A few days after this meeting, the General's Mansion first made a move, making waterwheels in various Tunpu and subcontracting them to more than a dozen merchants on the East Road. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

With the great prosperity of Tunpu, the waterwheels and other things to be built in the future may exceed 10,000. This is a huge demand, and the woodware factory in charge of Wu Shihuan and others is simply too busy.

After subcontracting to the merchants of the East Road, the production of the waterwheel was greatly accelerated. Water trucks, wells, etc., require a large number of wood, stone and other raw materials. As a result, related logging factories and quarries have sprung up in the territory of East Road.

Not only that, in addition to the armor factory, the gun factory, the gunpowder factory and a few other key factories, Wang Dou's military factories such as the military uniform factory, the clothing factory, etc., were transferred and granted to several merchants for production. In the end, Wang Dou looked at which plant had the best price and the best quality, and focused on placing orders.

Only Wang Dou wants to train the new army here, so he needs a lot of military uniforms and bedding, and a lot of miscellaneous equipment, all of which require a lot of cotton cloth and other things, and drive a lot of related industries.

In addition to gold and silver mines, many iron ores, coal mines and other mines seized from Haoqiang on the East Road were determined at auction prices and slowly contracted to some merchants. The mining tax is levied on them every year, and Wang Dou has preferential prices, preemptive rights, etc.

All mines should be subject to the management of commercial houses and commerce. In the future, there are a series of regulations on whether it can be sold to the outside world and how to sell it.

There are also many businessmen who saw the successful experience of Shunxiangbao Chicken and Duck Farm, and began to try to learn to raise chickens and ducks in the forest of the site, and many people also set up livestock farms.

In the months that followed, East Road became busy. Whether it is mining, water trucking, or anything else, a large number of craftsmen and animal doctors are needed. For a time, in the land of the East Road, the status of craftsmen increased rapidly, and animal medicine talents became even more valuable.

Stables, cowherds, swineherds, etc. have become sought-after goods, and people everywhere are hired at high prices.

At this time, Zhang Gui, the ambassador of the Department of Civil Affairs, also came up with a plan for the governance of the East Road in the next few years, which Wang Dou thought was feasible and approved the implementation.

In mid-August, the shogunate issued a decree to set up a government grain depot to purchase surplus grain from the common people, purchase it at market price, and sell it at a flat price if there was a grain shortage, so as to relieve the high price of food. In addition, the decree specifically stipulates that the amount of grain stored by military households is prohibited for more than one year, and violators must be punished.

In order to prevent people from maliciously buying grain from government stores, the Department of Civil Affairs deliberately introduced a kind of bill, which can only be purchased with a ticket. Wang Dou named it "Grain Stamps", and how to issue and distribute grain stamps is still in the process of being prepared by the Department of Civil Affairs.

Zhang Gouge was actually inspired by Wang Dou, a general of Dingguo, and after Wang Dou mentioned this kind of bill, he seemed to feel that this method could prevent merchants from hoarding and driving up prices. If this method is better, he can implement all kinds of tickets, cloth tickets, bean tickets, meat tickets, sugar tickets, and so on in the future.

Of course, this is based on domestic inflation, hoarding by profiteers, or natural disasters in the country, and food is extremely scarce. For example, a few days ago, when those merchants went on a collective strike, if there were official shops in the territory of the East Road and there were food stamps in the hands of military households, they would not be afraid of their strike.

In terms of the situation on the East Road, there is no shortage of grain in Baoan Prefecture, and the high prices in the local area are actually caused by the fact that local military households are rushing to buy grain and rice and are unwilling to sell their grain stocks. If they are willing to sell grain, prices in the state will drop considerably.

In fact, the residents of Baoan Prefecture were just hungry and scared before, so they accumulated more food, had silver in their hands, and bought a little more food, which was just a subconscious psychological move. After the order of the general Dingguo, they also generally supported it, and if the grain is stored too much, it will become old and moldy, which is actually not a good thing.

General Dingguo set up an official store and issued food stamps, even if there was a famine in the future, everyone was not afraid, and General Dingguo would not let everyone starve. As a result, prices in the state of security have been falling since the notice was issued.

As for the high prices in various parts of the East Road, it is due to the lack of food goods.

The whole north of the Ming Dynasty has been drought, disasters are rampant, food is decreasing every year, the granary of the south of the Yangtze River, due to excessive commercialization, the people would rather plant silk, linen, cotton or tobacco and other things than grow grain, and finally they themselves are not enough to eat, and what can we talk about to support the north?

This is the case in various parts of the East Road, where grain harvests have failed one after another, and the emergence of a large number of displaced people has further affected grain production. It is understandable that the grain is getting less and less every year, and the price of goods is getting higher and higher every year. Huailai on the East Road, Yanqing Prefecture and other places, this is just a microcosm of it.

To solve the problem of the East Road, it may take a few years for the agricultural and animal husbandry in the territory to improve. So far, in addition to Wang Dou's vigorous purchase of grain from abroad, he can only rely on the support of grain stored in his own warehouse. Fortunately, Wang Dou has a lot of silver, and it is not common to know that food is more useful than silver, and the silver in Wang Dou's hands can still come in handy. ,

Of course, Wang Dou's official store has the right to give priority to purchasing grain from military households and ordinary people, and as a way to stabilize grain prices and reduce the losses of the people, it is inevitable that the interests of some grain merchants will conflict.

At this time, many merchants set the purchase price of autumn grain very low, and when the green and yellow crops were scarce, their grain sales price was set very high. The same was true of the sergeants and the merchants, who had to pay a high price for the money they paid to the merchants.

If they need silver to pay taxes to the imperial court, the grain in their hands is worthless, and the merchants always have their means of tricking anyway.

Especially in the late Ming Dynasty, large grain merchants were often big landlords, who held huge resources, hoarded during disaster years, snapped up disaster relief grain, and then sold it at a high market price, and then bought land at a low price. Often, after a famine, most of the land in many places was taken away by them.

Generally speaking, the imperial court could not fight these merchant groups. For Wang Dou, the positive role played by ancient merchants in the society at that time was far from counteracting their negative role. This is also the reason why the ancient times emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce, and the status of merchants was low, and it was impossible for any emperor with brains to elevate the status of merchants.

Fortunately, the big merchants on the East Road were swept away by Wang Dou this time, and the East Road is not a grain source now, but a "devouring thing", only merchants bring grain in from other places, and few people transport grain out. The emergence of this kind of contradiction may be in the era of the great prosperity of agriculture and animal husbandry under the rule of Wang Dou.

Wang Dou and Bi Bujian.

In mid-August, a money bank was set up on the East Road, which was under the control of the Shogunate's financial secretary, and at the same time, it united several ruthenium houses in the territory to lend money mainly to domestic merchants at good interest rates and encourage them to invest in the industry.

In the past, of course, this would have been in sharp conflict with the usurers in the country, and these usurers were often the powerful and powerful in various places, big businessmen, big landlords, big warlords, and so on.

In the past, Wang Dou lived in Xingzhuang, and the Li family, who was a family member in the village, was the largest landlord in the village and the largest usurer.

As soon as they borrow money and make a profit, an ordinary yeoman farmer will soon go bankrupt and become a tenant.

Fortunately, in this suppression, Wang Dou almost swept away the powerful in the territory, plus Yu Sheng after the thunderous means, who dared to say irresponsible about the appearance of this money bank

Wang Dou calculated that in a few years, when the grain and livestock in the territory were sufficient, the strongest hard currency would be one

With grain as collateral, you can try to issue currency, and of course it will appear in the form of military tickets.

Also in August, Wang Dou also joined forces to prepare Ma Guoxi and mobilized the entire East Road to carry out a huge sanitation campaign. Baoan Prefecture has been famous for its cleanliness, and Wang Dou guarded Yongning City, he gave an order, and the natural military and civilian scenery followed.

However, considering Huailai City, Yanqing Call, and the Security Acropolis and other places, the enthusiasm of the military and civilians may not be high, so Wang Dou came up with a solution. As long as the soldiers and civilians transported a truckload of garbage, they would pay as much as they wanted, whether it was silver or food.

Sure enough, this rose aroused the great enthusiasm of the people on the East Road, and the cleaning campaign was carried out vigorously. However, Wang Dou suddenly got the news that the garbage delivered to the outside of the city had been stolen in the middle of the night, and then the garbage was sent to be sold again, even several times.

In order to prevent someone from stealing garbage and selling it again, Wang Dou sent some Shunxiang soldiers to guard it, and hired people to burn the garbage transported outside the city and bury it deeply, and slowly returned to Zhong before disappearing. Due to the gradual formation of a system of paying money for transporting garbage, a new industry soon emerged on East Road, where people went door-to-door to buy garbage and then transport it to the garbage dump for sale.

In any case, after this cleaning, the East Road has taken on a new look, and the cities are as clean as Baoan Prefecture. Even the displaced people and beggars in various cities were taken away by the way, and sent to the newly built shelters of the Shun Township Army in various cities, and later arranged for them to open mines in the fields, and so on.

It was also in August, that the chaos on the East Road last month also had a result, after the three divisions were tried, after Wang Dou provided a large amount of evidence, Zhang Wanshan, Chen Enzhong, Song Renxuan, Chen Qinluan, Ding Fangming, Guo Cairong and others were dismissed from office, or beheaded, their family property was confiscated, and their families were exiled, depending on the size of the crime.

Zeng Fuyang and other Qing spies were Ling Chi, and Zeng Youxian, a scholar of Guanshan Academy in Yanqing Prefecture, committed suicide in shame and was exempted from accountability. Huang Changyi was fined for one year, but he still served as an official. Guo Shitong was transferred to Datong Town. Xuanfu Town was the commander of the capital, and although Zhang Guowei, the deputy commander-in-chief, tried his best to save his uncle Zhang Wanshan, he still inevitably ended up being beheaded and abandoning the city.

Zhang Guowei worked hard to avoid being implicated, but he was also reprimanded by the order, and after this series of accidents, he hated the king to the bone. ,

Wu Zhizhi, the governor of Yanqing Prefecture, was fined for one year, demerit once, and still served as an official, but his son Wu Luo was robbed of his fame, and his career was over.

Xuanfu Feeddong Road is divided into general Wang Dou, and Ma Guoxi is prepared to arrest the Qing Dynasty, and he has meritorious service, and he is rewarded by the decree, and he falls through the glasses of a dry person to see the lively people. Wang Dou suppressed the merchants so unscrupulously, but was rewarded by the imperial court, it seems that this martial artist has a very unusual status in the emperor's mind.

How to deal with the newly rising powerful landlord snake on the East Road is a problem that many people need to consider.

After this trial, Wang Dou also got a message from the Intelligence Department that among the people who participated in the market strike last month, the mastermind behind it was a very famous businessman in Zhangjiakou, the Fan family. The one who came to the East Road was Fan Santou, the eldest son of Fan Yongdouge, the head of the Fan family, and he proposed the policy of boycotting the market.

Hearing the name of the Fan family, especially Fan Yongdou, Wang Dou felt a little familiar, he thought carefully for a while, and said with a smile: "It turned out to be him." ”

According to some historical data, the eight emperors and merchants of the Qing Dynasty in later generations had to transport a large amount of grain, grass and cloth from outside the Saiwai to the northeast every year, sometimes the grain and rice reached tens of thousands of stones, or even hundreds of thousands of stones at a time. The route they traveled outside the Saiwai was, of course, through the outside of the East Road, and it seemed that it was only a few hundred miles away from Yongning City.

Wang Dou looked at the direction of that side for a long time.

Wang Dou's unscrupulous suppression of the merchants, of course, made many of the same rabbits die in sorrow, and he blatantly levied commercial taxes afterwards, which confirmed his idea of "competing with the people for profit", and many officials had already begun to impeach, but soon after, their firepower was attracted by another incident.

Compared with this matter, Wang Dou's matter has been regarded as a "trivial matter", that is, the matter of the current cabinet's first assistant, the minister's white book, and Xue Guoguan, a scholar of Wuyingdian University, proposed to "help" the hundred officials. As soon as the news came out, the impeachment of Xue Guoguan poured into the case of Emperor Chongzhen.

After hearing this, Ma Guoxi also paused, and said to his staff in private: "Xue Gong is confused, this move will definitely become a great enemy of hundreds of officials and relatives of the emperor, and if you are not careful, it will be the end of ashes." ”

He also lost his words and said: "Xue Gong, alas, is a smart life, and he was confused for a while, he thought he was."

Is it Wang Dou? ”

Speaking of this, Ma Guoxi was also stunned, and secretly thought: "Why do you think that Wang Dou takes this for granted, and if he is replaced by Xue Gong, there will be something?" ”

Hearing about Xue Guoguan, Wang Dou paced for a long time, and also shook his head secretly.

After the triage of the three divisions, everything on the East Road calmed down, and Wang Dou decided to devote his main energy to the formation and training of the new army.

First of all, 5,000 new troops were formed, including Wang Dou's original 8,500 troops, and in the future, Wang Dou's army will have more than 103,000 regular troops. In his consideration, in the future, his army will be divided into three classes, a first-class army, a second-class army, and a reserve.

With the original 8,009 veterans as first-class soldiers, even many infantry also have horses. The newly trained 5,000 people are the second-class army, and if the number is insufficient, it will be slowly sufficient in the future.

Then, after each fort is settled, special instructors are set up, or retired and disabled sergeants are used as instructors to recruit the strong soldiers of each fort, practice in their spare time, and cultivate in their busy time. Based on 1,000 households per fort, it is estimated that one fort can recruit 500 to 1,000 strong soldiers, and Wang Dou wants to set up more than 50 new forts, and there are tens of thousands of strong soldiers.

These soldiers serve as reserves, and if soldiers are needed in the future, they are selected from them. They already have a certain training base, plus they have been in the recruit camp for a few months, and they will definitely be qualified soldiers when they come out.

When Wang Dou was preparing to do a big job, he suddenly received an urgent request from Ma Guoxi, who was preparing for the army, he took out a few official documents, and said to Wang Dou with a strange expression: "I heard that General Dingguo has started training the new army, and all town officials and generals are interested in coming to observe, as well as Yang Ge Lao and Xue Ge Lao from the cabinet. ”

Wang Dou took the official document and was secretly taken aback, the crowd that came to observe it can be said to be mighty, including Hu Daxian, the chief military officer of Shanxi Town, Wang Pu, the chief military officer of Datong Town, and Yang Guozhu, the chief military officer of Xuanfu Town, Zhang Guowei, the deputy chief soldier, and others.

There was also the governor of Jiliao, Hong Chengchou, with Cao Bianjiao, the chief soldier of Yutian, Wang Tingchen, the chief soldier of the former Tun Guard, and Jin Guofeng, the chief soldier of Ningyuan's regimental training, and Wu Sangui, the chief soldier of Ningyuan. Accompanying Hong Chengchou was Sun Chuanting, who had nothing to do in Beijing.

Yang Sichang and Xue Guoguan will also stay on the East Road in the name of inspection, and then Xuanda Governor Chen Xin? , Ji Shiwei, the governor of Xuanfu Town, will accompany him. (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next.)