More than 100 people came out of the village endlessly, and when they came over, they put a column of four people, which was exactly the width of the road to the wharf from 100 villages, the team was from short to tall, each of them was wearing a well-cut red battle jacket, and the top of their heads wore the same Fan Yang hat, when they walked, the red robe fluttered in the wind, and the red tassels on the Fan Yang hat above their heads were beating like fire, which made people feel that this army was extraordinary.

Zhu Wanchun is quite a knowledgeable person, there are still more than 10,000 guest soldiers stationed in Huai'an Mansion, the original Dahewei and Huai'an Wei also have a drill garrison flag army stationed in the city, he has also seen the Beijing Camp Forbidden Army and Caojiang Battalions in Nanjing City, in terms of Zhu Wanchun's insight, only in terms of military appearance, the army in front of him has far exceeded any Ming Dynasty division he has ever seen.

Zhu Wanchun glanced at it a few times and was quite shocked. But Min Yuanqi was in front of him, so he came back to his senses and said to Min Yuanqi with a smile: "This time it is fortunate not to be dishonored, there are too many things, so I have to use these big sand ships to transport them, and it takes a lot of effort to find them." ”

Of course, this is not Zhu Wanchun's performance, and the current relationship between the two families is not like this, but it is just a matter of convenience.

The first thing Min Yuanqi saw was the horses.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you."

After a round of words, Min Yuanqi even thanked him, and his happiness was quite obvious.

Among the banner army, Gao Cuncheng and Guo Shangyi and others who had ridden horses were the happiest, the former's parents and grandparents had been cavalry in the battalion, Gao Cuncheng learned to ride horses with his father when he was a teenager, and the latter and others had driven a cart in the foot shop, and also learned to ride a horse.

In these days, there are no famous cars and yachts, and the things that men like are nothing more than spirits and horses.

Even if they had never ridden a horse, they had ridden a mule or a donkey, and they were very excited to see the tall horses brought from the boat.

It's just that Han Sen is standing at the head of the team, and a group of pacifiers are standing on both sides with thumb-thick sticks, once the team is not in order, it will inevitably attract the beatings of the pacifiers.

The sand boat carrying the horses was close to the shore first, and this ship was also the largest flat-bottomed sand boat, with six masts in front and rear, and could only be carried on large rivers such as the canal and the Huai River, and twenty tall horses stood on the deck from bow to stern, and the war horses were quite dissatisfied on the river, but they did not jump and run indiscriminately, but they were restlessly scraping the deck with their hooves, and kept snorting.

War horses are horses that have been carefully selected and trained by the herd, not only in terms of body shape, but also have the same courage and calm character as people, and those horses that are easily frightened and difficult to train are not qualified to be war horses.

In the midst of the hosts, the thunderous drums galloped forward in the rain of arrows, and the miscellaneous horses could not do it.

"These horses are on the nine sides, and one horse is only ten taels, and the cheaper ones are six taels to eight taels." Zhu Wanchun and Min Yuanqi said: "These are the war horses that were transported from Tianjin to Nanjing earlier, and my family entrusted a general from the Zhenwu Battalion to send them over, not from the north, so they arrived so early, and the price of horses also rose to twenty-one horses." If Brother Min wants to continue to buy horses, he needs to be patient. ”

Min Yuanqi smiled and watched the war horses being led off the boat one by one, those horses were as tall as adult men, and even the average short flag army was only slightly taller than the horseback, and the appearance of the war horse was very powerful, and he was extremely satisfied in his heart.

Hearing Zhu Wanchun's words, Min Yuanqi hurriedly said: "I plan to build a cavalry hundred here, plus at least two hundred deputy horses, if there is really a threat of rogue in the future, if the strength is not invincible, you have to move south, war horses and miscellaneous horses are indispensable, and I also ask Brother Zhu to buy for me from the north one after another, in Nanjing to Yangzhou, Huai'an, Xuzhou, if there are good miscellaneous horses, please also ask Brother Zhu to buy them on your behalf." ”

Zhu Wanchun also knew that Min Yuanqi had great ambitions, and from the immediate point of view, he sent salt three times in ten days, and obtained more than 7,000 taels of silver, most of which were used to buy various materials, and these sand boats in front of him were. If an ordinary military attaché, even if he commands a thousand households, he can earn more than 2,000 taels in a few days, he will definitely collect and store all the silver, and at most take a small part out and distribute it to everyone, and even if some are stingy, he will not even take out a small amount of silver taels. Anyway, the military attache of the guard station regarded the flag army as a slave, and this kind of atmosphere has not been around for a long time.

can see the threat, strive to survive under the general trend, and continue to strengthen themselves, these people have clear minds, and if they have the ability to skill, they will at least be a temporary hero.

Like that, Liu Zeqing was born as a soldier in Shandong, and emerged in the crusade against the change of Kong Youde in Dengzhou, and in just a few years, he became the general soldier of a town from a partial small, and had tens of thousands of people who did not listen to moderation in the feudal town, and the situation of people was very strange, and even as long as he got an opportunity, he could soar to the sky.

Based on the private deliberations of the Zhu family's father and son, a person like Min Yuanqi will at least have to support troops to sit on one side in the future, even if the Liukou soldiers go south, the officers and soldiers will not be defeated, and they will at least be able to protect their relatives and businessmen and people to the south, and they are the kind of powerful foreign aid that can be trusted.

The twenty horses in front of him were actually bought by a general of Zhenwuying, and the purchase price was more than ten taels and one horses, and the Zhu family entrusted people to buy them from this general, and the price of the horses was increased to twenty-five taels and one horses, but Zhu Wanchun only reported twenty taels, and more than 100 taels of silver were only regarded as favors.

There is no need to be afraid that Min Yuanqi will not know these things, and there is no need to deliberately say them at this time.

"There are still saddles, hooves and other miscellaneous items, which I gave to Brother Min." Zhu Wanchun pointed to the rest of the ships and said with a smile: "There are still nitrate and lead, and a whole ship is loaded, and the delivery house in Suining bought it, and the cost is not much, and one ship is only four hundred taels, which is very cheap." In addition, there are more than 200 iron helmets, 100 cotton armors, more than 100 spears, more than 10 shields, more than 100 Qi knives, 20 small bows, 5 Kaiyuan bows, more than 10 bundles of heavy arrows, and more than 100 bundles of light arrows. Because I know that there are not many shooters here in Min Yuan, I don't buy many bows. There are 1,000 stones of refined grains, 3,000 stones of miscellaneous grains such as bean millet, Brother Min has horses here, and the reserves of miscellaneous grains cannot be missing. The sum of the expenses is exactly enough to cover the silver taels retained for the two salt shipments, and the detailed account is not reported by Brother Min. ”

Min Yuanqi knew that the weapons and armor in front of him added up to more than 1,500 taels, 3,000 stone fine grains and miscellaneous salts were also worth 1,000 taels, plus all kinds of sundries, such as tendons, glue, lacquer, etc., as well as war horses and saddles, he only left 3,000 last time, and this time he overspent at least hundreds of taels, but the Zhu family only paid for the last time.

Min Yuanqi didn't say much at the moment, and arched his hand: "Brother Zhu's kindness to help each other must be remembered." ”

Zhu Wanchun smiled slightly, and said no more.

There was a lot of grain, but fortunately, more than 20 mules and horses were bought on the return ship, and the flag army was only responsible for ordnance and war horses, and the rest of the grain and sundries were transferred to more than 200 ding, which were transported into the village by mules, donkeys and carts.

Recently, due to the many times from the bulk of materials here, everyone has become accustomed to and adapted, the 300 households continue to buy a large number of food materials, many nearby hundreds of households or even thousands of households in the city know, this also makes all over the country run over to recruit as workers or want to join the training of the flag army is also more and more, the range of selection is also expanded a lot, the least trained flag army, now too short and thin is not accepted.

"The salt pond has been dug out of five more successively, and then dig two, then dig the supporting pool, and then do a good job of water diversion and blockage, you can divert water to the salt pond, the weather has been warm recently, the sea side wind is strong, it is estimated that there will be about 20 days, and the new salt pond can be salt again." Min Yuanqi led Zhu Wanchun to the village, and when he arrived at the entrance of the village, Zhu Wanchun saw a sentry tower hidden under a willow tree, and the sentry with a bow and arrow stood on guard.

Zhu Wanchun pondered for a moment, then raised his head and smiled: "That means that the big salt pond has increased to ten, and the kanchi pond is seventy?" ”

"No, it's over a hundred." Min explained: "The larger the salt pond, the greater the capacity to store and divert water, and the more it can be supplied. If everything goes well, in less than two months, the daily salt will fluctuate at 200,000 catties, and there will be discrepancies under the influence of the sun and wind, but the upper and lower will not exceed 50,000 catties. After a month, dig a new pond, there is no suitable place nearby, we will continue to look for a suitable location to the south, our goal is to stabilize the salt per day at about one million catties per day, so that there can be about forty percent of the market for Huai salt, I don't know if Brother Zhu can eat it? ”

Zhu Wanchun and his son had already discussed and calculated, and said without hesitation: "If you talk about the origin and sales of Huai salt, it is indeed a bit too much to increase to 30 million catties per month, not only the sales volume and price, but also the livelihood of local stove households." ”

Min Yuanqi nodded and said: "That's true, back then, Xu Xuanhu failed to push the salt in Lianghuai, and the opposition of the gentry was one reason, considering the livelihood of the stove households, it was also a big reason that it was not forcibly promoted." To be honest, if I expand the kanchi to more than 1,000 people, and employ only more than 10,000 people, it will affect the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of stove households, and I am not unable to do this, but I also don't want to do it. ”

In this way, Min Yuanqi did not go against his will when he said it.

A large number of stove households are indeed unemployed in Min Yuanqi's consideration, in addition to affecting his own image and reputation, causing tens of thousands of people to scold such concerns, the local economy has been destroyed, and it is inevitable that a large number of displaced people and even bandits will appear, and the entire local economy will be destroyed in the short term, and a large number of people will be displaced.

For example, in the late Qing Dynasty, many gentry opposed the construction of trains, in addition to the absurd feng shui theory, that is, the livelihood of millions of people along the canal would be usurped by trains. In fact, this concern is justified in the short term, but after China's trains were built from scratch and the canal was gradually replaced, although the economic development and status of Huai'an in the Qing Dynasty were not as good as before the train was built, a large number of people along the canal found a new livelihood and did not starve to death.

However, in the short term, a large amount of dried salt entered the market, and the blow to the stove households was devastating, especially in the late Ming Dynasty, when the world was in turmoil, this kind of blow would be devastating in the short term, which was different from the situation at the end of the Qing Dynasty.

Min Yuanqi's other consideration is that if a large number of salt goods hit the market in a short period of time, on the one hand, it will bring losses to stove households, and on the other hand, the price of salt will plummet.

If the price of salt plummets, the income from a large amount of dried salt will also be seriously reduced, and then considering the damage to the local economy and the loss of word-of-mouth image, it will really outweigh the losses.