As soon as the news was released that Suzhou Prefecture was going to build a large military base in Taihu Lake, it spread throughout Suzhou Prefecture.

Such large-scale infrastructure projects are usually undertaken by the government government, but Fang Yuan has found a unique way, to follow Zhu Yuanzhang's example in building Nanjing City, and hand it over to wealthy private businessmen through public bidding.

The amount of money involved in this kind of project is millions of taels of silver, which is really a big piece of fat meat that everyone covets, and rich businessmen from all walks of life are competing to tell each other.

Fang Yuan stipulated that the time for submitting the bidding documents was two months, and only one month later, there were thirteen bidding documents handed to Fang Yuan's table, and there were all wealthy businessmen from Yangzhou Mansion, Changzhou Mansion, Songjiang Mansion, and even Huai'an Mansion, as well as Zhejiang.

Only there are no wealthy merchants from the Dongting merchant gang such as the Xi family and the Shen family in Suzhou Prefecture, and it seems that they still have resistance.

Fang Yuan reviewed the bidding documents submitted by these wealthy businessmen one by one, and the highest construction amount was 2.2 million taels of silver, the lowest construction amount was 1.5 million taels of silver, and most of the amounts were between 1.6 million and 1.8 million taels of silver.

Through a simple comparison, Fang Yuan knew that the cost of this construction would never exceed 1.8 million taels of silver, and the officials of the Suzhou Prefecture were fooling around and wanted to swallow Fang Yuan at least 200,000 taels of silver. Fortunately, the method of public bidding was adopted, otherwise it would inevitably be played by that group of government officials.

In addition to looking at the amount, Fang Yuan also asked the wealthy businessmen who bid to write down their past experience, as well as the experience of undertaking large-scale infrastructure projects, as well as the operation of the wealthy businessmen's industries to judge the construction capacity.

Wealthy businessmen who did not have any industry in the four prefectures of Nanjing were not within the scope of Fang Yuan's consideration, because there was a liability accident, and it was impossible to investigate the relevant responsibility.

Through the first round of preliminary screening, Fang Yuan only left three bids, and Yangzhou, Songjiang, and Changzhou each left one bid, and notified the three wealthy businessmen to wait for news from the government.

In the past two months, the advent of chemical fiber silk has formed a lot of shock in Suzhou and even the whole of Nanjing. This cheap and high-quality new silk immediately went out of Suzhou Mansion and sold well throughout Nanjing.

According to Xiaoyuan's account statistics, a total of 30,000 pieces of chemical fiber silk have been put into the market, and Fang Yuan has made at least 30,000 or 40,000 taels of silver on his account. And Xu Hua, as well as other silk merchants in Suzhou Prefecture, made a lot of money, and the other party was grateful to Dade.

The only one who was pitted was the Weng family's silk workshop.

The batch of silk invested by Fang Yuan has dealt a heavy blow to the sales of the Weng family's silk, not only the share of overseas sales was robbed by Fang Yuanquan, but the local sales of Suzhou Mansion were also robbed by Xu Hua and several silk merchants, and the only silk that was shipped to the north for sale was also looted twice by Liangshan Liukou. What's even more infuriating is that the Liangshan Liukou only plundered the merchant ships of the Weng family, and the other merchant ships were spared.

In just two months, the Weng family had 10,000 pieces of silk robbed, and at least 20,000 pieces of unsalable silk were hoarded in the warehouse.

The direct economic losses have been more than 100,000 taels, and the indirect economic losses are even more numerous.

Weng ** didn't know where Fang Yuan's silk came from, and according to the investigation information, he didn't see any merchant ships transporting silk to Suzhou Prefecture. According to Weng Yang's estimate, the batch of silk sold by Fang Yuan was brought by the ship for the first time in Suzhou, and the total amount that could be put into the Suzhou market was also limited. As long as this difficult time is overcome, when the market has completely digested Fang Yuan's silk, it will usher in the hope of a turnaround.

Even though the Weng family is operating at a loss, they are still gritting their teeth to maintain the normal operation of this thousand looms, counting on this day when the clouds will open and the moon will shine.

However, Weng Yang obviously misestimated Fang Yuan's supply potential, Fang Yuan's silk supply is almost unlimited, with the industrial level before the crossing, it is a big deal to open a small industrial park with the textile industry as the pillar in the relevant area, which is enough to withstand the silk demand of the entire Ming Dynasty.

Weng Yang is dying at a loss, but Fang Yuan has a profit of 1 tael of silver / horse, how to fight this kind of business war without suspense, Fang Yuan is happy to gloat and watch the dying struggle of the Weng family.

If the Weng family didn't want to continue fighting, Fang Yuan would occasionally release the news that the new silk was out of stock, giving the Weng family a little hope, and then ruthlessly trampling the Weng family under their feet, consuming the vitality of the Weng family a little bit.

Of course, what could give the Weng family a fatal blow was a big hole that Fang Yuan had planted for the Weng family in the porcelain trade through the Francois Chamber of Commerce.

The Weng family is different from those Jin merchants in Shanxi.

Jin merchants are asset-light, they buy low and sell high, and the middlemen's trading is cash flow, so they can directly copy out millions of taels of silver.

The Weng family is a business family that has been in business for hundreds of years, and its assets are mainly real estate such as annexed land and houses, as well as the assets of large silk workshops. The amount of silver that can be taken out is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

Because on the one hand, he had to engage in a tug-of-war with Fang Yuan in the silk trade, which took up a lot of real money and silver of the Weng family. Therefore, this porcelain transaction of 800,000 taels of silver, if the Weng family wants to swallow this transaction, ninety percent of them have to borrow money to complete it.

As long as the Weng family jumps into the pit of the porcelain trade, bankruptcy is close at hand.

In the early morning of this day, Fang Yuan, who had been working continuously for half a month without rest, finally found a day of leisure time to stay in the Canglang Pavilion to rest and enjoy the rare purity.

There are thirty more beautiful girls in the house, and legend has it that this is the rumor of Fang Yuan's harem, and it is rumored that Fang Yuan once slept with 8 girls in one night, played 9P, and even the brocade guard guarding Canglang Pavilion was quietly circulating.

Fang Yuan was very helpless about these rumors, the emperor could find a eunuch to manage the private treasury, and Fang Yuan's trusted personal person was only Xiao Yuan.

Xiaoyuan is a delicate girl, and she can't arrange some men to command her, for the convenience of work, Fang Yuan bought some girls to set up an independent accounting team, but he didn't expect this kind of peachy scandal to come out.

In order to avoid suspicion, Fang Yuan once again expanded the outer courtyard of Canglang Pavilion, and built a large courtyard with ten rooms between the courtyard of the Jinyi guard and the courtyard of the miscellaneous servants, which was used to house the girl who worked in the independent accounting department.

Xiao Yuan sat on Fang Yuan's lap and read the northern war report he had just received for him.

In late October, the city of Kaifeng was captured by Li Zicheng, and the people of the city were killed and wounded, only the king of Zhou was received by the reinforcements sent by the imperial court and crossed the north bank of the Yellow River and survived.

After Li Zicheng captured Kaifeng, he immediately led his troops westward in mid-November and began to attack Tongguan Tianwei, the gateway to Shaanxi, which was also the first line of defense carefully set up by Fang Yuan.

On Tongguan were two Hongyi cannons that Fang Yuan had purchased for Zhu Cunji, as well as thirty Western medium guns.

At the moment of life and death, Zhu Cunji, the king of Qin, finally lived up to Fang Yuan's expectations, burst out the bloody nature of the children of the Zhu family, personally commanded the soldiers to meet the enemy on the battlefield of Tongguan, and reused the generals of Yulin Military Town who dared to fight bloody battles with Kou to the end. And follow the practice of King Zhou, scatter all the wealth and labor army, and sacrifice the army.

At the beginning of December, Li Zicheng hit Tongguan, and was blown up by dozens of cannons on Tongguan, and after losing thousands of sergeants, Li Zicheng led the army to flee back to Henan to rest and recuperate.

After the first round of confrontations, the Qin army and the Chuang army were temporarily in a stalemate.

Zhang Xianzhong, another giant, fought a tug-of-war with Qin Liangyu, a nearly 70-year-old Sichuan commander-in-chief, in Kuizhou for half a year, and the two sides formed a strategic confrontation in Kuizhou and Fengjie.

And the direction of the Manchu Qing that Fang Yuan was most concerned about, because Fang Yuan plundered the 100,000 stone grain provided by the eight Jin merchants, which greatly delayed the time for the Manchu Qing to enter the customs and plunder, and there was no movement at all.

Chigutai also returned to Suzhou from the north, and purchased a total of 2,000 military horses for this trip, and Liang Min provided 500 strong men who could ride and shoot well and were willing to accept Zhao'an and join the Xuanjia Army to serve the country.

On Jing Jie's side, the work of integrating and deploying the three guards of Suzhou, Taicang, and Zhenhai has also been completed.

The number of sergeants of the Three Guards is 15,000, but the actual number in the barracks is 10,000, and the number of the old, weak, sick and disabled is 5,000, and only 5,000 can be called sergeants.

Jing Jie selected 500 sergeants who could ride and fight with a strong physique from the 1,000 sergeants of the Shenji Battalion and the 5,000 guards and incorporated them into the Xuanjia Army.

After the replenishment of continuous fresh blood, the number of the cavalry battalion of the Xuanjia Army reached 2,000 people. Coupled with the artillery battalion and drone team, the current establishment of the Xuanjia Army is 2,500 people.

The number of war horses, plus the 2,000 war horses purchased by the Chigutai line, has reached 4,500.

Fang Yuan's perfume, silk, and arms transactions with the Francois Chamber of Commerce are still ongoing. Due to the mobilization ability of the Francois Chamber of Commerce, the number of thunderbolts sold to Fang Yuan at this time reached an astonishing 3,000, and the other bird guns and three-eyed guns together amounted to at least 8,000 or more.

The north and Sichuan are already in full swing, and Fang Yuan's side is not idle, constantly recruiting troops, accumulating military strength, and preparing for battle.

Xiao Yuan had just finished reading the battle report, and the Jinyi guards guarding the outer courtyard came to report, and the people from the Xi family and the Shen family came to pay a visit.

Xiao Yuan saw that these people came to the door again, and said unhappily, "Let them go to the government tomorrow to meet each other, it is rare to have a day of leisure, and the son still has to rest!" ”

Fang Yuan didn't need to guess at all to know that the Xi and Shen families had come to discuss the construction of the Taihu Military Base, so he shook his head and said, "This is a big deal of one or two million silver, so that they can go back and they can sleep?" ”

Fang Yuan entertained Xi Benzhen and Shen Xiang in the hall of Canglang Pavilion, and without too much politeness between the two sides, he went straight to the topic.