All 32 smuggling firms in Shanxi and 11 in Shaanxi were arrested in the arrest operation. Such an arrest immediately caused panic among the Jin merchants and the Qin merchants.

Soon after, officials posted notices explaining the reasons for the arrest, and a group of businessmen learned that the imperial court was cracking down on smuggling across the border.

Border smuggling is indeed a major crime of killing heads in the official laws of the Ming Dynasty. The arrest of the imperial court this time made it impossible to find anything wrong.

As for the Jin merchants, although the merchants involved in border smuggling were wiped out by the imperial court, not all Shanxi merchants were engaged in border smuggling business.

On the contrary, many Jin merchants were active in Jingshi, and their business activities in Beizhili were also active. Since Zhu Youxiao began to stimulate the economy of Beizhili and built trade barriers in Beizhili, many Jin merchants also earned silver in Beizhili.

At this time, the direction of public opinion among businessmen has changed. is no longer like before, attacking Zhu Youxiao. On the contrary, because of profit, they began to sing praises.

At this time, although the merchants of Beizhili had to be levied various taxes, most of the taxes were relatively fair, and after the economy of Beizhili prospered, they earned more silver.

Because the capture was so rapid, that there were not many fish that slipped through the net, and naturally there was little resistance. The merchant class itself is not very prone to seditions and the like, and at most they engage in small-scale popular uprisings. As a result, the impact of the arrest and raid was quickly eliminated.

Jin Shang and Qin Shang Dao are still living a normal life, but soon many Jin merchants and Qin Shang began to scold their mothers.

Because Zhu Youxiao extended his hand to the salt markets in Shanxi and Shaanxi. Royal Salt Company announced that it would take over the operation of Pond Salt. The mode of operation is basically the same as that of Beizhili. That is, salt is produced directly in the production area, and then freely trafficked by merchants, and the price of selling to merchants is 15 wen, and illegal salt is strictly checked.

In the whole north, only the salt sales in Beizhili belong to direct sales and distribution, and the profit margin of distribution is only 2 Wen, while other provinces in the north. Distribution profits are all 5 Wen.

As for the salt merchants in the north, they were mainly Jin merchants and Qin merchants, and in this rectification in the north, the interests of Jin merchants and Qin merchants suffered some blows.

But then Zhu Youxiao's series of behaviors made Jin Shang and Qin Shang scold their mothers even more.

Because Zhu Youxiao handed over all the supply of military rations from the Nine Sides to the Jimin Grain Bank. At the same time, royal capital entered Zhangjiakou and officially monopolized the trade with the Mongols.

The salt business is in vain, the grain business is in vain, and the grassland economy has nothing to do with them.

Although other Jin merchants were not involved in smuggling, they could be a link in the smuggling economy. It may be a supplier of commodities or a purchaser of raw materials for the grassland.

After the royal capital officially entered Zhangjiakou. The mutual market between Zhangjiakou and the Mongols became a complete monopoly of royal capital. Leather goods and wool are processed by themselves, and cattle, sheep and camels are all rushed to various places by the royal capital for sale. Horses, in particular, were all turned into royal capital management.

There are also many Jin merchants who develop manufacturing, because they do not do business in Beizhili, and this time they have suffered heavy losses. The Mongolian market simply disappeared and became a monopoly of royal capital. And their commodities have gradually begun to compete in the north, especially for Shanxi, where the metallurgical industry is more common, and the steel products of Beizhili have begun to sweep the northern provinces.

After the salt business, military grain business, and manufacturing industries were hit, the Jin and Qin merchants were not small.

The Jin merchants are better, they have a large number of pawnshops, restaurants, ticket numbers and other industries, and the Qin merchants are a little hard.

Because the interests of these merchants were shaken, Zhu Youxiao successively transferred an additional infantry division to Gansu and an additional infantry division to Shanxi and Shaanxi in less than a month.

Soon the Central Army had one infantry division in Gansu and two in Shaanxi and Shanxi. Such troops are deployed in Gansu, Shaanxi, and Shanxi to maintain stability, and at the same time, Jinyiwei and Dongchang spies are also traveling back and forth to various provinces. Immediately, Jin Shang and Qin Shang were silent, and they didn't even dare to mention Zhu Youxiao's name in public, for fear of being targeted by Jinyiwei and Dongchang spies.

The troops transferred by the Supreme Command to Gansu, Shaanxi, and Gansu soon began to attack and suppress thieves everywhere under the orders of the Supreme Command.

While maintaining military pressure, the Supreme Command then began to carry out a preliminary rectification of the eight towns outside Liaodong Town, that is, to verify the soldiers, and the Supreme Command directly issued military salaries.

Within the Supreme Command, the General Staff has drawn up a new plan for the payment of military salaries to the border troops.

"After a comprehensive verification of the soldiers, each border army will be given a military ration subsidy of half a stone a month, 1.5 stone of military ration in the month of La, and 7 stone of military ration throughout the year, and there are about 700,000 soldiers in the eight towns at present, and a maximum of 4.9 million stone of military rations will be issued every year. When these military rations were transported to the border towns, the situation in the border towns was completely stabilized, but the expenses were a little too great. Sun Chuanting said to Zhu Youxiao with some hesitation.

"It doesn't matter, this raid on smuggling merchants will definitely get a lot of money and grain, and the imperial court can still get these military rations. Anyway, this plan is to deal with it for a few years first. Zhu Youxiao said calmly, as long as the border army is stabilized, the peasant uprising will not be caused at all, and it will not be taken advantage of by the Manchus as in history. With the Ming Dynasty's 'high wall' strategy, as long as there are no large numbers of thieves, it is impossible to destroy the Ming Dynasty no matter how Jiannu fights.

Deal with it like this for a few years first, so that the border army can have a full stomach. When the situation is more stable, you can attack those military attaches and magnates in the border towns. You must know that in the past, the border army was not only self-sufficient every year, but also paid more than 10 million stone of grain to the imperial court. Generally, the land of each military household is thirty acres, and after paying a little grain to the imperial court, they can still leave a lot.

The main reason why the border army cannot be self-sufficient today is that the land has been encroached upon by a large number of military attachés and magnates, and the land allocated by the border army at the beginning was at least more than 30 million mu, and more than half of the land was encroached upon. If these lands can be recovered, and then the water conservancy can be repaired, it will be very easy to resettle the border troops.

Zhu Youxiao was in the capital at this time, waiting for the results of the raid. In his hands, he also has five infantry divisions, ready to send reinforcements to the northern provinces at any time to suppress all unrest.

When the Supreme Command's policy of distributing military rations is implemented, the border armies will be stabilized, and the central troops dispatched to the provinces will basically be able to be transferred back to continue their training.

This group of troops is used to deal with wild boar skins.

"The Royal Shipyard has agreed on a plan for the construction of gunboats, with craftsmen trying to build a gunboat of a thousand materials. At the same time, we arranged people to go to Guangdong to recruit Hongyi craftsmen, but in the short term, it is unlikely that our sailors will have gunboats. Sun Chuanting reported to Zhu Youxiao about the gunboat manufacturing plan.

The kind of ship type of Westerners, Da Ming still has the ability to build. After all, the shipbuilding technology of the Ming Dynasty is actually no worse than that of Westerners. However, the Westerners' ship type is not economical enough, so it is true that there is no record of manufacturing, and there is a lack of experience. If you build it yourself, you should be fine with two or three years of fumbling around. If you can get craftsmen from the Portuguese, the development time of the Ming gunships can be shortened a lot.

Nowadays, trying to build a thousand-material ship can be described as extremely simple. The sailing ships of the Europeans were nothing more than a change of ship type, and they did not use watertight compartments, but also operated with soft sails. There is no problem in building it, but there is not much experience in the application of soft sails, and the design layout also needs to be optimized, mainly because these things take more time. European shipbuilders can let Da Ming skip this step and go straight to the level of the current Westerners' gunboats.

"It's too late, so I'll let the shipyard build more large warships to equip the sailors. Within the next year, the naval division should be able to fight in the waters of Fujian. Zhu Youxiao decided, if you slow down, Tainan will be occupied by the Dutch, and the naval division can only go up without gunboats, fortunately, at this time, the Dutch have just risen, and they are also known for their naval battle hooligans, and they are best at short-distance broadside battles. China has been playing this kind of engagement for thousands of years, but it does not intimidate the Dutch.

Although the Ming warships were likely to be 'kited' by the Dutch on the battlefield, the gunboats of this year did not have a long range. If the Dutch dared to stop the shelling, the Daming Naval Division could take advantage of the numerical advantage to surround it. If the Dutch did not want to be surrounded, they could only run away, and if the Dutch warships could only run, they would not be able to throw troops to the ground, and they would not be able to occupy any strongholds.

"Yes, Your Majesty, at present, the Royal Shipyard already has twelve warships of 4,000 materials under construction, and is developing a large ship of 5,000 materials."

"Has the problem of sail lifting been solved?" Zhu Youxiao asked.

"I heard that the winch was used to lift the sails, and this problem seems to have been solved." Sun Chuanting said that he didn't know much about this.

"What about admissions to the Royal Military Academy?" Zhu Youxiao asked.

"Enrollment notices have been posted to all provinces, and all provinces over 13 years old, under 20 years old, children and above can register for the examination."

This time, the lecture hall was renamed the 'Royal Military Academy' and expanded its scale, mainly to train professional officers in large quantities. Therefore, in addition to promoting ordinary meritorious soldiers with culture from the army to enter the Royal Military Academy, a large number of students are also recruited. There are obviously not too many people who have a reputation for being a child, and they are still young and willing to give up their pens and follow Rong, so there is no limit to the number of students enrolled this time. As long as you can pass the exam and review, there are as many recruits as you want.

In another two or three years, you will have a large number of professional officers. The military academy is mainly to teach some necessary things, as well as some operational theories, and then send them to the battlefield for training, and the cycle does not need to be too long.

If there are officers, and there is enough money and food, then the recruits will only need to train for a few months before they can go into battle.

The seizure and statistics of the smuggling merchants are still being carried out intensively, there are too many assets, and these Jin merchants still like to hide things, some silver and grain, I don't know where they have hidden them. (To be continued......)

PS: The first update has arrived!