"Your Highness, if you really recruit 50,000 sailors of the Maritime Guard, then the expenditure of the city's shipping tax must not be more than one million taels of silver per year? I'm afraid I won't even be able to earn my money back......"

After Zhu Youzhen's letter was written, Wang Chengen and Cao Huachun next to him smacked their tongues, and Zhu Youzhen also explained with a smile:

"The Coast Guard is the reserve of the future navy, and the Coast Guard is not only for the city, but also for the salt division."

"If the Coast Guard Department is running well, then the Salt Inspection Department of the Salt Administration can be abolished."

"In addition, with the trade volume of the imperial store, it is not difficult to fill this hole in the market."

After that, Zhu Youzhen said to Wang Chengen: "Transfer another 200,000 taels of silver to the city." ”

After saying this, Zhu Youzhen closed Shen Tingyang's booklet and turned to look at Huanglong's booklet.

Compared with the city, Zhu Youzhen was more curious about the reclamation of the Ryukyu Prefecture and the migration of the people.

He opened the book, and then saw Huang Long's hundreds of words of greetings and thoughts about him.

With goosebumps, Zhu Youzhen continued to look down, and the following content made Zhu Youzhen a little surprised.

In Huanglong's writing, the relocation of the Great Ryukyu was surprisingly smooth, and it can even be said that there was no need for the government to lead it at all.

When the 270,000 lazy people in the nursing home were relocated, ordinary people in Guangdong and Fujian provinces pretended to be lazy and moved together.

By the time Huang Long and the sailors below noticed it, the number of Han Chinese in the Great Ryukyu had reached 300,000.

In the following six months or so, especially the people of Fujian, it can be said that with the tacit consent of Nan Juyi and Huanglong, thousands or even thousands of people moved every day.

The reason why so many people are migrating is because of a simple thing, that is, they can't survive.

At the beginning of the country, the amount of cultivated land in the province was only more than 13 million mu, and the population was as high as more than 4 million.

For example, in Henan and other places, although the population has tripled, in fact, the area of cultivated land that can be cultivated is very large, and although Zhejiang is also the terrain of eight mountains, one water and one field, due to the development of industry and commerce and handicrafts, it can completely allow many people to survive.

However, these patterns and geographical conditions are not available in Fujian, so in terms of Fujian's cultivated land, the amount that can be cultivated is not much, and the population is growing faster than the cultivated land.

Perhaps at present, Fujian has reached the level of one person and one mu that cannot survive, so in the context of the late Ming Dynasty, Fujian has the most people engaged in maritime business.

If you don't do it, then you won't be able to live at all, even if the price of food in the Ming Dynasty is stable, they don't have much way to make money, so they can only rebel.

This is also the reason why the rebellion in Fujian was so prosperous in the Ming Dynasty, and it is also the reason why when the Ryukyu Prefecture played the slogan of giving grain and agricultural tools, it attracted so many people to migrate.

Historically, Zheng Zhilong and Xiong Wencan, when the grain price was 500 wen and one stone, just shouted out to give three taels of silver and one cow, which attracted more than 100,000 people in more than ten years.

And now Huanglong is doing even better, not only giving three years of food, giving farm tools, but also helping to build houses.

As for the farming cattle, they cannot be given due to the number of problems, but they can also be lent to immigrants when the farming is busy.

In addition, there were small-scale droughts in various parts of Fujian last year, so it is not difficult to explain why so many people have taken the initiative to migrate.

From July last year to early March this year, the Ryukyu Prefecture has accepted more than 634,000 relocated people, and the amount of cultivated land reclaimed in the first batch has reached more than 923,000 mu.

This is also because there are less than 4,000 ploughing cattle and less than 5,000 horses.

In Huanglong's book, the population of the seven counties of Ryukyu Prefecture, including Beigang, Dayuan, Hualien, Nangang, Yizhou, Dongning, and Penghu, is:

There are more than 200,000 people in Beigang, more than 150,000 people in Dongning, more than 120,000 people in Nangang, more than 80,000 people in Yizhou, 30,000 people in Dacheng, 30,000 people in Penghu, and 20,000 people in Hualien.

The relocation of so many people is certainly a good thing for the development of the Ryukyu Prefecture, but the pressure it brings is also enormous.

At present, the reason why there is no sign of the tax silver of the City Ship Division going north is that Huang Long sent it to the Coast Guard Division and the City Ship Division as a fortune, and the rest of the silver was used by him to buy grain.

If it weren't for the fact that the Imperial Horse Prison Nanba transferred more than one million stone grains to support the Ryukyu Prefecture, I am afraid that the Ryukyu Prefecture would have been in famine.

Therefore, the problem that Huanglong needs to solve is very simple, that is, ploughing cattle, pulling horses, and grain.

In this regard, Zhu Youzhen rubbed his temples, and then raised his head and said to Cao Huachun and Wang Chengen:

"How much money and grain do you have in the treasury right now? What is the total number of ploughing oxen, pulling horses, and military horses of the Imperial Horse Supervisor? ”

"Back to Your Highness...... Cao Huachun replied first:

"Counting the ones that were transferred to Liaodong and the City Division just now, there are still four million stones of rice and wheat in the treasury and more than two hundred and ninety-six thousand silver."

"However, the salaries of all the armies have been paid, so there is no need to worry about the lack of silver, the only problem is the opening silver of the battle of Liaodong."

After Cao Huachun finished speaking, Wang Chengen also answered:

"At present, there are more than 143,000 military horses, 154,000 horses, 200,600 horses, and more than 494,300 cattle."

When Zhu Youzhen took over the Imperial Horse Supervisor three years ago, the military horses of the Imperial Horse Supervisor were only 12,300,000, the number of ploughing cattle was only more than 30,000, and there were only more than 7,000 horses and 14,000 horses.

In the past three years, through trade, the abolition and annexation of the five sides and the guards, and uncontrolled feeding, the number of military horses has increased fourteen times, the number of ploughing cattle has exceeded more than ten times, the number of horses pulled has exceeded more than 20 times, and the number of horses has increased tenfold.

However, on such a scale, what is represented is tens of millions of acres of distributed military fields, and when these fields were leased to the people, they were also promised to rent cattle when the farming was busy.

Nearly 500,000 head of cattle were obtained by the removal of more than 100 guards, and they were also responsible for these fields.

So in fact, there are not many ploughing cattle that can be called by the Imperial Horse Warden.

"How many ploughing cattle and horses can be transferred?" Zhu Youzhen asked Wang Chengen, and Wang Chengen also said shamefully:

"If we make every effort to deploy, at most more than 6,000 cattle and more than 3,000 horses."

The amount that Wang Chengen said was indeed not much, and Zhu Youzhen did not say anything about letting Wang Chengen spend money to buy farming cattle, but just said:

"Adjust two million stone grains, and all adjustable ploughing oxen, and pull horses to Huanglong."

"After the autumn harvest, all the four million stone grains in the southern field of the Imperial Horse Prison were also transferred to the Ryukyu Prefecture."

"In three years, I want to see the Ryukyu Prefecture reclaim millions of acres of arable land to feed millions of people."

Zhu Youzhen issued a military order, and later said to Wang Chengen:

"Escort 1.5 million taels to Liaodong, and then ask the imperial brother to transfer 600,000 taels of internal money."

"The speed of the 1,000 and 300 grain ships in the Tianjin shipyard must also keep up, and there should only be 600 at the moment, right? Before the start of the war it must reach two thousand. ”

"After the war, the ship was transferred to the Ryukyu Prefecture and handed over to the Coast Guard."

The waterway was a way to save men and manpower, and the Jianjiao could not deal with the grain ships with artillery, so it was the safest route to transport grain.

As long as the waterway is secured, then the army can recover Fushun, Kaiyuan, Tieling and other places.

Without these grain producing areas, even if Nurhachi moved the population, it would be useless, and sooner or later he would starve to death in the mountains.

The only problem that Zhu Youzhen is facing now is the Eastern Front.

This question needs to wait for Sun Chuanting and them to arrive in the capital.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youzhen asked Lu Wenzhao: "Where did Sun Chuanting and their march go?" ”

"Back to His Royal Highness, I have arrived in Kaifeng, and I will be able to arrive in the capital at the end of May." Lu Wenzhao responded, and Zhu You calculated the time.

Arriving in the capital at the end of May, it would take at least a month and a half to transport more than 100,000 troops to Liaodong by sea.

In other words, the army will be able to reach Liaodong in mid-July, and the autumn harvest will begin in late July......

"There's still time." Zhu Youzhen bowed slightly, and Lu Wenzhao asked:

"Don't you set the route of the march of the various divisions in advance? There seems to be a change on the old slave's side, and if the previous plan is followed, I'm afraid there will be some mistakes. ”

"The army crosses the sea, and I will go to Liaodong in mid-May, and let Sun Chuanting and them ride to Guangning to discuss matters." Zhu Youzhen calmly said his arrangement.

Nurhachi's soldiers and horses change quickly, and once Liaodong changes, he will follow suit.

Therefore, they simply waited for Sun Chuanting and their arrival to make plans and march routes, so as not to be detected by Nurhachi.

"From today onwards, all merchants in Liaodong are forbidden to go out of the city, except for the people who go out of the city to work, only soldiers and horses can be mobilized out of the city!"

Zhu Youzhen gave an order, and directly put an end to the opportunity for merchants to walk around and spy on the movement of the Ming army.

Lu Wenzhao responded, and Zhu Youzhen also continued to devote himself to the boring sand table deduction.

Time passed little by little, and in the same month, the Korean envoys also arrived at the Forbidden City on April 20.

The envoys submitted a letter to the cabinet, trying to "defend the accusation", and the cabinet also tended to canonize, but due to the "Celestial Empire matter", it was necessary to investigate first.

On the first day of the fifth month, Chen Jisheng, an inspector sent by the Ministry of Rites, submitted the opinions of more than 1,200 Korean subjects to the cabinet, and all the Korean subjects believed that Li Hui was tyrannical and had lost the grace of the previous dynasty's reconstruction.

These testimonies confirmed that what Li Hao's regime said was true, so the Ministry of Rites sent Emperor Shu on May 12, the third year of the Apocalypse, believing that according to some evidence and the results of Yang Hao's investigation, Li Hui's rebellion and Li Liang's obedience were true.

Proceeding from the overall situation of "uniting the slaves," he could agree to the DPRK's request regardless of the "name of the Gangchang."

After Zhu Youxiao received the song, he asked Zhu Youzhen about his thoughts, and Zhu Youzhen suggested that Li Liang be approved as the king of Korea on the grounds that Li Ju and others had promised that the Ming army would move to the Jingcheng Metropolitan Protectorate, and after the battle of Liaodong Reconquest, three battalions of soldiers and horses were stationed in the Jingcheng Metropolitan Protectorate.

Zhu Youzhen's opinion was very important, and after Zhu Youxiao heard this, he issued a decree approving Li Ju as the new king of Joseon.

On 15 May, the Korean Legation carrying the Ming Dynasty's edict finally completed its mission and returned to Korea by boat.

For a time, Li Liang officially sat on the throne of Joseon, and only waited for the end of the battle of Liaodong Reconquest, waiting for the Ming envoys to watch the ceremony to officially claim the king.

With the support of the Ming Dynasty, Li Liang began a purge of the officials of the Great Northern Faction, first of all, all the officials who opposed the Ming army's entry into the Jingcheng Metropolitan Protectorate were convicted and executed.

Secondly, with the silver money obtained by the raider, with the slogan of "returning to the emperor and the Ming dynasty", he transported 100 taels of gold, 14,000 stones of rice and wheat, and 300 head of cattle to Zhenjiang Mansion in Liaodong.

This move made Zhu Youxiao and Zhu Youzhen very satisfied, so they sent envoys to Korea in advance on 20 May to directly canonize the ceremony.

On the same day, Zhu Youzhen also commanded the four cavalry guards of Xiaocai, Tiance, Long Xiang, and Yulin to march to Guangning and prepare for the Battle of Liaodong.

The army went out of Shanhaiguan, each riding a horse, leading four military horses behind him, with a luxurious configuration.

When the horses were tired, the whole army dismounted and fed the beans, rested for half an hour and then continued to Quang Ninh.

In this way, ten days later, the army arrived outside the city of Quang Ninh, and outside the city, Xiong Tingbi had prepared a temporary military camp for the four cavalry guards......

"Chitose King of Qi—"

On May 30, when Zhu Youzhen arrived in Guangning, Xiong Tingbi led Sun Chengzong, Yuan Yingtai, and more than 100 officials of the Liaodong Political Envoy Department to greet him, and Zhu Youzhen also turned over and dismounted, and met Xiong Tingbi and Yuan Yingtai for the first time in his arms in Liaodong.

Xiong Tingbi is tall, with a height of more than six feet, so Zhu Youzhen needs to look up at him, and Yuan Yingtai is a figure that is the most popular among scholars.

is less than five feet six inches tall, half a head taller than Zhu Youzhen, but it is not too exaggerated.

As for Sun Chengzong, although he did not have a close relationship with Zhu Youzhen, when he was serving as Shao Zhan and teaching Zhu Youxiao to study, Zhu Youzhen also met with the other party.

Zhu Youzhen's impression of the three of them is not bad, and Xiong Tingbi and Yuan Yingtai, who are taken care of, have a good impression of their own King Qi, not to mention.

Zhu Youzhen has a figure of five feet four inches at a young age, and it is foreseeable that his height may reach five feet seven or eight inches in the future, which is the height and figure of a brave general.

Height and size only represent his requirements for personal physical fitness, but his dark skin means that he is not a theoretical general curled up in a military tent.

His appearance inherited from his mother Liu, he is delicate and resolute, and his facial features are somewhat intergenerational, with a high nose and deep eyes, which are somewhat similar to Zhu Yijun, Zhu Di, and Zhu Yuanzhang.

If that's all he brings to people at first glance, I'm afraid others will think that this is a disciple of a general, but compared to his appearance, his momentum and temperament are more majestic.

The slight frowning brows at all times make people feel that he is not easy to get along with at first glance, and the slightly cold eyes make it inevitable that people will have stage fright when looking at him.

In general, when Xiong Tingbi and Yuan Yingtai saw Zhu Youzhen for the first time, they felt from the bottom of their hearts that this temperament was very in line with His Royal Highness King Qi in their hearts.

Compared with them, Sun Chengzong, who was sent to Liaodong, had not seen Zhu Youzhen for more than half a year.

In his opinion, after Zhu Youzhen experienced the counterinsurgency in Henan and Shandong, the eyes in his eyes became even colder, and he didn't know if he had witnessed the cruelty of the battlefield.

"The three of them defended Liaodong for the imperial court, and the lone imperial brother thanked ......"

As soon as they met, Zhu Youzhen put away his coldness and expressed his gratitude, but at the same time he did not bow down, leaving the dignity of the prince.

"I'm ashamed ......"

Seeing this, Xiong Tingbi and the three of them bowed down one after another to salute back, a little embarrassed.

It is said that the three of them defended Liaodong, but anyone with a discerning eye knows that the reason why Liaodong can be impregnable is because of Zhu Youzhen's methods.

At present, the soldiers and horses of the 34th Guard Battalion in Liaodong have something to do with Zhu Youzhen, and the 150,000 regular soldiers in Liaodong, and the military salaries and grain worth more than 3.4 million taels are supplied by Zhu Youzhen.

Without Zhu Youzhen, who started as a royal horse supervisor and added taxes to the Ming Dynasty, it is estimated that the Ming Dynasty would have been dragged half-dead by Liaodong now.

In the past, the military salary expenditure of Liaodong, Jizhen, Xuanfu, Datong, and Taiyuan was as high as more than 8 million taels, accounting for 70% of the military expenditure and 50% of the Ming Dynasty's finances.

This plate was in the hands of the imperial court, and it was unable to make ends meet every year, and after it was taken over by Zhu Youzhen, it took only three years to reorganize, and the vacancy was found, and the general's salary was reduced to less than six million.

The military salary and grain straw saved four or five million taels of silver for the Ming Dynasty as soon as they came and went.

The key is that after the removal of the troops and horses of the five sides, the combat strength of the five sides has not been compromised, but has become stronger than before.

Therefore, it is really shameful to put the credit on them.

However, Zhu Youzhen doesn't care about the credit, what he wants to do is to expand the basic plate of the Central Plains Dynasty and export the internal contradictions to the outside world.

For example, like the book written by Huang Long, how can the land of Fujian, with the current yield per mu, feed tens of millions of people?

With such a large population, even if they move to Yunnan, Guizhou and Ryukyu, they can alleviate Fujian's internal problems.

This is an example, and the problem represented by this example is the problem of the two capitals and ten provinces.

Except for Yunnan, Guizhou, Liaodong, and Guangxi, which do not have this problem of dense population, land annexation, and insufficient drought resistance, other provinces have these problems.

Liaodong was massacred by Nurhachi in history because Nurhachi wanted to use Liaodong to raise more than 200,000 people in Houjin.

Normally, without the invasion of the northern captives, it is no problem for Liaodong to raise an army of 30,000 or 40,000.

Therefore, the problem that Zhu Youzhen wants to focus on solving is the problem of the densely populated two capitals and 10 provinces.

The population of Shanxi, Beizhili and Shandong migrated to the northeast, northern Shaanxi migrated to Hetao, and southern Shaanxi and Henan migrated to Gansu.

The contradiction between Sichuan and Huguang is not big, and a small amount of relocation can be made to Yunnan and Guizhou, while the population of Fujian, Zhejiang, and Nanzhili provinces occupies half of the Ming Dynasty.

As for the expansion, it is nothing more than using the legal principles of Annan during the Jiajing period to recover Annan, develop Annan, and then seize the Nanyang region.

With Manila, Batavia and other places that have been developed by Spain and the Netherlands as a foothold, it gradually expanded outward.

To put it bluntly, it is to take the path of Houjin.

Why did the Later Jin Dynasty become stronger the more they fought the Ming Dynasty? Why couldn't the Ming Dynasty do this to Nanyang at the beginning of the country?

The reason is relatively simple, millions of dwarf blacks in the South Seas do not know how to farm, and only the Southeast Asian immigrants who later migrated here know it.

Therefore, the amount of cultivated land in Nanyang during the Yongle period was pitiful, and the development of these required huge costs, and the population of the Ming Dynasty fell to less than 60 million because of the Jingyan Battle, and it was impossible to support the development at all.

However, Zhu Youzhen faced a different situation, although the cultivated land opened up by the Spanish and Dutch was small, there were hundreds of thousands of acres, which was enough for the Ming to send more than 100,000 people to settle down.

As long as they can settle down, then reclamation is much simpler.

There is a surplus of grain to settle down and there is no surplus grain to settle down are two different things, and to lay down these places, the Ming Dynasty is not a loss.

As for the reclamation of the South Seas, do you need to face miasma?

There is a great famine in the country, millions of people are dying of hunger, and they can do whatever they want to eat, who will be afraid of miasma?

If you have miasma, it's better to die in more than ten or twenty years than to starve to death now, right?

Therefore, what Zhu Youzhen needs to do is to expand wildly without a brain seven years before the Apocalypse.

As long as the tax system of the Ming Dynasty can keep up, wherever it can be laid, it will be laid.

So after being polite, Zhu Youzhen directly said to the commander of the four cavalry guards who came with him:

"Take the Liaodong sand table and the sand table from all over the country to Jinglue Mansion, and wait for Sun Chuanting and others to determine when they will arrive in Guangning, and notify the generals of Shenyang, Liaoyang, Zhenjiang and other prefectures in advance to come to Guangning to discuss matters."

"The last general obeys!" Hearing Zhu Youzhen's words, the four commanders of the four cavalry guards did so, and Xiong Tingbi, Yuan Yingtai, and Sun Chengzong also knew, and at the moment Zhu Youzhen didn't want to discuss how to fight the battle of Liaodong.

Or rather, he didn't feel the need to discuss.

Because judging from the current situation in Liaodong, anyone can see that the actual amount of nearly 300,000 Ming troops against the actual amount of 100,000 prisoners, and the Ming army still has more than 4,000 artillery pieces of various sizes, so there is no need to worry about how to fight.

Xiong Tingbi led the way to Jingluo Mansion for Zhu Youzhen, while officials and generals followed behind.

While leading the way, Xiong Tingbi did not forget to remind vaguely:

"Your Highness, the old slave knows that the news of martial law in the whole Liao should have been received, and I have calculated that even after the autumn harvest, the grain in the hands of the old slave should not be enough to last until the beginning of spring next year."

"Then start the fight before the autumn harvest, so that he can't harvest the grain in Liaodong." Zhu Youzhen scoffed lightly and said:

"The old slave does not dare to fight our army head-on, judging from his combat style, he should start in advance, encircle the point to send reinforcements, and seek to cut off the roads and grain roads of our army's prefectures and counties."

"I think the same way......" Xiong Tingbi walked into the Jingluo Mansion with Zhu Youzhen, and the men of the four cavalry guards also carried the heavy Liaodong sand table into the hall and retreated the seats.

The sand table was being assembled, and Xiong Tingbi continued:

"Therefore, before the autumn harvest, he will do it, trying to disturb our attention, and then let the Jianyu in Tieling and other places harvest the grain."

"So no matter how the plan changes, it should start before the autumn harvest, not after August as planned."

"Shenyang's soldiers and horses must move first and mobilize the old slave's soldiers and horses, instead of waiting for the old slave to come and mobilize our soldiers and horses."

What Xiong Tingbi said and what Nurhachi wanted to do was actually from the fictional and real chapter of "The Art of War".

In the article "Fiction and Reality", Sun Wu believed that in order to win the war against the enemy, military generals must seize the initiative on the battlefield.

The so-called initiative is to mobilize the enemy without being mobilized by the enemy.

This is also the performance of bringing the art of Qi Zheng and the art of virtual reality into the best state.

Zhu Youzhen has long heard of Nurhachi's combat style of liking to mobilize the Ming army, although he thinks that he is not Nurhachi's opponent on the battlefield at the moment, but this time he specially prepared 300,000 soldiers and horses in order to prevent the Ming army from being mobilized.

With Nurhachi's troops, no matter how they are mobilized, they will always have to station troops and horses in Tieling, Hetuara and other places.

In other words, while defending, he can maneuver the soldiers and horses of the field, which is actually about 60,000 people.

Mobilize 300,000 enemy troops with 60,000, even if the generals of the Ming army are pigs, it is impossible to be completely annihilated because they are mobilized by Nurhachi.

But if a soldier and horse dragged Nurhachi, Nurhachi would have to face the Ming army surging from all directions.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen believes that Nurhachi will definitely not attack like the first battle of Salhu and fight a big roundabout battle.

Liaodong can't be defended, everyone can see it, and Nurhachi must be able to do it too.

If he can't hold it, why does he have to make a defensive stance?

The reason is very simple, combined with his character and the battlefield, the Ming army will be divided into four divisions of soldiers and horses to recover Liaodong.

What Nurhachi wanted to do was to seek an opportunity to eat one of the four soldiers and horses, so as to achieve the strategic goal of cutting off the arms of the Ming army.

As long as this goal is achieved, the result will be acceptable even if all the cities within the Great Wall are lost.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen must prevent this, and the prevention means he has to do are also very simple:

"Four soldiers and horses, there must be enough mobile cavalry, regardless of whether the old slave takes the initiative to attack or not, as long as one of our soldiers and horses can hold him back, a dead end will appear!"

When he said this, the Liaodong sand table was assembled.

In the hall of the Jingluo Mansion, a battlefield sand table with a width of two feet and encompassing the entire Northeast also appeared in front of everyone's eyes.

It is such a sand table that represents all the forces in the entire Northeast.

River valleys, plains, mountain rivers, alpine snow......

These geographical features of the northeast appeared in front of Zhu Youzhen's eyes, and they were also planted in the cities and mountains by various banners representing various forces......

At the same time as seeing this sand table, it seemed that everyone felt that a vivid Liaodong battlefield appeared in front of them, and Zhu Youzhen picked up the wooden sculpture that represented him and placed it in Guangning, and muttered:

"Fuliao...... Prepare for battle! ”