"What do you want?"

"Armed men, more armed men."

"Huh?"

"At least ten thousand, I know the Baron is more than capable of it."

“……”

Liu Bang stared at Feng Zai in surprise, if he didn't know some inside stories, he would almost think that Feng Zai was specially here to frame him.

10,000 armed men? And also need to be veterans with combat experience? You must know that this is a force that is enough to destroy the city and destroy the country in the Western Regions, and Feng Zheng said it directly, although it can be regarded as praising some of Liu Bang's abilities, but things are still extremely taboo.

Liu Bang is a third-class baron of the empire, and according to the regulations, he can have thirty private soldiers, and if he has more, it should be a violation of a regulation in the imperial aristocratic law, so even if he really has more samurai who are willing to serve, he can't have an establishment, and he has to do it extremely obscurely, and no one will be held accountable, once he is investigated...... Things can be big or small.

Feng Zheng came to seek Liu Bang's help, because Liu Bang had been doing one thing in the Western Regions, and that thing was to arrange a communication network to form an intermediary system similar to a "manpower company", and it seemed that he had done it relatively successfully.

"Long-term employment, you ......" Liu Bang did not agree, nor did he not agree, in fact, he did not dare to agree, it was not that he couldn't do it, but Feng Zheng shouldn't talk to him directly. He didn't want to talk to Feng Zheng anymore, and shook his head: "Do it yourself." He said and stood up under the surprised gaze of the Feng family, and then did not respond to Feng Zheng's request to stay, and left directly.

Feng Zheng was really surprised, he had already inquired clearly in advance, in such a place as the Western Regions, only Liu Bang was doing the matter of contacting various mercenary teams, he was looking for Liu Bang just to make things simpler, and he didn't need to personally operate the matter of contacting the scattered mercenary teams.

"What's the situation?" Feng Zheng was really at a loss, and thought sullenly: "Such a place in the Western Regions is fighting with me? Why didn't anything go well when I got here!? ”

On the other side, Liu Bang is complaining. The object of his complaint was Li Feng, and he had already scolded Feng Zheng for a while, and ended with a sentence of "What is wrong with him".

"No matter how you look at it, there is a fearless attitude." Li Fengma, who has always been one of the rarer strategists under Liu Bang's command, looked at Liu Bang with a smile and said playfully: "Judging from Feng, Your Majesty's support for Qin Fengguo is a bit beyond expectations!" ”

Liu Bang is not a stupid person, he understood, and said: "That's right, King Qin is rich." But after a series of events, there shouldn't be a lot of leftovers, not like being able to spend a huge amount of money to hire people. ”

"10,000 mercenaries, considering that there will be no pension, although there is no need to match weapons and ordnance, but the cost also needs to be spent 100,000 yuan per month." Li Feng is very good at settling accounts, and he settled it little by little to get a number, and then said: "A year is 1.2 million yuan, no matter how you look at it, it doesn't seem like a small number." ”

Liu Bang blinked. He sneered, lowered his voice and said, "Your Majesty may have funded some, but it is unlikely to exceed one million, it should be that King Qin has made some exchange of interests." ”

How else to say that Liu Bang will be a person who does big things? Although Liu Bang does not have much culture. But people are really very sensitive to certain things.

In fact, Liu Bang really guessed correctly, Fusu "picked" financial support from the ruling government at the cost of giving up a certain percentage of fiefdom resources. However, of course, things are not so simple, in fact, Fusu also played a lot of family cards. For example, looking for his sister Yangzi, and then looking for his nephew Lu Shao, the dignity of being a king no longer exists. It's to cry that you're poor.

Fusu cried poverty to his sister and nephew, not thinking about how much money to get from the two, but just hoping that the two would convey it to the emperor. He also really succeeded, and through the mouths of his sister and nephew, he let the emperor know that he was very poor, so poor that he couldn't afford to eat meat for the next meal.

Hey! Because the empire has conquered the grasslands, it has been sending sheep, cattle, and horses to the mainland for several years, and sheep and cattle can be used as food, so mutton has actually become very cheap, and even beef is not very expensive. In addition, because in recent years, the government has been encouraging more chickens, ducks and geese, in fact, meat is really not as scarce as before, ordinary people eat meat once every four or five days, and the richer ones eat nothing, let alone nobles and the like.

Of course, the emperor could not support more, and no matter how much Fusu cried poverty, he could not change this reality, so the exchange of interests became an extremely reasonable arrangement.

"Probably minerals or something, and maybe labor to the empire itself." Liu Bang's eyes were flashing with wisdom, and he felt more and more that his guess was extremely correct, so he smiled and said: "In fact, the empire is not short of any minerals, in other words, the emperor decided to support King Qin." ”

Li Feng kept nodding his head in agreement, and the empire occupied the Japanese Islands, and the two precious metals of gold and silver were provided by the Japanese Islands; After the navy occupied the Luzon Islands, the empire also received a terrifying amount of copper resources, and even a large number of copper mines in the empire began to stop production in a planned way. No matter how you look at it, the empire doesn't seem to lack gold, silver, and copper, and he hasn't heard of iron ore in the land of the Dayue people, but the Nanyang Fleet has recently found an excellent giant iron ore on the side of the Shaying people, and it seems that it is not difficult to mine?

"It's not just the Nanyang side, hasn't there been a stir recently?" Liu Bang touched his chin, and he said: "It seems that a super giant iron ore has been discovered on the grassland, and even high-quality iron ore has been explored in Liaodong." ”

"It should also be counted as coal mines, and there is no shortage of coal mines in the empire, and I haven't heard that there are coal mines on the land of the Dayue clan." Li Feng suddenly sighed a little emotionally, and said: "In the past, it was said that the land is vast and the resources are abundant, but there are only a few that are really being used. It's not that you don't know that there are resources, it's that you can't make those resources available. ”

"It's just a change of way, it used to be driven by labor, now it's driven by labor, not to mention slaves." Liu Bang also sighed, and said with admiration: "The emperor is the emperor after all, I am sure of one thing, if it weren't for the emperor, no one would have been able to do such a big thing." ”

abolished forced labor, and then replaced everything with employment, it is estimated that this is the most correct thing Lu Zhe has ever done. There is a prerequisite for such reforms, having enough wealth. You can also get more wealth, otherwise you will definitely not have the confidence to carry out reforms.

Lu Zhe started from scratch, and he started from scratch with a group of armed forces, and whatever he got was considered a robbery, and there was no cost problem at all. At the beginning, he continued to use prisoner of war mining, in addition to providing food, there was no need for extra financial investment, and the amount of metal mined was equal to the amount of money he owned, and the accumulation of the beginning was based on blood.

Murder and arson gold belt, what can you do best to make a fortune? Isn't it just to expand with an army? Or why does everyone like to fight for the world? There are some people who continue to rob and destroy in the expansion, and Lu Zhe began to switch to construction after grabbing for a period of time. Driven by a bunch of cheap labor, the constant snowball is so powerful.

"The mountains and rivers used to belong to the king, but when they came to Your Majesty, they became the country, and even if Your Majesty wanted to have them, you still need to pay a fee." Li Feng said with a smile: "This is another shocking move, but in the feudal country, the mountains and rivers are owned by the king. ”

Liu Bang didn't understand what Li Feng was talking about at first, but he understood after listening to Li Feng's detailed explanation. His eyes widened and he said, "From the very beginning, His Majesty has been planning the future direction for the country, and is he taking an alternative kind of family world?" ”

"That's right!" Li Feng said with great admiration: "It is precisely because of the uniqueness and mastery of everything that there will be so many people who are eager to sit on that throne, and once the person who sits on the unique throne no longer has unlimited power." And the property of the state cannot be squandered wantonly, and the throne is still coveted, but the attraction is not so terrifying. ”

There are also some things that Li Feng did not say, once the property was divided into the emperor's private treasury and the state treasury. Because the emperor is also paying taxes like ordinary people, the more taxes he earns, the more taxes he pays, and no one can blame anything too much. In addition, then there will be no people's fat and people's ointment. No one can blame the emperor for spending money extravagantly or not, and how much money he wants to spend has become a private matter.

"The Qin feudal country is different, the mountains and rivers still belong to the king." Liu Bang smiled weirdly. He laughed for a moment before saying, "Your Majesty suggested that King Qin go to talk to the ruling government, but in fact, the starting point is for the good of King Qin?" ”

Liu Bang said that it is not unreasonable, it is equivalent to the imperial official endorsement of King Fusu of Qin on some basis, which can ensure the stability of King Qin's position of Fusu, otherwise the Qin feudal state will not be connected to the empire itself in the early stage, but there is a Western Regions that has not yet been conquered in the middle, if there is no repeated endorsement of the empire, not only Fusu will be weak in his heart, but it is estimated that the people in Qin Fengguo will also be weak in their hearts.

"So, the King of Qin hasn't really taken the territory yet, and the Qin feudal state already owes the center a lot of money, and the amount may not be small. The king of Qin and his vassals believed that the empire would provide some kind of guarantee in order to be able to recover its debts. Li Feng's face gradually turned serious: "In some ways, Your Majesty may not have thought about what resources he could obtain from his subordinate feudal states, in order to increase the confidence of his subordinates in the development of feudal states." ”

Liu Bang suddenly thought of something, and said, "Presumably Wei Fengguo will be like this." ”

Li Feng chose to shut up, they could have planned and moved for nearly two years, they wanted to climb on Wei Fengguo's hitchhiker to the South Asian subcontinent to do great things, but with Liu Bang becoming an envoy, no matter how much they invested before, they would definitely not have any pleasant feeling when they thought about it.

"If Your Majesty ......" Li Feng wanted to say something and swallowed back the words that followed, thought about it and suggested directly: "Maybe we can put what should have been invested in Wei Fengguo on Qin Fengguo's side?" ”

In fact, after Liu Bang hinted at Meng Tian, he was thinking about investing in Qin Fengguo, thinking that it would be a very cost-effective thing for Wei Fengguo to invest in Qin Fengguo.

Originally, Liu Bang knew that Feng Zheng would go to the Western Regions, and he wanted to have a discussion with Feng Zheng, after all, he knew from some channels that the emperor was very supportive of Qin Fengguo. When he met with Feng Zai, before he could test it, Feng Zao gave him a "big gift", which made him flinch in an instant.

"Feng Zheng not only represents the King of Qin, but also His Majesty." Li Feng had good reasons to persuade Liu Bang, he said: "Maybe Feng Zheng didn't mean anything else, but he just knew that you had such strength, so he chose to get straight to the point out of some time urgency." ”

"It's because I still represent His Majesty that I am afraid!" Liu Bang kept smiling bitterly: "You should have noticed it, I don't know why, Your Majesty always has some kind of vigilance against me." Actually, I'm not afraid of your jokes, there was a long time when I always felt that I would be killed by His Majesty, and I still feel strange that I haven't been killed until now. ”

Of course, Li Feng knew this, but he couldn't understand why the emperor would be so unkind to his family master. However, since what happened last time, he has already understood one thing, the emperor will not easily kill any nobleman, because since the emperor has formulated the rules of the game, it is impossible to destroy it himself, the imperial system is not easy to maintain, and the emperor will not destroy it himself after working hard to establish a set of rules.

"yes, I get it, too." Liu Bang recognized the judgment of his first think tank, but he still had doubts, hesitated and hesitated, and said: "Anyway, we will go all the way west with him and them, and there will be time to observe when the time comes." If there is a possibility of investment, I will not let it go. ”

What can Li Feng say? Indeed, it is necessary to be cautious, they have plenty of time to observe. He thought of something, and said with a wry smile: "Your behavior just now was more impolite, and it is estimated that you also confused Feng Zheng." ”

Liu Bang waved his hands and said indifferently: "Now I am the only person who can quickly help them hire 10,000 warriors." Does he have that much time to do it himself? ”

"It's better to make up for it, like a meal or something." Li Feng added with a smile: "Then just find a reason to cover up the previous impolite behavior." ”

"No, I can't touch Feng Zheng anymore." Liu Bang saw Li Feng's puzzled face, thought about it and decided to explain, he said: "Feng Zheng was the former Marquis of Qin, but he didn't have any titles in the empire. The old aristocracy, especially the people who didn't get any titles in the empire, they ......, how to say, they just became very small-minded, and after offending, they didn't give in to softness, and once they were soft, they would inevitably be despised. If Feng Zheng is really in a hurry, he will come to me again. If he hadn't come to me, wouldn't there be another Meng Yi coming over in the back? It would be nice for me to have direct contact with Meng Yi. (To be continued.) )