Zhang Zhongwu’s life is indeed very difficult now.

As Li Ze said, Yingzhou, Liaozhou and Chenzhou are indeed vast in area, but the biggest problem is that they are sparsely populated, especially the few people in their tribe that can reassure Zhang Zhongwu. It is a huge problem for Zhang Zhongwu to control such a large area.

If Zhang Zhongwu was an invincible god of war in the minds of those miscellaneous Hus and savages, and a butcher like a god of killing, but after he was repeatedly defeated by Li Ze and his military strength was greatly damaged, this fear had already dropped significantly.

It turns out that Zhang Zhongwu is not invincible.

Once this emotion develops, it will naturally spread out, and the people on that land are no longer willing to be exploited, exploited, and resisted one after another.

The vast area gave the rebels room to move, but Zhang Zhongwu's military strength had already shown great shortcomings. Forcing those led by Kan Yan to settle down at the Pingzhou border was a kind of restraint strategy, but in the end it was wiped out by Li Ze. By the way, even Deng Jingshan was in trouble.

Now Zhang Zhongwu's army can only guard some important strategic locations and big cities, and other areas can only let it go. At the same time, they must maintain a strong army in Goguryeo, because Goguryeo is now their most stable military expenditure and stable source of food and salary.

Even this place is not so stable.

King Goguryeo and Tan Daoji were not idiots. On the contrary, they were both heroes of the time. Over the past few years, they fought to the death, but they had made Zhang Zhongwu gain huge benefits from it in vain. They became poorer and poorer, but after wandering around, they finally got the most benefits from Goguryeo.

These two companies have the intention of joining hands to make peace.

It is impossible for Zhang Zhongwu to give up Goguryeo, he can only maintain strong military pressure here.

There are too many of his troops stationed here, so it is naturally not enough in other places.

Without any help, Zhang Zhongwu had to change his course.

Under the suggestion of Zhang Zhongwen, Song Yu and others, Zhang Zhongwu began to plagiarize Li Ze's policies.

The first step is to transform a large number of professional troops into palace soldiers. These people settled in big cities and some important strategic strongholds, farming in daily life and serving as soldiers in wartime, but they do not pay taxes. Of course, they also need to prepare their own weapons, armor, and war horses.

Let these people support themselves, and Zhang Zhongwu only pays for some uncultivated land.

But these people do not pay taxes, and the officials still need to support those standing troops. The operation of government agencies requires money. Therefore, it is urgent to naturalize those Hu people and savages.

The implementation of the policy has been very effective for more than half a year, but there are many problems.

They lack liquidity.

They lack the right farm tools.

They lack most of the daily necessities.

And these can only be obtained from Li Ze now.

Li Ze naturally would not intervene in specific negotiations. After having a long talk with Zhang Zhongwen overnight and demarcated the general framework, the rest would be the specific staff to discuss.

Li Ze and Zhang Zhongwen only talked about two points.

The first point is that Zhang Zhongwu belongs to him and wants to re-establish the banner of the Tang Dynasty. Zhang Zhongwu needs the Zhenzhou court to submit a letter to him, and the Zhenzhou court will grant him the status of Zhang Zhongwu as the prince of the county.

Second, both sides designated Jianchang as the trading port between the two sides, and both sides are not allowed to station troops in Jianchang. Within 50 miles of Jianchang, it is a safe zone. In Jianchang, both sides each set up government agencies to negotiate and manage the trading matters between the two sides.

Zhang Zhongwen was not much resistant to this. After all, this was just a matter of status. What Li Ze wanted was Zhang Zhongwu's nominal surrender, while what Zhang Zhongwu got was the funds, materials and stability he urgently needed now.

As long as Zhang Zhongwu returns to the court, Li Ze will have no reason to fight against Zhang Zhongwu. Now Zhang Zhongwu can't help but fail again. For Zhang Zhongwen, if his strength becomes stronger again in the future, it will not be a big deal to pull off the flag. Of course, if Li Ze's strength is far superior to his side in the future and he has no room for resistance at all, then there is no need to say anything.

Anyway, I ride a donkey and read the songbook and walk around and see.

Who can tell the future exactly what is going on!

For Li Ze, he doesn't want to fall into the mud of the northeast now, or he can defeat Zhang Zhongwu if he is marching towards the northeast at all costs, but it is unlikely that he will completely destroy his opponent. Zhang Zhongwu, who is backed by Goguryeo, still has a broad strategic space. He really falls into this mud and I don't know when he will truly win the opponent. More importantly, what is the role of taking this area?

That place can only be a huge burden for Li Ze now. To completely take down this place and become a beneficial part of the empire, it requires huge manpower and material resources, which Li Ze does not have at all.

It would be better to let Zhang Zhongwu go to the business first.

In any case, the main body of Zhang Zhongwu, the military entity, is still the Tang people, and what they implemented on this land is the Tang law. It is still extremely beneficial to operate and assimilate this place, and to put it on the interests of the entire Tang people.

Zhang Zhongwu lived in a corner and was controlled by many parties. The threat was far worse than Zhu Wen, who occupied Luoyang, Chang'an and Luoyang.

As long as you defeat Zhu Wen and go south, unify the world, turn around, gather the power of the world, and use the power of Mount Tai to threaten Zhang Zhongwu, you may be able to defeat others without fighting.

Flies cannot bite seamless eggs, but now Zhang Zhongwu's military entity has been pried open a gap by himself, so the subsequent infiltration will be much simpler.

There are many other methods of economic infiltration, financial infiltration, military infiltration, and various methods. With the current dominant position of the Zhenzhou court and Zhang Zhongwu's current dilemma, even if they want to stop it, they cannot stop it. Because they cannot cut off this connection, because once it is cut off, they will be the ones that will be most hurt.

The northeastern territory not only has a vast land, but also a rich mineral deposit. You only need to manage it well, but it can provide you with endless help.

Xia He returned home with satisfaction.

She successfully made Zhang Zhongwen agree that the copper coins cast by Zhenzhou Money Cashing Department could be legally circulated in the other party's controlled area. Zhang Zhongwu now has no ability to mint coins at all. In the area he ruled, he is about to fall into the stage of bartering, and there is no objection to Xia He's request. Another major victory for Xia He was that Jiaozi, issued by Wuwei Money House, was also recognized by Zhang Zhongwen.

Jiaozi is a paper certificate issued by Wuwei Money House. It was originally only used within Wuwei and some merchants controlled by the imperial court to replace the inconvenience of large amounts of silver and money transactions. Now it has gradually begun to have a certain scale of use in the area controlled by Li Ze, but it is still a long way from promotion. Now Li Ze is slowly beginning to transfer general equivalents from food to valuables such as gold and silver. In the end, Li Ze's purpose is to recast a trading system at the cost of government credit. Jiaozi's ability to use it on a large scale in transactions with the Northeast will greatly promote this process.

What Xia He planned was naturally part of the financial penetration. In addition to some extremely core figures in the Ministry of Accounts, only those in Wuwei Academy who specialize in studying these knowledge understood. People like Zhang Zhongwen and others still couldn't figure out the huge threat here at all, but when they understood, everything would be too late.

On behalf of the supply and marketing cooperative, Wang Mingren negotiated with Zhang Zhongwen for several days and signed a series of treaties, from daily necessities to considerable strategic materials, all of which were sold. Of course, Zhang Zhongwen could not afford to pay, and the only things he could use to repay were the minerals, medicinal materials in the Northeast, and grain that had not yet grown in the fields.

The sales of weapons are also in the negotiations. The representative of Tuhu Tu will serve as a supervisor to negotiate with Zhang Zhongwen. In this business, Zhang Zhongwen has no room for bargaining. Even if Tuhu Tuli lion speaks loudly, Zhang Zhongwen can only grit his teeth and respond. He needs these weapons and equipment to replace the dilapidated weapons of Lu Longjun. He needs these sharp weapons so that they can control a wider area with fewer armed personnel.

Of course, as an additional condition for these commercial negotiations, Zhenzhou also stipulates that within the areas under Zhang Zhongwu's jurisdiction, each county must have a school to teach Tang culture. The problem of insufficient teaching staff will be solved by the Zhenzhou court. In other words, Zhenzhou will send countless teachers to these places. The funds required are naturally provided by Zhenzhou, and Zhang Zhongwen and others can jointly participate in the proofreading of the teaching content.

In Zhang Zhongwen's opinion, this is not a big deal. It is nothing more than assimilation of the savages, miscellaneous Hus and other ethnic minorities. This kind of thing is also beneficial to them. Anyway, it doesn't matter if Zhenzhou gets the money.

Zhang Zhongwen is very busy. Every day, different people will come to negotiate and negotiate with him in various cooperation. What he doesn't know is that many sinister small actions that seem inconspicuous now but will have huge effects in the future are unknowingly joined in these negotiations.

Zhang Zhongwen was very happy because according to the signed treaty, when he went back, he could return with a large number of caravans and a large number of urgently needed supplies from the Northeast.
Chapter completed!