Li Shouhan wants to be the minister of the Ming Dynasty, and be a famous minister like Yi Yin, Zhou Gong, and Huo Guang. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info so that the Han Chinese regime of the Ming Dynasty could continue through his reforms. This is Li Shouhan's inner thoughts.

However, the central and southern forces in the Nanyue Army, represented by Li Huayu, did not think so. What they saw in their eyes was the mediocrity of the Ming court, the incompetence and inefficiency of the administrative system, the corruption of officials, attacks on each other, and partisan fights. The generals have no skills to resist the enemy, disturb the people in a good way, and they are often plundering by arson. Therefore, in their opinion, the Ming court will be finished sooner or later. Since the lord does not intend to be the emperor, let this land continue to be chaotic, and let it continue to play several roles as a source of raw materials, a product market, and a source of labor for Nanzhong.

Regarding this difference between father and son, Shi Lang, as the eldest son-in-law of the Li family, is naturally clear and bright.

However, because of his son-in-law's identity, Shi Lang couldn't talk much, so he could only bury his head in things. so as not to be caught in the middle and be splinted. Faced with the crisis that Li Huayu was in front of him, Shi Lang could only say this: "Father, I just don't have anything to do at the moment, why don't you let me take a soldier and horse ship to the north to help my eldest brother approach the flank and rear road problems?" ”

"Father! That's it! Let the Zunhou go to Jiangbei and help the eldest brother stabilize the back road on the ground in Shandong, so that he can confront Li Zicheng and Dolgon in Henan wholeheartedly! Li Huamei also agreed with her husband's opinion.

"Then I asked people to go out to sea on a communication boat to meet the main force of the fleet, and asked them to speed up and go north to the sea in Nanjing and Jiangbei to meet. Both the sailors and the land battalions of the fleet can go ashore to fight! ”

The return of Li Huamei and Shi Lang has increased the troops, generals, and mobility in Li Shouhan's hands a lot. Not to mention anything else, the hundreds of ships they took to cruise the sea would increase the mobility and supply capabilities of the Nanyue Army by at least one level.

After thinking for a while, Li Shouhan nodded, and agreed to the invitation of Li Huamei and Shi Lang and his wife. He instructed Li Huabao, who was sitting with his head drooping: "Huabao, you immediately order someone to arrange it and publicize the positions of your eldest sister and eldest brother-in-law." Ling Yousi planned the dispatch of the sailors, food and salary supplies, and other matters in a unified manner. ”

"Yes!"

"Your eldest sister and eldest brother-in-law are back, so we have a lot more money on hand. Whether it is manpower, troops, or ships, they can all handle it. Your envoy in Nanjing can be handed over to your eldest sister and turn your energy to the matter of sending the soldiers and horses of Liangguang and Fujian north as soon as possible. In addition, the repair and widening of roads and bridges between Jiangxi, southern Hunan, Zhejiang, and Fujian and Guangxi should also be handled as soon as possible. ”

Speaking of this, Li Shouhan couldn't help but be a little annoyed. It has been some days since the Nanyue army occupied Gannan and Biyuan, but there has been no great progress in the roads between the above-mentioned areas and Liangguang and Fujian. In this, of course, there are local gentry and powerful clans openly and secretly obstructing it, but it is also difficult to escape the blame for the incompetence of the officials in charge of this work.

At present, the eldest son Li Huayu fought with Liao thieves north of the Yellow River and won the birth of one Buddha to heaven and two Buddhas, but the brigade of the Nanyue Army still depends on sea transportation for all kinds of material supplies. The materials can be transported by sea, with low consumption, large quantity and low freight. However, how did the brigade of men and horses and artillery go by sea? It is still necessary to start step by step. However, the road was difficult to navigate, which restricted the number and scale of the Nanyue Army that was put into the battlefield and could not give an annihilating blow to the Liao thieves.

"It just so happens that you have experience and experience in handling this kind of thing when you were in Guangxi, so you go and arrest these things. Tell those local snakes that if they dare to block our army from building bridges and paving roads on the grounds of the ancestors' tombs and pastorals, then Lao Tzu will move the bones of him and his ancestors! Land requisition and road construction must be based on regulations, if there is anyone who dares to take the opportunity to take advantage of the situation, they will be immediately killed! Li Shouhan's words have been said very bluntly, and they are very murderous. Li Huabao is also a murderous character who does not blink, and his father has such an expression, so he is naturally much bolder.

"Second brother, if you go to do this road building mission, you might as well learn from your second brother-in-law. He dealt with those native kings in the Nanyang Islands, but his methods were very spicy. But the effect is also very good! Li Huamei is also a person who is not afraid of big things, and after hearing Li Shouhan say this, he recommended Zheng Sen's experience in the Nanyang Islands to Li Huabao. Let Li Huabao, a character who has swept away countless cottages in Guangxi, learn the methods of Zheng Sen, the Sixth Heaven Demon King.

"Your Excellency, this northern matter will be hard for you. It just so happens that in the past few days, there has been a batch of baggage transported from Nanzhong, and I plan to let you take a trip. Give it to Huayu. By the way, I told him that I have no shortage of food and weapons in Nanzhong, so I don't have to fight with the thieves on the battlefield for a short time. Billy fights quickly, and I last. ”

However, when Shi Lang sailed north against the cold north wind, entered the Yellow River through Jiaodong, and transported the batch of baggage that Li Shouhan said to Li Huayu's army to relay his father's instructions to him, Li Huayu did not agree with his father's proposal in his heart.

"Fifty tons of gunpowder, a thousand tons of grain, five tons of projectiles, twenty tons of various shells, twenty thousand grenades. 10,000 rockets of all kinds, 500 fast guns. In addition, there are a number of oil, salt, dried meat, kelp and other substances. Li Huayu looked at this rich list and smiled.

The rebellion of Xu Dingguo, Li Chengdong and others on the back road, because of Shi Lang's northward movement, freed up Liao Dongzhi and Lu Mahong to have energy to quell the offensive battle between them. After several battles, Xu Dingguo's rebels and Li Chengdong's rebellious army suffered heavy losses, and they were forced to hold on to the city and did not dare to go out of the city to fight.

Now that the transportation line in the rear is temporarily stable, and with the batch of materials sent by Shi Lang, Li Huayu has a lot more certainty about breaking the Qing army in front of him in the first battle.

"Huayu, what my father means, our army has abundant food and grass, abundant money and food, which is conducive to longevity. However, the Central Plains has been plagued by famine for many years, and it has been ravaged by war, and it is difficult to find grain and grass. Therefore, the Liao thief is conducive to a quick battle. As long as our army does not hold out, takes defense as an attack, and delays for several months, the effect will be visible. Shi Lang was very faithful to the original work and relayed Li Shouhan's words to Li Huayu. In fact, what he relayed was explained to Li Huayu by Li Shouhan more than once in his letters.

Today, a large area of land north of the Yellow River has been ravaged by swords, floods and droughts for many years, and the grain harvest has failed seriously. In previous years, the huge food shortage was achieved through the grain trade between various factions and Nanzhong, importing grain and exporting the population to barely make ends meet. But now, Li Shouhan has ordered strict control of grain exports to areas ruled by the Qing army. All of a sudden, the volume of grain exports was reduced to less than 40 percent of previous years, and the amount of oil, salt, and meat was also reduced by more than half. This huge food shortage was a favorable weapon for the Nanyue army, which was enough for the Qing army to act in accordance with the strategic intentions of the Nanyue army.

Even if the Qing army can ignore the stomachs of millions of people, their own millions of mouths, and the daily consumption of food and grass for several times the number of horses and camels, it is also a problem that the top level must consider. Therefore, the Nanyue Army, which now controls the largest grain bag in the world, just tightens the rice bag and waits for the Qing army to crash in.

"Huayu, you haven't been to the bitter cold land of Liaodong, nor have you ever been to Gyeonggi and other places, what are the thieves in Liaodong who have been entering the south to loot all these years? Isn't it because Liaodong is barren and the grain harvest is poor? In order to survive, they have to keep going south to rob. You hold the main force of the Liao thieves on the north bank of the Yellow River, confront them, consume their spirit, and exhaust their food and supplies. The day they run out of oil is the moment when they are forced to fight us. By that time, the roads built by Huabao in southern Gansu, southern Hunan, southern Zhejiang, and other places would have been completed, and hundreds of thousands of main forces of our southern Guangdong army could calmly arrive. Your eldest sister and I can lead the sailors to the sea to attack the flank of the Liao thieves, land in the hinterland of Liaodong, and cut off the retreat of the Liao thieves back to their lair. The father and the commander personally commanded the army, and the Liao thief was a three-headed and six-armed Da Luo Jinxian, and the means could not escape justice. ”

Shi Lang only talked to Li Huayu about his father's strategic concept, but he didn't want Li Huayu to have his own plans in his heart. In the past few months, it is Shandong soldiers and horses who have fought dozens of battles with Liao thieves everywhere, and it is Li Huayu who has made various compromises and grievances with Li Zicheng, but when it comes to the end of the finale, everyone is sitting in a row to share the fruits. This is something that a normal person would have. He faced his eldest brother-in-law Shi Lang, just poured wine and cloth and vegetables, and thanked his eldest brother-in-law for sending much-needed food, grass, arms and materials to the front-line soldiers.

After a few glasses of wine, Shi Lang's face was slightly drunk, and the conversation box was opened.

"Huayu, you just use gunpowder and grain to kill the thieves. My father said that what can be solved with money and food is not a big deal! ”

"Brother-in-law, what do you say?"

When Li Huayu heard his brother-in-law's words, his curiosity suddenly surged in his heart, could it be that his father gave the gentlemen in the university some new technology, which reduced the cost of gunpowder manufacturing and increased the yield of grain per mu?

"Yes!"

Shi Lang's face was full of excitement, he took a sip of wine into his mouth, pointed to the grenade on the material list, and said proudly: "This thing is a sharp weapon in close combat, whether it is a land battle or a jumping gang at sea, and the landing on the island, it is invincible." It was a pity that our acid production was insufficient to produce a large supply of tung potassium explosives. It's a different story now! The university gentleman came up with a new method, using refractory bricks and other materials to build seven cylinder towers, calcining from pyrite, calcining 600 kilograms of pyrite every day, you can get four or five hundred kilograms of sulfuric acid. With sulfuric acid and tung oil, there is naturally this tung potassium explosive. ”

There can be four or five hundred kilograms of sulfuric acid per day, so close to 200 tons of sulfuric acid can be produced in a year. There will naturally be more related products. The supply of explosives to the front line is not a problem.

"Good! Brother-in-law, this is indeed a good thing! Come, you and my brother wish all the gentlemen of the university a thank you to them! ”

Uncle Lang and the two of them had a drink, each lit up the bottom of the cup, laughed twice, and Li Huayu continued to listen to Shi Lang talk about the recent changes in Nanzhong.

"This time I brought fifty tons of gunpowder, which can be consumed by you for a while. In the future, this amount of gunpowder will arrive in Shanghai or other ports every month. You just have to rest assured and boldly bombard the Liao thieves with guns. ”

The manufacture of gunpowder also has a cost and requires raw materials. Li Huayu knows this very well. Although Li Shouhan had been engaged in nitrification fields since he started his family, when he was in the Wa Kingdom, he used sulfur as the main export material of the Wa Kingdom, and Nanzhong collected a large amount of sulfur from Taiwan and various islands in the South Seas as a raw material for the production of gunpowder. However, nitrate is also produced from the nitrification field depending on the weather.

(For those who are located in the north and can meet the gunpowder consumption of tens of thousands of armies by urinating and collecting nitrate, the unkind author is also speechless.) On the one hand, it is said that the weather during the Xiaoice River is cold, and on the other hand, it ignores the activities of bacteria and has strict requirements for temperature, alas! ）

"Could it be that my father has found a stable source of saltpeter in Nanzhong again?"

Li Huayu was also quite happy, the source of saltpeter was stable, and it was definitely good news for the Nanyue Army, which had many firearms.

"Hua Xuan has searched and explored several huge saltpeter mines in Punggara, Burma and other places, and has already purchased them at a price from the local Tuwang. Hire local natives to start digging. The ores are transported to and from the ships on a monthly basis. At present, at least more than 4,500 tons of saltpeter can be guaranteed to arrive in Ha Tinh, Hue and other places every month. So, virtuous brother, just let it go. With the presence of a brother-in-law's sailor ship, you will definitely not be short of food and ammunition. ”

The second brother Li Huabao, the third brother Li Huaxuan, and even the fifth brother Li Huachen all worked hard in front of their father. Li Huayu knows this very well. His mother, Li Muhua, came every few days with letters to introduce him to the movements and behaviors of his younger brothers.

Now the second brother has gone to do the work of opening up the mountains and rivers, and the third brother has grabbed several huge saltpeter mines for the Nanyue army. At this time, the gunpowder production of the Southern Guangdong Army will undergo a huge change in both cost and quantity.

With the almost cost-effective source of saltpeter, coupled with the fact that corn had long been carbonized to replace charcoal, and the almost dumping of sulfur imports from the Shangwei Kingdom, the cost of gunpowder manufacturing for the Southern Yue Army was greatly reduced. Historically, after the British obtained the supply of saltpeter mines from Bangladesh, the manufacturing cost per ton of gunpowder was about 220 taels of silver. Compared with the gunpowder manufacturing of the Southern Yue Army, there are great differences in terms of technology and raw material sources. Therefore, the approximate cost of gunpowder manufacturing in the Nanyue Army today should be between seventy or eighty silver dollars per ton. No more than a hundred silver dollars. This huge advantage in manufacturing costs was enough to consume the Qing army and the Dashun army as opponents and potential opponents.

Even the fifth brother Li Huachen, who was far away in the wood and bone capital, also kept transporting those strong Kunlun slaves and Tianfang horses to Nanzhong in the eastward direction by sea ships for his father's use.

Li Muhua told him in a letter to his family that his sixth and seventh brothers were also eager to try, ready to ask his father for his life, go to Fusang's hometown, and go to the governor of Dingdong City, Xu Huanshan, to do business and experience in front of the tent of Xu Huanshan, the governor of Jiexin Chaoge and Dingdong City. What is the purpose of such a move?

"Not your father yet!" Li Muhua was not without annoyance in the letter, "For so many years, the imperial court has asked him to make a son, and Wei Niang has hinted at him many times openly and secretly, he just pretended to be deaf and dumb and refused to make you the son of the world early!" What do you want to look at the merits of your brothers, but now it's good, those younger brothers of yours are doing things with their teeth and claws. If this goes on for a long time, I'm afraid that you, the eldest son, may not be the son of the world! ”

Regarding his father's practice of not establishing a son, if Li Huayu has no thoughts in his heart, it is a bunch of nonsense. He also has some complaints about his father in his heart. In terms of eldest and youngest, he is the eldest son, according to the order of etiquette, although he is not a son-in-law, but his mother's side is not a person from a humble background. The reason why my father didn't have a son was that I still had to let a few younger brothers work hard to make achievements, so that he, the eldest brother, would not dare to slack off.

At the same time, because the storage position is undecided, everyone does not dare to form gangs too much, let alone slack off. At present, for the sons of the Li family, the position of the prince is hopeful for everyone, but they are not sure. The only way out is to make achievements desperately.

Even the officials of various departments did not dare to get too close to the sons, except for normal business dealings, not too many people dared to get too close to a certain son. Otherwise, just like Liao Dongzhi, at any time, an order will transfer you and your troops to reassign characters.

However, several sons are very close to the eldest sister Li Huamei, the eldest brother-in-law Shi Lang, and the second brother-in-law Zheng Sen, and they all hope that if there is really such a day, the father has blue eyes for himself, and the eldest sister and eldest brother-in-law of the water division are in his hands, and the second brother-in-law can help him calm the scene.

Especially among the sailors, the eldest sister and her wife, who are in high prestige, speak with no less weight than their mother, Yan Mei'er, among the sons of the Li family. Everyone can see very clearly that the current pattern of the Nanyue Army is huge, although there is one side in each place, but it is connected by sea ships, so that there will be no conditions for secession in any administrative region.

At the moment, Li Huayu frequently raised his glass to persuade him to drink, and Shi Lang also showed the true colors of a man on the sea, and the wine was dry. Soon the jade pillar was declining, and it was too strong to drink.

ordered someone to send Shi Lang to his residence for resettlement, but Li Huayu couldn't sleep no matter what. He walked into the courtyard and looked at the lights as bright as the Milky Way in the camp that stretched for dozens of miles outside the city, and couldn't help but be stunned.

Although I know that my father's proposition is good, it is a foolproof arrangement. However, from the bottom of his heart, Li Huayu was unwilling to let others share the great credit for defeating the main force of the Liao thieves! (To be continued.) )