After a few days of Li Tianyang's rare leisure, as the Spring Festival passed, Hongmen, a gradually growing institution, was back on track.

Last year, without the invasion of the Qing army, the Chongzhen Dynasty did not know how much of a catastrophe they had escaped, but in terms of small actions, the Qing army still maintained an active offensive posture, harassing and plundering the border defense of the Ming Dynasty to a limited extent.

With a large amount of money subsidy, the soldiers at the border gates, who had been in arrears for several years, also gave a preliminary explanation at the end of last year.

Although there is still more than half of the military salary that has not been paid, the military salary issued at the end of last year is enough to make the life of the border officers and soldiers a little more flavorful this year.

Hongmen, which still maintains a hidden posture, has its own strength for the Ming Dynasty, which is thousands of miles away, stopping at more than 10,000 soldiers in the camp on Magong Island on the Penghu Islands, and Xiao Yifu, the governor of Fujian who has a little speculation, actually doesn't know much.

Under the circumstance that Li Tianyang maintained an attitude of staying out of the peasant uprising in the hinterland, with his relationship with Emperor Chongzhen, coupled with his own dots, and from time to time he sent some warships to disguise the pirates to harass the sea border, raising thieves and respecting himself, but he ensured that his team had been watching the fire from the other side.

Although it was outside the flames of war, Li Tianyang still hoped that the powerful Ming Dynasty could hold out for a while longer, so he spared no effort to support it in other aspects.

Qi San's recruitment of displaced people, Qi Xintang's transportation of batch after batch of abundant grain collected from Dayuan Island and Luzon Islands to the disaster land in the north, and selling it to the victims at a price far lower than that of those corrupt gentry and grain merchants, were all efforts to maintain the foundation of the Ming Dynasty.

The surrender of generals such as Zhang Xianzhong, Li Zicheng's henchman, Guo Tianxing, etc., was a relief for the Ming Dynasty, and the peasant uprising in the inner abdomen was suppressed.

With a large amount of financial support, the imperial court also has the opportunity to clean up the mess in the north that has been a mess over the years.

The newly selected officials were dispatched one after another to restore local law and order in the north, and Lu Xiangsheng, Hong Chengchou, Sun Chengzong and other powerful feudal officials divided the defense line, and took advantage of the disappearance of the thieves to step up the suppression and suppression of the peasant uprising in their respective defense areas.

Hongmen plays a role in it is actually not small, Jin merchants, Hui merchants are greatly injured, now even if it is not easy to beat the surviving merchant clans, a day is also cringe, especially when the Jin merchant families appeared in the palace of the Qing Dynasty, after being reported back to the palace by the spies of the Ming Jinyi Guard, Emperor Chongzhen, who had just rested a little anger, was once again stirred up the flames, and a piece of edict went down, and several families fell into bad luck, and several high-ranking officials in the palace were degraded or banned.

The gaps exposed by the Jin merchants and Hui merchants in business were seen by the Hongmen, members of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce, Chao merchants and other large business groups, which had long been strong, and they saw the opportunity as if they were on the spot, and easily occupied the territory that had been held by the Jin merchants and Hui merchants before, and everyone made a lot of money.

Along the territory occupied by Qixintang, Hongmen's external guard intelligence system has also blossomed in various parts of the north, and countless spies have been planted in the past, bringing a steady stream of various hidden information to Hongmen.

In the midsummer of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Hongmen's first expensive railway finally opened the railway from Bengang to Da'an Town under the watchful eye.

For the opening of the railway, Li Tianyang invited the leaders of all parties, except for the Ming Dynasty official mansion of the current dynasty, other groups that had intersections with Hongmen were all wiped out.

Even the Edo Shogunate, the Ryukyu Kingdom in the east, the Medan Sulu Kingdom in the southwest, and many Western delegates were invited to this event.

With a sound with a tight rhythm, the steam train with puffs of smoke on its head was revealed in front of the members led by Xiao Yifu present, even the representatives of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce who had already seen the steam train still had a moment of stunned and surprise, not to mention other representatives who had seen the steam train for the first time.

Compared with the steam train seen by the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce last time, this more mature standard train is not only more mature in manufacturing technology, but also has a breakthrough in design, and the locomotive is more narrow and thin.

Although the steam engine has shrunk in size, its internal power is more powerful, and the locomotive, which could only drag only three carriages last time, is now suspended in five carriages in a row, enough to carry all the delegates present.

was invited by Li Tianyang to take a ride on this smooth and fast steam train, and every invited representative was thinking about various words in their minds to express their shock!!

"Ingenious, really ingenious!! Admiral Li, I don't know which master made such a creation, can you have the privilege of knowing it at the lower level? ”

Dragging awkward Chinese, Fila, the representative of the Olympic Council of Xiangshan, Portugal, made this reluctant request to Li Tianyang with their direct dialogue attitude of Westerners.

Although the Ming Dynasty was rich and powerful in the ancient Eastern country, in terms of scientific civilization, Westerners still looked down on the literati of the Ming Dynasty with a downward attitude.

While the West already had various new scientific systems such as chemistry, physics, and astronomy, the thousands of years of ancient civilizations in the Far East still only focused on their Confucian doctrines, and other theories such as Legalism, miscellaneous schools, and Yin-Yang schools gradually disappeared into the long river of history, or lingered in the hands of a certain folk lineage inheritor and lost their vitality.

But now, when Hongmen suddenly showed a fantasy-like artificial creation, the Westerners who thought they were ahead of the Ming Dynasty in science did not feel lost and shocked.

"Hahaha, well, this steam train is the crystallization of our entire Qixin Hall, but not any one person can make it."

Li Tianyang snorted haha and quietly rejected the other party's request, first, he knew very well the character of Chen Cai's scientific researchers, and he might not like to deal with these businessmen and politicians, and Li Tianyang didn't want Chen Cai to attract more unfavorable eyes after they were exposed.

As the train slowly stopped on the platform outside Bengang County, the group walked into the rather mysterious Bengang County, and everyone missed a little bit of Bengang along the way, and it seemed that they were still staying on the tools of this journey.

(End of chapter)