The officers of all battalions of the army gathered in Zhaojiabao, and it was time to brag again, Wang Wenyue could be said to be proud and arrogant.

Compared with other battalions, Wang Wenyue was the first to be promoted to brigade commander, and last year he robbed so much silver in Yuben and forced the Tokugawa shogunate to sign an unequal treaty.

However, after a while, Wang Wenyue was called a 'robber' by several battalion commanders in the Liaodong Theater.

But as far as 'robbery' is concerned, the most powerful this year is the American Fleet, I heard that the most silver has been robbed back, but it has also caused trouble, and the three European maritime powers have formed an alliance.

The second is Wang Wenyue, who robbed more than 20 million taels in the Kanto region, and also asked the Tokugawa shogunate to pay 30 million taels in compensation and opened the market.

Finally, there was the Nanyang detachment, which wiped out all the Dutch maritime power in East Asia in the South Seas, and robbed so many ships back.

But among the three robberies, there is not much difference.

The American fleet grabbed the most gold and silver, the Nanyang detachment grabbed the most merchant ships and warships, and Wang Wenyue made the most profits, only 30 million taels of indemnity to be paid over five years.

The gold content of the battle also said that the battalions on the battlefield in Liaodong had made the greatest contributions, and by the beginning of the year they had eliminated the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the biggest hidden danger at present.

Wang Wenyue successfully opened the market in Yueben by force, and the number of troops was not much, and his merits were no less than those of the battalions in Liaodong.

The credit of the Nanyang detachment is similar, they wiped out the Dutch maritime power in East Asia in one fell swoop, but for the time being, Shandong could not take care of the Nanyang so far away, and the colonization of the Americas had already involved too much energy. There are not many gold and silver minerals in Nanyang, and Shandong's industry is far from developing to the point where it is necessary to transport raw materials from overseas.

After a while, Zhao Yan also came and praised Wang Wenyue in front of everyone. Wang Wenyue not only opened the market, but also grabbed silver, women, nearly 900,000 Japanese slaves, and made the Tokugawa shogunate sign an unequal treaty.

On the whole, the interests won by Wang Wenyue are about the same as those of the California colonies and the American fleet combined, and militarily, he has even subdued the capital and opened up the market, so Wang Wenyue can be regarded as the most outstanding performance this year.

At this time, Zhao Yan said something to Zhao Yan, and Zhao Yan suddenly laughed: "Robber? Ha ha! Yes, I'll call him a robber in the future. ”

"Zhao Yong, you owe a beating." Wang Wenyue gritted his teeth, chased to Zhao Yan's side and pinched Zhao Yong's neck.

"Okay, okay, don't make trouble, go back and prepare, and hold the award ceremony tomorrow." Zhao Yan said with a smile. When the officers present heard the medal, their eyes immediately lit up.

In a few moments, they ran out.

Zhao Yan was about to prepare for tomorrow's award ceremony, when suddenly Hong Furen hurriedly ran in, "General, that ...... That one...... The emperor is coming......"

"What emperor is coming?" Zhao Yan asked puzzled when he saw his spitting appearance.

"Zhu Youzhen has come to Shandong." Hong Furen said breathlessly.

"What!" Zhao Yan said in surprise, "Did he really come to Shandong?" ”

"It's already in Jinan."

"......" Zhao Yan was speechless, originally just sent an invitation to Zhu Youzhen casually, but he didn't expect that people were really idle and had nothing to do, so they came to attend his wedding.

This can disrupt Zhao Yan's plan.

There are so many guests here this time, and it is impossible to snub this guy, but the emperor came to attend the wedding, and some procedures will be changed.

Zhao Yan hurriedly brought Zhao Quan and the person in charge of the master of ceremonies over.

Chongzhen's sudden arrival also caught Zhao Quan off guard, and the master of ceremonies hurriedly vacated the seat for Chongzhen.

…… Chongzhen had already come to Jinan at this time, and this time when he came to Shandong, he only brought more than 200 brocade guards out of the capital, and he had no worries about safety.

Shandong can be said to be the province with the best public security, and I asked about it before I came. As for Zhao Yan, he wouldn't do anything to him, if he wanted to do more, he would have done it in the capital.

After arriving in Shandong, Chongzhen felt a different scene.

On the flat plain, an official road paved with a smooth and spacious cement road leads straight ahead, with no end in sight. The carriage was very fast on such an official road, and there were few bumps.

In a few days, it will be Zhao Yan's wedding, and the road is simply full of traffic, and there are carriages speeding on the official road everywhere.

The people of Shandong who you see on the road are all well-dressed, there are no beggars on the road, and the farmlands on both sides of the official road can still see the roots of the crops after harvesting, which is in stark contrast to the desolation of the Gyeonggi region.

Chongzhen rarely goes out of the palace, and he hasn't even been out of the capital a few times, but this time on the way to Shandong, he saw a lot of things.

Along the way, Chongzhen was very curious, and whenever he saw something he had never seen before, he would stop the carriage and ask others for a while.

For this reason, it was delayed for two or three days, but Chongzhen learned a lot, and gradually found the correct line of governance, but at present, the executive power is not in his hands, although he still has some right to speak in the cabinet, but as long as Zhao Yan does not agree, don't think about passing any bills.

Walking along the spacious official road, Chongzhen soon came to the intersection of Jiaolai Highway.

A group of construction teams are directing workers to pave the road section.

"What do they do with rebar? Why are there so many Westerners. Chongzhen couldn't help but be surprised when he saw the cement road, the Jiaolai Highway was different from the ordinary cement road, these workers were laying steel bars, and there were hundreds of Westerners with ankle chains there to mix concrete, and hurriedly asked people to stop.

The left and right Jinyi guards were unaware, and in a carriage behind, a thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl lifted the curtain and looked at the scene outside curiously.

Chongzhen walked down directly from the car, and the construction team over there saw two brocade guards escorting several carriages with canopies, and then saw a man in a dragon robe step out of the carriage.

"It's the Emperor."

"Seems so!"

"The grass people see the emperor, long live the emperor, long live the ......" The foreman of the construction team is still a little knowledgeable, and he dares to blatantly wear dragon robes in this Shandong, and there are also brocade guards escorting, except for the emperor, there is definitely no possibility of impersonation, and he quickly knelt on the ground.

As soon as the foreman knelt down, the surrounding workers also knelt down, only the blonde and blue-eyed Dutch laborers looked at Chongzhen and his party with wooden expressions.

"Let's get flat!" Chongzhen nodded with satisfaction, although he was constitutionalized, the people along the way did not dare to make a mistake to him.

"Your Majesty." The foreman and the workers stood up.

"Why are there so many Westerners here?" Chongzhen asked curiously. The foreman replied cautiously: "Back to the emperor, these Westerners are all captured from the Shandong Navy, I heard that the navy fought the Hongyi people in Nanyang a while ago, and the fleet of the Hongyi people was defeated, and more than 12,000 Hongyi were captured, and these Hongyi were distributed to the construction team after they were captured. ”

"And what's going on with these people?" Chongzhen asked, pointing to the Japanese slaves who were wearing the costumes.

"These are the Japanese slaves who were brought back a while ago, and I heard that hundreds of thousands of Japanese slaves were captured and returned."

"What about these people?" Chongzhen asked again, pointing to the laborers who were wearing shackles, neither Dutch nor Japanese.

"These are prisoners in Shandong's re-education through labor, most of them are bandits, and they can be released back after two or three years of re-education."

Chongzhen was shocked when he heard this, especially by the huge number of hundreds of thousands of Japanese slaves. After inquiring about it, Chongzhen understood the slavery system in Shandong.

There is a large number of laborers in Shandong who do not need to pay wages, and most of these laborers are composed of bandits and thieves, and they can be released after two or three years. The other part is a captured alien race, composed of Hongyi and Wa.

However, the people of Shandong do not have forced labor, and almost all of them rely on wages to find people to build infrastructure, and the use of these laborers can save most of the cost of infrastructure construction.

Is this self-inflicted?

Chongzhen thought to himself.

If there is no conscription, fiscal expenditure will increase considerably.

However, in the case of self-inflicted hardship, Shandong caught many foreign slaves, and there was no profit in it.

Chongzhen stopped for a moment on the Jiaolai Highway and saw a convoy of thousands of horses galloping towards him, galloping away like the wind.

After inquiry, I learned that this is a salt truck from Shandong, and almost every day there are salt trucks galloping on the Jiaolai Highway to transport sea salt from Bohai Bay to Qingdao.

Qingdao has become the distribution center of Haiyan in Shandong.

…… On January 23, Chongzhen arrived at Zhaojiabao.

Chongzhen's arrival caused a sensation among all the guests, and after Zhao Yan led people to welcome Chongzhen into Zhaojiabao, he took him to live in the hall.

Chongzhen also brought the queen and three princes and a thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl to Zhaojiabao this time, who should be the princess of Changping in history.

When Zhao Yan greeted Chongzhen, this little girl hid behind, as if she was a little introverted, and she looked very similar to the queen.

Chongzhen didn't talk to Zhao Yan, just nodded to him, and then went to live in the guild hall under the leadership of Zhao Yan, during which he didn't say a word, just Zhao Yan was talking.

Apparently Chongzhen didn't want to talk to him yet.

I'm angry!

Although Chongzhen was angry in his heart, he still took advantage of Zhao Yan's marriage this time and came to Shandong to inspect in person.

After Chongzhen's arrival, many guests' views of Zhao Yan have changed.

Even Huang Yanjing was invited to go to Zhaojiabao to congratulate him in person, Zhao Yan's face was not ordinary.

Only Zhao Yan and a group of people around him knew that Chongzhen suddenly came to Shandong, definitely not for Zhao Yan's face, and from the expression, he was not here to congratulate.

The exact purpose is unknown.

But the award ceremony of the Shandong Army is about to begin.

On the school field outside Zhaojiabao, the returning Honshu Mixed Brigade and 30,000 Xiangyong were lined up in a neat formation, and they walked neatly across the parade platform with a command.

No outsiders were invited to attend the ceremony, but there were still many people watching from afar.

Zhao Yan came to the parade platform, and after reading the phalanx composed of 30,000 villagers of the Honshu Mixed Brigade, he immediately began to award medals.

Zhao Yong, Li Ran, Lin Yi, Wu Yongliang and other generals who participated in the war against the Qing Dynasty were all promoted to major and awarded a medal of glory.

In cooperation with the Liaodong operation, Su Buheng, the commander of the First Fleet of the operation, was also promoted to major and awarded a medal of glory.

Wang Wenyue, who participated in the battle, and Wen Bangliang, deputy commander of the First Fleet who led the Nanyang detachment, were also promoted to major and awarded a medal of honor.

The Medal of Glory is currently the highest medal in the Shandong Army.

Medals of Honor will not be awarded to people who have not made a great contribution.

At the same time, medals were awarded for each battle. Under the highest commander of each battalion, each was awarded a medal.

Ordinary soldiers also had medals, and the 'Kwantung Battle Medal' was issued on the spot to the Honshu Mixed Brigade and 30,000 Xiangyong, and the soldiers and horses of Liaodong were brought by the battalion commanders when they returned to Liaodong.

At the same time, the rewards of the battalions were also determined.

In the battle of the Hunhe River, a total of 60,000 real captives were annihilated, 50 taels of silver per head, and 3 million taels were sent.

In the war, the seized goods worth more than 20 million taels were sent 2 million taels.

The First Fleet supported the Liaodong and Yueben battlefields, and the detachment robbed about 15 million taels of goods in the South Seas, and annihilated more than 40 Dutch warships, rewarding 2 million taels.

The American Fleet, the same reward of 1 million taels, although the robbery of more silver, but it is only a simple robbery, and the gold content of military merits is not high, so it is only 2 million.

Although the navy received fewer rewards, the navy received more silver with fewer men.

On this day, Zhao Yan directly rewarded 9 million taels of silver and went out.

Although it looks terrifying, nearly half of the reward will be converted into land in Liaodong, one tael of silver and one acre of land, and only 4.5 million taels will be really taken out.

This year, a super-large farm with a total area of 15 million mu will be built in Nuergandusi, north of Tieling, and 100,000 Japanese slaves will be needed.

There is so much land in Liaodong that it can strangle people to death.

The 15 million acres of farms will be under a joint-stock system and will be owned by the Ministry of Military Affairs.

In the future, the soldiers will be rewarded with one tael of silver in exchange for shares of one acre of land, and after the farm is profitable, dividends will be distributed according to the shares.

At present, the agricultural production model has been developed with more experience, and many professional management personnel have been trained, and people have been directly transferred to Liaodong to manage this large farm.

With professional management and cheap labor, the annual profit is considerable.

Each soldier's shares can be held until his death, and when a soldier dies, his shares are taken back by the military department and used to reward other soldiers and generals, forming a continuous cycle.

This is simply a genius-like idea, Zhao Yan thought complacently.

…… Two days later, Zhao Yan's marriage said.

Zhaojiabao gathered tens of thousands of guests, people began to send congratulatory gifts in the morning, many people's congratulatory gifts have already been delivered, choose to send at this time, all of them are generous high rollers.

There were many people around, and after each high-roller took out the congratulatory gift, a small man next to the registration table read out the number of congratulatory gifts.

"Yang Hongde, a big businessman in Longyou County, gave a congratulatory gift of 'Yangtze River Ten Thousand Miles' and a thousand taels of gold."

The first half of the scroll depicts rocks, trees, and boats traveling on the river from a close-up view of the Yangtze River, showing the steep and choppy landscape of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River. The second half depicts the activities on the river from a bird's-eye view and from a distance, as well as the beautiful scenery seen along the way. Shifting from a scene approaching the viewer to a vast and empty field of view, this way of composition has the effect of a theatrical surname.

This is made by Xia Gui in the Song Dynasty, with the Yuan Dynasty collector Ke Jiusi's mention of the word, which is a fine product in the Yangtze River map.

As soon as it unfolded with the vice Yangtze River map, it immediately attracted a burst of exclamations from the surrounding guests.

"Shandong businessman Zheng Shilian, the congratulatory gift is a pair of 100-year-old mountain ginseng, 18 high-quality southern pearls, and 10,000 taels of gold."

Zheng Shilian's congratulatory gift is even more amazing.

The hundred-year-old mountain ginseng is very well preserved, the roots are not damaged at all, at least more than 200 years, it can be described as the best of the best.

And the eighteen pearls, is the highest grade, the Ming Dynasty is known as the West Pearl is not as good as the East Pearl, the East Pearl is not as good as the South Pearl, these eighteen pearls are the best in the South Pearl, one by one delicate weight, jade run round.

What's even more eye-catching is the 10,000 taels of gold.

A wedding is willing to spend so much money, how not to make people look sideways. Zheng Shilian smiled and sent the congratulatory gifts, and the Shandong businessmen followed one by one.

Shandong businessmen can be said to be overwhelming, and they all have a lot of money.

Zhao Yan has made them a lot of money in Shandong, what is this bit of silver?

At this moment, suddenly the emperor got married, making the audience kneel.

I saw Chongzhen nodded, and after saying goodbye, he asked the eunuch next to him to take out a congratulatory gift.

It was a delicate jade elephant, this jade elephant was about ten centimeters high, carved lifelikely, and it was a treasure of the royal collection at a glance.

A royal treasure, the value of which must be estimated.

Zhao Quan's eyes lit up, and he asked people to put away the jade elephant.

Although Chongzhen is angry with Zhao Yan, as the emperor, when he came to attend the wedding, he naturally wanted to come up with something that matched his identity, so as not to be laughed at.

After Chongzhen sent the congratulatory gift, he sat on the upper seat on the side, Zhao Yan also came out to accompany him at this time, and the monarchs and ministers sat next to each other, Chongzhen just didn't speak, and knocked melon seeds there.

The atmosphere was a little depressing, so Zhao Yan said: "Your Majesty, it is difficult for you to get out of the capital once, it is better to wait for the ministers to get married, and take you to play in Shandong." ”

"That's what I mean." Chongzhen nodded and said, if someone else said this to him, he would think that he would be detained, but Zhao Yan's character cannot be doubted.

Whatever this man wants to do, he does it straightforwardly.

"Ahem, what are you going to do with the imperial court's military spending this year?" Chongzhen asked suddenly.

"This ...... How much does Your Majesty want? Zhao Yan was stunned for a while, and then asked.

"Fifteen million taels." Chongzhen said bluntly.

Zhao Yan couldn't help but calculate in his heart, last year, the imperial court collected 26 million taels of silver, and Chongzhen opened his mouth to be more than half.

"Your Majesty, now that the prisoners and thieves have basically been pacified, is the military expenditure too huge...... Zhao Yan said euphemistically, it is not good to refuse directly, he is the emperor, at least consider the face of others, it is already very shameless to remove him from power.

"Don't I want to guard against the Mongol invasion? Don't I want to pay my military salary? Don't I want to guard against thieves? The more Chongzhen spoke, the more excited he became, his voice was raised a few points in vain, and the surrounding guests couldn't help but look over.

Zhao Yan frowned, and directly glared back at those people's eyes, and the surrounding guests hurriedly looked away, Zhao Yan said to Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, with the current salary expenditure of all officials and soldiers in my Ming Dynasty, only 8 million taels is enough, but 15 million taels is too high. ”

"What's the idea?" Chongzhen's face looked much better, at least 8 million taels, much higher than expected.

"After the minister conquered Shenyang, he found an account book in Shenyang, which was full of evidence that the Jin merchants collaborated with the enemy. Those Jin merchants are all worth millions of taels, and some even have ** million taels. If we all these Jin merchants are confiscated, we will divide the money equally with the three cabinets. "Zhao Yan seemed to be doing business, and he was 'shameless' and discussed with Chongzhen.

(To be continued)