The eyes of everyone in front of Min Yuanqi flickered, and the eyes of a few people were resolute and decisive, and there were even some feelings of courageous struggle, but more hesitation, fear and panic.

What Yang Shida did was not legal, but everyone chose to give in, not only Yang Shida himself has a lot of power, but also has more terrifying backers behind him.

The people in front of them, if it weren't for Min Yuanqi's identity as a test hundred households and the chief flag officer, and a family waiting to eat, they would not want to follow and take risks.

In the crowd, the small flag official Min Yuanjin and Min Yuanzhong were naturally included.

These two cousins and Min Yuanqi have not yet come out of the five suits, and the previous generation of the Min family is a dry generation, many of them are still serving military attachés, and there are also many retired officials. Military households have a difficult life, the average life expectancy is less than 50, and many people in their 40s have shaky teeth and gray hair.

There are also entanglements of interests and internal strife among the clan, but Min Yuanqi knows that if Min Yuanjin and Min Yuanzhong want to continue to gain a foothold and not be excluded and bullied, they need to support Min Yuanqi in everything.

Yang Zhijin and Gao Cuncheng were also there, and there was obvious hesitation in their eyes.

Liang Shifa was also there, which was unexpected by Min Yuanqi, but looking at the way this guy gritted his teeth, he obviously made a lot of determination.

Each man had a spear or a short knife in his hand, but like their robes, they were tattered, and many of their weapons were still stained with rust though they had been polished.

The people in front of him, Min Yuanqi seems to be extremely familiar, except for the small flag officials, Li Junsun and Wang Wumai are Min Yuanqi's family members, their grandparents worked in the Min family, at the beginning Min Yuanqi family had more than a dozen family members, and now there are only these two people left.

Except for the two family members who relied on Min Yuanqi to eat, everyone's expressions were not very good.

Min Yuanqi didn't see any soldiers with firm eyes, only a group of obscene men who cowered, wanted benefits, and were afraid of responsibility.

Not surprising.

In Min Yuanqi's memory, Dahewei has not undertaken any military tasks since the Jiajing year, and it is not a military organization at all.

It's more like a group of organized farmers, stove households, and boat slendermen, in short, they don't have much to do with the military.

If it must be related to the status of soldiers, it is that everyone wears tattered and faded fat jackets, as well as those standard sabers, broadswords, and spears.

Min Yuanjin took the lead in clenching his fists, and everyone hugged their fists and bowed, and said, "I've seen adults." ”

Min Yuanqi nodded slightly, and said in a deep voice: "Today, I personally led the team to escort the boat to Huai'an Mansion, and Shuiguan Yangou asked for silver, so I went over directly...... If you want a fist for a fist, if you want a knife, you will give a knife, and in any case, you will not give a penny of silver. Is it easy to get salt boiled by our banner army, and we have to divide it into two percent with them for nothing? If you want to buy more food in the future, and ask your parents, wives and children to eat a few more times, you can kill with me, if you are afraid and willing to starve, you can go away now, and I will not blame. But if you run away timidly when you start fighting, don't go back to my hundred households after that, and go to find a living elsewhere! ”

Everyone's expressions were still a little hesitant, and Xie Xiang, the most fierce in the banner army, had a distorted face and a little trembling body.

Yuntiguan is here with Yancheng as the core, and a radius of hundreds of miles is a famous salt-producing area in later generations, and the salt industry is naturally the pillar industry of these places.

According to the statistics of the Ming civil officials, each person should eat six catties of salt per month, according to this standard to set up a salt nest stove household, each stove household regardless of the population, according to the monthly salt payment per stove, the government takes the grain to the stove household's house to exchange salt, and then the merchant goes to the government to receive salt, and then to the specified place to sell the salt collected from the stove household, this is the standard official salt sales process.

During the period of Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, the law of salt tea was strict, and those who violated the ban were killed even by horses. But Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants are not angry, and after the middle of the salt and tea law, the salt and tea law will be corrupted, and the salt will be rewarded to the eunuchs and nobles, and during the Chongzhen period, Min Yuanqi remembered that he had seen the numbers, and the salt tax levied by the imperial court was 250,000 taels of silver a year.

This number is outrageously low.

Between Huaiyang and Jingchu, there is a flood of private salt almost everywhere, no one eats official salt at all, the official salt is not only high, but also sold in designated places, basically in the county seat, the people are inconvenient to buy, the price is high and the quality is inferior, of course, it will be defeated by private salt.

The Salt Section Lifting Division has long been unable to perform its duties, and no one has cared about the matter of private salt, the salt law has almost ceased to exist, and the illegal salt has long been openly sold.

At the end of the dynasty, this is generally the case, and the law is defeated, of course, it is not just the salt law.

Yang Shida, a promotion official, is actually a name, and everyone knows that his official position is to cover his identity as a salt lord.

Of course, such a person is not easy to mess with, and the trembling demeanor of the flag army in front of him is not strange.

After listening to Min Yuanqi's words, no one turned around and left, but no one came up to say a word, and more than a dozen people were silent, and no one made a sound for half a sound.

Min Yuanqi was a little disappointed in his heart, originally thought that if he agitated and involved everyone's food and livelihood, there would always be someone who would stand up and join him, so that his morale could be boosted, but now he knew that he was thinking too simply.

Speaking of which, Min Yuanqi has just taken office, and his temperament has been slippery before...... To put it simply, the previous Min Yuanqi was a descendant who didn't know a few big words, although he had high martial arts, he didn't have much brains, and he had no experience in society and officialdom. Although the little flag officials and flag men in front of him are generally not very old, it is probably too wishful thinking for Min Yuanqi to ask them to bow to Min Yuanqi or persuade them to fight to the death with a few words.

Although there was no one to support it, fortunately, no one objected, Min Yuanqi turned around and exhaled lightly, his heart was slightly relieved.

Indeed, as Min Yuanqi said, there are people selling smuggled salt everywhere, a salt lord like Yang Shida, with a green-skinned scoundrel, beating thugs, converging into a vicious force, setting up cards along the river to impose fees, Min Yuanqi, a hundred households, has a monthly income of dozens of taels of silver is the ration silver of the families of hundreds of banner soldiers, Yang Shida forcibly divided it into two percent, and these flag soldiers must have been angry for a long time, but no one took the lead before this, although Min Yuanqi was not the best candidate, but the person in front of him obviously planned to follow him to give it a try.

"Let's go, come with me." Min Yuanqi wanted to understand this section, and he was not angry, but his heart became more and more peaceful. He shook the saber at his waist, waved his hand, and his tall and burly figure turned around and walked towards the bank of the river to the north.

The rest of the dozen or so people slowly followed, and the sound of footsteps rustled, and at this dawn, between heaven and earth, it seemed that only this footstep was left.

……

Min Yuanqi walked all the way, and when the sound of the river flowing became real, a big river like a jade belt across the east and west appeared in front of him.

This is the Huai River, and the Yunti Pass at this time is the mouth of the Huai River. Hundreds of years later, the beach has advanced more than 100 miles, Yuntiguan and the sea have lost contact, and the Huai River has also been diverted many times, which is also a disaster to the land of fish and rice at this time.

In addition to the Huai River, there are Guan River and Lixia River to the south, Lixia River is the mother river of the southern counties, the basin is extremely wide, the soil of the Chongsha Plain is fertile, the place is fertile, in comparison, the Huai River can be regarded as a disaster river, the destruction of the place is far greater than the benefit.

For the military attachés of the banner army of Dahewei, the feelings for the Huai River are even more complicated.

The whole guard is centered on Huai'an, the easternmost is Yunti Pass, and then there are Haizhou, Huai'an, Shanyang, Dongyang and other prefectures and counties, in Nanjing's Chinese military governor's office, there are many guards at the bottom, and the guards in the south of the Yangtze River have long been abandoned, but Huai'an Wei and Dahewei, the two Jiangbei guards, still maintain the general integrity of the system, and the situation of military households fleeing is not serious.

When Min Yuanqi arrived at the wharf, it was already daylight, and there were more than 20 boats moored on the simple wharf, which were similar to the Fu boats, but smaller than the Fu boats that ran the sea, all of them were sloops, hard sails, and flat bottoms. In front of me, these boats are parked at the dock for maintenance, and it is only February now, and the large-scale transportation has to start in April, and the amount of transportation undertaken by Dahewei is 120,000 stones, and the share of the Yunti Pass Imperial Palace is 20,000 stones.

As long as the water is not dry, the state of the ship is well protected, and the task of 20,000 stones is not high for each hundred households, but the ship is damaged and the dry water in the north is the norm.

According to the official records of the time, "the boat traveled, and it could not be pulled by the efforts of the centurs." ”

The canal is lined with sluices, which increases the difficulty of the boat, according to the record: "The Danyang section of the canal in the south of the Yangtze River is shallow and difficult to travel, and when the boat passes through the Jingkou lock, it often takes three or four hundred people to pull a boat to get out of the lock." ”

And Cao Yun from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty is everywhere separately transported, the people are extremely burdened, and then simply all by the military, at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the approved rated transport army has 120,000 people, by the Hou Bo in charge, after the middle gradually become customized, each guard set up the transport army general, in charge of transporting the army Cao Yun, and Cao Yun is the main artery of the country, no negligence, although the northward water journey is all retrograde, a Cao boat ten people, set up a gang division, five ships set up a head, these are under strict supervision, against the current, support the boat and pull the boat, in the countercurrent and dry period and nature hard struggle, The Ming people have a saying: "The army is transported by one person, and all the days are not in the fortune, and when the storm is pulled under the red sun, the flesh on the back is scaly, and the force is torn in the rush, and the cry is miserable." ”

Thousands of miles away, retrograde north, wind and sun, food and clothing, and being exploited, bullied, and miserable, it is really a word of blood and tears.

Yunti Pass here, every year in January to the various water passes to collect grain, these boats in front of you are to collect grain into the cabin and return.

After the repair, we will "start a gang" in February and return in October.

Min Yuanqi tried 100 households, last year he got out of the military service, this year is another general flag out of 50 ding, responsible for five boats, the other 100 households each have people, responsible for more than 40 boats must go north in early February.