Since Yang Jingfa defected to Liu Pei's men, Liu Pei felt that everything was going well. In the past half a year, there have been no problems under Liu Pei's rule. The workshop is getting bigger and bigger, and it already has the appearance of a factory. Many apprentices have developed a skill and are beginning to adapt to their roles. The land was also planted with grain, just waiting for the autumn harvest. The livestock pen is full of chickens, ducks, pigs and sheep, and it looks like they are all fat and happy. The barren mountains are covered with fruit trees and alfalfa. The training of the family members is in full swing. Even his business of collecting taxes at sea was successful. Now there are many maritime merchants who obediently lower their sails when they see the fluttering black flag, and hand over 20% of the goods as road money.

So Liu Pei's busiest thing is to pull things from modern times to the Ming Dynasty. Not to mention anything else, just talking about perfume and other goods, Liu Pei has stored at least enough to sell for more than three years. Liu Peijing These products are positioned as high-end products, the prices are high, and the purchases are all large households. So the sales are stable. There are close to 3000 guns of various types used on sea ships. At the same time, there are nearly 10,000 firearms and more than 10,000 sets of plate armor.

So Liu Pei stayed in China for a long time this year, which naturally made Yu Lina smile. However, what also made Yu Lina distressed was that Liu Pei gave her a strange task. However, Yu Lina still honestly hired a private detective to do it.

In the afternoon of that day, Liu Pei was in contact with the knife technique accompanied by his own soldiers. At this time in the Ming Dynasty, the role of a commander of the three armies was still very huge. Liu Pei didn't dare to guarantee that he would not go into battle one day, so it was important to practice his sword skills and riding skills well.

Because Liu Pei is physically strong and has the blessing of the time and space gate, his strength is much greater than that of ordinary people. Then the knife he uses is of course much thicker and heavier than the knife of ordinary people. His knife was carefully made by blacksmiths, and by the eye, it was at least about 3 inches longer than the knives of others, and the back of the knife was a finger thick. The blade is relatively straight, with only a small bend. Once you get started, it's overwhelming!

Just when Liu Pei was happy, a personal soldier came in with Liu Jiang. As soon as he entered the courtyard, Liu Jiang said, "Family master, something happened." Our goods have been robbed! ”

Liu Pei was stunned for a moment, then took back the knife and handed it to his soldiers and asked, "What goods were robbed?" Where was it robbed? ”

Liu Jiang said: "It's a batch of perfume, soap and other goods. There were three truckloads of goods. It was robbed near Changle County. ”

Liu Pei was very familiar with the name Changle when he heard it, but he didn't think about it for a while, so he asked, "Shouldn't these goods be escorted in large quantities?" Why was this batch delivered in only three trucks. What about the people who escorted the car? ”

Liu Jiang said: "I have already asked. This batch of goods was temporarily allocated because Beijing had too many sales a while ago and there was a shortage. They didn't go far, they planned to go to Texas to meet the big convoy. Because there are few goods, there are fewer families who hold the goods. There are only 10 people. However, the 10 family members and the coachman all died on the spot. ”

Liu Pei was furious when he heard it! My hard work died at the hands of robbers before I even went into battle! Liu Pei said angrily: "You dare to attack my people!" Do you know who did it? ”

Liu Jiang shook his head and said, "I don't know yet!" However, when I got the news, I sent someone to check it out. I guess the news is coming soon. ”

As soon as Liu Pei was about to speak, he heard a report from his relatives that four people were holding the tokens of the Bloody Hand Gang and begging to see the head of the family and the gang leader. Liu Jiang immediately said: "It should be the person I sent out." ”

Liu Pei waved his hand and said, "Hurry up and let them in." ”

A moment later, four men walked in. The four men were tall and fit, and all dressed in short clothes. There is also a clasp around the waist with a weapon on it. It seems that the weapon was taken away by the pro-soldiers. And these four people are vigorous and energetic, and they look like practicing their families.

The four of them found that Liu Pei and Liu Jiang were both in the courtyard, and hurriedly paid their respects. Liu Pei was anxious, so he said, "Get up." ”

Seeing that the four of them were still a little hesitant, Liu Jiang said: "The head of the family told you to get up, don't hurry up!" ”

Liu Pei squinted his eyes and didn't speak. Liu Jiang pointed to the four people and said, "Family master, these four people are senior brothers, and they all serve as sect leaders under me. The four of them are familiar with the characters on the rivers and lakes, and they are good at tracking and detecting, so I sent them to see the scene. ”

After Liu Jiang finished speaking, he said to the four people: "Tell me, what have you found out?" ”

The person who started said, "Return to the head of the family, help the master." The four of us took people to survey the scene. There were a large number of horseshoe tracks surrounding the convoy. At the rough end of the day, there are seventy or eighty horses. And there were a lot of broken arrows at the scene. Judging from the wounds on the brothers, most of them were bow and arrow wounds. From this, it can be concluded that it was a gang of horse bandits. ”

When it comes to horse bandits, we have to mention the horse system of the Ming Dynasty. The Ma government of the Ming Dynasty was under the command of the military department and was managed by the Taifu Temple and the Yuanma Temple. Horse breeding is divided into military breeding and civilian breeding. Military breeding is done by in-service soldiers or military households, and the types of private breeding include the Jingfu Boarding Pastoral (also known as the reserve horse system) and the private breeding (also known as the breeding MA system). There are roughly three ways to distribute horse grazing in the civil court, namely grazing according to households, grazing according to ding, and grazing according to mu.

The three standards are implemented according to the situation of different regions and different years. The range of horses adopted by the people is in Beizhili, Henan, Shandong, and a small number of areas in the south of the Yangtze River. During the Yongle period, through the efforts of the government and the common people, the number of horses increased greatly, providing sufficient guarantee for the supply of military horses, but the horse administration of the Ming Dynasty also brought many problems such as the corruption of officials and the heavy burden of raising horses for the people. For example, the horse households bear the pain of editing and reviewing rotation, the pain of miscellaneous labor, the pain of buying the year, the pain of dotting the imprint, the pain of settlement and exchange, and at the same time have to farm the land, which can be described as unspeakably miserable!

Later, because the original breeding and distribution standards could not meet the needs, and in order to prevent horse households from raising horses passively, "children and horses will be treated together with the same group, and the death will be compensated. In this way, the burden of horse households in Zhunbei and Zhili has increased the responsibility for the treatment of horse diseases and the liability for compensation for the death and loss of horses.

In the fourth year of Xuande (1429), the horses of the northern Zhili prefectures were distributed to Shandong, and the people were required to raise a mare for every five dings and a foal for every three dings. In this way, the standard of breeding and distribution of the three provinces of Shandong is to raise two horses in Bading, although the number of horses in each ding of the average male has been reduced for the Beizhiqiu, but the policy of halving the grain and grass of the horses has not been had, and the horses allocated by the imperial court in Shandong are "not exempted". Shandong has a larger population than Beizhili, but the land is limited and the distance from Beijing is relatively large, so the burden of horse breeding in Shandong is also heavier. However, the policy of halving the grain and grass of the Ma households in the northern provinces did not exist for long, and in view of Beijing's proximity to the northern part of the country, the military defense was heavy, and there was too much free food, which affected the military needs of the troops. The minister of the Ministry of War played the imperial court "in the Shuntian Prefecture of Zhili.. Half of the grain is exempted, then it is too much, the supply is insufficient, please do not exempt its grain, but let the five Ding raise a horse, and the three Ding raise a peony horse.. from it". The policy of halving the grain and grass was replaced by two horses raised by Bading, but raising horses is risky, and horse households need to be compensated for the death of horses.

As a sound political system in the Ming Dynasty, the horse administration was closely related to the horse households from the birth to the delivery of the horse to the imperial court, including the daily life of the horse, such as veterinarians and forage. Although the status of the horse households is relatively low, because the distribution area of the horse households is located in the Gyeonggi region, including parts of North Zhili, South Zhili, Henan and Shandong, and there are a large number of people, such a large number of people in the middle and late life difficulties caused rebellion.

To put it simply, during the Hongwu period, the main job of horse breeders was to take care of horses, and in case of war, they handed over the horses to the front line, which was equivalent to storage, which was okay; After arriving in Yongle and later, there were not so many wars, and the imperial court demanded "fruits", that is, big horses gave birth to small horses, and they were not allowed to raise them to death.

The question is, horses are animals, and if they are animals, they will be born, old, sick and die, how can it be so smooth? What's even more terrifying is that the successful "fruiting" of horse farmers and raising a bunch of ponies means that more horses must be raised - the better they are, the heavier the burden. In order to raise horses, countless families have been ruined.

PS: Let's give some support, big guys!