Jing Sili was shaken for a moment in his heart. I haven't seen the main owner yet, which makes people see through their minds, even with his old spiciness, he is panicked.

Jing Sili wants to stay in Xihe Road to win military merits, and with his current status, he must also have a capital eunuch or even a governor to arrange it. And the governor and the capital eunuch are qualified to lead the army independently, once Jing Sili arrives in Xihe, it is equivalent to grabbing the opportunity to lead the generals of Xihe at the moment. Regardless of whether Wang Shao can stay in Xihe after the decisive battle of Hezhou, the power he has built up is definitely a group that does not want outsiders to intervene.

Han Gang didn't seem to see the surprise that flashed on Jing Sili's face, and continued, "I heard that the goal of the imperial court to withdraw the Xiang army is 200,000. But if you really want to do it, you won't be so ruthless, and most of the time you can still leave 2440,000 or 500,000. ”

Jing Sili collected his thoughts, he was not sure whether what Han Gang was saying now was instructed by Wang Shao himself, and he didn't know if it was a test, but he knew that his answer would definitely affect Wang Shao's opinion of himself, "Sili heard that there will only be 40,000 to 50,000 troops left in Shaanxi, and most of them will be concentrated under the jurisdiction of the Yongxing Army Economic Strategy Division. In the future, the border defense, the large walled city has a forbidden army, and the small walled fort relies on the village soldiers and archers. ”

Before Xining, there were many van troops guarding the border villages, but now in the five years of Xining, most of the border forts have become village soldiers and archers to garrison, and the system of half soldiers and half farmers is implemented. The full tax or half tax of the village soldiers was exempted, but there was no need to pay salaries, and there was no need to pay more pensions, which was definitely a good thing for the imperial court.

Moreover, their awareness of protecting the countryside makes the combat effectiveness of the township soldiers far superior to that of the Xiang army, and even close to the well-equipped forbidden army. Therefore, after a few years of hard work, almost all the box troops guarding the border areas were replaced by township archers, especially after the implementation of the armor protection law in Shaanxi, the role of the township soldiers who formed the armor protection was impossible to ignore.

Han Gang sighed: "I don't know what the imperial court will do with the tens of thousands of troops that have been withdrawn from Shaanxi this time." If you don't place it carefully, you may get into a mess. ”

"In my opinion, it is best to go to the Son of Heaven, select the elite from among them, and send them to the border to go to the real Tuntian." He looked at Han Gang, "Xihe Road is actually not bad. ”

About an hour later, Qin Fengjun finally arrived in Longxi City. Several campsites outside the city have already been arranged.

Stationed at the gate of the horse camp. Seeing his team in person, under the command of a dozen subordinate officials of the Economic Strategy Division, Shun Shun was settled down, and there was no confusion that would inevitably occur when the army moved in the past. Jing Sili secretly had a little awe of the Xihe Economic Strategy Division's governing methods.

"It's amazing." Jing Sili admired the Xihe Jinglu Division, although he took the opportunity to show his goodwill, but his tone was also sincere, "A whole ten thousand horses, in exchange for moving to other roads, without two or three hours of effort, it is impossible to settle down." ”

"Thank you for the compliment," Han Gang smiled and arched his hand, "Han Gang is ashamed." ”

"Is it your arrangement?!" Jing Sili said in his heart that this was indeed the case, Han Gang's methods of doing things were well-known in Guanzhong, and Qin Fengjun's placement work was said to be his prior planning, and it was natural that he could be so safe, and it was not surprising.

"Wang Jing has a little life, how can Han Gang have a reason to do his best." Han Gang didn't talk nonsense, just arranging for Qin Fengjun to enter the camp was delayed for another hour. He invited Jing Sili to enter the city, "Jing Luo is already waiting in the ya, and he also asks the capital supervisor to enter the city quickly." ”

Hearing Han Gang say this, Jing Sili didn't delay much, and hurriedly took a team of personal soldiers into the city.

The group galloped away, and in a blink of an eye they arrived in front of the east gate of Longxi City. At the city gates, several convoys full of sacks of goods swung away, and the bodies of the city blocked the not-so-wide gates.

They were supposed to be inspected one by one to enter the city, but now that Han Gang and Jing Sili had arrived, the soldiers defending the city were busy asking them to push the cars aside. The wheat grains that leaked from the mouth of the bag showed that they were filled with grain.

Seeing the leaders of these grain convoys, none of them looked like soldiers or officials. Jing Sili turned his head and asked Han Gang, "Is this going to Fold Bo to enter the middle school?" ”

"Zhebo has just been established, and these caravans are the first batch of caravans." Han Gang replied, unsurprisingly finding a trace of worry on Jing Sili's face. He smiled and said: "The capital eunuch can rest assured, in this battle, most of the real needs of the army are already in the warehouse." These merchants are just picking up the missing pieces - it is inconvenient to collect the people's power in the spring, so they can only be replaced. However, if the effect is good, the task of replenishing the grain and grass on Xihe Road in the future may depend on these merchants. ”

Jing Sili nodded, but did not say whether he agreed or disagreed.

At the beginning of February, the imperial court agreed to set up a Zhebo office in Gongzhou, and used the workaround of merchants entering the middle school to speed up the delivery of grain and grass to Xihe Road.

The so-called entry into China is to recruit merchants to transport grain and grass to the designated place in the border village, exchange banknotes, and then merchants use banknotes to go to Beijing or other places to receive remuneration. In the earliest days, merchants were paid cash and silver, which were later converted into physical goods, such as incense, tea, and now salt, more commonly.

Originally, with the capacity of the Qin Feng Transshipment Division, it could support an army of about 10,000 people and ensure that there was no problem with normal supply. But if it is replaced by 30,000 soldiers and horses, it is almost dry and fishing for the people of Shaanxi. can have other means to supplement, whether it is Cai Yanqing, Zhao Ji, Wang Anshi, they will not mind using it. If there had been a proven and effective approach, there would have been no opposition.

However, when the merchants exchanged banknotes, they were given the salt of the pond in Jiezhou. As the best salt in the north, the price of Jiezhou pond salt is far higher than that of well salt and sea salt, so merchants flock to it.

The policy of entering the middle has actually been implemented in various roads on the edge, especially the two roads of Yanyan and Huanqing, which are close to Jiezhou. The entry of these two roads accounts for most of the salt solution, and therefore, the amount of salt that can be allocated to Xihe Road is insignificant - this is why Han Gang and Wang Shao did not pay attention to the entry of Zhongnasu before - but now the situation of insufficient transportation capacity is really difficult to solve, and the establishment of Zhebo is purely helpless. In order to solve the problem of insufficient salt payment, Han Gang's idea to Wang Shao was to use the wasteland of Hehuang and the cotton produced in Guantian to offset the amount.

At that time, Wang Shao still had doubts, worried that the empty nonsense land title deeds and the cotton that had not been planted at all could not attract the eyes of the merchants, so as a precaution, he also put in the salt money, hoping to use the well salt of Gongzhou to replace the pool salt in Jiezhou - Wang Shao also thought about using tea as a reward, but now the tea gardens are all given to the government, especially in Shuzhong, which is close to Shaanxi, where most of the tea plantations are transported to Xihe Road to exchange war horses with the Tubo people, and the Tubo people no longer lack tea, but for tea, There's not much profit to be made at all. So this one option was abandoned.

But the last choice of the businessmen proved Han Gang's right. It's not just that Gongzhou's well salt is too salty and bitter to be consumed. More importantly, it is the relationship between profits. For the merchants who were willing to go into the middle to deliver grain and grass, if cotton was spun into cotton cloth, it would bring them more than 300 percent of the profits, which would be ten or eight times stronger than the salt profit of 30 percent and 50 percent by the simplest arithmetic - just a little later.

"In the old days, when merchants traveled into China, after getting the money, the official salt in exchange was not enough to compensate for the cost of transporting grain. The official salt is just a disguise, and with this disguise, the salt can be sold to the outside world in a justifiable manner, and the private salt that comes back from the Qingbai salt pond of the party can be mixed in and sold openly. Han Gang explained this to Wang Shao at that time. has a cousin who is good at business, so that Han Gang has a lot of understanding of the treacherous methods of businessmen, "With the amount of one pound of official salt, profiteers can often sell ten catties." But selling salt like this is a taboo after all, and the profit is only three or five percent, which is three or five times that of cotton? ”

Although Wang Shao and Gao Zunyu had not heard of the famous evaluation of the businessman's pursuit of profit, they could clearly calculate the difference between three times and three percent. After all, the methods of these profiteers are also more or less understood by them.

And for the businessmen in the border areas, as well as the wealthy families behind them, they are also very clear about triple and thirty percent. Although the wasteland has not yet been cultivated and the cotton has only just been planted, with the influence of these wealthy families, are they still afraid that the imperial court will turn its face and fail to pay the bill? Moreover, the Son of Heaven and the court are also looking forward to their actions to make the production of the Xihe Military Prefecture more abundant, and it is impossible to turn their faces and deny people.

- It's just that the premise of all this is that the Xihe Jinglu Division, with one victory after another in the past two years, has proved to everyone that they can protect the interests of the subjects of the Great Song Dynasty in the Hehuang region, otherwise, who would venture to the Xihe Road?

Smoothly entered the city, Han Gang sent Jing Sili to the yamen, and Wang Shao and Gao Zunyu were both lowered in the main hall to greet them. Wang Shao, Gao Zunyu and Jing Sili were talking, Han Gang still had something to deal with, so he got up and retired when he took a moment. It's just that as soon as he left the hall door, he was pulled by Wang Hou.

Wang Hou asked anxiously: "What did Jing Er say about the Xiang Army?" ”

Han Gang looked back at the main hall and pulled Wang Hou a little farther away, "It seems that he doesn't object to Xihe asking for this group of retreating Xiang troops. ”

"That's great!" Wang Hou slapped his palm excitedly, "As long as he, the Zhide Shunjun, can help us speak, Qin Fenglu can't compete with us." If there are three or five thousand more households, the money and grain of the Qin Feng Transfer Division will inevitably be tilted towards the Xihe River in a few years. ”

"Let's talk about this again, just prepare first."

Regarding the matter of the Xiang Army, Han Gang and Wang Shao are just planning for the future, at least not a matter that needs to be dealt with urgently, and what they really have to deal with is Mu Zheng, who is far away in Hezhou.