Xie Qi said: "We all spent money to buy, spent a full 800,000 taels of silver, the local people welcomed Wang Shi, and the outside of the barracks has now become a bazaar, and the relationship is good." Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info"

Zhu Jinglun smiled: "That's good." Don't care about the money, buy things at twice the local market price, it's not a loss, it's a big bargain. ”

"How's the reinforcements going?"

At this time, the troops that landed in Tianjin were only the first army of Xin'an, plus more than 15,000 soldiers of the 5,000 Eight Banners, so it can be said that the reserves of materials were more than enough, but it was obviously not safe for such soldiers to attack the city of Beijing, and the British and French troops actually did not dare to enter the city last time, and they had been stationed in the Old Summer Palace, which was precisely outside the city wall.

Zhu Jinglun not only wants to capture the city of Beijing, but he also has to occupy the city, so that he can bargain with the Qing court for the best, so he will also send the second and third main forces to the north, and the three main forces of the Xin'an First Army, the Second Army and the Wukeng Army will attack Beijing to ensure that nothing goes wrong.

Xie Qi said: "Your Majesty, the Second Army of Xin'an is ready and can go north at any time, but Tianjin is about to freeze, and if you want to go north, you have to act as soon as possible." The Wukeng Army has also completed the change of clothes, do you want them to go north from Fujian as well? ”

Zhu Jinglun pondered for a while, going north in the winter is indeed a little bad.

So he shook his head: "Your battle plan is very well formulated, so don't change it casually." Since there is only one plan to capture Tianjin this year, let's go as planned, although it is somewhat easy to capture Tianjin, which is beyond our expectations. However, the Wukeng Army and the Xin'an Second Army currently have no military operations, and it is not good to be idle. Let's launch an offensive in Fujian, I heard that the Taiping army has begun to attack Jiangsu and Zhejiang, so I should help them and attract Zuo Zongtang's troops. ”

News of the Northern Expedition expanded faster than any other, spreading throughout the city almost instantly, thanks to the role of newspapers that had recently begun to emerge.

The earliest newspapers in China appeared in Hong Kong, and the earliest Chinese newspapers also appeared in Hong Kong.

It was founded by Wu Tingfang in 1858, but until now, it is still the only Chinese newspaper, called "Zhongwai Xinbao", because of their limited strength, they cannot get first-hand information, mainly rely on translating Western newspaper content, rarely have their own things.

Since its inception, the development of Hong Kong has not been good, but they have expanded their business to Kowloon, but they are worried about the government's interference, they still put their headquarters in Hong Kong, but set up distribution in Kowloon and other places, from Hong Kong printed newspapers, fixed distribution to all parts of the country.

Until the Northern Expedition, this newspaper was half-dead, that is, relying on the personal enthusiasm of the founder, but the reprint of the Northern Expedition caused their sales to surge, not only in Kowloon, but also in Guangzhou, Zhaoqing, and even Guangxi and Fujian, there were a large number of businessmen who hoped to cooperate with them and reimburse their newspapers.

Seven years after the publication was founded, they finally opened up the market, which was first of all thanks to Zhu Jinglun's support.

Before sending out the troops, Zhu Jinglun specially invited reporters from Hong Kong newspapers to report with the army, and he consciously wanted to publicize to other countries the difference between the Ming Dynasty and the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and that a well-trained, well-uniformed, and well-disciplined army was obviously very representative of the overall quality of the country.

Training, military discipline these two points, for the current main force of the Ming Dynasty, that is a necessary quality, the military court has been in operation for so many years, military law has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people in the army, no one is willing to challenge the law, this is a long-term accumulation, has slowly formed a cultural tradition, than the commanders at every turn to use the killing power is much better.

Although Wu Tingfang and others did not trust the new Ming regime enough, because many of their newspapers attacking the Ming government were seized by the local government in some places, causing them to have extreme concerns about the country's freedom of speech, he still sent reporters and recruited a down-and-out talent who fled to Hong Kong in his early years.

It is precisely because of the first-hand information, and it is written in Chinese, and the first-hand information from the perspective of the Chinese, suddenly allowed the "Zhongwai Xinbao" to open up the market in various ports, and then began to spread to the mainland with lightning speed, and Luoyang paper was expensive for a while.

A big reason why Wu Tingfang was able to start the Chinese and foreign new newspaper was that he worked as a translator in the English "Twin Newspaper" and borrowed the Chinese movable type in the newspaper to print his own newspaper.

In order to maintain the newspaper, Wu Tingfang did not have a lot of effort, he not only worked as a translator for the newspaper, but even worked as an interpreter in the High Court of Hong Kong, and a large part of the income was used to maintain the operation of the newspaper.

Later, he became the first licensed Chinese lawyer in Hong Kong, in fact, he started as a translator in the court.

With the help of the communication ability of modern media, the news of the Ming Northern Expedition to the Manchu Dynasty continued to spread back to the territory of the Ming Dynasty, when everyone found that the Ming army was like a broken bamboo to destroy the withered combat effectiveness, the common people spontaneously issued firecrackers more, which means that more people began to give up the neutral attitude in their hearts, and turned to support the Ming Dynasty.

One of the facts behind this is that the establishment of the Ming Dynasty has made thousands of people have vested interests, including not only countless new generation bureaucrats, but also countless businessmen who have made a fortune, in fact, thousands of ordinary people.

Whenever Zhu Jinglun conquered a place, he implemented a tax-free policy, and for the common people, it did not matter if there was no regular tax, but the reduction of the hated harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes was a good government that was universally welcomed.

There are vested interests, and naturally there are people whose interests are damaged, and the old bureaucrats are the most representative group of people.

Another group whose interests were damaged was the deep-rooted Xu official group, but Zhu Jinglun greatly improved the status of the Xu officials, released the feudal identity that oppressed the Xu officials, and added them the title of an alternate official, for those high-level officials, this could not make up for their losses, but for most of the low-level, generous salaries replaced the gray income extorted in the past, and the improvement of their status made them the most supportive group of people in this new country.

In short, Zhu Jinglun's practice of trying to avoid the one-size-fits-all elimination of the old forces and carefully cultivating new vested interest groups seems to have been successful so far, at least he has been able to implement many new policies without encountering armed resistance.

This kind of newspaper is obviously one of the vested interests, Zhu Jinglun has read their recent reports, all of them are full of praise, obviously from the bottom of their hearts they already identify with this country, the previous criticism also exists, for people like Wu Tingfang, the purpose of his newspaper is not for money, they are under the impact of Western culture, the first batch of awakened elites, the biggest motivation to drive their actions is the inner ideals and beliefs, these things, can not be bought with money, But it doesn't mean that they can't be bought, it's very appropriate to buy them with ideas, because Zhu Jinglun's government invited them to go north, which made them see the partial realization of the freedom of speech advocated by the Ming Dynasty, and made them feel very mobile.

But the real freedom has not yet arrived, but they generally believe that Zhu Jinglun, the emperor himself, is enlightened, and the reason why there is a situation where the local government confiscates and criticizes the newspapers is that it is a spontaneous act of the local government, and no county official can accept this kind of criticism with a strong Western attitude, and it is polite not to label them as heretics.

With the improvement of business, Wu Tingfang and his collaborator Huang Sheng immediately expanded the Chinese and foreign new newspapers, hired more writers, recruited a large number of typesetters from foreigners' newspapers, purchased their own movable type printing tools for the first time, and began the first expansion.

Compared with the vested interest groups with a clear literati flavor such as newspapers, Zhu Jinglun attaches more importance to another group of vested interest groups, representing the future industrial forces.

In recent years, Zhu Jinglun has continued to expand his army, and has always maintained a huge army and military operations, which requires production support that cannot be supported by an agricultural country.

In terms of money, he implemented the system of issuing bonds, and at present the Ming government has a debt of 30 million taels, which is higher than the debt of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and in terms of production, although some rely on foreign countries, for example, as many as 100,000 rifles shipped back from Britain, but almost all of the cannons are produced by themselves.

As early as the time when the Second Army of Xin'an was being trained, Zhu Jinglun's arsenal was no longer able to meet the supply of military supplies to the troops, and the arsenal had trained a large number of technical personnel, but compared with the huge military supply, it was still not enough.

Zhu Jinglun's method is the same as handing over the order to the foreigner shipyard to build warships, and handing over the task of casting cannons to the iron factories in Foshan, although the technical ability of these handicraft workshops is very poor, but the skills of the craftsmen are not bad, but their technology is a little backward.

Combining the technical capabilities of the arsenal with advanced technology and these traditional craftsman workshops with skilled casting technology is beyond imagination.

At the beginning, these iron factories did not trust the government, and Zhu Jinglun did not force the showdown, but sent the technicians of the arsenal to visit door to door, asking the factory owner if he could help the arsenal make cannons, and they were willing to pay a high price.

But most of the ironworks said they couldn't build it, and groveled.

In the end, 57 iron factories took these orders, some of them believed that the government would pay according to the agreement, and some of them had other mentalities, or did not dare to refuse, or they recognized the government, in short, they cooperated with the government out of a very complicated mentality at the beginning.

But these 57 ironworks soon made a fortune. (To be continued.) )