In mid-March of the first year of the Apocalypse, Xu Guangqi and Sun Chuanting first conducted a thorough verification of the soldiers.

But all the soldiers who were paid empty salaries, who were falsely paid, and who were occupied by military service were all dismissed. However, there is no accountability, and if this is investigated, the capital will really be in chaos.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, corruption was already a very common phenomenon, and embezzlement of a little money was no longer called corruption. Historically, Wei Zhongxian relied on playing the anti-corruption card to get so many officials of the Donglin Party to prison. The Donglin Party said that you have defended too much.

The reason why the Beijing camp is unusable is naturally the result of the wanton corruption of those military and civilian officials, and the scope of involvement is a bit too large. Therefore, this rectification, that is, the verification of soldiers, did not hold those nobles and civilian officials accountable.

After some rectification, the Beijing camp of more than 300,000 people has become 220,000, and many of them are still old, weak, sick and disabled. After another verification, there were only 50,000 capable fighters. The remaining 170,000 people are not up to standard.

Later, Zhu Youxiao issued a holy decree, and the Beijing camp reclaimed the military camp outside the capital. Each household is given 50 acres of land and a cow.

As soon as this decree was announced, the soldiers of the Beijing camp were greatly excited.

That's fifty acres of land! And if it is watered, it is absolutely easy to produce 2 stones of wheat per mu, and you will not have to worry about food and clothing at all throughout the year.

The 170,000 soldiers of the Beijing battalion were separated, and then nearly 160,000 were willing to participate in Tuntian. Each household will be given 50 acres of land, which is equivalent to reclaiming 8 million acres of wasteland.

However, at this time in the north, wasteland is really everywhere.

It's not that the common people in the north don't know how to repair water conservancy, but that no one organizes them to repair water conservancy. In the past, when the talent was still paid directly, there was so much grain in the warehouses of the local government that it was even spoiled. In addition, it was possible to come up with enough food to organize the people to repair the water conservancy, and the previous conscription was a must. Today's conscription has become a matter of paying money. The concealment of the local population, coupled with the creation of inflation, has led to a sharp decline in the capacity of the government to build up the conscription.

If there is no government to organize the people to repair water conservancy, the land will often be barren in one year, the people will move to other places in two years, and the land will be completely barren in three years, and the people will be gone.

In the entire Hebei region, there are more than 30 million acres of barren land.

Zhu Youxiao ordered the reclamation of the military tun, and immediately received the support of the military attache group, if these lands are reclaimed, it will be a big piece of fat! In the future, they can encroach on the land and turn it into their private land.

It's just that what these military attaches don't know is that Zhu Youxiao is also staring at these military lands. Before opening the army, Zhu Youxiao naturally thought that these military attaches and nobles wanted to carve up these lands. Zhu Youxiao said that he was extremely calm about this, and when the time came, he would also train the army, and whoever dared to jump in front of him would simply be looking for death, which just gave Zhu Youxiao a reason to kill pigs.

The cost of the military cantonment is low, or it does not require Zhu Youxiao to spend too much cost from the internal funds. The soldiers of the Beijing camp have the salary of the imperial court, which is a free labor, unlike those displaced people who have to provide food from the royal family when they reclaim the land.

Give a ploughing cow is an interest-free loan from the Royal Bank of Daming.

Under the emperor's decree, the support of the nobles and military attachés, and the loan of the Ming Royal Bank, the military tun was carried out very smoothly. More than 100,000 soldiers from the Beijing battalion drove out of the city, picked up tools and began to repair water conservancy and reclaim land. Once the 8 million mu of land in Jingying is reclaimed, even if one mu of land produces 1 stone of grain, it can bring 1.6 million stone of grain income to the imperial court every year.

Juntun was in charge of Xu Guangqi, with the Royal Agricultural Company cooperating. A large amount of wasteland was enclosed, and then rivers were dredged, and ponds, slopes, and canals were built. After these facilities were repaired, patches of water came out. Some of the land can even be turned into paddy fields to grow rice.

Rice can also be grown in the north, but paddy fields are not so common, so the scale is far less than in the south, but it does not mean that it cannot be planted.

The yield of wheat irrigated by water can generally reach about 2 stone, and finally it is ground into flour, which is more than 1 stone. The wheat yield in the dry land really depends on the weather, and in the event of drought or something, it is very normal to produce dozens of catties of wheat per mu. This is the essential difference between having water conservancy and not having water conservancy.

With land with water conservancy facilities, it is possible to ensure harvest in drought and flood, and the yield is guaranteed. Even if some land cannot be harvested in drought and flood, at least it is much more resilient to disasters, and if it is combined with the cultivation of sweet potatoes, famine is basically impossible.

Naturally, the promotion of sweet potatoes is also in the process of reclamation of wasteland, and it is already spring, and many of the land that is being cultivated has planted sweet potato vines in the ground after turning the soil twice with ploughing oxen.

Many farmers have never seen this thing before, and it feels very new. The planted sweet potatoes only need to be watered at the beginning, and after the sweet potato vines take root and grow, they are basically left unattended, and they are extremely drought tolerant. It's so dry that you can't do it, just let the water in once or twice.

The Juntun of Jingying, as well as the emperor's reclamation area of the Royal Agricultural Company, will add up to 13 million mu, which can increase 13 million stone of grain every year. The Ming Dynasty's land tax was only 19 million stone at this time.

With the expansion of the scale of reclamation, Cao Jinyu's grain store also increased its business.

Those displaced people, tenants, and soldiers in the Beijing camp who participated in the reclamation of wasteland, their rations were all supplied by the Jimin Grain Bank, and at this time, Zhu Youxiao began to organize and train the Beijing Battalion, and the food needs of the soldiers in the Beijing camp also became supplied by the Jimin Grain Bank. Official orders then increased, and soon exceeded four million stone grains.

On this day, Cao Jinyu came to the Forbidden City to meet the emperor, and the two began to secretly discuss more profitable grain retail.

"Your Majesty, there are 550,000 households and 2.19 million people in the capital alone, and the annual food needs are at least 5 million stones. If we can squeeze out all the other grain banks, we will have at least a million taels of silver in profit every year. There are also northern towns such as Tianjin, Taiyuan, Jinan, Kaifeng, and Xi'an, with a combined population of more than 10 million. Cao Jinyu said to Zhu Youxiao with some excitement.

Zhu Youxiao's eyes lit up when he heard this, but Zhu Youxiao didn't care about it because he had a hot brain, thought about it carefully, and asked: "Can you guarantee that you can keep up with the transportation and processing of grain?" ”

"This, Wechen just started to work on." Cao Jinyu was a little stunned, and Zhu Youxiao asked, "Then what are your plans?" ”

Wechen plans to use water to process grain to reduce labor costs. In terms of transportation, water transportation is the mainstay, and land transportation is carried by four-wheeled ox carts. Cao Jinyu replied.

Zhu Youxiao has been traveling for half a year, and he also has a certain understanding of the means of transportation in this period. In this era, China is still dominated by water shipping, after all, the cost of shipping is low enough. In land transportation, horse-drawn carts are basically two-wheeled, and ox-carts are four-wheeled.

This four-wheeled bullock cart also has a steering device, but it is of the 'semi-finished' class. Because of the slow speed of the cattle, all such semi-finished steering devices are sufficient. The advantage of the ox cart is that it has a strong pulling force, which is far better than the horse-drawn cart.

China does not have a four-wheeled carriage, obviously not because the technology is not up to it, but because the four-wheeled carriage is not competitive enough. After all, Asian horses are smaller, unlike European heavy horses that are suitable for pulling carts. Moreover, the water transportation of Europeans is not as developed as that of China, so there is room for the development of European four-wheeled carriages, and the technology can continue to improve.

Four-wheeled carriages have lost momentum in China because they have no competitive advantage.

In order to monopolize the northern commodity grain market, Zhu Youxiao and Cao Jinyu soon came to the Ming Royal Military Factory.

Before the fall of Shenyang, Zhu Youxiao transferred more than 3,000 craftsmen from Shenyang, making the scale of craftsmen in the imperial military factory very large, and there was no shortage of manpower at all. A large part of the artisans began to convert to civilian use, producing all kinds of agricultural tools and the like.

Then Zhu Youxiao set up a hydraulic machinery research and development department and a carriage research and development department in the military factory. Hydraulic machinery can reduce the cost of grain processing, and can also reduce the cost of military equipment production, which must be developed.

The carriage is relatively simple, the four-wheeled carriage just uses a relatively simple steering device, and the axle is used to increase stability, and the spring is used to reduce bumps.

The transportation cost of horse-drawn carts is still higher than that of ox-carts. The advantage is that it is faster and more suitable for military use. The improved four-wheeled carriage will be more efficient and can also reduce some costs.

Technological advances have allowed capital to further monopolize the market.

Zhu Youxiao solved the technical problems in the process of commercial grain operation, and the next thing is how to squeeze other grain banks out of the market.

PS: The cold worsens, it's so uncomfortable!