Since it was decided to carry out the Northern Expedition to the Manchu Qing Dynasty and completely unify China, in order to facilitate coordination, Li Yongji had no choice but to hastily end his inspection activities and return to Nanjing.

Nanjing's Golden Palace has not yet been built, so Li Yongji's current residence in Nanjing has always been the State Council, and the State Council's office is usually in the East Garden of the Old Tianwang's Mansion, which is usually very busy, so in order to be quiet, Li Yongji's living and office here has been replaced by the West Garden, which is the so-called Xuyuan.

In fact, because radio has been popularized internally, and optical cables have also been laid between the State Council in Nanjing and Yonghua Palace in Suzhou, coupled with the local area wifi network, they can use computers and mobile phones to conduct video conversations with each other, so if you discuss state affairs, there is no need to go back to Nanjing, even if you want to discuss face-to-face, you can also let people go to Yonghua Palace, anyway, it is not far away.

Therefore, the main reason for going to live in the West Garden of the State Council is that Li Yongji is not used to the many rules that his cheap mother did in Yonghua Palace, and he will have all kinds of restrictions and factions when he goes back.

Those emperors were really curious at first, but if it takes a long time, they will find all kinds of hardships and all kinds of fatigue.

Not to mention anything else, let's just talk about the usual small things like getting up and dressing, before my mother came over, he could get up whenever he wanted, and even just wear a pajama to work.

But since his cheap mother, the Queen Mother, began to live in Yonghua Palace, all kinds of rules followed, and his life began to become uncomfortable.

Since then, Li Yongji can no longer sleep lazy, because when the time comes, a palace maid will come to wake him up, and he will lose his temper a little because of getting up, and the palace maid who will be scared will immediately kneel on the ground and beg for mercy, and then another person will call him, and the previous palace maid is said to be punished.

And getting dressed. In the past, Li Yongji wore clothes very casually, when he saw outsiders, he generally had a shirt and a coat, and when he didn't see a guest, he could even directly wear underwear and a sweatshirt, which was easy and freehand.

But when the Queen Mother came to Yonghua Palace, these casual and inappropriate clothes were not allowed to be worn, but they had to wear dragon robes. Most of these dragon robes were carefully customized by the Queen Mother, mostly silk products, with gold and jade as accessories, and divided into casual clothes, travel clothes, court clothes, etc., anyway, there are many types, and they are basically in accordance with the style of the clothes they wore at the enthronement ceremony.

Let's not talk about the aesthetics of this luxurious dragon robe, just talk about the complexity of this kind of thing born from Hanfu. It doesn't please Li Yongji, because even the simplest summer casual clothes have to be worn in three or four layers, as well as a belt and crown or something. Usually, three or four palace maids are served together, and it takes at least ten minutes to get dressed.

In short, Li Yongji didn't like this kind of complicated dragon robe, and no one cared about it before. He is naturally unrestrained, but since his wife was pregnant, the Queen Mother intervened. He couldn't feel as comfortable as he used to be.

Perhaps in order to avoid these rules, Li Yongji inspected everywhere, and when the inspection was over, he also went directly to Nanjing under the pretext of military and political affairs, and did not return to Yonghua Palace.

"Your Majesty." Looking at Li Yongji, who was sitting on a chair with his legs crossed on the desk and constantly playing with his mobile phone, Shen Shiming, who came to report to work, should not be seen, nor did he come to persuade him, and directly said the topic, "Minister, Shen Shiming is ...... ordered"

"Alright, alright." Li Yongji didn't raise his head, and directly interrupted the other party's invitation, "Sit on one side first, and I'll ask you questions after reading this." ”

"Yes, Your Majesty." Shen Shiming bowed down and saluted in a proper manner, and then walked to the reception sofa on the side, and found that there was already a young man in his twenties, with a solemn face and a military uniform.

Shen Shiming had never seen this person, but looking at his epaulettes, he knew that he was a colonel.

In the Praetorian Guard, it is common for young people to become big officials, after all, many of them are old people, but to be a colonel at this age, it is estimated that only the celebrities around the emperor can do it, otherwise, a young man in his early twenties, even if he is old, it would be good to be a major.

Since Li Yongji was still looking at his mobile phone at the desk, Shen Shiming chatted with him first, and then he learned that this guy's name was Zhou Shengjun, and he was the director of the Operations Staff Office of the General Staff.

"Oh, it turned out to be Director Zhou, fortunately." Shen Shiming said with a smile first.

"Your Excellency Prime Minister is strict." Zhou Shengjun nodded, "It is a great honor to be able to meet the Prime Minister and sit at the same table with him." ”

"It's all about serving the emperor." Shen Shiming said.

As soon as Shen Shiming said this, a voice suddenly came: "Yo, it seems that you all know each other, so good, I'll introduce it to you." ”

turned his head and found that Li Yongji didn't know when he came over, so Shen Shiming and Zhou Shengjun immediately stood up and bowed to Li Yongji.

"Excuse me, this is the study, there are not so many rules." Li Yongji sat down on the sofa in the middle first, and said to Shen Shiming and Zhou Shengjun, who were sitting on the right at the same time, "I'm sorry, I checked some information just now, how about it, didn't you wait long?" ”

"No, no, Weichen also just came, where did he come from for a long time." Shen Shiming hurriedly said.

"Uh-huh." Li Yongji was not polite to him, and waved his hand, and two foreign palace maids with blond hair and blue eyes, slender figures, and Western-style black and white maid costumes came over to serve tea to the two ministers, and after serving tea, they quietly retreated and continued to stand behind them in an orderly manner, waiting for the continuation of the service.

These two foreign palace maids wearing black and white maid costumes are actually special palace maids that Li Yongji has only recently trained, mainly for eye-catching, and other functions are secondary, or they are all disguises.

Speaking of which, in the Imperial Palace, that is, the palace maid costumes in the Yonghua Palace have a fixed pattern, mainly red, yellow, white and other bright colors, and the style is mostly a women's skirt gown similar to the dragon and phoenix gown, anyway, it is full of Chinese elements, and there will definitely be no such maid costume similar to the Western apron.

As for these foreign maids, it is a long story, strictly speaking, preparations began before the founding of the country.

Do you still remember that Zhang Xinda once gave Li Yongji a batch of maid outfits? Li Yongji asked the maids around him to change into these Western-style maid clothes at that time, but later found that these people didn't taste good in these clothes, and they always felt awkward.

After that, Li Yongji asked these Chinese girls to change into skirts with Chinese elements, and then he came up with an idea to import a batch of blonde girls from the West to come over as maids. Not to mention the practicality, it's not bad to put it on the eyes.

After having that idea, Li Yongji simply asked people to go to Sweden, Finland and other Nordic countries to recruit a group of blonde girls between the ages of 18 and 24 and between 168 and 170 in height.

This thing. He found a Prussian businessman named Simon to do it, but after doing it, Li Yongji forgot about it because he was busy with things, but the Prussians were more serious, took Li Yongji's money, and really did it wholeheartedly.

After returning to Europe, Simon thought twice and decided to go straight to Finland. Just recruit people in Finland.

I went to Finland because Finns are cheaper, much cheaper than Swedes.

Finland is a country that will be rich in later generations. But at this time, it was an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire.

Since Finland itself has no resources (not yet discovered) and is not an industrial country, plus Russian looting. Therefore, it is still synonymous with poverty and backwardness. The people of this country live poorer than the rest of Europe, and even the suzerainty of Russia, and the status of women in the region is not high. Ninety percent are farmers and fishermen, the equivalent of the backwoods of Europe.

So the Prussian merchant went to Finland and bought it without spending much money, no, he hired a large number of carefully selected blonde beauties, and all of them virgins.

After employing the blonde women, the Prussian, named Simon, took it upon himself to hire an English housekeeper to train the women first, and then ship them to China together until their maid training was almost the same.

After being shipped to China, Simon began to gather these women for a series of Chinese language learning and Chinese customs training, so that they could learn to speak simple Chinese, adapt to the Chinese environment and customs, and even brought some Chinese court etiquette textbooks for these Finnish girls to learn.

It took more than a year to look a little bit like it, and Simon originally planned to continue training until they were qualified, but recently Simon was short of money and wanted to get a loan, so Simon had to select the six blonde girls with the highest Su zhì early and send them to Li Yongji together.

Simon's mind is very simple, that is, he hopes to gain the favor of the Chinese emperor by offering beautiful women through guò, so as to give himself more convenience.

You must know that although there were many Prussian merchants in China at this time, they were still the weakest of the weak in the face of the merchants of Britain, France and the United States, and in this case, if you want to get more resources, you must get the support of the local magnates, and what magnates can compare with the Chinese emperor.

When Simon came in to offer beauties, Li Yongji remembered that there was this stubble, and he was still hypocritical, but after looking at the faces and figures of those blonde beauties, listening to them call themselves "Emperor Majesty Xià Wanfu Jin'an" in broken Chinese, plus listening to Simon's history of blood and tears on how to recruit these people, he finally softened his mood and accepted it.

In this way, this group of people became Li Yongji's foreign maids, and they all wore maid clothes, but this group of people estimated that they couldn't pass their mother's level, so they could only be raised here in the State Council, as the emperor's forbidden or exclusive maid, but they couldn't be sent to Yonghua Palace.

Now, Shen Shiming and Zhou Shengjun are the first batch of outsiders to enjoy the service of foreign maids, and they are naturally very curious, but fortunately, they are both people with strong personalities and bad women, so they are just a little curious, and they quickly turned their minds to other aspects.

"Come on, come on, drink tea first." Li Yongji picked up a thermostatic teapot, poured a cup of tea for them one by one, and said while pouring tea, "My tea is not ordinary, the tea I use is the big red robe of Wuyi Mountain, the young shoots on the mother tree, and the water is the spring water of Ling Spring in Zhenjiang, and the temperature of making tea is controlled at 85 degrees Celsius." Moreover, the so-called one bubble of water, two bubbles of tea, three bubbles and four bubbles are the essence, and the one we drink is the third bubble, the real essence, all of them. ”

Li Yongji said so, Shen Shiming and Zhou Shengjun could only take a sip of the teacup, and then kept praising the good tea.

"Hahaha, it's really good tea." Li Yongji said with a smile, "My tea here is all made by them in advance." Then put it into the ready-made tea in the thermos cup, although it is not as particular as kung fu tea, but the taste is still very good. Of course, if you like it, when you have time in the future, I will find some kung fu tea masters to come over, and please drink kung fu tea to have fun. ”

"It doesn't have to be like this." Shen Shiming said, "Actually, I don't pay attention to kung fu tea, for me, drinking tea is something refreshing." It doesn't really matter how you drink it. ”

"I don't know anything about kung fu tea." Zhou Shengjun followed, "Although I also drink tea, I never pay attention to what kind of tea, and when I am busy, when I am sleepy, I even grab a handful of tea leaves to eat, and I don't wash them with water, which is troublesome." ”

"Well, it seems that they are all not exquisite, very good. Very good. Li Yongji nodded, "If you don't pay attention to the small things in life, you can put your energy into big things, which is good." Yes, I was right. ”

After drinking another cup of ready-made tea, Li Yongji continued: "You all know the purpose of calling you here today, right? ”

"Yes." Shen Shiming replied first. "Your Majesty should be sending troops to fight the Qing Dynasty, right?"

"That's right." Li Yongji said, "Then let's talk about the Northern Expedition." What do you think? ”

"There are no problems on the part of the army." Zhou Shengjun took the lead and said, "Our First Military Region and Second Military Region are fully organized, well-equipped, and there is no shortage of supplies, and they are in a state where they can go to battle at any time, as long as Your Majesty gives an order, they can set off at any time." According to the strength of the Qing court and the Mongols, they simply could not stop us.

Therefore, in terms of military offensive, if we follow His Majesty's intentions and dispatch two military regions to attack at the same time, and we also have to add the assistance of the First Fleet of the Navy, then our chances of victory will be more than 90 percent, and even if Britain, France, and Russia suddenly want to intervene now, the chances of victory will be more than 90 percent, and there is absolutely no reason for failure. ”

"Britain, France and Russia will definitely not interfere with us." Li Yongji smiled, "You can rest assured about this, in fact, the people of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have already sent notes to Britain, France, Russia and the United States, and their special envoys all agree that this is our internal affair and will never interfere." ”

"That's fine." Zhou Shengjun said, "We are far superior to the Qing court in terms of numbers, equipment and supplies, and we also have more advantages in terms of people's hearts, it is estimated that as long as we directly smash Huanglong and take Fengtian, then the Qing court in the northeast will also collapse, and if we follow the words, it will not take a month and a half, at most three months."

Only Mongolia is not easy to say, after all, Mongolia is vast and sparsely populated, and it will take time to wipe them all out, especially when this harsh winter is approaching, but if we take Suiyuan City, the Mongols will basically have no threat to us, and we can slowly concoct them in the spring of the next year. ”

"What about you, my Prime Minister?" Li Yongji asked Shen Shiming with a smile.

"As General Zhou said, we have nothing to worry about militarily, the key is funding and civil affairs after the fact." Shen Shiming said, "I asked the people of the Ministry of Defense to calculate an account, if according to His Majesty's requirements, two military regions are dispatched at the same time, then the 500,000 army will spend about 2 million taels of silver just for one month's salary and food, which is only normal expenditure, not counting the loss of arms in the battle." ”

"How can there be so many?" Li Yongji said in surprise, "Most of the battles this time are from the National Defense Force, and there are many conscripts, how can there be so much money?" ”

"Your Majesty, the expenditure on personnel funds doesn't seem to be much, but there are also food expenses and logistics supply costs." Shen Shiming said, "The so-called soldiers have not moved, grain and grass go first, in order to cope with this battle, we have to recruit a large number of mules and horses, and we have to hire people to transport materials, and the loss along the way is not a small amount." Coupled with the doubling of food during the war, and especially the supply of meat, these supplies were much more expensive than usual.

In this way, the two military regions have a total of 500,000 troops, and 2 million taels of silver a month is really not much. Of course, that is, more than in the first month, if you can eat the enemy and reduce the pressure on logistics and food, then this number will be smaller.

In any case, the 500,000 army can definitely be said to be a big move, and the amount of money spent on dispatching so many soldiers and horses at one time is definitely not a small amount. If you add the consumption of munitions, as well as the disability allowance for soldiers, etc., the various expenses of a month, even if the war is smooth, it is likely to exceed 3 million taels.

Therefore, in order to reduce the financial burden, it is better to fight quickly, if the fighting can be ended within a month. That's the best thing to do, and if not, it's better to reduce the number of troops. In fact, in Weichen's view, to deal with such a declining guy as the Manchu Qing Dynasty, there is no need for two military regions to be dispatched at the same time, and there is no need to send 500,000 people, and 350,000 from the first military region is enough. ”

"That's what I'm saying, and if you say so, it's really a cannon fire. Ten thousand taels of gold. Li Yongji nodded, "It seems that it does cost a lot of money to fight, why didn't I have this concept before, why didn't I spend much money on fighting wars before." ”

Hearing Li Yongji say this, Shen Shiming and Zhou Shengjun looked at each other, but did not say anything.

Seeing their expressions, Li Yongji smiled slightly, and quickly thought about it.

That's right, although Li Yongji also led his troops to fight in the past. But the number of battles was actually not much, and the scale was very small, at most 50,000 people, and none of them were more than 100,000 at a time.

And. Li Yongji has a golden finger, he can get modern materials cheaply, and the demand for logistics is very small, and the supply in the rear is more of an ornament, a disguise or insurance. Therefore, Li Yongji did not need to think about logistics at all to fight, and only needed to rush forward with his head bored, relying on the excellent weapons and strict discipline of his army. There are almost no strongholds that cannot be taken, and there is no city defense that cannot be attacked, so that we can win all battles.

To this day, all kinds of discordant and unreasonable things around Li Yongji have long been noticed by insiders, but this topic is strictly forbidden to be discussed, just like Voldemort can't say it, so the two of them are only now showing this appearance.

Although it can't be discussed, the news of Li Yongji's Human Innovation Alliance has also spread internally, and everyone knows that Li Yongji has a secret organization behind him to support him, so everyone has put Li Yongji's unreasonable things on this mysterious and powerful secret organization, so that everything can barely make sense.

"Okay, anyway, if I want to go my own way, I'm going to spend a lot of money, right?" Li Yongji said with a smile.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Shen Shiming said, "Although our financial situation is very good this year, especially after the autumn harvest, we have harvested 76 million tons of rice alone, plus 40 million tons of other types of grain, and 30 million tons of grain imported one after another, but this year, our grain can at least allow the people of the whole country to eat openly for three or five years."

In this, especially the high-yield rice, just the 10 million mu of high-yield fields, 6 million tons of rice were harvested, with an average yield of 600 kilograms per mu, which is simply a god. Other farmers who have planted the same high-yield seedlings can produce more than 400 kilograms per mu on average, although the yield is not so high. Equivalent to the catties of the old system, that is, the yield per mu is more than 670 catties, which is really a god. ”

"Okay, I'm not asking you to talk about grain production." Li Yongji said, "When it comes to this year's finances, don't go off-topic." ”

"Your Majesty is right, it's the minister's gaffe, it's really this grain output is too amazing." Shen Shiming paused and said, "Speaking of fiscal revenue, although there are still two months to be regarded as a year, but at present, our fiscal revenue has exceeded 200 million Chinese yuan, which is equivalent to more than 200 million taels of silver, of which more than half is direct or indirect agricultural income, the rest is other taxes including customs duties and commercial taxes, and some are investment dividends obtained through the issuance of additional banknotes." If the necessary expenses are subtracted, then our current disposable free funds are about 30 million yuan. ”

"With an income of more than 200 million, only 30 million can be used freely? In other words, how much is the daily necessary expenditure of 170 million? Li Yongji was surprised.

"Otherwise, what do you think, Your Majesty." Shen Shiming smiled bitterly, "This is still a situation where a large number of national defense forces are supported by other autonomous provinces, if it is all dependent on us, then the expenditure will be even more." In fact, a large part of this expenditure, in addition to military spending, is given to education, because many primary schools in the direct jurisdiction are free, so ......"

"Okay, got it." Li Yongji nodded, "In short, if you want to dispatch a large army in this Northern Expedition, it is best to fight quickly, isn't that the case?" ”

"Yes, Your Majesty, it's better not to be more than three months."

"Three months is enough." Zhou Shengjun on the side said, "Your Majesty, rest assured, it won't take three months to deal with the Manchu Qing Dynasty, two months is enough, because as long as they defeat Mukden, they will basically be finished, therefore, our goal is actually very simple, to defeat Mukden, capture or even kill their emperor alive, then with the system of the Qing Dynasty, this war can basically be ended." (To be continued......)