The winter of the third year of Hongguang (1646) was obviously much warmer than the previous year, and it was not until the end of October that the first snow fell.

The fleet that had gone to Japan for more than two months, and still had not returned, and everyone's hearts began to rise.

Although Luo Jian was also a little worried, his confidence in a few warships made him appear more calm than everyone else.

Huang Degong had already led the Fifth Division to Anqing with Huang Fei's naval division, and Huang Fei's naval division station in Jiangyin had been converted into a temporary port, and the "Huo Quai" was about to be launched, and several huge warships could not have a fixed anchorage.

Liu Xiongwu had already led the Sixth Division to Yangzhou to prepare to change clothes.

With the further improvement of Guazhou's production capacity, the production of Yangzhou's Type 1 rifle is also getting faster and faster, and according to Luo Jian's plan, by April next year, all six divisions will be reequipped.

Arranging for Huang Degong to go to Anqing in person, Luo Jian and Shi Kefa had made a detailed study, and the decision was also made based on the current situation.

Under the pretext of pursuing the remnants of the Dashun army, the Manchu army had penetrated deep into the hinterland of Hunan, and it was only a matter of time before the entire territory of Hunan was lost.

According to the ideas of Luo and Shi, Huang Dequan's Fifth Division went to Anqing, and with the cooperation of Huang Fei's Water Division, it would actively develop to the Jiujiang area, wait for an opportunity to enter Hubei, and then threaten Wuchang, cut off the back road of the Manchu army, and make it dare not fight the idea of Jiangxi again.

Luo Jian really wanted to launch an active offensive against the Manchu Qing in the spring of next year, but what he learned from Guazhou made him a little helpless.

The bottleneck that determined that the Yangzhou army could not launch a full-scale offensive was the production of gunpowder.

After all the reequipment, the Yangzhou army will be an all-firearms unit, and the consumption of gunpowder is extremely large.

Although when the merchant ships went to Japan for the first time, Lu Wei bought back a few ships of saltpeter, which seemed to be a lot of them, but after the refitting training of several divisions, nearly half of them had been consumed, and besides, the fleet went to sea, and the amount of gunpowder it carried was not a few, and the stocks of the gunpowder factories were not much.

Thinking of this, Luo Jian, more than anyone else, hoped that Wang Qiang and Lu Wei could solve the Japanese problem as soon as possible, and only when the Japanese problem was solved could Yangzhou have a stable source of saltpeter ore.

Although Xiao Liu's ammonia production line in Guazhou is nearing completion, Luo Jian believes that even if the new ZHA drug is successfully developed, it still cannot completely replace the black HUO drug at present.

All divisions in Yangzhou are equipped with Yangzhou Type 1 rifles, that is, improved versions of the Mini gun, and the structure of this rifle determines that only black HUO medicine can be used, which is also the main reason why the new ZHA medicine cannot be replaced.

Luo Jian paced in the study, looking at the big map on the wall from time to time, feeling a little irritable.

In a few months, the four of them will be two years old in this era, thinking about the efforts made by several people in the past two years, Xiao Liu stayed in Guazhou and worked almost day and night, Liu Lan has been busy, Wang Qiang has been training more than every day, and he is also exhausted, so there is no time to breathe a sigh of relief, but it seems that he is still very far away from the goal.

At the beginning, Luo Jian felt that driving the Manchus out of China would be considered a goal, but when he really integrated into this era, he found that there were too many things that needed to be changed, and Luo Jian even sometimes wondered that even if the Manchus were driven out of China and a few of them returned to their own time and space, would China here definitely develop very well?

The current development momentum of Yangzhou seems to be very good, not long ago the newly established Ministry of Finance submitted to the Metropolitan Governor's Office in the report mentioned that the financial revenue of the entire Yangzhou region has reached 12 million taels of silver, which has far exceeded the annual tax revenue of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and Yangzhou's finances have been surplused.

But Luo Jian saw more and more problems from the rapid development of Yangzhou.

The problem that worries Luo Jian the most is the extremely unbalanced development of the industry.

Since Lu Wei signed a supply agreement with the Dutch East India Company, Yangzhou has more and more glass factories, and now in addition to Yangzhou and Jiangdu, even Anqing, Fengyang and Huai'an have each built a large glass factory, these factories seem to be profitable at present, but in the long run, there will always be a day when there will be overcapacity.

And how long can the glass manufacturing technology be kept secret, this scale of production, not very complex technology may soon be leaked out, once the technology is leaked, the blow to the glass manufacturing industry will be fatal.

Some basic industries are much less attractive to businessmen than the lucrative glass manufacturing industry, and cement factories are typical examples.

Although cement has been widely used in Yangzhou's construction industry, and the use of steam engines has greatly increased the output of cement, the cement production efficiency of lack of machinery is still very low, and the profitability of cement produced by a large number of people is not high, and there are only three or four cement factories in Yangzhou at present, and the output can only meet the needs of the surrounding areas of Yangzhou.

The second is that the demand for labor in industrial production has increased greatly, and the problem of insufficient population has become prominent.

According to historical records, from the Apocalypse to the end of Chongzhen, the total population of the Ming Dynasty decreased from more than 120 million to 50 million.

Although the area around Nanjing and Yangzhou was considered the most prosperous area of the Ming Dynasty, the population decreased instead of increasing due to years of war.

Thinking about the fact that China had fed a population of 13.4 billion in that time and space, and now there are only 50 or 60 million people in a huge China, Luo Jian felt a little incredible.

Thousands of years of small-scale peasant economy have made the peasants' feelings for the land above all else, and if it were not for the countless displaced people who lost their land due to the war, it would probably be impossible for Yangzhou's industry to develop to this point today.

The shortage of labor also makes the development of Yangzhou inevitably lack stamina, although this problem is not urgent, but once the problem comes, it will be the most difficult problem to solve.

The third problem also gave Luo Jian a headache, that is, the changes in the political ecology of Yangzhou.

Yangzhou Senate since Gao Hongtu's words woke up everyone, its entire strategy has undergone great changes, but also from the continuous provocation of opposition to come out, to actively participate in Yangzhou's political affairs, in the process, they actually absorbed a lot of people from the industrial and commercial circles into the Senate, which greatly increased their right to speak, some of their opinions and suggestions, the Metropolitan Governor's Office now has to take seriously.

Recently, they have begun to put forward the slogan of marching to the north, recovering Kyoto, and revitalizing the Ming Dynasty, and they feel that with the current strength of the Yangzhou army, they should not be satisfied with the status quo. Their slogan was approved by most people in Yangzhou, which made Luo Jian feel helpless the most.

Thinking of so many questions, Luo Jian was at a loss for a while, and smashed his fist against the wall in irritability, inhaling in pain.

Liu Lan had been standing at the door of the study for a long time, and she knew a little about Luo Jian's troubles, but she was not as anxious as Luo Jian.

Seeing that Luo Jian was so annoyed that he smashed the wall, Liu Lan walked in.

"Brother Luo, are you annoyed?" Liu Lan asked softly.

"Well, we've been here for almost two years, haven't we? Why do I think we didn't get anything done? Luo Jian sighed and said distressedly.

"Hehe, Brother Luo, I have an opinion on what you say, I think we have done too much." Liu Lan said with a light smile.

"Liulan, do you think we're doing a good job?" Luo Jian asked with a frown.

"I read Brother Luo, you used to read too many online novels, right? Do you really think that modern people can go back to the past and be able to become domineering and followers? Do you really think that a college student can go back to the past and build a complete industrial system in a few years and dominate the world? It's called Shuangwen, it's just a fun time for everyone to watch it, it's too naïve to take it seriously. Liu Lan said with a smile.

"Brother Luo, you have also seen it, which of the elites of this era we have contacted is not a smart person? Just because the fat emperor in Nanjing took the initiative to reveal the news of Cihuan in Yangzhou, I would not treat him as a fool. Look at our Senate again, how quickly did you change your moves? I think their entry into the political arena is unstoppable, and we have to deal with it well. Liu Lan walked up to Luo Jian, gently rubbed his hand that had smashed the wall just now, and continued.

"I'm not afraid of many problems, how can we not encounter many problems in development, if there are problems, we will solve them the same, we still have so many people to support it, there are Brother Shi, Brother Liu, and Ren Futai, Yuan Futai and Lu Futai, they didn't do anything to dismantle Taiwan, right?"

Liu Lan said slowly, Luo Jian listened quietly, in fact, Luo Jian didn't know this, but his pressure was greater than Liu Lan's, and the recent problems were one after another, which made him feel irritable.

"Liu Lan, I really want to thank God for sending you over, if it weren't for you, sometimes I feel like giving up." Luo Jian took Liu Lan's hand, pulled her into his arms, and said softly in a hug.

"Hmph, without me, I'm afraid you would have found three wives and four concubines, right?" Liu Lan glanced at Luo Jian coquettishly and said coquettishly.

"You little girl, I've been anxious all day long, where do you still have those thoughts." Luo Jian lightly scratched Liu Lan's little nose and said with a smile.

"The princess was thinking about you some time ago, you know?" Liu Lan raised her head and asked Luo Jian.

"What are you talking about, Liulan? Just this little girl? I think she's like a junior high school student, if she were there with us, she wouldn't have to call us 'Uncle PLA' all day long, but I've always treated her like a child. Luo Jian said with a smile.

"Brother Luo, has there been any movement in that damn intelligent system recently?" Liu Lan suddenly asked an irrelevant question, which made Luo Jian stunned for a moment.

"No, Liu Lan, why are you asking this?" Luo Jian asked suspiciously.

"My mother has been pushing me hard lately, what do you say?" Liu Lan leaned into Luo Jian's arms, hugged his waist, and muttered.

"Mother? Oh, you mean the old lady? What did the old lady force you? Luo Jian still didn't react.

"The old lady wants to hold her grandson." After Liu Lan said this, she buried her head in Luo Jian's arms and said no more.

"What does the old lady want to do with her grandson?" As soon as Luo Jian said this, he suddenly reacted.

Shi Kefa and Mrs. Shi have no heirs, and they don't know which of them is the problem, anyway, Shi Kefa resolutely has no intention of taking a concubine, and the old lady does not force him, but now that he has the daughter of Liu Lan, he turned his mind to her.

Luo Jian understood what Liu Lan meant when she suddenly asked about the intelligent system just now, and then he felt that Liu Lan was also having a hard time.

Since the two made love in Nanjing, although they have been affectionate from time to time, both of them have guarded the line of defense and have not crossed the thunder pool.

But Luo Jian always has a hurdle in his heart, that is, his wife and children in another time and space, the intelligent system promised to send them back in the future, if he marries Liu Lan here, how to face his wife and children after he goes back, which makes Luo Jian entangled.

Liu Lan has always been in love with herself, and Luo Jian understands it, but how can she overcome this hurdle in her heart?

Luo Jian hugged Liu Lan tightly, and his thoughts drifted far away.

"Xinghua, let's get married, if God is destined for us to go back, I will return you to my sister-in-law." Liu Lan's melodious voice pulled Luo Jian's thoughts back.

"Liu Lan, it's not fair to you." Luo Jian let out a long sigh.

"Xinghua, I don't care! Don't they all say, 'Don't you want to be eternal, but you want to have it'? We don't know how long we're going to be here, and I want a baby for both of us. Liu Lan said with tears in her eyes.