"Calculate all the salt, tea, wine and coal in the imperial store, I think you are idle, and you have accumulated so many books!"

In the palace of King Qi, when Cao Huachun was sitting in the side hall and sipping tea with a cup of tea, in front of him were hundreds of eunuchs who were in charge of chickens, flying dogs, and jumping.

Behind these eunuchs were hundreds of palace scribes who were knocking on the plan, and the sound of dialing the planner was constantly echoing in the hall, which was more lively than the household department.

Wang Chengen was not here, he was in another side hall next to the side hall, dealing with matters related to officialdom, fertilizer farms, feed farms and cement yards.

As for the Tianfu, Huangdian, Salt Farm, Wine Field, Tea Field, Textile Factory, Granary, and Shipyard of the Imperial Horse Supervisor, these things that were originally shared by Zhu Youzhen and Wang Chengen were all brought together to deal with him alone.

Although these things are complicated, Cao Huachun handles them in an orderly manner.

It is now the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, fifteen days have passed since the Zhengdan Festival, and this day is also the only day in the whole year that there is no curfew.

Cao Huachun heard that Zhu Youzhen was going out in the evening, so he was busy calculating the estimated income of the Imperial Horse Supervisor before dusk.

From New Year's Day to Lantern Festival, under his urging, many of the directors of the Imperial Horse Supervisor finally calculated the estimated income of the Imperial Horse Supervisor before dusk.

After getting the summary, he went to find Wang Chengen non-stop, and rushed to the palace of the palace with two summaries with Wang Chengen.

The two of them ran in the large-scale and majestic palace of the King of Qi, with the tall city walls and four city gates in the background.

These towers are covered with cyan glazed tiles, and the gates are decorated with red lacquer gold and copper nails, which seem to be the epitome of the Forbidden City of Yingtianfu in Nanjing, the imperial capital.

Passing by the palace, basically all the same color are the arches and roofs, in the painting of the cockroach, decorated with gold edges, painting eight auspicious flowers.

The seat in the hall is made of red lacquer gold cockroach, the red pin gold cockroach is used for hanging the account, and the back wall of the seat is painted with a cocktail and colored clouds.

The main gate, the front and rear halls, and the four-gate city tower are decorated with green and gold. The palace gate and the city gate tower are covered with cyan glazed tiles.

There are 800 palace rooms in the house, and the corridor is decorated with green daisy.

Busy with the two of them, there were also the scribes, soldiers, and maidservants in the inner court.

After all, it is the annual Lantern Festival, and according to tradition, on this day, the whole world celebrates the festival, and everyone will put up lanterns and light up lanterns to celebrate.

It's not just the streets that are lit up, it's the homes of princes and nobles, and the pawns of the peddlers who are also hung with some decorative lanterns.

Yang Yuan ordered people to buy more than 30,000 lanterns, all different, and hung them in the palace.

In front of the square of the temple of the heart, the maidservants used ropes and sticks to prop up hundreds of hanging ropes, and then hung lanterns one by one.

The inner court was very busy, Cao Huachun and Wang Chengen could only speed up their pace and quickly entered the Cunxin Hall with the song.

"His Royal Highness Chitose ......"

"Get up."

The hall was crowded with people, busy people inside and out, and Zhu Youzhen raised his hands and let some maidservants change into a festive red round-necked robe for him.

The hair was combed, the golden crown was hosta, and the round-necked robe was finally put on, and a jade belt worth a thousand gold was stepped on again.

When he arrived here, Zhu Youzhen turned to look at the two, and the two also stepped forward and handed over the summary booklet:

"Your Highness, this is the estimated income of this year's officialdom."

"Fifteen days after the beginning of the year, I estimated it, but I worked hard for you."

Zhu Youzhen's face was absent for a long time, and finally a smile appeared.

The return of Cao Huachun and Zhu Youxiao's sharing of these arrangements reduced Zhu Youzhen's workload by two-fifths.

Especially with the return of Cao Huachun, after he arrived at the Qi Palace, the number of pieces that Zhu Youzhen handled every day dropped directly to more than 500.

At his speed, it only takes about four and a half hours to process these more than five hundred notes, and the remaining seven and a half hours can be used for sleep and rest.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen, who has been tired for several years, has also regained some vitality a little, and there are more and more smiles on his face.

He opened the summary and glanced at it roughly.

In general, the damage of the disaster to the north has been difficult to improve.

Although there has been no rain in some places in Huguang, Sichuan, and Nanzhili since the Zhengdan Festival, at most even if it is a small drought, with local water conservancy and rivers, it is enough to resist.

As for the intensity of the drought in the north, it has also decreased compared to last year, with at least one rain in Hanzhong, Xi'an, and Fengxiang in Shaanxi, and Taiyuan Fu in Shanxi.

Although it did not rain in Beizhili, the water level of some rivers began to rise slightly.

Overall, although the beginning of the ninth year of the Apocalypse was bad, it was much better than the eighth year of the Apocalypse.

The summary of the Imperial Horse Supervisor also said that as long as this year's drought is not as serious as last year's, there is a high probability that the Imperial Horse Supervisor's field endowment will be able to collect about 38 million stones.

As for the tax silver of the imperial store and the various fields, it is estimated that about 13 million taels can be handed over.

"This year should be better than last year, but the drought will not stop, let Sun Chuanting continue to patrol the world, and Mr. Ke be careful about epidemic prevention."

Closing the summary, Zhu Youzhen handed the song back, Wang Chengen took the initiative to take it, and Cao Huachun replied:

"On the side of the household department, Bi Shangshu has already sent a summary, although the estimate is not as good as the imperial horse supervisor, but this year, the household department should be able to earn 20 million stones, and more than 15 million taels of tax silver."

"Almost, this year should be able to earn 58 million stones, 28 million taels of tax silver, more than 9 million stones, more than 3 million taels more than last year."

"According to previous years, the tax and silver are basically enough for the expenses of the imperial court, and 58 million stone rice and wheat can be saved for emergencies."

"But ......" Cao Huachun paused at this point, and then continued:

"However, this year, there are subsidies for 160,000 soldiers and horses, so the Governor's Office of the Five Armies has to spend more than 2.46 million taels of silver, and the tax and silver are still less than 1 million taels before they don't need to sell rice and wheat."

Cao Huachun's words made Zhu Youzhen nod with satisfaction, these news made him more happy, with a smile on his face all the time, and he had some young vitality.

"There's still a balance over there, right?"

"Raiding the house before and after, recovering the stolen goods, plus the gold, silver and copper ingots transported from Yingzhou and the old port, there is about 34 million taels of silver." Cao Huachun replied honestly, while Zhu Youzhen nodded when he heard this, but said:

"The gold, silver and copper ingots of Yingzhou and Hubu can't be moved, how many interceptions are left after they go?"

"Roughly about fifteen million taels ......" Cao Huachun replied, but he was worried that Zhu Youzhen would be unhappy, so he deliberately explained:

"On the eve of the New Year's Day, after Cui Chengxiu and others raided their homes, the balance of state funds was more than 47 million taels, but the household department first issued more than 3 million taels of road repair fees to 11 provinces in Beijing, and then sent 700,000 taels of silver to other prefectures and counties that had been affected by disasters."

"The second is to allocate nine million taels of silver to the Imperial Horse Supervisor to acquire mines in a province of Shanxi."

"Nine million taels of silver......" Hearing this silver, Zhu Youzhen sneered.

Cao Huachun knew very well why Zhu Youzhen would sneer, to put it bluntly, the value of the mine in the hands of the Shanxi gentry may be as high as tens of thousands of taels of silver.

The reason why the imperial court spent nine million taels of silver to buy it was because this group of gentry and local officials in Shanxi only reported the value of nine million taels of silver.

Nine million taels worth of mines, the normal annual output is worth more than one million taels, according to the Ming tax, they only need to pay 100,000 taels of silver every year.

In reality, however, their annual output was as high as millions of taels of silver, and even if they normally paid about ten to one taels of silver according to miscellaneous and regular taxes, they would have to pay four or five hundred thousand taels of silver.

This is only the real mining tax of Shanxi Province, and Shanxi's mining tax accounts for one-seventh of the Ming mining tax, that is to say, if the Ming gentry and heroes pay the tax honestly, the mining tax alone can contribute more than 3 million taels of silver to the Ming Dynasty.

However, they were not honest, and the total value of the mines reported to the Ming Dynasty was only more than 70 million taels, and they only paid more than 400,000 gold, silver, copper and iron ore taxes every year.

Now it's okay, if they are not honest, then Zhu Youzhen will pretend to be stupid, and the court will pretend to be stupid.

Didn't they declare a total value of more than 40 million taels in mining taxes? Then the imperial court will collect the ore according to this value.

The first one to open the knife was Shanxi, and then there were five places: Nanzhili, Shandong, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong.

When all the mines worth tens of thousands of taels of silver are obtained, the imperial court can produce tens of millions of taels of silver and millions of taels of gold every year, as well as tens of millions of copper.

Zhu Youjian is not ready to collect all the iron mines, but is still ready to leave some to the private sector to avoid the dominance of state-owned mines.

Therefore, after hearing that there were still fifteen million taels of silver in the state treasury, Zhu Youzhen first ordered:

"Coal mines, iron mines, some honest mine owners can still let them go if they are willing to accept the regular taxes after the imperial court exploration."

"The main thing is gold, silver and copper." Zhu Youzhen said, walked to the main seat of the main hall and sat down, and Wang Chengen and Cao Huachun also followed.

Zhu Youzhen picked up the teacup and took a sip, and then continued:

"Since there are still fifteen million taels of national funds, let's find the silver first, and the grain will be stored in the granary of the Imperial Horse Supervisor and the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies.

"Yes......" The two bowed down, and Zhu Youzhen also asked: "How is Jin Xuan, Changjiao, and Dingjiao?" ”

"Three days ago, the 300,000 Menghuo oil allocated by the Ordnance Bureau, under the guard of the three battalions of soldiers and horses of the Eastern Military Governor's Mansion, set off from Tianjin Port to Yingzhou Nandao Mansion." Cao Huachun replied:

"In addition, Yang Bu and Wu Bu also took their own boats to Yingzhou, and it is expected that Jin Xuan and them will arrive in mid-February, and the two political envoys should arrive in early March."

"Hmm......" Zhu Youzhen nodded slightly, but Wang Chengen opened his mouth to remind:

"Your Highness, the news from the old port that Director Xu has arrived in Zhongshan Mansion, and only more than 300 of the 600 large horses brought by merchants from various countries have survived, and most of the thousands of big white pigs and hundreds of beef cattle have also died of illness."

"Fairly normal wear and tear." Zhu Youzhen was quite satisfied, and asked, "When will they arrive in the capital?" ”

"Director Xu has already taken all kinds of livestock north, and he will arrive at Tianjin Port in late April." Wang Chengen replied honestly.

Zhu Youzhen stood up when he heard this, and ordered:

"After arriving in Guangdong, all sick livestock were brought ashore and cultivated by officialdom."

"Your Highness, rest assured, the slave and maid know ......," Wang Chengen replied.

"Your Highness!"

After finally chatting about some things, Lu Wenzhao's voice sounded, and there were several faces behind him that he hadn't seen for a long time.

"See Your Highness......"

followed Lu Wenzhao to Zhu Youzhen, and Shen Lian, Lu Xian, and Lu Xiu saluted.

"Get up, don't be obsessed with etiquette." Seeing the return of the three of them, Zhu Youzhen smiled and helped them up one by one, and Lu Wenzhao also smiled and presented a map with both hands:

"Your Highness, this is the map of Myanmar that the three of them have surveyed over the years, as well as the strength of Donghu, and the lowly duty has already asked the craftsmen to make a sand table according to the map."

"Good!" Hearing Lu Wenzhao's words, Zhu Youzhen was indescribably happy, and could only say to the three of them:

"The merits of the three of you are here, and the court will not forget them." As he spoke, he turned his head to look at Cao Huachun:

"Brother Shang, give the three of them the three of them to be the captain of the light car!"

"The slave maid takes the order...... Cao Huachun also returned the salute with a smile, while Zhu Youzhen sat back in his position with the map and looked at it carefully.

The area of Donghu is equivalent to the area of Yunnan and Guizhou in the Ming Dynasty, the overall terrain is high in the north and low in the south, surrounded by mountains in the north, west and east, high mountains in the north, hills and mountains in the west, and plateaus in the east.

The areas close to the border of the Ming Dynasty are all plateau areas, but as long as the Ming army has an advantage, it is condescending.

Sending troops from Tengyue Baguan can enter the alluvial plain of the Great Jinsha River (Yinrawaddy River) in a very short time as long as they defeat the Burmese army, which is also one of the four major plains of the Indochina Peninsula.

Take here, and then encircle and suppress the rebels in other places, and Donghu can go down in an instant.

After looking at the topography, Zhu Youzhen took a look at the internal affairs and situation of Donghu.

It has to be said that although Myanmar acquired the two territories of Mengyang and Mubang in the Ming-Burma War with the Ming Dynasty, because the Burmese people were unable to annex and assimilate the ethnic groups in various places, Donghu was passively consumed in the Ming-Burma War.

Since the twenty-third year of Wanli, Taungoo has lost its glory and can only protect itself in the capital, and Bey, Awa, Chiang Mai and other places have declared their independence one after another, and all parts of Burma have once again fallen into a state of warlord secession.

In the twenty-sixth year of Wanli, Nanzhang also broke away from the rule of Donghu, and at the same time, the king of Siam, Na Li Xuan, together with the Marquis of Donghu and the Arakan Dynasty, attacked Donghu, and the king of Donghu, Mang Yingli, was killed.

Later, Mang Yinglong's youngest son, King Liangyuan, occupied the "granary" area centered on Ava and kept half of the rivers and mountains in Upper Burma.

After his death, Anabilon, who succeeded him to the throne, regained all the lost territory of Lower Burma, especially in the 11th year of Wanli, recovering Saleem, which had been occupied by the Portuguese, thus completing the unification of Burma once again.

Originally, the opponent of the Ming army would be Anabillon, but on the eve of their return, Anabilon died of illness, and it is Talon who inherits his throne now.

If Zhu Youzhen is not mistaken, this Ta Long's ability is not bad, and historically he gave up foreign wars to devote himself to restoring the domestic economy of Donghu and distributing land to landless peasants.

"Gotta do it......"

Thinking of what King Ta Long did, Zhu Youzhen immediately realized that the Ming army had to do it immediately.

As the formulator of the Ming army's strategy in all directions, Zhu Youzhen knew very well what the Ming army's magic weapon was for expanding its territory and stabilizing the situation.

To put it bluntly, it is to destroy the aristocracy and merchant class who control ninety percent of the resources of the place, and then take out one-third or even half of the seized land and distribute it to the exploited civilians in the place, so that the commoners in the place can support the Ming Dynasty.

This policy, whether it is to the north or the south, or Yingzhou at the moment, is a magic weapon to win.

However, at present, there is a person who is willing to take action against the aristocratic forces and divide the land to the peasants.

That is to say, if he succeeds in dividing the land, the Ming army will lose a magic weapon to win, and on the contrary, the Donghu civilians who were divided by King Ta Long will also have to fight with the Ming army in order to protect their land.

Zhu Youzhen didn't care about the life or death of the Donghu people, but he needed the Donghu people as a labor force.

Whether it is the jade, gold, silver and copper mines in Myanmar, or the cement, pig iron and labor required by the Ming Dynasty to build the "Beijing-Burma Railway", the labor force is ......

All of these things need to be done, and what Zhu Youzhen has to do is to reproduce "Pingwei Matters" and have a "Pingming and Burma Matters".

Laying Donghu, Daming has an outlet to the Indian Ocean, and here, Daming's first railway must be started.

The fourth version of the steam engine has not yet been developed, but this is not a problem, because sooner or later it will come out, and the construction of the "Beijing-Burma Railway" will take a long time.

From the capital, it passes through Henan, Huguang, Sichuan, and Yunnan, and arrives at Bago and Yangon in southern Myanmar.

In other words, after the construction arrived in Ava, it went directly to the Ahom Kingdom, pacified the Ahommu Kingdom, and pushed the Ming border to the mouth of the Ganges River.

"The Governor's Mansion of the Western Army and the Governor's Mansion of the Southern Army, after the transfer of troops, how many soldiers and horses are there in the southwest?"

Zhu Youzhen looked up at Lu Wenzhao, and when Lu Wenzhao heard this, he hurriedly took out a portable document book from his arms, rummaged through it and said:

"In the governor's palace, there are a total of sixty-two battalions of soldiers and horses, nearly 190,000 people."

"Has Hong Chengchou returned to Kunming?" Zhu Youzhen asked again, and Lu Wenzhao nodded directly this time:

"I returned to Kunming, and stationed 12 battalions in Jiaozhi, supervising 15 prefectures and 182 counties."

After the establishment of Jiaozhi Province, Zhu Youxiao placed the political envoy in Jiaozhou Mansion, and the whole province set up a total of 15 prefectures and 120 counties such as Jiaozhou Prefecture, Beijiang Prefecture, Jianchang Prefecture and Qinghua Prefecture in accordance with the planning of the Yongle period.

The remaining 30 prefectures of the Yongle period were abolished, because fifteen prefectures were enough to administer Jiaozhi.

After the transfer of troops and the war, the Southern Army, which originally had only 48 battalions, transferred 12 battalions to Xiaoxiyang, 10 battalions to Jiugang, 12 battalions to Jiaozhi, and the remaining 14 battalions to Huguang, Guangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, and Jiangxi provinces.

In general, if it is necessary to transfer, the Southern Military Governor's Office can also draw nine battalions of troops.

As for the Governor's Mansion of the Western Army, there were only fifty-six battalions after the battle, and another twenty battalions were transferred to support the small Western Ocean.

Therefore, at present, there are only 36 battalions in the Governor's Mansion of the Western Army, which needs to undertake the defense of the western Sichuan region after taking over from the Mu clan, as well as the defense of Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan.

However, in terms of the situation, Wusizang is still in civil strife at the moment, Duogan has Cao Wenzhao's 12 battalions of soldiers and horses, and the Tusi of Yunnan, Guichuan and Sichuan have been resolved, Nanzhang is attached, and Jiaozhi is pacified.

Therefore, it is enough for the Western Military Governor's Office to defend the places bordering Wusizang and Donghu with Daming.

"The Southern Army Governor's Office transferred nine battalions of soldiers and horses to Tengyue Eight Passes, Cao Wenzhao was ready to take over the Qamdo area, and after the Western Army Governor's Office handed over the city defense, except for Sichuan and Guizhou, three battalions of soldiers and horses were left behind, and the remaining thirty battalions of soldiers and horses were all transferred to Tengyue Eight Passes."

"These thirty-nine battalions of soldiers and horses, all of them belong to Hong Chengchou's control, long live, please long live Hong Chengchou's Ping-Burma Economic Strategy, and the household department will transfer five million taels of silver to the Ping-Burma Economic Strategy Mansion, and Hong Chengchou will prepare for Ping-Burma affairs from now on."

After a simple calculation, Zhu Youzhen finally decided to attack Myanmar, seeking to restore the Ming Dynasty's three propaganda and six comforts in the Yongle period, and to win the Indian Ocean outlet for the Ming Dynasty.

"Your Highness, there are still some Tusi in eastern Tibet in Qamdo in the east of Wusi Tibet, and there are still some Tusi in eastern Tibet who have a heart of disobedience, and it is a little ...... just relying on Cao Wenzhao's twelve sweet camps?"

When Lu Wenzhao heard this, he couldn't help but open his mouth to persuade, and Zhu You frowned slightly after listening, and raised his hand and said:

"Let Qin Bangping pack up the toast in eastern Tibet for me before leading the troops to western Yunnan."

"Under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, it is not allowed to have a system that is completely different from the Ming Dynasty, and it is not allowed to have ordinary people being forced into slavery!"

"Yes!" Lu Wenzhao responded, and when Cao Huachun heard this, he gave up his hands:

"Your Royal Highness, the slave maid has seen the military files of the imperial court against Luchuan and Donghu during the Wanli period and the orthodox period......"

The file eucalyptus all mentions the rugged area of the Yunnan Plateau, the river is rushing, the traffic conditions are very bad, and the Marquis of Zhongyi Jingyuan once wrote down that "the transfer of rice, the price of stone to a thousand gold, and the pain of transporting copper to the mainland, and there are those who cannot bear to speak, so that "the wife of the gangster, the counties and towns do not support". ”

"In order to raise food and grass for the army, Dali, Heqing, Menghua, Yao'an, and Chuxiong are five places, and there are no villages left in Yi, and they send families to flee and migrate without dying."

"When fighting with Donghu, even if Chen Yongbin was in Longchuan, Mengmao and other places, the local miasma was evil, and the tun people could not plow, and the soldiers in the west were all in the west, and the Migong currency was the same, and Yunnan was wasted since then."

"Therefore, the slave maid thought that the road had to be opened first, and the grain was transported to Tengyue Baguan, and at least enough food for the army to eat for a year."

Cao Huachun's examples are Wang Ji, the Marquis of Jingyuan, the farthest orthodox period of the Han dynasty to the southwest land, and Chen Yongbin, who was framed.

Not to mention that even in the future, before the 21 st century, it would be very difficult to transport grain across the Hengduan Mountains and to the areas around Jiangxinpo, Mangshi, and Tengchong.

Therefore, if you want to fight Donghu, you must first ensure the food problem of the army.

Road construction is imminent, and on the point of how to build roads, Zhu Youjian has been laying out for three years.

"What is the current output of the cement yard in Yunnan?" Zhu Youzhen opened his mouth to ask, and Wang Chengen said when he heard this:

"With an annual output of 7 million stones, with the standard of "Beijing-Tianjin Mansion Road", it is not a problem to build a Kunming direct road to Longchuan, and there is even a surplus. ”

Wang Chengen's words made Zhu Youzhen a little satisfied, and he ordered again:

"The household department will allocate another 1 million taels of silver, and the Ordnance Bureau will allocate 30,000 catties of mercury thunderate and 500,000 catties of black powder."

"Tell the Ministry of Industry that if you encounter mountains and bomb mountains, build bridges when you encounter water, even if there is an abyss ahead, you must make a way for Lonely."

"After the spring of next year, I want military food to arrive in Longchuan from Kunming unimpeded!"