In the face of the crazy expansion of the Ming court, the People's Army also made a lot of preparations, on the one hand, to increase its own strength, on the other hand, to send agents to the Ming court to make trouble and hinder the expansion of the Ming court, and even some agents joined the Ming army with tasks.

The agents who participated in the Ming army were all outstanding soldiers in the people's army, not only with high combat effectiveness, but also able to speak well, and such agents would have a relatively good development in the Ming army.

However, the People's Army did not expect these agents to become commanders in the Ming army in one or two years, which is unrealistic.

More importantly, the task of the agents is to pass on information is only one of them, they also have to quietly spread the ideas of the People's Army in the Ming Army, attracting more Ming troops to join the People's Army.

Assuming that the Ming court sent an army of one million to attack the People's Army, even if tens of thousands of Ming troops defected to the People's Army, these Ming troops would be able to play a huge role at an important moment.

The easiest way to dismantle the enemy from the inside, the Ming court was simply unscrupulous in order to expand the army, even if the Ming soldiers who fought to the death against the People's Army under the encouragement of promotion, wealth, women, etc., were more than one-tenth of the total strength of the army.

The agents hidden in the Ming army want more Ming soldiers to understand that the People's Army is very strong, and they will die if they fight with the People's Army, the People's Army is the army of the common people, and the goal is to overthrow the Ming Court so that the people of the whole world can live a good life, we should not fight with the People's Army, the Ming Court is our enemy.

One is the strong People's Army that can make the people live a good life, and the other is the Ming Army that captures strong men, deducts soldiers' salaries, and does not care whether the soldiers live or die, and the Ming soldiers will make a correct choice.

……

In Guangzhou City, the business of opening a cement factory is still going on, and it costs money to open a cement factory, not a few dozen taels or a few hundred taels of silver, and it takes thousands of taels or tens of thousands of taels of silver to open a cement factory.

The purchasing power of silver is not low, one or two pieces of silver are exchanged for more than 1,000 copper coins, and the people at the bottom spend money counting copper coins.

For example, under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, the highest amount of fertile land in the Jiangnan region was 20 or 30 taels of silver per mu, and before the People's Army started the incident, there were about 10 taels of silver per mu of fertile land in Guangdong.

The price of a stone of rice ranges from as little as five cents of silver to as much as one tael of silver, and the common people in Guangzhou City spend one and a half taels of silver a year, which is considered to be too much, while the Qi family's sergeant salary is only three cents of silver a day, less than one tael a month.

Jiang Fu, Jiang Ci, Xia Jingshan, and Liang Xin, three well-known businessmen in Guangzhou, sat together to discuss the construction of a cement factory.

"At most, the People's Army doesn't plan to let us make much money." Jiang Ci said to Xia Jingshan and Liang Xin with a smile, but there was some helplessness in this smile, the profit is too small, and there are a lot of businesses that can make money in Guangdong now.

Hearing Jiang Ci's words, Liang Xin said indifferently: "It's not normal for the People's Army to let us make a lot of money, this cement technology is provided by the People's Army, if it weren't for the lack of manpower in the People's Army, how could this cement technology be handed over to us." ”

"It seems that this cement business has little money, but this business must be done, at least so that the People's Army can treat us differently, after all, we can continue to sit here now thanks to the original decision, maybe the People's Army is still staring at us, it depends on when we make mistakes." Xia Jingshan's tone was very firm, no matter how much money he made in this cement business, he had to do it.

"Yes, we have to do this cement business." Jiang Ci agreed with Xia Jingshan's words very much, and then continued: "We can make less money from the People's Army, maybe we can make more money by selling cement to other people, and the masonry road is not as good as this cement road, and this ground can also be made into a cement floor." ”

"Don't forget that the People's Army has divided the land for the common people, and they have money in their hands for a few years, and maybe they will use this cement to repair their houses." Xia Jingshan also said.

"Then Brother Jiang and Brother Xia, how much silver should we take to build this cement factory?"

Liang Xin said the most important problem, the cement factory can be built for a few thousand taels of silver, and it can be gradually expanded in the future, but it can also directly invest tens of thousands of silver to build a larger factory.

Jiang Ci thought for a while and said: "It's not okay to take out less silver, it won't get the attention of the People's Army, and it's not okay if there is more, we have other businesses, and there is a family to support, I think a family can just take out 10,000 taels of silver, and it is expected that there will not be a few people who will take out more than 10,000 taels of silver." ”

"Okay, then 10,000 taels."

"Yes."

Soon, Jiang Ci, Xia Jingshan, and Liang Xin made a decision, each family took out 10,000 taels of silver to build a cement factory, and the cement factory built with 10,000 taels of silver was not small, in fact, Wang Mu still made a decision, if he only took a few thousand taels of silver to build a cement factory, he would be assigned to the county seat, and if he took 10,000 taels of silver to build a cement factory, he would be assigned to the prefecture (city) city.

The difference between the county town and the prefecture is obvious, the population of a prefecture is several times the population of a county, the population is large, and the cement may be sold more to the outside world, but this is also a few years later, at least in the next few years after the establishment of the cement plant, the cement produced by the cement plant will be purchased by the people's army.

Just by building cement roads in various parts of Guangdong, the demand for cement here is not a small amount, not to mention the construction of water conservancy facilities, building houses and other purposes.

A day later, all the businessmen who cooperated with the People's Army to build a cement factory reported that they could use the funds to build the cement factory, and the minimum capital was 3,000 taels, which was the lower limit given by Wang Mu, and there was no need to cooperate with the People's Army if it was less than 3,000 taels.

As Jiang Ci thought, there are very few businessmen who can spend more than 10,000 taels to build cement factories, and there are only five of them, plus Jiang Ci, Xia Jingshan, and Liang Xin.

Wang Mu gave these five companies the right to give priority to the areas where the cement factories were built, and the five prefectures were selected to go, and then according to the amount of capital contribution, other businessmen successively selected the location of their own cement factories on the map.

Everyone chose to be as far away from the border as possible, they all knew that the People's Army would have a war with the Ming Court in the future, and they were more confident in the victory of the People's Army over the Ming Court, but they were also worried that there would be an accident, the People's Army would suffer a defeat, and the border area would be occupied by the Ming Army.

After all the businessmen made their choices, Wang Mu held another small meeting for the businessmen, the content of the meeting was very simple, that is, to ask the businessmen to build the cement plant as soon as possible, the people's military government will give all kinds of help, and those who delay the time to build the cement factory will be disqualified from cooperation, and will not consider cooperation in the future.

At the end of the meeting, the businessmen went back and immediately prepared to build a cement factory.

[The raw material of cement is very simple, it is lime and clay]