The Sky-traveling Tower ship left the capital, crossed the Yuyang Pass, and after flying for a long time, it finally arrived outside a county town.
Ao Huang stuck his head out over the side of the boat. Nunu stood on the dragon's head, holding the ink turtle firmly with his little paws, while the little Mo girl, with her index finger raised, stepped on the ink dragon and floated beside Nunu.
Yang Yuhuan held Fang Yun's hand and watched with him.
The three words Ning'an County have appeared frequently recently, and Fang Yun has become very familiar with it. Even though this is the first time he sees Ning'an County, he feels an inexplicable sense of familiarity in his heart.
Ning'an County is the transportation hub in the north of Jing State. Almost all the grain and grass transported to the northwest, north and northeast will pass through here, because there is an east-west river outside Ning'an County, and the river can be used to transport grain to the northeast or northwest.
That river is the Yishui River, which is very famous in the north, and the nickname of Ning'an County is Yixian.
Ning'an County is hundreds of feet away from the Yishui River. Water is drawn from the river to surround the city, forming a wide moat.
It was almost noon, and smoke could be seen rising from various places in Ning'an County. The county looked peaceful and did not look like a city close to the front line at all.
There are no real cities in the north of Ning'an County, only fortresses or checkpoints. Because there are only wars and life and death in those places, the monsters will not give the human race any opportunity to grow crops and raise livestock.
The city walls are high and there are soldiers patrolling on them.
Different from the spring scenery in the south of the Yangtze River, the spring breeze seems not to have blown here yet. Even though the sky is sunny, there is still some residual snow in some places.
Fang Yun saw the spring scenery in the south of the Yangtze River yesterday, and the winter in the north of the Great Wall today. He felt it was very strange, as if he was in two different worlds.
As he flew closer, Fang Yun realized that the city seemed to be torn apart by an invisible force.
One part is a serious military camp. Countless soldiers are training. Most of the soldiers here are new recruits. After basic training, they will be sent to various checkpoints on the three sides.
Some of them were busy merchants. Many merchant ships from Wu State would enter Ning'an along the Yishui River. It was much cheaper to transport goods from Ning'an to nearby cities than to transport them directly to the capital by land.
The last group is the residents of Ning'an County. There is no farm work now, but thanks to the power of the Holy Temple, the county is not cold, and thanks to the prosperity of Ning'an County, they will not starve to death as long as they work a little, so they have become the group with the slowest pace of life.
Serious, lively, casual, and obviously full of contradictions, yet they appear in the same city.
Seeing all this with his own eyes, Fang Yun finally understood why Ji Zhibai tried his best last year but only got a C grade in the civil affairs subject of the palace examination, and didn't even get a B grade.
People's livelihood involves many factors, including public security, wealth, customs, etc. Even if Ji Zhibai is the student of Zuo Xiang, and the officials here fully cooperate, they can't do anything about those people.
There were many people standing outside a pavilion three miles outside Ning'an County.
Fang Yun's eyes swept across there, and the major forces in Ning'an County emerged in his mind.
Although Ning'an County has the Yingyang Army, the biggest force is not the military, but the Transportation Department.
Although this department that controls the entire Mizhou transportation is only a fourth-rank government office, its actual power is greater than that of Mizhou's three third-rank governments: the provincial government, the provincial academy of literature, and the provincial army.
Only four prefectures remained in Mizhou, and the other five prefectures were either in name only or had been occupied by barbarians.
The place is small, the population is small, and so there are few scholars. Naturally, the power of the Academy of Literature is not great.
In Mizhou, the military is the most powerful, and the power of the government office, which belongs to the civil service system, is far inferior to that of other places.
Although the state army is also part of the military, it is only the protective force of Mizhou, and cannot be compared with the Yingyang Army or Dingyuan Army, so its power is also limited.
It just so happened that the three border armies were particularly dependent on the Transportation Office, which resulted in the actual status of the Transportation Office in Mizhou being higher than other government offices. At least it was headed by a Hanlin, who also served as the Transportation Office of the Three Borders.
Two brands, one department.
Although the director of the "Mizhou Transportation Office" was a fourth-rank official, the director of the "Sanbian Transportation Office" was a third-rank official.
The director of the Transportation Bureau was named Geng Ge. His wife died of a sudden illness more than ten years ago, so he married the niece of the Left Prime Minister Liu Shan as his wife.
The Transportation Bureau not only had hundreds of thousands of civilians and auxiliary soldiers under its jurisdiction, but also had 6,000 combat soldiers in Ning'an County, making it a powerful military force.
Ning'an County is under the jurisdiction of Qingwu Prefecture. Previously, the defense of Ning'an County was mainly the responsibility of the Qingwu Prefecture's army. But now, the "Beimang Army" of the Yingyang Army's Beizi Army has completely taken over the city defense of Ning'an County.
The Beimang Army is the second largest force after the Transportation Bureau.
The third largest force is Ning'an Trading Company.
This is a huge business organization established by local powerful people, and the founders of this business are many founding families of Jing State. Although they are not semi-saint families, their ancestors were generals who followed Jing State's Taizu and shed blood and sweat, so even semi-saint families would not interfere in Ning'an's trade.
Ning'an Trading Company has penetrated into every aspect of Ning'an County.
The fourth largest force is the officials of Ning'an County.
Most of these officials intermarried with local prominent families and had complex connections. They had been running Ning'an County for decades or even hundreds of years. Although they seemed to be of low rank, they were directly responsible for all details of Ning'an County. If the county magistrate lost them, he would be almost like a blind man.
The four major forces almost completely sided with Zuo Xiang!
Fortunately, Fang Yun secretly received help from the Chen family, the Zhang Heng family and others. Relying on the powerful force of his family, he had gained the loyalty of very few officials, so he was not left in the dark in Ning'an County.
Not only that, the Queen Mother gave Fang Yun the information about Ning An in the Jing** Intelligence Department.
Even so, it would only turn Fang Yun from zero to one, and it was still a long way from one hundred.
In the palace examination, although others would call Fang Yun a virtual saint, they could not exercise any of the virtual saint's powers. Fang Yun could only regard himself as an ordinary county magistrate without any special privileges.
The only thing Fang Yun can rely on is himself and his private army.
With more than 2,000 private armies, Fang Yun believes that the four major forces will not act recklessly.
However, if the four major forces want to mess with a county magistrate, they don't need to do it recklessly.
Ning'an County is a den of dragons and tigers.
Fang Yun looked up at the sky. It was clearly clear, but it looked like a storm was about to come.
Fang Yun looked down at the Sanliting below.
Ning'an County is an important town in the north. There is no Shili Pavilion at all, and the farthest place is only Sanli Pavilion.
Officials stood in front of Sanliting, and the road from Sanliting to Ning'an County was completely blocked by the state army, with swords and guns standing on both sides, and the momentum was overwhelming. A large number of Ning'an County residents crowded on the street behind the city gate, and Fang Yun could even see their expressions of joy or curiosity.
The sky-high ship landed and stopped steadily.
A young man in white stood on the ladder of the boat. He had delicate features and looked no more than twenty years old, but his eyes were deep and his demeanor was as steady as an old scholar. When he looked around, it was like a king inspecting or a great scholar visiting.
"Welcome to Saint Fang Xu!"
The people below, no matter they were the third-rank Hanlin who was related to the left prime minister by marriage, or the fourth-rank General Beimang of the Beimang Army, no matter they were the son-in-law of the Cui Sheng family, or the famous officials who had been entrenched in Ning'an County for more than a hundred years, all bowed their heads respectfully, without any perfunctory response, but instead feared that they would be impolite.
Fang Yun looked at them.
None of them raised their hands or looked up. They just bowed and looked at Fang Yun above with their peripheral vision.
"No need to be so polite, from now on, we are a family."
.(To be continued..)