Chapter 95 Inspection
The conflict between Ma Su and Li Yan suddenly became public with this confrontation.
Ma Su despised Li Yan very much, and now he hated his audacious corruption even more. Li Yan, on the other hand, looked down upon Ma Di, thinking that he was just a pawn of the Jingzhou faction.
The conflict between the two sides was irreconcilable from the beginning. Ma Su could not tolerate Li Yan's corruption, and Li Yan could not stand Ma Su's straightforward troublemaking.
I have to mention here a very serious factional problem within the Shu Han.
Although when Zhuge Liang was alive, the political situation of the Shu Han Dynasty seemed very stable, and the whole country was united in the Northern Expedition. But in fact, it was Zhuge Liang who would mediate, otherwise the Shu Han would have exploded long ago.
The internal factions in this small country with only one state are very complicated, and the battles are also extremely fierce.
According to their place of origin, they can be divided into Jingzhou sect, Dongzhou sect and local sect.
Needless to say about the local faction, they are powerful nobles born and raised in Yizhou and have strong power at the grassroots level.
The Dongzhou faction is the Central Plains gentry brought by Liu Yan. There are people from Yanzhou and Huainan. Their leader is Li Yan.
Finally, there is the Jingzhou faction. This group is the veterans who followed Liu Bei to Sichuan. This is the faction with the most power at this stage, but it is also the faction with the least talent.
Of course, there is nothing that can be done. The Jingzhou faction has lost its backing since Jingzhou was taken away by Soochow. In Liu Bei's Battle of Yiling, more than half of Jingzhou's men were killed or injured, and there were not many left.
The battle between these three major factions is still fierce, and different factions have different demands.
Among them, the Dongzhou faction and the Jingzhou faction strongly supported the Northern Expedition. After all, Yizhou was not their deep-rooted territory. If these two factions want to remain in power, they cannot rely solely on local governments for financial power and local management.
The local faction is relatively flat. If they had no power, they would also like to be flat like the Jiangdong nobles.
If Shu had a large territory, the three big cake families wouldn't be able to quarrel. But now that the Communist Party only covers this one state, the cake is so small and most of it has to be used for the Northern Expedition. It is strange that the contradiction is not acute.
The main reason why the three factions have sharp conflicts but still do not fight is that it is Zhuge Liang who holds the power.
Although Prime Minister Zhuge came with Jingzhou, he did not belong to the three factions. They treat the people of the three factions the same way, not the matter but the person. Under Zhuge Liang's leadership, people with conflicts were separated into separate offices, and criminal, legal and political affairs were taken charge of by oneself. This stabilized the situation in Shuzhong.
But this situation is only under Zhuge Liang's management. Outside his management, it is basically a war.
This was the case for Yang Yi and Wei Yan in history. As soon as Zhuge Liang died, the two immediately started fighting.
Ma Su also wanted to deal with the situation but not the person, but most people still regarded him as the backbone of the Jingzhou faction.
The same goes for Li Yan. He doesn't think he did anything wrong, he just thinks Ma Su was sent to find trouble on behalf of Jingzhou. So Li Yan simply drove Ma Su back to Longyou, and then he would deal with Ma Su after he won the war and gained prestige.
Ma Su did not argue with Li Yanxi about this, and Li Yan would not dare to kill him if the fight continued.
Ma Su packed his bags with his five thousand troops and headed back to Longyou. He planned to go to Tianshui County as soon as possible to recover Li Yan's corruption gains before Li Yan was ready.
Before Ma Su left, Wang Ping came here specifically, hoping to resolve the conflict between Ma Su and Li Yan.
"General Youchang, we are all colleagues working for His Majesty. Sometimes there is no need to be so violent, right?" Wang Ping tried to persuade. He didn't want Longyou to be in chaos within a few months of the Prime Minister's departure.
"Zijun, if Li Yan acted honestly, I wouldn't bother to conflict with him. But Li Yan pretends to be a public servant and embezzles food and crops. If I endure this, am I still Ma Su?"
Ma Su shook his head and threw what he investigated to Wang Pingdao.
"I understand that you all think that I am attacking Li Yan as a Jingzhou nobleman. But you must also know that I am the prime minister's apprentice, and I am not dealing with the situation but the person!"
"I have been taught not to do small things! I can't stand this kind of corruption now, and I can't stop here!"
Seeing Ma Su's resolute attitude, Wang Ping had no choice but to leave.
Compared with Ma Su, Wang Ping was a military general. He knew the importance of taking sides, but it was still difficult to understand Ma Su's hatred of evil.
Wang Ping's persuasion failed, so Ma Su took his family and horses back to Longyou via the Long Road after resting for two days. Li Yan led the Shu army to garrison in Chencang, quietly waiting for the Wei army's counterattack.
They all have a bright future!
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At this time, the five counties in Longyou were guarded by five people respectively.
Ma Su was in charge of Longxi County, Wei Yan was in charge of Anding County, Wu Yi was in charge of Guangwei County, and Yang Yi was in charge of Nan'an County. As the richest county, Tianshui County was directly under the jurisdiction of Yongzhou Governor.
And Ma Su's target this time is Tianshui County, which Li Yan is personally responsible for.
As soon as Ma Su came out of Long Road, he led his people straight to Shanggui.
This is the entrance to Long Road, and you must go here to transport grain and grass. Judging from the account books, at least Qianshi's grain crops disappeared after entering here.
Ma Su came to the city with five thousand soldiers and horses. The county magistrate did not dare to neglect and hurriedly opened the city gate to welcome him.
"See General Fenwei!"
The county magistrate here is a Shuzhong official transferred from Hanzhong, and he knows Ma Su's identity. As soon as he saw Ma Su, he immediately bowed his hands and saluted Ma Su with great respect.
Everyone knows that Ma Su is the prime minister's apprentice, and because of his military exploits, promotion is inevitable.
While Ma Su let the troops enter the city and told Shu Ji to keep an eye on him, and don't let anyone leave the team to harass the people, he took the hand of the Shanggui County Magistrate and asked him.
"Since you know me, you should have heard about my character, Ma Di. I came back from Chencang this time to investigate the matter of Li Yan, the governor of the country, who was greedy for money."
"I can find out from the account books that a large amount of grain has disappeared from you. Can you tell me where it went?"
Ma Di's words made the county magistrate suddenly panic.
"General Ma, I am only a small official, how dare I get involved in these things."
"I don't dare to lie to you. Li Shijun did quietly transport the grain from here. But a certain county magistrate did not dare to interfere. I don't know anything. I only know that they transported it out from the north gate."
After saying that, the county magistrate simply acted like a quail and refused to say anything more.
He can't get involved in high-level factional struggles.
"Yeah?"
Ma Su squinted his eyes, gently opened the map and began to explore.
Since Li Yan has been greedy so much, he will definitely find a county to hide.
Now that he has taken office not long ago, the other four counties have no ability to intervene. So the only place he could hide was in Tianshui County.
Ma Su moved his perspective upward, and finally looked at a county.
Ji County!