With sufficient supplies and someone in charge of the spring ploughing work in the rear, the enthusiasm of the front-line construction site is naturally very high, and the construction of the five defense lines on the west bank requested by Xu Shiyang is very fast, and it is expected to be completed in 2 to 3 months.

The project in front and the cultivation in the rear require a large number of iron tools, plus a large military factory that eats steel, and the mediocre steel plant in Qingzhou has a very heavy task.

Considering the importance of fortifications and agriculture, Xu Shiyang had to order the military factory to suspend the production of weapons - the reserve of muskets is enough to replenish the Shenji soldiers, and half of the forbidden army can still leave two thousand sets of armor and cold weapons after returning to Jiangnan, which is enough to supplement the selection of fronts and traps, as for the militia participating in the war, all of them are made up of iron-headed spears and logging axes, so it seems that there is no gap in weapons and equipment, and the shutdown of military factories for a period of time will not cause too many problems.

As a result, all the output of the steel mills during this period was used to produce agricultural tools – including military factories that also began to produce tools such as hoes and shovels.

Since February, Qingzhou, which has been fully converted, will be able to produce 5,000 hoes, shovels, sickles, axes and other tools per month.

Half of this is supplied directly to front-line projects, and the remaining half is handed over to agricultural companies, which are loaned by banks to farmers and put into agricultural production on a lease basis.

Even if everything is in place, Xu Shiyang cannot guarantee that his agricultural production income will be the same as last year, so he hopes to be able to replenish some supplies from the outside.

This year, Cheongju plans to spend 200,000 horses of silk and 500,000 guan coins (all from the New Year's coins) to carry out a round of large-scale purchases on the Goryeo Peninsula across the sea in the Jiangnan or Denglai regions.

The materials purchased by Jiangnan are mainly grain and iron tools, but there is also a war over there, so the prices of these strategic materials have risen, and Xu Shiyang can only purchase them from local wealthy merchants who hoard Juqi, and naturally he will be cut by middlemen.

But money can't be spent in the hand, it can only be regarded as waste, and only when it can buy materials and enter circulation, money can be regarded as really useful.

Under the current wartime system, even if you can buy high-priced goods, as long as you can buy them, you will not lose money.

In Goryeo, horses and saltpeter were the main purchases, supplemented by a small amount of grain.

Goryeo was a great power in the eastern part of the sea, and although they were beaten so badly by the Jurchens that they paid tribute to the Jin state, they still firmly controlled the area of the Goryeo Peninsula on the other side of the Yalu River.

Goryeo's own horse administration has a certain level (it can even be said that the supply of horses is a little stronger than that of Dazhou), and its proximity to Liaodong allows it to do some entrepot trading privately, so it is able to provide horses and large livestock for Qingzhou.

To control Denglai, Xu Shiyang does not have the ability to do this kind of cross-sea trade, but now it is different, from Dengzhou to the sea, you can reach Goryeo within three days, if the relationship is familiar, there is no problem with a round trip in ten days.

Xu Shiyang hoped that Goryeo's horses would support his small cavalry team before Qingzhou's own horse administration was on the right track.

Qingzhou's maritime capacity is limited, Xu Shiyang intends that the transportation of materials purchased by Jiangnan will be handed over to Li Feihu, and the transportation of goods in Goryeo will be carried out by Qingzhou itself.

It just so happened that Li Feihu and Li Feihuang were eager to discuss with Xu Shiyang the cooperation between the two after the split of the Li Pirate Group, and Xu Shiyang also wanted to know how much loan Li could give to Qingzhou this year, so the two sides quickly chose a location and prepared for a round of meetings.

On the eighth day of April in the 14th year of Jianxing, Li Feihu and Li Feihuang arrived at Rizhao Port by boat.

In order to show the importance of this ally, Xu Shiyang also arrived early, and the two sides held the first round of talks directly in Rizhao.

Different from the high-spirited last time they met, Li Feihu today looks a little decadent, not only has a lot of gray hair on his head, but even his facial expression is a little depressed, giving people the feeling that he has aged ten years all of a sudden.

"What the hell is going on? How did Brother Li become like this? Xu Shiyang couldn't help but ask.

Li Feihu opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but in the end he couldn't say it, just smiled helplessly.

Li Feihuang, who was standing on the side, explained very bluntly:

"Our situation is already very dangerous, now we are just haggard and fine, and after a while, whether we can live or not is a question."

"Is it really bad?" Xu Shiyang was very surprised.

"It's worse than that."

According to Li Feihuang's explanation, Xu Shiyang quickly figured out the trouble that Li Feihu and others were encountering now:

In the beginning, the Lee Pirate Syndicate was simply a split – or rather, a temporary breakup.

Li Feilong can tolerate this kind of peaceful breakup, in fact, he just wants to bet on both sides between the main battle lord of the imperial court and the two factions, which is a very simple political choice.

But since it's simple, how could those people in the court not see it and tolerate their behavior?

Therefore, after Li Feilong defected to the Lord and faction, Qin Xianggong unceremoniously gave him a series of orders:

First of all, the Li family also had to pay to help the imperial court collect some of the coins.

The second is the task of transporting the New Year's coins to the Tartars, which is handed over to the Li family to complete.

In the end, Qin Xianggong proposed that since he recruited An, the Li family's ships and soldiers should obey his orders.

Li Feilong should first clear the gate and kill pirates like Li Feihu and Li Feihuang who threw themselves at Wen Xianggong but had not yet completed the recruitment; Then help the imperial court to take out the irritating Fang La; In the end, he had to help the imperial court and the Jin people destroy the more annoying Qingzhou .......

"If it weren't for the big boss thinking about brotherhood and not turning his face directly with us, the two of us would probably have been sunk into the sea to feed the tiger fish now."

Li Feihuang said with a wry smile:

"Li Feibao, that bastard, has been agitating to clean us up."

Even if Li Feilong is unwilling to make a heavy hand, and the two sides have not really torn their faces, the situation of Li Feihu and Li Feihuang can be regarded as being forced to a near corner:

Now, the Li Group still supports the main battle faction, and there are only five big cabinets, and except for Li Feilong and Li Feihuang, the other three are also wavering now, and they may be thrown into the other party's command at any time to accept Qin Xianggong's recruitment.

And the big cabinet that clearly supports Li Feibao and intends to put a heavy hand on Li Feihu and Li Feihuang is as many as 5 people, plus Li Feibao's own strength and some small cabinets, they can mobilize 800 large and small ships and more than 40,000 pirates!

And Li Feihu and Li Feihuang, who were back-to-back, could only make up a total of 300 boats and 15,000 soldiers.

This strength is really too far behind, once Li Feilong can't withstand the pressure and no longer provides shelter to Li Feihu, even if he doesn't make a move, the other swinging cabinets will remain neutral, and Li Feibao can easily kill Li Feihu and Li Feihuang.

"The big shopkeeper is not a person with a firm position, I can feel that he is about to be unable to withstand the pressure of Qin Xianggong."

李飞凰 says:

"So we came here, hoping to discuss it with Brother Xu and see if you can help us."

。 m.