Mingcheng,

In the martial arts training ground, a red flag fluttered in the wind, whirring.

There were three phalanxes neatly arranged on the camp, and 1,500 soldiers of the Ming army were standing in line.

It was drizzling in the sky, and the rain wet the armor and hair of the soldiers, and drops of muddy rain slipped from between the armor of the soldiers.

Even though it's the end of summer, the sea breeze from the sea still gives people a chilly feeling.

"Lord Wang, it's cold, let's go back first!" Liu Quan took a few personal soldiers, stepped on the muddy sand, and protected King Lu on the side to go to the large military camp tent in the center of the martial arts.

"It's okay, my Ming soldiers are practicing in the field, how can I hide in the tent of the big army camp because of the light rain." Zhu Honghuan, the king of Lu, stood in the rain and said with a smile.

The eunuch on the side hurriedly tried to cover the drizzle above with a canopy, but he was also stopped by him.

"Lord Wang, this cold wind and freezing rain, don't freeze your body." The cronies and eunuchs on the side said anxiously.

"Brother Zhu is my Ming prince, and he is also the only vassal king in the Ming Court of Luzon, so don't get caught here." Liu Yu walked out of the tent of the large army camp, looked at the soldiers who were still holding on in the rain, and nodded with satisfaction.

These are not the Luzon Ming Army in the true sense, but some village warriors.

These days, after the vigorous development of the Ming court, coupled with the introduction of Han immigrants from all over Nanyang.

The number of Han Chinese in Luzon has already exceeded 30,000, and most of them are Han males.

The Ming court gave them arable land and farming tools to engage them in productive labor.

And some of the able-bodied ones were designated as village warriors.

On average, two households are brave in one township, and they are farmers when they are busy and soldiers when they are slack.

This year's summer harvest has ended, and these villagers are naturally gathered for training.

Of course, although it is only a village bravery, there should be no less exercises.

The officers and men of the Ming Dynasty had a small drill every three days and a major drill on five days, and there was also a big martial arts drill once a month to assess the actual combat ability of the officers and men of each town association.

The training of the village warriors is no worse than that of traditional officers and soldiers, and they also have to participate in the daily tasks of defending the city and patrolling.

"Xiao Wang has never returned to Mingcheng since he left Mingcheng last time, and now he has revisited his hometown, and he can't help but be a little touched." Zhu Honghuan smiled bitterly and looked at the township soldiers in the field.

"Seeing my Ming soldiers training, Xiao Wang naturally wants to encourage all the soldiers."

After hearing this, Liu Yu nodded, "If the prince can feel this way, it is not in vain that thousands of Ming soldiers in this land shed blood and sacrificed." ”

"But please go back to the camp as soon as possible." Liu Yu bowed and saluted, and six heavily armored soldiers behind him stepped forward.

"Don't be rude." Liu Quan snorted coldly.

The six heavily armored soldiers were stunned for a moment, and then they also bowed down and saluted Zhu Honghuan.

"Okay." Zhu Honghuan no longer insisted, and followed the heavily armored soldiers back to the camp.

Liu Yu's own soldiers, the Iron Man Army, used plate armor captured from the Spaniards.

The soldiers were all from the Qingmiao Battalion, that is, the Han orphans recruited by the Ming army in Luzon, and the first batch of Qingmiao had already joined the Ming army, and some were recruited by Liu Yu as personal soldiers.

Some of them were incorporated into various town associations, and made great contributions to the birth and death of the Ming court, such as Lin Xu.

The Ming court officials present did not say anything when they saw this scene.

Most of these Ming court officials were recruited by Liu Yu from the local Spanish colonial authorities, and they were all indigenous to the Iroque ethnic group, so naturally they did not have the Confucian idea of loyalty to the monarch.

Since taking Laoag and establishing the Ming court, some generals have proposed to support King Lu as emperor and rebuild the Ming Dynasty.

But they were all tacitly shirked and prevaricated by Liu Yu and Xiao Wu, and no one mentioned it since.

Because everyone also knows that although today's Ming Court is Ming, it is the same as the original Taiwanese Zheng family, although it is a Ming flag, it is not a real continuation of the Ming Dynasty after all, and naturally no one mentions it anymore.

"Uncle, how is this year's summer harvest?" Seeing Zhu Honghuan enter the tent of the large army camp to hide from the rain, Liu Yu asked.

"Yes, this year's official fields and private fields are all harvested, with a total of 800,000 stone of rice and sweet potatoes, not counting the more than 200,000 stone of rice levied by the Tubang tax." Liu Quan said with a smile.

After Liu Yu heard this, he also nodded.

After several years of development, the Ming court controlled a large territory in northern Luzon, and established three counties (Laoag, Vigan, and Mingcheng) as well as eleven Ming societies and dozens of large and small societies.

A large number of Nanyang Chinese merchants and Ming people and even merchants from various countries have traveled to Luzon and settled in Laoag, Vigan and other towns.

There are as many as 8,000 inhabitants in the city of Laoag alone, and more than 2,000 or 3,000 in the city of Viganming.

With such a large population, most of them are merchants, craftsmen and their families.

The pressure on its food imports can be imagined.

Now there are more than 10,000 Ming households in Luzon and 30,000 households in Fanshe, and after careful calculation, the population of Luzon controlled by the Ming court at this time is about 17 or 80,000.

Of course, this includes a large number of Fansha, Ilok and Tagalog people in the princely states, as well as the Chinese and Tufan people who have migrated to Luzon from Chinese mainland and Southeast Asia such as Quang Nam and Chenla in the past two years.

The Ming court measured one stone as one hundred city catties, that is to say, only one season of harvest, reached 550 city catties per capita, of course, this is mixed with a large number of sweet potatoes and other potato seed crops.

But this still made the Ming court officials very satisfied.

Luzon is located in Southeast Asia, and in a tropical environment, it can achieve double or even triple rice cropping, which means that the Ming court can fully feed the people on Luzon Island, and even feed other regions.

This can be said to be very exciting news for Ming Ting.

"My lord, since this year's summer harvest has ended, can the amount of catties of rice purchased from the four seas be reduced next month, and can also allow the household department to reduce some expenses." A Fanren official in charge of the household department said in Chinese.

"No." Liu Yu shook his head and flatly refused.

Today, every month, the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce imports more than 50,000 stone of rice from Annam, Siam and other Southeast Asian regions.

Although Quang Nam rejected the official trade request of the Ming court, it was still very supportive of non-governmental trade, after all, no one would be at odds with silver.

Therefore, this year, Sihaiguang imported 110,000 stone of rice from Quang Nam alone.

In seaports such as Siam Pattani, with the help of the local English Merchant House, Sihai also imported rice and other crops in Siam.

In fact, today's Luzon Ming court is not short of food at all.

The monthly shipment of rice and other crops from all over Southeast Asia from all over the world alone is enough to feed the population of several towns such as Laoag.

But the Ming court still swallowed the grain from all over the South Seas like a bottomless pit.

This naturally brought a large amount of silver taels to Quang Nam, Siam and other countries, and also made the Four Seas Commercial Bank make a lot of money.

But it hurt the officials of the Ming Court's household department.

There was no shortage of grain in the Luzon Ming court, so even in a seaport commercial town like Laoag, the grain needed to be transported from outside, and the price of rice was only seven dollars per stone, and the price of rice in places such as Viganming City was even lower, only five or six dollars per stone.

This is naturally because the Ming court obtained a large amount of land from the Tubang Fanren and set it up as official land, private land, and fan land for cultivation by all ethnic groups, so that this year's Luzon rice harvest is quite abundant.

It is also related to the transportation of grain from all over the world to Luzon.