The old lady Gu originally had a very cold attitude towards Gu Xiying, after all, Gu Xiying robbed her niece's job, but now Gu Xiying's pregnancy is different. The eldest Ma Luan got married very early and also has a five-year-old daughter, but not having a son has always been the heart disease of the old lady Gu. Now the second concubine Ma Cheng is pregnant, which really makes the Gu family too happy.

Gu changed his previous indifference to Gu Xiying, and said with a smile: "After Xiying, the monthly case will increase to five taels, and I am serving with two stable mothers-in-law, this is Cheng'er's first child, we must protect it!" ”

Gu Xiying's monthly pocket money used to be only eight dollars of silver, but now it has increased more than six times, Gu Xiying hurriedly wanted to salute and thank the old lady.

Gu Shi took Gu Xiying's hand and said with a smile: "You are heavy now, you don't have to come to the back house every day to say goodbye in the future!" ”

The Ma family is a big family, and the rules are very strict, as long as the children are at home, they have to get up early every day and come to the backyard to greet Ma Shiying and the Gu family. Young people want to sleep lazily, Gu Xiying is not surprised, she was overjoyed to hear the old lady Gu say this, and hurriedly thanked: "Slave and maid, thank you for the grace of the old lady!" ”

Gu's face is really kind when he looks at Gu Xiying now, but when he turned his face to see the eldest Ma Luan's daughter-in-law Zhang, he changed, and Gu said to the eldest Ma Luan: "Luan'er, you are almost the year of establishment, and there is no son to inherit the incense, for the maid next to the mother, the autumn moon, the eyebrows are clear, the family background is innocent, and the mother is in charge, and I will be a concubine with you tomorrow night, so as to inherit the incense of my Ma family as soon as possible!" ”

Ma Luan is the eldest son, and his son is Ma Shiying's eldest grandson, which is very important in a big family, so whether Ma Luan has a son or not is no longer his personal matter, but has become an important political task for the Ma family. Although Ma Luan and Zhang's are very affectionate, they can't stand the shackles of etiquette, and they have no choice but to nod and agree when they hear the old lady say this.

Ma Shiying sat in the room and saw the woman in the house talking about this kind of thing, stood up and said, "You women talk to each other, Luan Er Cheng'er, go to the study in the front yard with your father." ”

Zhang's saw that her husband was leaving, and now she was left alone to face the evil mother-in-law Gu, and she couldn't help but look embarrassed. This look was seen by her mother-in-law Gu, who originally hated this Zhang family, who was born in a scholarly family, and now dared to stop Xianggong from doing big things, Gu couldn't help but scold his son: "Luan'er, you are a person who does big things, how can you be such a mother-in-law?" Don't you go out with the master? ”

Ma Luan knew that his mother was indirectly scolding Zhang, but what could Ma Luan do? Ma Luan had no choice but to pat Zhang's little hand to reassure her, and then follow Ma Shiying out.

On the way, Ma Cheng whispered to his eldest brother Ma Luan: "Big brother, isn't it good that my mother will find you a concubine?" It would be better if my mother found me another one! ”

Ma Luan heard Ma Cheng say this and smiled bitterly: "Second brother, I have a deep relationship with your sister-in-law, isn't it a dilemma to find a concubine to be caught in it?" Ay! But it's hard to do it! ”

Ma Cheng pouted secretly when he heard Ma Luan say this, these stinky old nine said mountain sounds one by one, do you really want to meet a beautiful beauty who can sit still and not mess up? is Chen Zilong, whom Ma Cheng admires the most, I heard that there are already five or six concubines in the family, and here in Nanjing, he also has a leg with his teacher Qian Qianyi's wife Liu Ru, and the eldest brother Ma Luan is also a member of this group of stinky old nine, Ma Cheng doesn't believe that Ma Luan can really be as good as a jade.

Ma Shiying walked in front and listened to the discussion between the two brothers behind, as the eldest of the family, Ma Shiying would not care about such a trivial matter as his son taking a concubine, but today Ma Luan's identity and status are very special, and Ma Shiying is going to talk about it.

Ma Shiying's father and son walked into the study and sat down, Ma Shiying spoke first: "Luan'er, as the eldest son, you bear the heavy responsibility of the Ma family, you are different from your younger brother, it is no problem for him to like to mess around, but you must bear the responsibility of the eldest son, your mother takes a concubine for you for you, do you know?" ”

The eldest son of a big family is very hard, born to shoulder the rise and fall of a family, Ma Luan has been taught to take on this responsibility since he was a child, and now listening to his father talking about himself, Ma Luan quickly stood up and promised not to live up to the expectations of his father and mother.

Unlike the second son Ma Cheng, Ma Shiying pinned all his hopes on this eldest son, and naturally the requirements were the strictest.

Ma Shiying looked at Ma Cheng and said: "Cheng'er, don't think that there is nothing wrong with you, now that you are also a parent, remember not to mess around in the future." ”

Ma Cheng stuck out his tongue and quickly stood up to ensure that he would not disappoint his father, Ma Shiying knew that this son would not listen to what he said, so he sighed and said: "Hey, Cheng'er will know hard work when you reach the age of being a father!" ”1234

Ma Shiying let his two sons go to the study, naturally not to reprimand his son, but to use Ma Cheng to promote the admiral, and arrange for the pacesetter subordinates who followed Ma Shiying to Nanjing. Ma Shiying used to be the governor of Fengyang, and there was a standard town under his command, with a total of 3,000 people, of which 300 were Guiyang military households who followed Ma Shiying from Guizhou. These people have followed Ma Shiying for many years, and many people were Ma Shiying's subordinates when they were in Xuanfu, and now Ma Shiying has become the first assistant and cannot configure the standard town, so naturally they have to give an explanation to these old subordinates.

"Cheng'er, you are now the Admiral, these pacesetters under your father will belong to you, many of these people are your uncles, you have to treat them well!"

When Ma Cheng heard that the old man was looking for him for this matter today, Ma Cheng looked down on the old guys under Ma Shiying very much, and the most hated of them was that Zhang Guozhu, who relied on his good relationship with the old man to drag it like 2580,000.

Now hearing that Ma Shiying was going to hand over these guys to himself, Ma Cheng hurriedly said: "Dad, they are all old, let's let them live in their old age, my son wants to re-recruit and retrain!" ”

Ma Cheng's plan is very good, he wants to start from scratch like the 3,000 people in the Shenji Battalion, but Ma Cheng forgot that now he is the admiral, one of the highest-ranking military attaches in the Ming Empire, and he is no longer the chief soldier before. According to the establishment, Ma Cheng can have 130,000 horses under his command, and the imperial court is willing to let you recruit 130,000 people yourself, so are these 130,000 people surnamed Zhu or surnamed Ma?

Ma Shiying said with a smile after hearing Ma Cheng: "Cheng'er, you are still too naïve, in the past, you could recruit three thousand people by yourself, and the emperor could turn a blind eye to you, but the emperor of the hundreds of thousands of people and horses is absolutely not at ease to let you control it yourself, at most you can only be allowed to recruit five thousand troops independently, and the others must be drawn from the military households outside the southern capital!" ”

There were a total of 24 guards outside Nanjing, and in the prefectures and counties under the jurisdiction of the Heavenly Government, there were a total of 48 guards and 270,000 soldiers, all of whom were nominally under the management of the commander of the university. But Ma Cheng has not just crossed that time, Ma Cheng has known a lot about the late Ming Dynasty guards in the past few months, and even the Shenji Battalion, one of the three major battalions in Nanjing, can find a group of farmers to replace it, not to mention other ordinary guards.

Ma Cheng was also very embarrassed to hear Ma Shiying say this, he also knew that although the emperor trusted him very much, he really had to have more than 200,000 troops in his hands, and these troops still did not listen to the emperor, then what was waiting for him might not be the emperor's trust, but the Jinyiwei's cavalry. But like those guards, Ma Cheng didn't know if he could train qualified soldiers.

"Dad, my son also knows this truth, but the guard outside the city is like that, and my son is afraid that these guys will not become soldiers and will drag their feet."

Ma Shiying laughed when he heard his son say this: "Cheng'er, I have also led soldiers for my father, I know what the guard is like, your training method is not bad, the three thousand people of the Shenji Battalion can be regarded as elite soldiers, but have you calculated, how much did your three thousand people spend in the past two months?" Are you going to train all your men to be such elite soldiers? ”

Ma Shiying's words Ma Cheng was speechless, now the three thousand people under his command in addition to equipment, daily training, meals cost more than 300 taels of silver, a year of 10,000 taels of silver, this is still ordinary training, if you add pensions and rewards in wartime, the cost is even higher.

Thinking of this, Ma Cheng knew that it was unrealistic for him to dream of cultivating hundreds of thousands of musketeers to sweep the world, even if the Spanish Empire was now rich in armor, he didn't dare to say that he had 100,000 musketeers. Only after the completion of basic industrialization can the cost of weapons and equipment be greatly reduced, so that the pure musket unit can become a reality, and the current Ming Dynasty, the most practical is still the kind of musket and cold weapons combined with the troops.

Ma Shiying saw that his son bowed his head and was silent, knowing that his son had listened to his words, Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng are now in control of the government, and Ma Cheng's request is really responsive, but the imperial court's finances are now very tight, in order to appease Zuo Liangyu in the four towns of Jiangbei and Wuchang, 1.6 million military salaries have been allocated to them in July, and now Ma Cheng has to organize tens of thousands of musketeers, and the court really has no money.

Therefore, Ma Shiying plans to use cold weapons in addition to the Shenji Battalion, and the other troops in the capital use cold weapons, anyway, there are still some armor knives and guns in the arsenal in the city, and it will be dusty if they don't use it.

"Cheng'er, Dad knows that you have a big heart, but your official position was promoted too quickly, and there are no available people under your command. The Admiral of the Great Colonel Field is different from your general army, even if the southern capital is weakly armed here, but there are still tens of thousands of troops outside the city, these people belong to different factions, can you suppress them alone? ”

Ma Cheng felt right when he heard Ma Shiying say this, only Gu Changwei and a dozen of them could he trust now, could they all promote these people to the chief soldier? That doesn't help them, it hurts them. The best way now is to accept my father's old department, these people have followed Ma Shiying for many years, and they have no problem loyally, and they can minimize the cost of leading troops.

"In that case, the son obeys his father's command!" Ma Cheng decided to follow Ma Shiying's arrangement, after all, Lao Ma has been in the officialdom for so many years, and he must have more experience than himself.

Seeing that his son agreed with Ma Shiying, he smiled and said: "Very good, Zhang Guozhu has been with his father for many years, and this time he can be promoted to the chief soldier." Your younger brother Ma Xi, who has been training hard in the past few months, can also be promoted to the rank of chief soldier! ”