Chapter 527 Slight Changes
“Go tell Yuwen Shu to do what he should do!” Dugutuo’s low voice came from the room.

In the corridor outside the door, Dugu Huai’en hesitated and whispered, “Should the master tell Yuwen Shu?”

“No, he knows it well!”

“I’ll go find Yu Wenzhi right now!” Dugu Huai’en bowed and hurried away.

The fact that Yuwen Shu’s family joined the Guanlong nobles was extremely secretive. Only the core figures of the Yuan, Dugu and Houmochen families knew about it, not to mention the imperial court and the emperor.

Yuwen Shu himself was also very cautious and never contacted the Guanlong nobles. Whenever there was something going on, his sons Yuwen Huaji and Dugu Huai’en would contact them directly. Especially since Yuwen Huaji and Dugu Huai’en were colleagues, they would not be suspected if they drank together.

At noon, in a restaurant, Dugu Huai’en filled a glass of wine for Yu Wenhuaji and said, “My master asked me to tell your father to do what he should do!”

Yu Wenzhi was confused and asked, “What exactly do we need to do?”

Dugu Huai’en shook his head, “I don’t know, the head of the family said that your father knows it in his heart!”

“Okay! I’ll tell my father.”

After a pause, Yu Wenzhi asked in a low voice: “Were you on duty last night?”

Dugu Huai’en nodded, “I was on duty last night, what happened?”

“I heard that the emperor scolded the King of Jin for being ungrateful and having ulterior motives last night. Is that true?”

Dugu Huai’en smiled and said, “It’s true, but not as exaggerated as the rumors. The emperor didn’t smash the cup or the inkstone. He just complained that the King of Jin was unreliable at a critical moment and refused to send the navy to participate in the battle.”

“Do you think the King of Jin will join forces with the King of Qi, or support the King of Qi behind the scenes?” Yu Wenzhi asked again.

Dugu Huai’en still shook his head. “You know that the King of Qi has always hated the King of Jin and has always called him a bastard behind his back. I think it’s good enough that the King of Jin didn’t take advantage of the situation. How could he help the King of Qi?”

“That’s not necessarily the case!”

Yu Wenzhi shook his head and said, “Isn’t that what everyone says? Once the rebellion of the Prince of Qi is quelled, the court will start to reduce the power of the princes, and the Prince of Jin will be the first to bear the brunt. In order to avoid being reduced, the Prince of Jin will most likely secretly support the Prince of Qi, making this war to quell the rebellion protracted.”

Seeing that it was getting late, Dugu Huai’en said, “It’s getting late. Brother Yuwen, please go back and tell your father that this matter is of great importance. Don’t be careless.”

Yu Wenzhi nodded, “I’ll go home now!”

In the study, Yuwen Shu listened to his son’s retelling and snorted in dissatisfaction, “I said that they must have been behind the rebellion of the King of Qi in Chenliu, but they refused to tell me. Humph! Now they think of me. Who do you think I am?”

“Father, what does Patriarch Dugu mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s nothing more than making me lose the battle. Shi Wansui won’t have a good result either. It’s a blow to the court. These bastards supported the rebellion of the King of Qi but actually concealed me.”

This was what bothered Yuwen Shu the most. The Guanlong nobles never let him into the core circle and excluded him from important decision-making. He had to do the work himself.

However, despite his dissatisfaction, Yuwen Shu also knew that he could not act capriciously on such an important matter. He said after a while: “Go back and tell Dugu Huai’en that I know what to do!”

That night, the emperor issued an edict, declaring the King of Qi a traitor, stripping him of his title, dismissing him from his position as governor of Hebei Province and all other positions, and ordering a large army to attack him.

Two days later, the 130,000 imperial troops were divided into two routes. The Minister of War and General of the Right Guard Yuwen Shu was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the northern army, leading 80,000 troops into Henei County, and then marching into Ji County from Henei County. He also appointed Shi Wansui as the commander-in-chief of the eastern army, leading 50,000 troops to Dongjun, crossing the Yellow River from Baima to the north to Ji County.

If we ignore Xiao Xia’s suppression of the Shanyue rebellion in the southeast, then this expedition to Hebei would be the first large-scale civil war since Daye.

All forces in the Sui Dynasty were watching this war.

That afternoon, a 500-man warrior team appeared in the northern part of Pengcheng County and stationed in a pre-built camp. Wei Zheng’s negotiations with the governor of Pengcheng County were unsuccessful. Huang Anren, the governor of Pengcheng County, declined Xiao Xia’s proposal to exchange the wharf for the enclave. Huang Anren told Wei Zheng that land could be bought privately, but it could not be exchanged in the name of the government without permission unless the court agreed.

Wei Zheng had no choice but to implement the backup plan. In the name of the King of Jin, he purchased all the coal fields at a price of 50,000 strings of coins, about 500 hectares of land, equivalent to one string of coins per mu. Together with the 50 hectares of land purchased previously, the total was 550 hectares.

This is not a special price, but the market price. Why is it so cheap? Because this area is almost entirely uninhabited wasteland. Most of it is today’s Weishan Lake. The lake had not yet appeared in the Sui Dynasty, and it was still a depression with a large amount of easily mined coal underneath.

Pengcheng County did not dare to keep the money and handed it all over to the Ministry of Revenue.

Jiangdu recruited more than 2,000 people in Pengcheng County to mine coal fields, mining 100,000 kilograms of coal every day. Four fleets transported coal back and forth, with one fleet transporting 500,000 kilograms each time, and the coal was continuously delivered to Jiangdu.

In order to protect the coal fields every day, Jiangdu specially established the Jiangnan Martial Arts School in Pengcheng County, and then sent 500 warriors to garrison in the coal fields in the name of the martial arts school. In fact, they were 500 elite soldiers without armor.

That afternoon, Pengcheng County Magistrate Li Rang found Wei Zheng who was about to return to Jiangdu. Li Rang said to Wei Zheng worriedly, “There’s news from Luoyang that the court does not approve our land purchase transaction.”

“Why?” Wei Zheng frowned.

“Prime Minister Yu believed that the amount of money involved in these transactions was too large and that too much land was being purchased, so he refused to approve it!”

“and then?”

“Then the court will send an imperial censor to lead a team to investigate. If any problems are found, he will cancel all purchase agreements.”

Wei Zheng felt strange. In the past, the emperor would approve whatever the King of Jin did, but now he was not allowed to buy some land. He asked again, “Did you report the purchase to the court in the name of the King of Jin?”

“Exactly! I don’t know what happened, but the court actually rejected the purchase by His Royal Highness Prince Jin.”

“What about the money? If it is rejected, will the money be returned?”

Magistrate Li shook his head and said, “We have already handed over all the money to the court. I don’t know if we can get it back.”

“Okay! More county magistrates, I will go back and report to His Royal Highness Prince Jin.”

Wei Zheng had realized that the emperor and the court were beginning to change their attitude towards the King of Jin. This matter was of great importance, and he had to go back and report it immediately. That afternoon, he followed a team of coal ships back to Jiangdu County.

At the same time when Wei Zheng returned to Jiangdu from Pengcheng County, the second batch of saltpeter ore was transported from Shuzhong to Jiangdu. The first batch brought 300,000 jin, and the second batch doubled that to more than 600,000 jin.

The production of gunpowder has always been a top-secret project, and only a very small number of officials in the General Administration Office knew about it. In the past two years, gunpowder weapons have been continuously tested and improved, but Xiao Xia has no plans to use it in the war for the time being. He only considers using it at a critical moment.

Everything has its two sides. Although gunpowder can be powerful for a while, once it spreads, even to the hands of nomadic peoples, the consequences will be disastrous. Historically, the most powerful users of firearms were not the Han army, but the Jurchens and Mongols.

In a firearms testing field a hundred miles east of Jiangdu County, Xiao Xia was checking the test of a new type of firearm.

He stood on a high platform and used his clairvoyance to watch the city. A thick porcelain-shelled fire bomb was being tested there. Its power was second only to that of an iron-shelled fire bomb, but the iron-shelled fire bomb had not yet been developed.

The fire bomb is placed on a short wooden stake to explode, and a circle of wooden boards is placed three meters around it.

The soldier lit the fire line and ran away quickly. After a moment, there was a loud “boom!” and black smoke filled the air, but the surrounding wooden boards did not fall down. The power of the porcelain fire mine was relatively weak, and the shock wave could not reach more than three feet away.

Xiao Xia walked down and came to the center of the explosion, only to see that the wooden boards were densely packed with tiny iron nails.

This is the effect they want. There are three hundred tiny iron nails in the porcelain fire bomb. Once the fire bomb explodes, the iron nails will fly everywhere and no one within three feet will be spared. If they are poisoned iron nails, the lethality will be even greater.

(End of this chapter)