Li Ming and Gao Jianguo took a speedboat to the vicinity of the Wuchangfu wharf, but they still could not pass immediately, because more than a dozen long queues of boats waiting to be loaded with grain formed at the Wuchangfu wharf.

Fortunately, the speedboat was small and agile, and finally broke out of the encirclement, found a place at the Wuchang Mansion wharf, and sent Li Ming and Gao Jianguo ashore.

The wharf of Wuchang Mansion is also chaotic, with tall grain stacks and busy crowds piled up everywhere. After a long day's effort, everyone finally came to the temporary headquarters of the First Fleet.

However, there are only a few staff officers in the headquarters who are responsible for answering the phone, Ye Changsheng and Liu Dong are sitting on the river to command, even if they want to go back now, there are too many ships on the river.

However, Ye Changsheng still made a report to several standing committee members of the board of directors through the radio, and Gao Jianguo and Wang He also encouraged him and expressed their condolences to the first detachment of the Changjian Fleet on behalf of the board of directors of the Far Eastern Company.

Gao Jianguo stood on a high ground at the wharf of Wuchang Mansion and said with emotion: "It's really a wide and ripe lake, and the world is full." Wuchang Mansion alone, we have got so much grain, if we sweep the entire Huguang, Jiangxi and other major grain provinces, the company will no longer have to worry about food. ”

Li Ming shook his head and said with a wry smile: "The Yangtze River Fleet has been able to achieve such a big harvest this time, mainly because in the past few years of the Chongzhen drought, the grain prices of the Ming Dynasty have risen upward, and the gentry class in all parts of the south of the Ming River are wantonly stockpiling grain, and many of them have become grain merchants, in order to facilitate transportation and turnover, they have concentrated and hoarded grain in the key areas along the river.

In fact, if we go deep into the grain-producing areas such as Huguang and Jiangxi, we will definitely gain something, but not necessarily as much as we have seized in the developed areas along the Yangtze River. As for the north, because of the thieves everywhere in recent years, except for some official warehouses and warehouses on both sides of the canal, the grain in other areas is basically hoarded in the state capital. ”

Wang He also smiled and said: "These gentry landlords and princes and nobles are a group of moths and rats of the Ming Dynasty, in order to protect the interests of their group, they simply do everything, the empire has been in turmoil, and they have made a lot of money." Hehe...... It's just that they never dreamed that they had hoarded grain in Jiangnan for several years, and this time it was a clean loss. ”

Qiao Haipeng smiled and said: "Since there is no shortage of food in Jiangnan, then in two years, we will organize troops to go south to grab it again, and it is estimated that the harvest will not be small." ”

Li Ming smiled, then shook his head and said: "This time we chose a good time, just in time for the great drought in Chongzhen, even a few years of old grain can be sold at sky-high prices, so almost every rich landlord, gentry and bureaucracy in Jiangnan is engaged in the grain business." The grain we seized this time may be their stock in the past few years, and when I crossed the river just now, I deliberately looked at the grain loaded by several ships, and many of them were old grains accumulated for many years.

At present, the grain hoarded in the official warehouses and grain stores at various wharves along the river will not reach such a scale in a few years. Next time, I'm afraid we won't ever encounter such a good thing again. There is no need to rob it in the future, as long as we control the Yangtze River, grain from Huguang, Jiangxi, and other grain-producing areas will definitely be sold to our Far East every year, because without the huge demand for grain from the north, grain prices in these grain-producing areas are bound to plummet. ”

In the next period of time, everyone also came to various grassroots levels, and Gao Jianguo commanded the temporary fleet headquarters at the Wuchang Fu dock every day. Wang He and Guo Song went to Hanyang and Hankou on the other side of the river, while Qiao Haipeng and Li Yukun and others took airships to Jiangxi and Nanjing.

Li Ming and Song Tao led their troops to go deep into the Huguang grain-producing area in the south of Wuchang Prefecture by boat, and swept through the entire southern part of the Huguang region.

However, the Third Fleet penetrated deep into the Suzhou-Changzhou, Jiangsu-Zhejiang regions, and the capture of the troops was also very gratifying. After all, this region belongs to the most economically developed area in the Ming Dynasty, and this area not only has grain, but also various textiles and raw materials such as cotton, cloth, and raw silk.

These things are also very important strategic materials for the Far Eastern Company, and their role is second only to food. After all, clothing, food, housing, and transportation are indispensable things for people, and they are also the most expensive expenses for materials.

The Ming Dynasty was one of the most economically prosperous countries in the world in the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the commodity economy of the Ming Dynasty has shown an unprecedented prosperity and entered the third peak after the Western Han Dynasty and the Song Dynasty.

In particular, the germination of capitalism has appeared in the Jiangnan region, and the cultivation of cotton, mulberry and tea trees in the Jiangnan has also developed greatly, and many tea gardens and mulberry gardens have been opened up in the hilly areas of the southern part of the Yangtze River.

The trade of many important commodities in the south of the Yangtze River is no longer confined to a small local market, but has been trafficked to distant places for sale and even throughout the country.

Among these commodities, luxury goods account for a certain proportion of the total number of commodities, mainly the daily necessities of the people, accounting for the majority of the total market circulation, especially grain, cotton, cotton cloth, raw silk, silk fabrics, salt, tea and seven categories of goods as the bulk of commodities.

And these daily necessities of the people are actually the materials that Far Eastern Company needs most. The Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions are the production bases and wholesale and retail centers of the above-mentioned commodities.

The Third Fleet of the Far Eastern Army occupied Nanzhili and Jiangsu-Zhejiang, except for Nanjing, which was surrounded but not attacked, but it did not let go of other areas. In the past, after the army broke the city, in order to encourage the morale of the soldiers, the generals would often order the slaughter and looting of the city, so that the officers and soldiers could vent their violent emotions in their hearts by killing, looting, and **** within a few days.

However, whenever the Far Eastern Army captured a town, the troops entered the city without committing any crimes, and the discipline was extremely strict. They will maintain order in the city day and night, and will also take "strike hard" in the city, killing a number of city foxes, rats and ruffians in the city, and trying to stabilize the situation in the town.

The company's policy has long been determined, that is, after the Far Eastern Army enters the Central Plains, it will not take any action against the low-level people in the Ming Dynasty, as well as the small households, small landlords and small merchants and hawkers in the middle and lower classes of society.

But with regard to the gentry, the bureaucracy, and the princes, they will not be soft at all. Especially in the local tyrants and inferior gentry who bully men and women in the countryside where they are wantonly fishing and meating, the company will inevitably adopt an iron-blooded policy to eliminate them.

Whenever a town was captured and the Far Eastern Army took control of the situation in the city, it began an organized and planned operation of "scraping the ground" with the assistance of the intelligence department.

(To be continued.) )