"This is the difference between Zhang Chu and other thieves, almost all other thieves who have dealings with Zhang Chu know that Zhang Chu is a person who is especially greedy for money." Wang Jijie explained. "Greedy for money!" Hearing this, everyone present was taken aback, what good would it do to make a deal with a money-hungry thief. Wang Jijie motioned for everyone to listen to him continue, "Zhang Chu is indeed very greedy for money, he just finished fighting with Wang Jiayin in order to get silver, and he did business with Wang Jiayin, and sold the weapons of the officials and soldiers he seized to other thieves, and he didn't guard against other thieves from becoming bigger and threatening himself, so it can be said that he wants money and doesn't want to die." But no one noticed where the money he had spent so much trouble looting had gone. I followed Zhang Chu from Fugu to Zhongyang, and there was a month together before and after, observing all aspects of his clothing, food, housing and transportation, Zhang Chu was very thrifty, and the clothes he wore were only a few back and forth changes, and he never made special arrangements for meals with the soldiers, and Zhang Chu also set a standard for his own salary, and paid himself wages on time every month. "So Zhang Chu is a miser. You have so much money but you won't enjoy it, and you're ready to take it to the coffin? A young student who participated in the discussion said. Zhang Chu is indeed a miser, but he is not guarding the money for himself, let alone bringing it into the coffin. His money was spent on the factories he built and the construction of water conservancy facilities for the farmers in his territory. He said that with a little more investment in factories and farmland, he could recruit one more homeless person, so Zhang Chu was greedy for money, but now he is a poor bastard, and he wants to expand the army and fight the war without money. We don't have to think of people as noble, how can they do it if they don't have great ambitions. Let's use money to get in touch with Zhang Chu first, if Zhang Chu becomes a thing, then it is not a dream for our Wang family to be rich and rival the country, even if Zhang Chu only occupies a place in Shanxi for a few years, the wealth we have obtained will not be spent in several lifetimes. Wang Jijie decided that Zhang Chu was going to be brave and ready to achieve a great career. But he really misunderstood Zhang Chu, Zhang Chu felt a strong survival pressure in this world, he has been working hard for how to survive in the past few years, there is no time to enjoy the brocade clothes and jade food, he doesn't understand what the arrogant and lascivious life is like, and now Zhang Chu feels that it is a matter of course to share the joys and sorrows with everyone. "It's not a way to argue like this, there is a way that there are thousands of people in charge of a family, since we will hand over the business to Jijie to take care of, everything will depend on Jijie." The elder of the clan spoke, and he actually agreed with Wang Jijie's idea.

"Jijie, let's talk about what to do!" Many people don't actually have a claim of their own. After listening to it here for a long time, I was already tired of it, urging Wang Jijie to quickly come up with a charter.

"My idea is to seek wealth and danger, and I must cooperate with Zhang Chu this time. The total amount of funds required this time is two million taels of silver, I will take out one million taels myself, and the rest will be voluntarily paid by you, if it is not enough, I will find other merchants to see if there are any willing to take this risk. Zhang Chu has already said that we may choose to let him repay the money after the matter is completed, or accept the equivalent amount of salt, or we can use the money as an investment in the salt lake, and share the income from the development of the salt lake, which everyone can choose freely. ”

"What if we don't have that much cash?"

"You can use the food and goods on hand to combine, when I came, Zhang Chu made a list of the materials they needed, as long as the materials listed on the list can be used to discount the silver, the security army needs food the most, and most of the silver money you take out will also be used to buy food." Wang Jijie explained to everyone how to implement this plan.

With Wang Jijie taking out the silver, the other Wang family members still trust him very much, and everyone contributed money and materials, basically scraping together the funds needed. Wang Jijie immediately sent someone to contact Zhang Chu to say that the cooperation between the two sides had officially begun, and the Wang family's money had been staked, and it was up to Zhang Chu next. Zhang Chu replied: "As soon as the cannon sounded, it was ten thousand taels of gold. “

In the following days, the merchants of Shanxi found that the people of the Wang family were active and began to purchase all kinds of materials on a large scale. However, the movement of materials is very secretive, everyone thinks that the Wang family has found a new trade route, and they are very disdainful of this kind of behavior of making money by themselves, but no matter how much they knock on the side, they have not been able to get the news from the mouth of the Wang family.

The materials purchased by the Wang family were transported to Zhongyang in batches, and under Zhang Chu's planning, they were divided into two parts, one part of which flowed into the factory, and the factory began to recruit workers to increase production and produce weapons and equipment needed for the war. The other part flowed into the army, and Zhang Chu decided to expand the army by 20,000 people. The news of the expansion of the security army spread, and the happiest thing was the prisoners of the officers and soldiers who were reformed through labor in the mines, Zhang Chu captured more than 20,000 officers and soldiers when he resisted the extension of Hong Chengchou's attack, and these prisoners were sent to the mines to open mines in line with the principle of not letting anyone eat idle meals.

"The security army is recruiting new recruits, do you want to sign up?" After work, the two prisoners of the officers and soldiers gathered together and whispered about it.

"Can the security forces want us?"

"I asked the foreman about this expansion of the security army, as long as they are strong, they can sign up, and it is not said that prisoners cannot participate. Besides, I don't think they treat us as prisoners much these days, and we are provided with food on time every day, and we eat more than when we were officers and soldiers. ”

"Wouldn't it be nice to have enough food here, and I've heard that we'll be paid in a few days. If we join the security army, and wait for the army of the court to come, we will become thieves, and we will be killed. ”

"You better forget it, the army of the court is coming, you don't know what the army of the court is like. We used to be the army of the court, and we became prisoners before we understood what was going on. No matter how many people come from the official army and the army, they just add manpower to other people's mines, and you and I have been a military household for generations, and I am still a little unwilling to leave the army to mine here. ”

"I heard that the soldiers in the security army are treated well, and they can also get land."

"That's not it, I heard that if you make a meritorious service, you can immediately get the corresponding land, and if you can earn land for your children and grandchildren in this life, it will be worth dying."

Such talk continued to spread among the captives.

To the delight of the prisoners, the security army set up a conscription office in the mine to accept the registration of prisoners and miners, and for a time a large number of prisoners signed up to leave the mine, and there were fewer and fewer people engaged in production in the mine.

The captives happily joined the new army of the security army, looking forward to a better future, imagining that as long as they went into battle and worked hard, they could live a good life in case they did not die. But what awaits them is the rigors of recruit training. (To be continued.) )