of the six battalions of the garrison, to meet the South Korean army.

Of course, in addition to the national population and vested interests, because of the relationship between the war last year, there have also been some changes within the Great Wei.

For example, Zhao Hongrun's imperial sister Princess Yulong finally got her wish to be free, according to the agreement between Zhao Hongrun and Wei Tianzi's "man and man", Wei Tianzi will no longer have to decide anything for Princess Yulong in the future, where she is going, or even who she wants to marry, Wei Tianzi has no right to interfere.

For another example, the sixth brother respected by Zhao Hongrun, Zhao Hongzhao, who was known as the "Rui King" of "Qilin'er" since childhood, is the best among the children of the Ji clan, and a handsome man who has been rare for decades, because of the relationship between the war and the follow-up events, he finally left the Wei State and went to the official of the Qi State thousands of miles away, and married the daughter of the King of Qi there, if nothing else, he will take root in Linzi, the capital of the King of Qi, and it is rare to return to the Wei State again.

But then again, these changes may not be a big deal for outsiders.

For example, the people of Wei, how they lived in the past, and how they still live now, at most, after tea and dinner, regret the matter of "Rui Wang going to Qi", or talk with their neighbors with great interest, and talk about the recent sudden appearance of a large number of Chu specialties in the market, that's all.

The six departments of the central government are also operating as always, the only difference is that the Wenxuan Division of the Ministry of Officials under the command of Hongli, the prince of the East Palace, and the Supervision Department of the Criminal Department under the command of King Yongwang Hongyu, unsurprisingly started a big war.

Although it is not possible to talk about using the public for personal gain, it is undeniable that Yongwang Hongyu has carried out some supervision of officials suspected of defecting to the prince of the East Palace, and the most common method is to thoroughly investigate corruption and bribery.

Frightened, the prince of the East Palace was obviously in charge of the "artifact" that could be recommended at any time, and even arranged for anyone to serve in many departments, but he did not dare to act rashly, for fear of being targeted by King Yong's Inspectorate Division, and then attracted the Yushitai, a special department that was more powerful to sanction corruption and bribery.

However, Hongli, the prince of the East Palace, also launched a counterattack at the suggestion of his staff Luo Ying, and caught the wind and shadows of Wei Tian's impeachment of the Supervision Division, disrupting the normal operation of the Wenxuan Division, and Wei Tianzi was annoyed by this, and finally threw the matter to Yushitai and asked Yushitai to deal with it with full authority.

Compared with the prince of the East Palace and King Yong, the rest of Zhao Hongrun's royal brothers are very peaceful, and honestly manage their own one-acre and three-point land, just like Zhao Hongrun.

Not to mention, following the "Su's New Weights and Measures Regulations", which does not seem to be of much help at the moment, the Smelting Bureau finally has a project that can make money.

Sell candles.

Don't underestimate the value of that small candle, in fact, in the Wei State, which has not yet entered the era of electric lighting, the candles consumed by the whole country every day are really an astronomical amount.

Therefore, in Zhao Hongrun's view, as long as he occupies a small share in this huge market, just selling a newly made candle is enough for the smelting bureau to earn countless wealth. (To be continued.) )