In the spring of the following year, at the beginning of March, a great victory finally came from the northern frontier, and the British duke drove the barbarians out at the cost of losing an arm.

It's a pity that the British Duke didn't survive because of wound infection on the way back, and was finally buried in the imperial mausoleum by the special bones, and at this time, the war situation in the south still did not stop, but fortunately, the ability of the generals in the past of the new school was slightly better, at least a stalemate was formed, and the new southern country was not allowed to continue to capture the city, however, the damage to the national strength of this hard-dragged war was still quite serious, and in just half a year, the military expenditure in the south has exceeded 10 million taels.

If it weren't for the household ministry halfway through the levy of a tax, the treasury simply could not support, but now the treasury has been emptied again, at this time it is not feasible to raise donations or raise taxes, fundraising, the minister Xungui has donated three or four times in this year, who is still willing to donate, everyone's money is not blowing in the wind, and it is even more unfeasible to raise taxes again, it was not good last year, many places still need disaster relief, and then a tax was raised, if the tax continues to be raised, I am afraid that the people will be resentful and boiling, maybe there will be a few uprisings, so Emperor Ming Ling was forced to have no choice but to send someone to Xinnanguo to make peace, wanting to slow down this period of time first, and then fight when he has money back.

It was a bit too much to talk about peace, but instead of making any harsh demands, Xinnanguo also returned half of the city, and the request was only for Emperor Ming Ling to pay 100,000 taels of silver.

Generally speaking, if it weren't for the fact that the other party was an aggressor, this condition would definitely be quite mild, but this is also normal, in fact, not only Emperor Ming Ling felt that it was difficult, but also the Xinnan side was also struggling, if it wasn't for the fact that Xinnan had previously captured eighteen cities and plundered a lot of funds and food, in terms of their country's own national strength, it would not be able to support it at all, before Emperor Ming Ling sent people to sue for peace, the Xinnan army itself already had the idea of retreating, and the peace envoy sent by Emperor Ming Ling was not in their armsAlthough some people feel that they can take advantage of this opportunity to slaughter a knife, most people still feel that the requirements should not be too excessive, otherwise if they provoke the other party and continue to stalemate with them, maybe there will be no more than this little benefit, and they will have to lose a lot, and it is precisely because many people in New South have such ideas that the final requirements for peace talks are not very high.

Of course, Emperor Ming Ling was not unwilling to do so, and even regretted it a little, regretting that he knew that it was so easy to talk about, he should not have started a war in the first place, and he had negotiated peace directly, and it cost more than 10 million taels to get it right, and now 100,000 taels can be solved, although it cannot be completely solved, but it can be regarded as solving most of it, and it is strange that he does not regret it and feels at a loss, but in any case, the two sides quickly reached a consensus on the peace talks, and signed the peace talks.

After the treaty was signed, the new southern kingdom withdrew from the promised city within ten days, and began to dispatch troops to guard the remaining cities, wanting to completely occupy that area, and the counterinsurgency army sent by Emperor Ming Ling also quickly retreated, some of them returned to the field, and some returned to the original army, and continued to reclaim the fields and Tuntian for a living.

At this point, it can barely be regarded as the peace of the country and the people.

In the next few years, the overall situation of the court has been quite good, although there is occasional turmoil in the north and south, but it quickly calmed down, and did not bring any impact to the capital, Qiao Mu's grandchildren have also successfully married his wife and married out at the agreed time, and even Qiao Mu originally thought that it would take at least five years to draw the sea chart, and it was drawn early, and has begun a short-distance sea trade business, the daily gold may be a little exaggerated, but there are still tens of thousands of taels of income from a trip back and forth.

And this is still a short distance, that is, mainly to and from small places such as the South Seas, if you run a long distance, such as to Europa those places, then the income of each trip is definitely easy to exceed 100,000, however, Qiao Mu also knows that the meal should be eaten one bite at a time, and things should be done little by little, not let them adapt to the sea environment in advance, run a few more short distances, but directly let them run long distances, the risk is too high, and the successful round trip can bring benefits, if you only go and do not return, even if you go far away, it is useless.

But even so, even if Qiao Mu only ran a short distance for the time being, she was forced to save 8 million taels of silver and 300,000 yuan of gold by relying on the sea trade business in the three years of running the short distance, in addition to a lot of pearls, jadeite, coral gems and other good things, of course, there are only a few people who really earn from trade.

Here's the thing, although I made a lot of money when I first started doing the sea trade business, but I was soon blocked and suppressed by some big families of the sea trade, and the arbor was definitely not afraid, and those who dared to come to rob were all sunk, just kidding, although the arbor did not have nautical charts, but the better way to make ships and better firearms was to make them, and the ships with artillery were invincible wherever they went.

However, it was that accident that made Qiao Mu realize the huge benefits of black eating black, and he tried his best to run back and forth, pondering the prices between each other, and only making tens of thousands of taels of silver by tossing for three months, but on the ocean, just a few pirate ships that eat black and black, or a few ships of the big maritime trade family with black hands, can easily obtain hundreds of thousands of silver income, and it is also a no-capital transaction, and it is more profitable over there.

However, recently, the Haimao family has sent a peace post, and Qiao Mu has no idea of killing chickens and eggs, so I am afraid that this kind of black and black that comes quickly can no longer be operated.

……

Inside the nursing home

Qiao Mu looked at the peace stickers sent by Hu Yinglong (the person in charge of the maritime trade who was finalized three years ago), and said with a smile:

"It's really all cheap skins, I don't know how to be obedient if I don't teach a lesson, that's it, since they posted it, as long as they don't provoke us in the future, you don't have to deliberately block their ships, just deal with the pirate ships you encounter along the way, and you can also expand the escort business by the way, anyway, we have to take the sea route, our sea ships have enough force, and we will escort a few teams of sea ships to the fixed trading place safely, and it is not too much to charge them one or two percent of the protection fee, and it doesn't have to be too much, Anyway, it's a matter of incident, and it is a point to be able to collect points. ”