The boat arrived at Huai'an Shuiguan, because of Li Guoding's reminder, Min Yuanqi did not directly carry the salt bag to the usual trading firm, but took Min Yuanjin and Liang Shifa to inquire about the news first.

Min Yuanqi is not too worried that the other party will do something in Huai'an Fucheng, there are sub-patrol road yamen, Huai'an government office, county yamen, because of the war in the north, there are also some battalion officers and soldiers sent from Nanjing to Huai'an, the city is almost full of officials and garrison officers and soldiers, once there is a dispute and conflict, I am afraid that things will be a lot of trouble.

There are also a lot of officers and soldiers in the city, but like Min Yuanqi and others, they belong to the lowest level of the social class.

In addition to the civil official yamen and the battalion station, there are also the official offices of Dahewei and Huai'anwei in the city, although the guard office was defeated, but the two yamen are quite magnificent.

Huai'anwei has 6,000 households, the number of soldiers is nearly 7,000, and there are 3,301 soldiers by the end of Wanli, which is the number of the Qing army more than 20 years ago, and it is estimated that it will decrease slightly.

There are more than 800 officers and soldiers in Huai'anwei, which is not enough for one person in each city battlement, so more and more battalions have been stationed recently.

In addition, there are 6,000 and 40 pieces of weapons made annually, more than 710 hectares of tuntian, 10,055 stone of annual tax grain, 223 boats, and 70,000 stone of grain transportation every year.

Dahewei has 8,000 households, more than 5,000 soldiers, more than 1,530 officers and soldiers of the garrison, 6,400 weapons per year, 949 hectares of tuntian, more than 14,000 stone of annual tax grain, 336 boats, and 120,000 stone of grain per year.

Judging from the numbers, the strength of Dahewei is far above Huai'anwei, but when Min Yuanqi passed through the command yamen, he found that there were no guards standing guard in the yamen, and the soldiers stationed at the city head and the city gate were all battalions, and the commander of the guard post in the city did not even raise a few family members, and completely lost any garrison.

As for the more than 10,000 pieces of weapons made in the year, according to the regulations of the early years of the country, there are a number of bows, strings, swords and guns, armor and shields.

Each guard adds up to more than 100,000 acres of tuntian, plus a large number of surplus, if the drill, weapons, armor, and grain are carried out according to the arrangement of the beginning of the country, these two guards alone can fully guard Huai'an.

In addition, the health center also has an internal town department, a school field, a health school, a shipyard, and an ordnance bureau, and if all the functions are complete, the military and civil affairs can be afforded.

It's a pity that everything is abandoned.

When Min Yuanqi went ashore, many of the wharves were flag soldiers wearing fat jackets, and many of the coolies, men, and even the little two who ran the hall were dressed as flag soldiers in the guards.

Of course, the most strong men of the flag army are still in the shipyard and the civilian tuntian, there are also a lot of boats, and most of the people in the city are gathered at the wharf, and most of the military households and acres are occupied by officers, and there are many flag soldiers who simply do not farm the land, and directly work as coolies everywhere.

Min Yuanqi's military attache robe didn't add much color to him, in fact, no one cared at all, even if someone occasionally glanced at it, it was not a matter of importance.

Huai'an Mansion City is also a big city, the circumference of the old city is ten miles, the new city is seven miles long, built at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the old city is still built in the Jin Dynasty, the rammed earth city wall is wrapped in bricks at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, and four gates such as Yingxun Chengen are set up, and the main business district is still in the old city.

Between the old and new cities, there is a sandwich city, which was repaired when preparing for the Japanese in the Jiajing period, and is now mainly used for the garrison.

After all, it is one of the only two provinces in Jiangbei, although Huai'an is not as good as Yangzhou, but it is located in the center of transportation in the north and south, and it is also a shipbuilding center, and the salt industry is as developed as Yangzhou, and the gap between the two is not big.

Min Yuanqi walked all the way, looking at the city wall and the lazy garrison officers and soldiers, looking at those long spears and short spears and big swords and iron spears, as well as shields and long knives, a few archers carried long infantry bows on their backs, and most of the battalion soldiers were also very ordinary, and most of them looked thin and weak.

When I arrived in the old town, there were more commercial houses and houses, and there were more ordinary people.

In Min Yuanqi's eyes, the picture with a sense of history is more vivid. Faces are young and strong, men and women, young and old, long robes and short robes, square scarves and nets, all kinds of hats, or only bare hair tied with strips of cloth, sedan chairs, chariots, carts, shouting, bowing their heads and hurrying, standing at the street corner basking in the sun and laughing...... The dialect is still the same, except for some words with strong ancient rhymes, it doesn't sound much different from the Huai'an dialect hundreds of years later.

The fragrance of eating is also very strong, Huai'an is also a gathering place for salt merchants, these guys make money too easily, in addition to building houses and buying fields, the rest of the thing is to study food, don't get tired of eating, don't get tired of stewing, anyway, how to spend money and how delicate it is.

This kind of atmosphere also affected the people, and Huaiyang cuisine was in the early exploration at this time, and after a hundred years, it was largely formed.

For Min Yuanqi, buying a cage of steamed buns on the street and eating two casually is satisfied, he is not like ordinary officers and soldiers of the guard, the first thing he does when he arrives in Huai'an is to get rid of the salt, and then he finds a good restaurant and eats and drinks well.

In a place like Yunti Guan, the most magnificent building is the yamen of the guard, and the rest of the buildings are schools, temples, restaurants and restaurants, and the number of restaurants is very small, not to mention those high-grade restaurants in Huai'an City.

When the three of them ate steamed buns, their temperament was also a dirt bun, and when they arrived at the place where the salt merchants gathered, they were either rich or expensive, and most of the robes on their bodies were silk, and they were lined with fox skin or mink fur.

"These bastards...... Min Yuanjin scolded angrily: "Without our constant frying of salt, the eyes are red, the body is smoky, and they get up early and suffer a lot, where did they come from so good to grow!" ”

Liang Shifa didn't make a sound, he always looked diligent and cautious, and his cautious attitude was on his face. This person is very clever and scheming, Min Yuanqi's previous performance had a very strong impact on Liang Shifa and others, although it was just reckless on the surface, but the preaching afterwards, as well as the analysis of the future trend, these things are not available to Liang Shifa.

In terms of the heart of this little flag officer, he looked down on Min Yuanqi at all before this. Liang Shifa is five or six years older than Min Yuanqi, he was an apprentice in a trading house when he was a child, he knows a lot of words, is proficient in arithmetic, talks about buying and selling, understands business, and knows how to communicate with people, which makes Liang Shifa very popular, and everyone says that he is a smart and shrewd person...... Such a person looks down on the son of a family who has no qualitative character and no ability, and Min Yuanqi is not a family of wealthy businessmen and gentry, he only has the hereditary military position of the guard, and he is only at the level of a hundred households, what is this thing worth?

Liang Shifa is bent on saving money and doing business in the Yunti Pass in the future, as for the future of his official position or something, this little flag official has not considered it at all.

In fact, the small flag officer is also hereditary, this thing has rules since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, some of the generals, the children are in command of the affairs as soon as they become adults, and the minimum starting is a thousand households, and then the battalion sentry officer, the general, the thousand, plus the commander of the same knowledge, the commander, the battalion to the guerrilla, the general, and finally the deputy general soldier, the general soldier, the governor of the Jiadu Governor's Mansion, the prince Shaobao led Shang Fangjian, and sat in a very human minister.

The beginning is different, and the ending is of course different.

Liang Shifa has never dreamed of being the general of the capital to lead Shang Fangjian, but the dream of Fujia Yunti Pass has been done many times. He feels that in order for people to get rich, they must not only be shrewd, but also know the general trend. Most of the big businessmen were the gentry, or had close contacts with the gentry class. One is to get the protection of the gentry class, and the other is to know the general trend of the court, so that it will not suffer too much loss.

Under this understanding, after Min Yuanqi analyzed the general trend of the future that day, Liang Shifa admired Min Yuanqi's five-body throw!

This kind of thing has always been understood only by talented people, and it has to be a gentry in a big place, and a gentry in a poor and remote country is not good, and he can't say a word.

And Min Yuan Qixing shows that this young hundred households are not as mediocre as they seem, but have always considered the future of Yuntiguan and this hundred households.

That's pretty rare!

After Liang Shifa was convinced, he was determined to do the things in front of him well.

After passing through several small salt shops, Liang Shifa pointed to a medium-sized salt shop and said to Min Yuanqi: "My lord, more than half of our salt goods are out of Huai'an, and more than half of them are in this house, and the price given is fair." ”

Min Yuanqi squinted at it, and there was a simple word "salt" on the banner, and the words "Zhang's old shop" were written on the door.

According to the rules of the Ming Dynasty, official salt can only be sold in Fucheng and county seats, but now there are salt sales in towns and villages, and the main source is that small traders come to Fucheng to wholesale.

Of course, the source of salt in the salt shop is mainly hereditary stove households, and there are also those who cook private salt.

Min Yuanqi smiled slightly, shook his head and said: "I remember this shopkeeper, like you in the world, you act shrewdly and prudently, the more such a person, the more afraid of offending people, he will not accept our salt." ”

Liang Shifa's eyes froze, obviously thinking of this.

Things were as Min Yuanqi expected, after Yang Shida let go, the people of this business house did not dare to accept the salt goods of Yunti Pass.

Although he was polite, his god-like attitude also made Liang Shifa and Min Yuanjin angry.

Min Yuanqi was also a little depressed, if Huai'an didn't accept it all here, it would be really troublesome.

A trip to Yangzhou had to be delayed for a few days, and he was still in a hurry to pass the ladder.

The process of boiling salt can be improved, and there is also the matter of farming, and Min Yuanqi also has his own ideas. In addition, he plans to use the people around him as the backbone, and then select a group of young and strong people to train seriously.

It's February of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, and Min Yuanqi doesn't remember when the Jingshi was breached, but he thinks it must be the first half of the year, and there is really not much time left for him.

The rest of the salt shops also have almost the same attitude, friendly and polite, but the salt is resolutely not accepted.

There are thirty or forty salt shops on this street, and Huai'an is almost the limit. Yangzhou has a wide radiation, and the number of salt lines must break 100, and Huai'an is worse here after all.

After walking for more than a dozen houses, the three of them were almost in despair.