[Anti-piracy has been withdrawn]

Gaizhou, as early as the Han Dynasty, was an important town in Liaodong where merchants gathered, and it was named Gaizhou in the Jin Dynasty. In the fourth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, Gaizhou was changed to Gaizhou Wei, and the new city of Gaizhou was built in the following year, which is now the summer and autumn station of Yuanma Siqing in Liaodong (spring and winter in Haizhou).

Gaizhou is located in the southeast of Liaodong, and in the Liaodong Peninsula, it is located in the central part of the northwest, which is the junction of the Liaohe Plain and the hills of southern Liaoning.

And if you simply focus on the current period of the Ming Dynasty, then the area of Gaizhou is still the throat that divides western and eastern Liaodong - because the Liaohe Hetao area at this time is still in the hands of the Mongols, to be exact, in the hands of the fried flowers of the three departments of Duoyan.

Liaodong Yuanma Temple was originally an institution for the management of horse administration, so the setting is relatively simple, there is "Zhengqing one, Shaoqing two, Sicheng four, the main book one", of which Yuanma Temple Qing as the chief official, for the three products; Shaoqing is the fourth product, responsible for the affairs of the temple; The temple is six products, respectively supervising the six prisons and twenty-four gardens under the jurisdiction of the Liaodong Yuanma Temple; The main book is from the seventh product, and is responsible for the provincial school documents.

However, it has been said before that most of this errand of raising horses is now basically abolished, and Yuanma Siqing himself rarely spends time on raising horses, and has become the military and political chief of southern Liaoning, so among these subordinates, such as Shaoqing, although the level is not low, he is already a prefect elsewhere, but his actual status in southern Liaoning is very average.

There are only two really important figures in southern Liaoning, one is Yuanma Siqing - the main authority comes from the deputy envoy of the military armament; The other is a military officer, "the right general who guards the sea cover".

The current incumbent Haigai general is named Kong Dongru, a native of Liaohaiwei, who took up his post in the seventh year of Wanli, and was previously a guerrilla in the left battalion of Guangning. (Wufeng note: according to the "Records of the Divine Sect".) ）

What does this mean? It shows that he is Li Chengliang's person.

Why?

First of all, he is a native of Liaohaiwei, although Liaohaiwei has the word "sea", but it is actually located in Kaiyuan, the northernmost part of Liaodong, and Kaiyuan has two guards: 30,000 Wei and Liaohaiwei. To the south of Liaohaiwei is Tielingwei, Li Chengliang's hometown and foundation.

After Li Chengliang made his fortune, the first thing he did to expand his power was to control Sanwanwei and Liaohaiwei north of Tielingwei, because in this way he formed his "sphere of influence" in northeastern Liao, which was many years ago.

Since Kong Dongru was able to get to this point with Liao Haiwei's background, it is almost impossible without Li Chengliang's nod or even recommendation.

Secondly, his former position was a guerrilla of the left battalion of Guangning, and this position was not simple, in fact, he ranked first among the most critical guerrillas under the command of the Liaodong General Army - the Liaodong General Army is now stationed in Guangning.

Li Chengliang has run the Liaodong Army almost into the "Li Family Army" over the years, and the most critical guerrilla under him can not be a close confidant?

Besides, if it weren't for his cronies, would he be able to release such a number one military general in southern Liaoning? Dream.

This Confucian Kong Counselor probably got Li Chengliang's orders, and he was very affectionate to Gao Pragmatic, but he never had a heart-to-heart. Although he personally led more than 1,000 soldiers and horses to Niangniang Palace, that is, Yingkou to welcome Gao Pragmatic to Gaizhou, he just touted Gao Pragmatic along the way, and did not say anything serious.

Touting this kind of thing, Gao Pragmatic has seen a lot, and Kong Dongru's praise has not necessarily had any new meaning, it is nothing more than a set of civil and military skills, and meritorious deeds, and Gao Zhi has long been immune.

So Gao pragmatic took the initiative to pull the topic away, and on the road from Yingkou to Gaizhou, Gao pragmatic mainly asked some questions about the topography, transportation and even economic conditions of Gaizhou and even Haizhou.

The geomorphological characteristics of Gaizhou are "six mountains, three rivers and one field", in terms of grain production in this era, it is not possible to feed people by farming alone, and it is not convenient for Gaizhou to reclaim fields, because there are too many saline-alkali lands, and they are barely opened up as fields, and they can't grow much grain - the later Red Dynasty has solved this problem, as for now, it is not even to think about it, and Gao Pragmatic does not have such professional agricultural technology.

Therefore, Gaizhou's economy mainly uses its geographical location to be an intermediate station - the middle position of Liaodong and Liaoxi, which is exactly what to do.

Other than that, it's water.

There are two kinds of water, one is the Liao River, Daqing River and other rivers; The second is the sea, Gaizhou is bordered by Liaodong Bay in the west.

Liaohe River and other rivers were originally not very useful, after all, the south ships and the north horses, and the people of Liaodong used to prefer land transportation, but since Gao Shishi built a new Yingkou Port near Niangniang Palace a few years ago, everything began to change quietly.

Yingkou Port is backed by Jinghua, a business giant, and has huge resources of business partners, so the throughput of Yingkou Port is increasing rapidly and steadily every year.

As in other ports, goods cannot be transported to the port, but also to be transported everywhere, which needs to be easily transported.

In fact, with the location of Yingkou, even if you take the land route, you can easily radiate the two wings of eastern and western Liaoning, and the same is true for southern Liaoning. But if we only talk about going to Liaodong (east of the Liao River), then rivers such as the Liao River and the Taizi River are very useful.

Jinghua soon discovered the business opportunities - of course, this is because Jinghua has always done this kind of thing, so it quickly established river transportation, from a dozen inland river transport ships at the beginning, to more than 100 large and small inland river transport ships now, completely controlling the inland river transportation business in eastern Liaodong.

Although inland river vessels are far smaller than sea vessels, there are so many ships, and there is obviously a surplus of Jinghua's own goods alone.

After all, in this era, water transport is definitely cheaper than land transport, the only trouble is that Liaodong is too cold, when the cold winter comes, the river is frozen, it is not easy to do, and even these ships have to leave in advance, sail into a special river port to mothball, seriously affect the transportation efficiency and money-making efficiency of Jinghua.

Gao Pragmatic already knew these things before he came, and Kong Dongru's general remarks made Gao Pragmatic not much interested, so he simply changed the topic and asked: "Haigai and two places, now there are soldiers, and how many people can be used?" Horses...... Oh, I won't ask you about this. ”

Although Kong Dongru is Li Chengliang's person, he obviously also knows Gao Pragmatic's background, this is not the former Yuanma Siqing that Li Chengliang can handle casually, and he can't take it lightly.

So as soon as Gao asked a question, he hurriedly said: "There are more than 40,000 soldiers in Haigai. ”

Gao was taken aback, and immediately asked, "How much?" ”

"More than forty thousand." Kong Dongru said humbly but resolutely.

At this time, Gao Pragmatic gradually came back to his senses, put away his surprise, coughed lightly, and asked, "So, what can be used?" ”

"Two thousand six hundred." Kong Dongru didn't do Tai Chi, and said honestly.

Gao Pragmatism was simply stunned!

What's going on with you Liaodong? An important place in one of the important towns on the nine sides, how can the proportion of this army be inferior to Guangxi?

Kong Dongru may have seen Gao Shishi's surprise, and said seriously: "Gao observes, don't hide it, because there are fewer battles on the Nangai side of Liaoning, so there are many soldiers who are unusable, and none of the 2,600 usable troops mentioned by the last general are soldiers from southern Liaoning, and all of them are the entourage brought by the last general from Guangning." As he spoke, he couldn't help but show a hint of pride in his eyes.

Oh, now I get it.

Gao pragmatic said: Together with the guards on the side of Jinfuhaigai in southern Liaoning, there are about 40,000 soldiers on the register, but in the eyes of Li Chengliang's favorite general, this is all waste, it can't fight at all, it can't be regarded as "usable", and the only ones who are really "usable" are the entourage he brought.

The so-called entourage is the personal descendant of the general, and the reason why it is called "retinue" means that these people do not belong to the place, but to the member, and if the general is transferred to another place, these family members will also be taken away.

With 2,600 followers, this Kong Dongru has a bit of strength, why don't I have any impression of such a character?