To the southeast of the Naval Academy in Haidian District is a large area of lakes, meadows and reeds, with beautiful scenery and close to the Emperor's Imperial Palace.

After the "Spoon Garden" built by Mi Wanzhong was purchased by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, its layout was obviously not suitable for the emperor's residence and daily office, so under the supervision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, this annex was fully expanded to three times, not only enough to accommodate the harem concubines and eunuchs and palace maids, but also stationed two battalions of troops nearby to protect the safety of the courtyard. The enlarged "Spoon Garden" is shaped like a flying swallow, so it is also called the Swallow Garden.

This open lake meadow and reed area also became a horse breeding and training ground for the army guarding Yanyuan, and even the emperor often came here for horseback riding training when he lived in the courtyard.

With the continuous expansion of overseas trade, under the instruction of Chongzhen, the merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty searched for various excellent animal and plant varieties all over the world, and excellent horse breeds were also continuously introduced into the country. The emperor's love for horses naturally triggered a horse breeding craze among the gentry, nobles and the people.

However, Chongzhen's love for horses is a little different, the emperor does not put the best horses into his stable, but likes to talk to people about the experience of raising horses and training horses, and from time to time to hold **, with people to see whose horses are better trained.

Driven by Chongzhen, the nobles of the capital soon formed a kind of atmosphere, buying a good horse with power or money is nothing, only a good horse bred by his own family is truly commendable. Some people even believe that good horses, like nobles, should be born with blood, and those good horses that can't find a pedigree should not be considered a kind of good horse at all, just like the nouveau riche.

Of course, behind this remark is the contempt and dissatisfaction of the hereditary nobles for the new nobles who are now canonized by the emperor. However, in any case, in Hebei and Shandong, with Gyeonggi as the center, the boom in horse breeding has directly led to the development of private horse breeding technology and the emergence of many good horse breeds.

In fact, the source of these good horses comes from three main places, the Andalusian horse, the Arabian horse, and the Ahamian horse. The last is what Chinese history calls the "bloody horse", which is also an unexpected gain after the Ming army occupied the Ferghana Basin. Of course, this kind of good horse was introduced too late, and it was not as numerous as Andalusian horses and Arabian horses in the capital.

Breeding a horse breed is never an overnight thing, it requires a lot of manpower and money. Previously, the Ming Dynasty's horse breeding system was abolished, and the breeds that were inferior to horses were extremely degraded, and even the number was difficult to guarantee. Although the Mongols and Jurchens had places to raise horses, after constantly selecting good horses and castrating them as war horses, although their horses were stronger than the war horses of the Ming Dynasty, they were also limited.

During the Xuanhe period of the Great Song Dynasty, the Liaodong Jurchens were also able to wear heavy armor to form the Tiefu Tu, which shows that the good horses in Liaodong were still able to carry heavy armor at this time. And today, the heavy armored cavalry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty can only wear cotton armor and chain mail to bully the cavalry of the Ming Dynasty, and the heavy armored cavalry in history can no longer be reproduced, because of insufficient horsepower.

Andalusian horses, Arabian horses, and Ahamas are not only huge in size, but they are also horses that can really afford to charge with heavy armor. It's just that the number of these horses is still insufficient, and they can only be used for a few generals and guards cavalry.

In order to further expand this trend of horse breeding, in June of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Chongzhen established a racecourse on this meadow and ordered Gyeonggi Xungui to sign up for the race. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has also prepared for the establishment of merchants such as the Four Seas Trading Company, one is to issue horse lottery to raise funds for disaster relief; The first is to form a social organization that encourages the breeding of new horse breeds in order to expand the population of good horses.

Since the emperor banned casino brothels in the capital, this form of gambling was first publicly available. In the past ten years, the industrial development of the Gyeonggi area has also made a lot of wealth accumulate among the people of the capital, and it is normal for people to want entertainment if they have money, and the entertainment that the people of the Ming Dynasty were most keen on in the past was gambling and prostitution.

Therefore, even though the imperial court banned open casinos and brothels, those private gambling houses and prostitutes could never be eradicated. When this kind of open gambling industry appeared, it naturally ushered in the enthusiasm of the people of Beijing, and the horse race, which was originally planned to be held only until mid-October, was extended to early November.

Although the weather in Beijing is relatively cold now, it still can't stop the enthusiasm of these Beijing people to watch the game, and there are crowds of people outside the racecourse fence.

At the other end of the racecourse, there are still quite a few people in the tall staircase stands reserved for VIPs. However, the purpose of the people in the stands here is different from that of the ordinary people on the other side, they did not come to watch the game for gambling. As the last day of the event this year, Chongzhen also came to watch the game in person.

As long as there are some ** members of the same status, they will naturally not let go of this social occasion that intersects with the emperor, especially those who have horses racing today, and they are looking forward to their horses being able to run a good result, and maybe they can be summoned by the emperor once.

The grandstand is divided into three tiers, the highest floor belongs to the royal family and the clan, the second floor belongs to the nobles, and the third floor belongs to the ordinary members of **. **Less than a year after its establishment, the total number of members is about less than 600, not because no one has applied, but because the conditions for application are extremely harsh, after all, the No. 1 member is the emperor himself.

Although the children of businessmen like Wang Yuanyi, Hu Qingquan, and Li Jingsheng have begun to slowly take over the family business, they can only borrow the name of their father or elders here to occupy a place in the corner of the stands.

Although they were nominally there to see the horse races, from time to time they looked back at the box in the middle of the stands, which was the Emperor's private box. Li Jingsheng glanced at it a few times, then poked Wang Yuanyi beside him with his elbow, and said with jealousy: "The one who is talking to Your Majesty, isn't it your eldest brother Wang Chunyun?" Everyone is a brother, why did your father only take him to His Majesty..."

Wang Yuanyi was expressionless and didn't say a word, but Hu Qingquan, who was sitting on the other side, said: "After all, there is a difference between young and old, and there are some things that cannot be envied." ”

Li Jingsheng suddenly said a little unconvinced: "When is this, and these old yellow calendars are still mentioned." What are you talking about now, shouldn't you be talking about the upper and lower according to your ability? Even His Majesty himself often says that those who are capable go up, and those who are mediocre go down. If we were to sit here, according to the rules of the past, we should all stand opposite. ”

Hu Qingquan immediately shook his head and said, "Aren't you raising the bar?" These two things cannot be confused. Besides, after Wang Shige took charge of the central bank, he was also in order, and he had never made any trouble, nor was he a mediocre person. ”

"Huh." Li Jingsheng sneered a few times and said, "If there is no chaos, you are not a mediocre?" If you want me to think that if Yuan Yi is allowed to take charge of the central bank, it will definitely not be only the evaluation of being decent.

If Yuan Yi hadn't been paying attention to the war on the front line this time and spreading the news of Yingkou's victory in Beijing, how would we have been able to make a fortune on public debt?

Isn't it mediocre enough that Wang Chunyun is in charge of the central bank and the directors of the Sihai Trading Company are speculating on the stock market in Shenyang, but they can't even get the news of Fan Yongdou's escape. ”

Hu Qingquan was also speechless for a while, and he didn't know how to reply. However, Wang Yuanyi, who had been silent, shook his head and said: "He may not have known that Fan Yongdou had escaped, but he just wanted to take this opportunity to get back the capital of the central bank."

Now, although Jiannu has seized a lot of property from the Sihai Trading Company and the Central Bank in Shenyang, the Sihai Trading Company and the Central Bank have not lost money, but only those of us who went to take over..."

As soon as Wang Yuanyi said this, the companions around him fell silent. At the same time that Sihai Trading Company and the central bank joined forces to inject water into Shenyang's economy, in order to offset the risk, the two companies also issued a bond in Daming to raise funds for stock speculation in the Shenyang stock market.

In the past ten years, Daming's stock market has been booming, and basically investors who invest in stocks and bonds have not failed. Therefore, as soon as this bond was launched, it attracted many people. Before Fan Yongdou fled, the Shenyang stock market rose faster than the Beijing stock market, so many people still made money in the early stage.

However, after Fan Yongdou fled, Wang Chunyun, who received the news in advance, immediately united with the directors of Sihai Trading Company and threw out all the bonds in his hand, so this bond pitted many people. Even Wang Yuanyi, Hu Qingquan, and Li Jingsheng, the children of businessmen who are not descendants of the family, also did not receive any news, and seeing that most of their property was lost, they were naturally dissatisfied with Wang Chunyun.

But for Wang Chunyun, who is in charge of the Daming Central Bank, and the directors of Sihai Trading Company, none of these money-losing shareholders is worthy of their attention. After all, the stock market is risky, do you need to be cautious when entering the market, they have long warned these shareholders who want to make a fortune.

What's more, today's Daming people who can enter the stock market are all well-off families, and ordinary people can't even pay the deposit, so how can they enter the stock market? Compared with the resistance of those businessmen to pay taxes, there are few people who lose money in the stock market, and the people will not be upset, so everyone can only knock out their teeth and swallow blood.

At this moment, the predatory nature of capital has been revealed. But people do not think of the exploitation and oppression of capital, but hope that they can climb that class and replace it.

While these merchants' children were talking about the bonds and the emperor's recent movements, Chongzhen in the box of the grandstand had already finished meeting with the people he was going to meet today, and watched the game with the two guests beside him.

Accompanying him today to watch the horse race was Sun Chengzong, chief of the general staff of the Ming Army, and Mao Wenlong, a member of the Senate. The two of them came to watch the horse race with the emperor, naturally not just to watch the horse race, but to have other plans.

Therefore, not long after the horse racing began, Sun Chengzong turned the topic to the Yingkou victory that has recently gone viral in the capital.