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"No farming, no stability, no work, no wealth, this is really not bad, the grain that is hard to cultivate is just to maintain food and clothing, if you want to get rich, you have to rely on the factory business." Tian Yaozu couldn't help but sigh and said, the Mawei Army can be so rich, all of them rely on the huge profits of trade, otherwise they really can't afford to raise so many soldiers, even if they recruit hundreds of thousands of soldiers, they can't afford to be equipped with such sophisticated weapons.

"There is chaos if there is no food, this is the most important fundamental!" Geng Jingzhong smiled and answered, there is no food, and everything is vernacular. Without food, there is no expansion, and even if a prisoner is captured, there is no way to really use it, but having food is equivalent to controlling life and death, and it is natural to firmly grasp it. The grain producing areas in the south of the Yangtze River cannot all be allowed to grow cotton, and certain subsidies must be given to the people and landlords who grow grain.

"This is Songjiang, of course, it is still mainly trade, and it is your task to develop more industry and commerce. Although Fujian's textile industry has developed rapidly in recent years, it is still far from being as good as Songjiang, Jiangsu, and Hangzhou. The so-called "the world's price, only out here", the Songjiang area has always mastered the pricing power of many goods, grasped the source of commerce, this must be maintained. I also saw that the merchants in the north and south, as long as they have achieved a certain scale and have a famous position in a province or several prefectures, they all regularly send people to copy the price and then send it back to the place quickly, for fear that they will suffer a big loss in trade or be taken advantage of by others. ”

"Yes, the Metropolitan Governor is wise, in such a situation. It is also a kind of cotton cloth for some kind of necessity. His power over bulk pricing. It's all in our Songjiang Mansion. Under such circumstances, a large number of wealthy merchants from the south and north of the Yangtze River all came to open their businesses, and it was easy to investigate the details of the cotton cloth business in Songjiang. Just these two months. A new street was built in Songjiang, on the other side of the Huangpu River, which belongs to the Pudong area. ”

"Okay, the so-called clothing of Songjiang cotton cloth is all over the world, and tens of millions of cotton cloth are exported every year. Three-fifths or even more of these cotton cloths went to the provinces south of the Yangtze River, Goryeo, Wa, Nanyang, Siam, Champang, Burma and other countries. There are still many poor people in our country, the rich wear silk and satin, and the poor people do not cover their bodies, and only ordinary people will buy cloth tailoring. And in contrast, the people of the southern provinces are still much richer than the rest of the north, as I have seen all the way back from the city of Peking. The situation is not encouraging. Songjiang cloth is sold all over the country, and the sales volume will naturally be large. Selling to the Wa Kingdom, Goryeo, and other places is the power of a country, and it will be an astronomical amount. ”

Now Zhili and Shandong are already under the control of the Mawei Army, so a large number of merchant ships began to go north. This trade route has been cut off for almost a year, and the merchant ships have passed over, and business is absolutely booming. And the cotton cloth that is to be sold to the north is now by sea, and there are not too many by river. The most common boats on the Songjiang side were sand boats, and those sand boats that were originally pulled away by the Qing army and converted into war ships were also distributed by Geng Jingzhong and returned to the original merchants. But the sunken ones can't do anything.

The owners of these sand boats now have a business, that is, to load cotton cloth to various places in Dengzhou and Tianjin, Shandong, and some of them are going north along the canal, and the goods are immediately snapped up by local merchants before they arrive, which shows how huge the impact of the war on commerce and trade is. The two northern provinces have long been short of cloth tea and other goods in the south of the Yangtze River, this year's time, many ordinary people want to add a piece of clothing can not do, no way, there is really no cloth to sell, the price is surprisingly high, can not afford it.

However, Geng Jingzhong also considered that now these provinces that the Mawei Army originally controlled were not large cotton planting provinces, and in order to maintain such huge sales in the future, the cotton planted in Songjiang Prefecture and even in Jiangnan was far from enough, and only one-third of the places in Songjiang Prefecture were suitable for planting cotton. However, now it is good, Shandong and Zhili are very suitable for planting cotton, and there are also a large number of cotton fields, which can vigorously develop those places to plant cotton, and then these cotton will be collected on the canal, and then all the way south to Songjiang, and then become Songjiang cotton cloth that is clothed in the world.

"Although Songjiang cotton cloth is good, the price is not low, the northern provinces are far poorer than the south, so the average person in the south can afford it, and the north is a lot worse, so I think it is necessary to reduce the cost of the idea of lowering some, or also develop the textile industry in the north, so that it can also bring benefits to the people in the north. In the future, you will need to cooperate, do more publicity, and let Songjiang's big cotton cloth merchants go to the north to build factories, of course, the Ministry of Government Affairs will give preferential policies. Geng Jingzhong said with a smile.

Tian Yaozu naturally understood that the provinces in the south of the Yangtze River were extremely rich, with continuous workshops and hundreds of thousands of weavers, but those weavers had to be paid, cotton needed to be purchased, and Geng Jingzhong strictly forbade exploiting workers, so it would not be so easy for these businessmen to set up factories in the north.

"Don't worry, your subordinates will do their best." Tian Yaozu also assured.

"Okay, our Mawei Army has more than 400,000 military horses, and our military expenditure is now the largest piece, so you have to refuel, and we must ensure that our money bags are sufficient." Geng Jingzhong also said the truth, the 450,000 troops, the old troops and the new troops, although the military salaries are different, but the difference is not too much, that is, the military salaries of the new army are also higher than those of the Qing army and the Wu army.

The salary of the regular soldiers of the Mawei Army, that is, the qualified soldiers, has been raised to two and a half silver dollars, and the military salaries of the squad leader, squadron leader, brigade commander, battalion commander, etc., are all higher. At present, not counting other consumption such as ordnance, grain, and grass every month, it will cost 1.4 million yuan just for military salaries.

In addition, the rewards and pensions for small-scale battles also cost more than 100,000 yuan, and money is needed for daily training meals, clothing, the construction of military camps, and the maintenance of ordnance. The military workshop also requires a lot of money to make ordnance on a large scale, so two million silver dollars a month is not enough to spend, so it can only make the Mawei Army not in a hurry, and they are really afraid that once something goes wrong here, they will be finished.

At this time, it is absolutely impossible for soldiers to drink gruel every day, and the meat that must be guaranteed every day has now become once every three days. But the old troops. The most elite 1st, 2nd, and 3rd divisions, as well as cavalry divisions and artillery divisions, have not changed.

And that's just on the military side. Elsewhere there has been no reduction in spending. Although the participation of private capital has been instigated, many local governments have to take the lead, otherwise the businesses below still feel insecure. I really can't help it

Geng Jingzhong inspected industry and commerce in Jiangnan, and Yao Qisheng also did similar things to Geng Jingzhong in Fujian, but he was now selling the firearms of the Mawei Army to the Dutch envoys who came from afar to Europe.

Now. In the test artillery area of the Mawei Military Factory, a row of generals ran at the front. A large group of soldiers rushed towards the artillery placed there at the front, and in their hands they also carried some boxes, which contained gunpowder and shells, although these guns were decommissioned artillery, but the gunpowder was also very improved, and the biggest point was that the gunpowder was no longer the same as before, but was packaged in waterproof kraft paper, and the weight of each gunpowder was the same, so that the soldiers could better correct the trajectory. At the same time, this also increased the degree of shooting, and there was already a preliminary prototype of modern artillery!

And on the hillside in the distance. Then draw a few circles as a goal! At this time, some other soldiers in charge of logistics have begun to divide telescopes, there is no way to see too clearly at such a distance, and telescopes are also necessary! This thing is no longer a rare thing, there is a large amount of production in Fujian, but it is strictly forbidden to sell privately, only allowed to be used in the army and navigation, so it is extremely difficult to see this thing in the current Wu army and the Qing army.

They saw that the gunners had already stuffed a bag of stuff into it by this time, and then a black thing into it, and then they just stood still with the torches in their hands burning!

"Ready!"

"Ready!"

The gunners are reporting that they are ready!

After all the soldiers were ready, a general ran over, saluted Yao Qisheng and shouted, "My lord, the preparations have been completed, please instruct!" “

"Let's fire!"

"Yes!"

The general stood up, turned around very standardly, and after running over, he said loudly: "Everyone listen to the order, fire!" ”

A commanding soldier with a red flag waved the flag in his hand at this time!

"Boom, boom!"

"Boom, boom!"

The artillery on the ground began to roar at this time, the barrel of the cannon spewed flames, and there was a sharp whistling sound in the air! The Dutch could see this clearly through the binoculars, but because the camera was so close, they only saw the artillery firing!

An explosion was heard in the distance! They then raised their binoculars and looked at the hillside in the distance, only to see that it was already full of smoke in the distance, but they missed the scene when the shells exploded!

This is quite powerful, and the Dutch envoy is also a soldier, and knows the benefits of this artillery, which is not big and easy to carry! It's so important that two horses can run lightly.

This qiē is also due to the development of smelting in Longyan, due to the development of metallurgical technology, so the steel used to make artillery is becoming stronger and stronger, and now there is alloy steel, but the most advanced cannons will not be shown to the Dutch. In front of me, these guns have lost a lot of weight, and once the weight is reduced, the unit can carry more artillery and shells, so the attack power of the unit has naturally increased a lot!

Of course, these guns are also divided into calibers, the larger the caliber, the more powerful, of course, the heavier, the smaller the caliber, of course, the lighter the weight, and the power is naturally there! The artillery that Yao Qisheng asked people to display now belongs to small-caliber six-pounder guns, which are 70 millimeters according to today's standards. Of course, the power of his seventy-millimeter gun naturally cannot be compared with the power of the current artillery of the same caliber!

Another round of artillery fire passed, and the interval between the two was so short. Although the distance in front of the eyes is a little farther away, the power of the artillery can still be seen very clearly through the goggles. But what they cared about now was not power, but the rate of fire, and the interval between the two was so short that they couldn't believe it.

The rate of fire of today's artillery is also very fast, at least for now, and the biggest improvement is the modularization of gunpowder and shells, of course, people nowadays don't know what a module is, but they know that wrapping the cannon with something and loading it together is much faster than loading loose charge, after shooting, the soldier immediately loaded the gun and the shell, and after a short time, the gun fired again! Flames spat out of the artillery, the smoke rose again, the earth seemed to tremble at this moment, and the distant hillside once again rose with fireballs and dust and disgust!

The Dutch envoys all exclaimed at this time! They know very little about the artillery of the Mawei Army, which is also one of the best secrecy measures of the Mawei Army. They haven't officially exchanged fire with the Mawei Army, and they don't know the power of the Mawei Warship's guns, and if they want to die and see that, it won't be worth mentioning in front of them!

The Mawei Army has decided to export some of the weapons, of course, the price of this weapon must be very expensive, but now for them, it is at any cost to get these weapons, because what they are most worried about is not that the Mawei Army has such weapons, they are actually worried about their neighbors, these neighbors use these weapons, it is inevitable that they will have some other ideas, so whoever has the weapons first, who may have the initiative! You know, the Netherlands is still in trouble!

So now they have to carefully evaluate the power of these weapons in front of them, and at the same time whether they want to buy them! But it's clear that everyone is tempted.

Even if it is a weapon that is not used after being replaced, these cannons did not disgrace Yao Qisheng, the seventy-millimeter six-pounder gun, even if the shell at this time is not a concentrated high explosive, but this power is enough to make many people look sideways. The rumbling explosion, the smoke that filled the air before it had time to dissipate, and the dust raised by the explosion in the distance only greeted the eyes of all the Dutch envoys, Yao Qisheng was basically sure that these Dutchmen could not escape from his palms! (To be continued......)