So he practiced hard for a year, as long as the purpose was to change the court. So Niu Mantun said with a little excitement: "When will you leave?" Where to fight? ”

Gan Delen didn't know what Niu Mantun was thinking in his heart, he saw Niu Mantun's excited appearance and smiled very relieved and said, "It seems that you are still very calm." Very good! As long as you keep going to the battlefield like this. The chances of coming back alive will be great. I've calculated it for you, you set off the day after tomorrow and go directly to Liaoyang to gather. I called your sister-in-law and your mother-in-law to prepare the things. I don't know where to hit! ”

Niu Mantun held back his excitement and said, "That's okay." I'll sharpen my knives again tonight. Fortify the shield a little more. Then it's ready to go. ”

Gan Deleng said with a wry smile: "This time, you must go out and grab more gold, silver, and food to come back." Our family's food has bottomed out. If we can't get back some gold, silver, and grain, I'm afraid that these Ahabs won't survive during the spring famine. ”

Niu Mantun looked at his sister-in-law and nodded gloomily when he saw her. Niu Mantun was silent for a moment and said, "Otherwise, I'll take less food!" I figured out how to hunt some prey on the road for a while. ”

Gan Delen shook his head and said, "On this snowy day, where are you going to hunt?" If you want to hunt, you can go to the woods, but there is no time for you to delay on the way. Otherwise, no one will be able to protect you if you misunderstand military law. And I have prepared silver for you. Don't be stingy when you get to the army, play more. ”

Niu Mantun said: "Big brother, I don't want to bring silver, buy food!" Great, I grabbed the gold and silver, and it was enough to give them some more. ”

Gan Delen said with a wry smile: "It's your first time in battle, if they don't take care of you, it's a matter of whether you can come back alive." What's more, that is, twenty or thirty taels of silver, at most one and a half stones of miscellaneous grains, what can you top? As long as you can come back alive, there is still hope for our family. ”

Niu Mantun knew that what Gan Delen said was right. He was a new recruit on the battlefield, and his hope of staying alive was not very great. However, if you take care of your colleagues and superiors, you won't die easily if someone takes care of them. “

He glanced at his wife and said, "Then I'll go around the forest tomorrow to see if I can hunt some prey, and I can save a lot of food by freezing some dried meat on the road." ”

Gan Delen nodded and said, "It's also a way." Get a good night's rest. Check the weapon again, don't be taken for shortcomings! You must know that military law is ruthless! ”

Of course, Niu Mantun knew the strictness of the military law of the Houjin Army, but he also knew that this family was about to run out. There is naturally a lot of work to do in the family. But if the harvest is small, naturally you can't afford to raise so many ahabs.

Now in the area ruled by the Houjin army, the grain has been sold for a high price of fifteen or six taels and one stone! Where to eat is food, and what is clearly eaten is copper coins! But what Niu Mantun didn't know was that this price had not yet reached the peak of grain prices! In the next few years, the price of grain climbed to a high of 25 taels and one stone at its peak!

This is also the reason why those Jin merchants are crazy about smuggling materials to Houjin. In the beginning, the Jin merchants also made money legally, but then there was a change. Change occurs when the Dharma is corrupted.

In the early Ming Dynasty, in order to supply the military food needs of the frontier, the Ming court promulgated a policy called the Kaizhong Law. The method of opening the Chinese law was implemented by the government, using salt and tea as intermediaries to recruit merchants to transport military rations, horses and other materials.

As early as in the third year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1370), because Shanxi and other border areas were in urgent need of military rations, the government recruited merchants to transport grain in exchange for salt, and led the salt to be sold in the designated area, which was called Kaizhong. In the fourth year of Hongwu, the rules of salt were formulated. Considering the distance of the road, the amount of grain transported, and other factors such as whether the Chinese and Namibi merchants can make a profit, so as to determine the amount of grain import and exchange. Later, according to the needs of the government, the government successively implemented the method of paying money in salt, the method of salt in Nama, the method of salt in Na Tie, the method of nano tea, and the method of tea and Yima.

This means that merchants can directly transport the food and other supplies of the army lich to the border to supply military supplies. And when the quartermaster gets the supplies, he will give him the equivalent amount of salt. Merchants took the salt to the salt works to extract it, and then sold it in the designated areas of the government.

Due to the high cost of long-distance grain transportation for merchants, the profit is not large. So many businessmen came up with a solution. It is to hire labor in the border areas to cultivate the fields, produce grain, and put it in the warehouse on the spot in exchange for salt, so as to make more profits. Because this form of tuntian is run by merchants, it is also called Shangtun. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Shangtun east to Liaodong, north to Xuanda, west to Gansu, south to the address, everywhere! This has a huge role in promoting the border military food reserves, as well as the development of border areas and population flows! Both the family and the country are two pennies.

But then the Kaizhong method was slowly destroyed. The reason is that with the increasing corruption of the ruling class, the royal family, eunuchs, nobles, and bureaucrats saw that it was profitable to hold salt and resell it to salt merchants to make a profit. This phenomenon is known as "nest occupation". Later, this phenomenon intensified and undermined the system of opening China. Most of these occupants were merchants represented by Huai merchants. The Shangtun merchants, represented by the Jin merchants, were forced to a dead end.

Often, merchants get salt but can't get it. Even if you can mention salt, it will cost a huge bribe, and it will become more than worth the loss. So slowly, no one was willing to sell grain to the border army. The rations of the border army had to be transferred from the interior. As a result, many acres of land cultivated by those merchants were wasted. The rest of the grain produced by the unabandoned grain fields was sold by the merchants.

Originally, grain was one of the materials that were banned from trade by order of the Ming Dynasty. Controlling the amount of grain exported to the grassland was an effective means for the Ming court to restrain the grassland. It is effective over a long period of time. However, under the silver bullet offensive of the merchants, the generals on the border opened the door one after another, or participated in it themselves, so a large amount of grain was sold to the grassland and transferred to Houjin. This seriously accelerated the speed at which the steppe tribes fell to Houjin.

When the Houjin rose, the Houjin army, which was in urgent need of food, hit it off with those Jin merchants, and after these people led by the Jin merchant Fan family began to make a profit from selling grain, these merchants became more and more emboldened, and even began to resell all kinds of military materials, and even finished weapons and armor. even probed all kinds of information about the Ming Dynasty for Houjin and bribed the generals. Later, the gold was paid with gold and silver obtained from murder and robbery. And they turned around and used this gold and silver to buy the high-ranking officials in the court as protection! So their business is getting bigger and bigger! But the bigger their business, the more harm it will do to the Ming court! But they don't care!