When Fang Yuan was happy to have a noble son, Jinyiwei's side also came with long-awaited information.

In just two months after the introduction of the new imperial court, there were countless officials and wealthy businessmen in Beizhili, Shandong, and Shanxi who were willing to spend money to buy lords. In a short period of time, the imperial court also raised at least three million taels of silver, and this number is still rising.

Zhu Cihong, the prince of the prison state, immediately ordered Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting to use this special money to start preparing for the construction of a new Ming army.

This Ming army completely imitated the model of Fang Yuan's Xuanjia Army, and no longer used the soldiers who ate empty salaries in the guard. According to the standard of 40 taels of silver to build a new Ming army, the initial establishment was 8,000 people, and the elite was directly selected from the 100,000 Jin army and 100,000 Gyeonggi Ming army. The cavalry was insufficient, and then went out of the customs to recruit the Mongols in the steppe and the Liao people in Liaodong.

The training site was set up in Xuanfu Town, where they were stationed, and the cavalry was trained at the Great Wall Pass and went to the Mongolian steppe for training.

War horses, the imperial court is ready-made, but there is no need to buy them, and raising war horses is obviously more advantageous than Fang Yuan in Jiangnan; As for the improvement of the firecracker, due to the delay in solving the problem of the manufacture of nitric acid, it can only be temporarily equipped with the firecracker inherent in the Ming army.

The imperial court not only carried out the construction of a new Ming army, but also reformed and rectified the Ming nine-border military town and the Guanning Group in Ningyuan.

In the nine border towns of the Ming Dynasty, Ningxia Town and Guyuan Town are located in Ningxia, all of which are handed over to the vassal king of Ningxia; Gansu Town, located in Gansu, was handed over to the vassal king of Gansu; Yulin Town, located in Shaanxi, was handed over to King Qin; then merged Taiyuan and Xuanfu two military towns, stationed in Xuanfu Town, and Zhou Yuji served as the governor of Xuantai; Datong Military Town is still the chief soldier after the generation of generals; Jizhen is under the jurisdiction of Sun Chuanting, the governor of Jingji.

So far, the Jiubian Town before the Ming Dynasty belonged to the direct management of the imperial court, and there were only three military towns: Datong, Xuanfu and Jizhen.

For Ningyuan Wu Sangui's Guanning Group, the annual consumption of silver is 3.9 million. For this semi-independent warlord group, the situation with the Manchu Qing Dynasty tended to ease temporarily, and this salary was previously the expenses of Ningyuan, Jinzhou, Shanhaiguan, Dongjiang, and Jizhen.

Now Dongjiang Town is long gone, Jinzhou is also lost, Jizhen is in charge of Sun Chuanting, and only Ningyuan and Shanhaiguan are left. In addition, after the Guanning Group failed in Songjin, after Wu Xiang's counting, there were only 30,000 or 40,000 people left.

The imperial court decided to reduce the monthly salary of each person from 5 taels to 4 taels according to the establishment of 40,000 people, and to allocate the military expenditure of the Guanning group and reduce the annual military expenditure of the Guanning group by 1.4 million yuan, and only 2.5 million yuan was allocated.

When Fang Yuan received this information, he knew that the current Beijing Imperial Court had indeed adopted the previous strategy of Fang Yuan's dedication to Chongzhen, that is, to give up the face of the Ming Dynasty, and to die without money and to suffer a lot of money. Directly traveled lightly, and began to concentrate on consolidating and operating the three core ruling areas of Beizhili, Shanxi, and Shandong, training the new-style Ming army, and then Xu Tu forged ahead.

The rest of the areas beyond the reach of the whip were directly handed over to the princes and governors of various places for self-government. As long as these regions nominally recognized the suzerainty of the Beijing court, handed over the land and silver to the court on time every year, and then exercised military and political power within their jurisdiction, the court would no longer interfere.

In other words, today's world has once again returned to the Three Kingdoms period, when warlords divided and the chaos arose.

This situation is indeed indescribably beneficial to the northern forces in curbing the entry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Because the previous Ming Dynasty was centralized, the imperial court was a big package, and the provinces were basically scattered. As long as the Ming army of the imperial court could be defeated, those in the provinces with almost no resistance were broken by the Manchus one by one.

In the past, the officials and general soldiers of the provinces were fighting for the imperial court, and if they could deal with it, they would deal with it, and it was most important to save their lives, as for the Ming Dynasty, the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and Li Zicheng came to be the boss, what are they doing now, what are the Manchus doing here, and what fighting spirit can they have to play with the Manchus?

Nowadays, the provinces are occupied by basically semi-independent warlords, and the Manchu Qing want to gnaw hard bones one province after another, which is more difficult than the easy entry into the Central Plains in history.

Empress Zhou and the crown prince resolutely implemented the strategy proposed by Fang Yuan before. Fang Yuan had a feeling of being cocooned and self-bound, and now if he wants to march to the provinces, he will also encounter fierce resistance, and Zheng Zhilong is a living example.

Another month passed, the Dongting Merchant Gang, the Hui Shang Gang, the Shanshan Shang Gang, and the four largest merchant gangs in the south of the Yangtze River, Xu Hua, came to the door together to meet the governor Fang Yuan.

Fang Yuan met everyone in the Canglang Pavilion.

Xiao Yuan has already sat in confinement, and he can continue to take care of military and political affairs for Fang Yuan, so he will listen to everyone's discussions on the side.

Wu Dashan was much more straightforward, and said straight to the point, "Governor Fang, the new decree just issued by the imperial court is the integration of government and business, and businessmen can be officials, when will Jiangnan be implemented?" ”

Fang Yuan had already estimated that these wealthy businessmen of the Jiangnan Merchant Gang were looking forward to implementing this system of integrating government and business, and they would be able to act as referees and athletes at the same time, and they could play as they wanted, and whatever policies would be beneficial to them to make money. As for the common people, as long as they don't starve to death, don't rebel, feed some sweet potatoes or something and raise them as pigs.

In Fang Yuan's opinion, this kind of crony capitalist system must not be practiced within his own jurisdiction. Otherwise, he will completely lose the people-friendly policy that he relies on to gain a foothold in Jiangnan. The system of letters and visits that has been vigorously promoted will also become a dead letter, and it will no longer be able to be implemented.

Fang Yuan smiled faintly and looked at the others noncommittally.

Jiang Yan also echoed and said, "The national policy of the imperial court, we Jiangnan Merchant Gang should take the lead in implementing it, thinking that it will set an example for the whole world." ”

Shen Xiang said, "Governor Fang, I have received information from my uncle in Zhejiang, and the government and merchant gangs of Hangzhou and Ningbo in Zhejiang are ready to implement the national policy of integrating government and business. Fujian's Zheng Zhilong also immediately responded and prepared to implement it in Fujian. ”

Zheng Zhilong was originally a warlord who was born as a maritime merchant, so naturally he was eager to engage in this kind of policy, so that he could justifiably extend his influence directly into Fujian's bureaucratic system.

Fang Yuan sighed secretly, the imperial court wants to collect taxes, why aren't these rich businessmen active? The introduction of a national policy that is beneficial to them is like a cat that smells fishy and immediately comes to the door to ask for benefits.

He looked around, only Xi Benzhen and Xu Hua were silent. Although they did not express their inner thoughts, they undoubtedly supported the implementation of this national policy.

Fang Yuan coughed and said, "Okay, you guys stay in Suzhou Mansion for a few days, and I'll talk back to you after thinking about it." ”

He sent away these representatives of the big merchant gang, who held the lifeblood of Jiangnan's economy, and ordered Jinyiwei to send someone to spread the word, leaving Xi Benzhen and Xu Hua behind.

In the backyard of Canglang Pavilion, Fang Yuan, Xi Benzhen, and Xu Hua walked leisurely along the creek and pond, stepping on the peach blossom petals all over the ground.

Fang Yuan opened his mouth and asked, "Master Xi, Boss Xu, you can also talk about it!" ”

Xi Benzhen said, "Governor Fang, I never imagined that the imperial court would suddenly issue such a national policy of making such big concessions to officials and wealthy businessmen. Needless to say, Governor Fang should also know that there are no officials and wealthy businessmen who do not support this national policy. Now that the imperial court has a new policy, Jiangnan cannot remain unchanged. Otherwise, those officials and wealthy merchants in Jiangnan openly and secretly support this national policy, and they look forward to the imperial court coming to rule Jiangnan, which is extremely unfavorable to the rule of the governor of the other party! ”

Xu Hua also said, "Governor Fang, I don't know about the affairs of the government, and I don't intervene, but I can still say a few words about business." Merchants live for profit, and if Governor Fang is not prepared to make concessions to the rich merchants, many wealthy merchants in the south of the Yangtze River who have a fortune of 100,000 or 1 million yuan will definitely transfer their wealth to the north, where the national policy is more favorable, or to do business in Zhejiang and Fujian. ”

Fang Yuan nodded, agreeing with the two of them.

During the Three Kingdoms period, the reason why the Shu Kingdom perished was not because of how strong Deng Ai's deep lone army was, and how good Deng Ai was at fighting. The fundamental reason is that the nine-grade Zhongzheng system implemented by Cao Wei is obviously more satisfying to meet the interests of the powerful families of Shu than the inspection system implemented by Shu Han.

These powerful families are all looking forward to Cao Wei's army to 'liberate' Shu, and the likes of Zhou will continue to spread the public opinion of the destiny of Shu Han in Shu. When the military was slightly defeated and the main force of the Shu army was still in the Sword Pavilion, he persuaded Liu Chan, the lord of Shu, to surrender.

Liu Chan is not a fool, he will be persuaded to surrender rashly after a few words. Just because the powerful families in Shu don't want to resist, it doesn't make sense for Liu Chan and Jiang Wei to resist or not. If Liu Chan wanted to resist again, there would definitely be people who would open the city gate and directly lead Deng Ai's Wei army into the city.

This is the so-called general trend of the world, Liu Chan and Jiang Wei can't stop it, and he Fang Yuan can't stop it. If you want to forcibly block this unstoppable trend, it is just a car in the mantis arm, which is nothing more than the second Li Cunqiao and Napoleon.

Fang Yuan already knew it in his heart, and said to the two of them, "Okay, you guys also go back first, and when I think about it, I'll call you back together." ”