Sugarcane was already very popular during the Song Dynasty, and was cultivated in both the southern and coastal provinces, and the Southern Song Dynasty even set up a special management agency for sugar production. The Diaoyu City of Zizhou, which Kublai Khan's elder brother Meng Ke had not conquered during his lifetime, was an important sugar producer in the Southern Song Dynasty and the place where Monk Zou, the inventor of rock sugar, became a monk.

At the same time, sugarcane was also commonly cultivated in the Indochina Peninsula and various parts of the South Seas such as Chenla, Champong, Sriwijaya and Sujdan, and in the 8th to 10th centuries, sugarcane was cultivated throughout Iraq, Egypt, Sicily, the Iberian Peninsula and other places.

After Kublai Khan's demise of the Southern Song Dynasty, he set up the post of "She'er Bechi" to ensure the supply of cane sugar to the court and manage the production of "She'erbe" (syrup). Kublai Khan also retained the sugar bureau of the Southern Song Dynasty and appointed a wealthy Muslim merchant as the head, with the result that the price of sugar rose more than ten times higher than that of the Song Dynasty.

In 1331 AD, the rule of the Yuan dynasty was in trouble. The kings of Yunnan, Ou Jian, established themselves as the kings of Yunnan, and the Yi people in the area of Daliang Mountain also rose up. Faced with this situation, in addition to sending people from all walks of life to suppress it, the Sichuan side of the Yuan Dynasty also specially ordered the Xuzhou garrison to rob the Yi people's sugarcane, and ordered 290 rock sugar households in Chengdu to garrison Xuzhou (now Yibin, Sichuan).

It can be seen that the Yuan Dynasty attached great importance to sugarcane at that time.

After entering the early Ming Dynasty, the main sugar producing areas of the Ming Dynasty were in Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, which have convenient transportation in Fujian, as well as the Pearl River Delta region in Guangdong, which was claimed to occupy nine-tenths of the world's sugar production at that time.

It was only after the Qing Dynasty that important sugar-producing areas were developed in Sichuan and Yunnan.

In fact, Liangguang and Fujian are also the most suitable places to grow sugarcane.

At this time, Zhu Gaoxu called out Shen Ji, Shen Ji said, their newly established sugar bureau in the Han Dynasty, will send people to the place where Sanwei is located, demarcate land to plant sugarcane, and provide technical support throughout the process, the technology they use is the technology in the "Agricultural Mulberry Compendium" compiled in the Yuan Dynasty, plus the charcoal clarification cane juice method recorded in Mengxi's pen talk, which can be said to be the most advanced technology now.

The difficulty of growing sugarcane to make grain is to clarify the cane juice, which was clarified in dense baskets and cloth bags in the Yuan Dynasty, but this form of filtration can only take out the larger fibers and rods of the mortar pestle type at most, but it is impossible to remove the albumin and resin that can only be burned during the boiling process.

Shen Ji's ancestors also thought of the wood charcoal clarification method, which was invented by Egyptian craftsmen after the 14th century.

After Shen Ji finished speaking, Sango's commander Chen Wen, Wei Da, and Li Xian expressed their full support, because everyone knew that sugar would be second only to salt as a necessity and one of the most profitable businesses.

With 5,600 guards and more than 10,000 family members, Zhu Gaoxu asked 2,000 households to farm and 3,000 households to make sugar, and vigorously develop cash crops.

However, the first thing he ensured was grain production, not to mention that the regular army was fully trained, and his family members and spare soldiers were responsible for farming and sugar production.

He has a million acres of prince's land, and in addition to the military tun, there are also a large number of tenants.

Sanwei occupies about 150,000 mu, another 850,000 mu, some of which are near Kunming, which are considered good grain fields, and some of which are in Chuxiong and Qujing, but about half of them are simply Zhu Di's empty checks, and he wants his escort team to reclaim them by himself.

Zhu Gaoxu discussed a lot of deliberations that day, mainly on the training of the regular army, which will be gradually promoted in a graded and gradual manner, in a queue style, in a full-day manner, with one day off every seven days.

As in Beiping, the tenants will divide the Yongye fields to the households and raise them for military purposes.

But now he could not openly recruit troops, and in the name of planting sugar cane, he recruited 10,000 strong men from among the tenants, and conducted relevant training in his spare time for sugar cane planting.

In order to prevent people from spying, according to the topography of Yunnan, Zhu Gaoxu, at the suggestion of civil officials, selected Xinping County, Guangnan Prefecture, and Yunzhou.

These three places are a little far away from Kunming, and there are mostly mountainous areas around, and there are plains in the middle.

Zhu Gaoxu will recruit more than 10,000 tenant households, and transfer the best of the tenants to these three places to plant sugarcane, and in each of these places, there will be 1,000 households with three guards to follow.

When Chen Wen heard this, he asked, didn't Zheng Xiang say that the three guards were going to move to Tengchong and other places?

Zhu Gaoxu said: "Regardless of him, Zheng Xiang still dares to go to the guard to count the heads?" For every thousand of your guards, he will not know. ”

There are more than 5,000 households in each of the three guards, and each guard is less than 1,000 households, which is basically impossible to see, unless Zheng Xiang sends someone into the guard to count the heads.

Zheng Xiang definitely couldn't do that.

In fact, they came from Beijing in several batches, and there were already three guards in front of them, and they arrived in Yunzhou and other places, so Zhu Gaoxu didn't care about Zhu Di's orders at all, who said that if you let me move to Tengchong, I must move them all?

After the meeting, after the generals left, the civil officials were specially left behind.

In addition to the responsibilities of the Prince's Mansion, Qian Xun is also the head of the newly established Commercial Bureau, and all the property of the Prince's Mansion is under his overall planning.

He reported to Zhu Gaochu that there were now more than 2.3 million taels of silver, more than 600,000 copper coins, 1.4 million yuan in banknotes, and a number of other belongings, and handed over a list to Zhu Gaoxu.

This was the war money that Zhu Gaoxu made during the years of Jingnan, and they took advantage of the war to buy low and sell high, hoarded Juqi, and made a lot of money.

Zhu Gaoxu said that in the future, the Han Wangfu will mainly be engaged in sugar and salt, and will also find ways to control strategic materials such as iron ore.

Zhu Gaoxu asked Qian Chang and Zhong Xian to be in charge of the division of the tenants' fields, Qian Xun cooperated with Dian Shengda to be responsible for the establishment of the herd husbandry bureau and horse breeding, and Li Mo wanted to send people to search for new minerals, Yunnan has many mines, and there is no shortage of coal and iron mines.

Of course, if you can control Yiliangsu, there will be iron ore and coal in it, which will be a good start.

Everyone calculated together, it sounds like Zhu Gaoxu is very rich now, but money is needed everywhere, and after the initial calculation, the investment in all aspects may add up to 500,000 taels of silver in the first year.

Similar to before, in the end, Zhu Gaoxu chatted with everyone individually.

When it was Dian Sheng's turn, Dian Sheng was a little excited: "King, -—— in March"

King Yan entered Nanjing in June last year, and after entering Nanjing, Zhu Gaoxu immediately sent people back to Beiping to let Dian Sheng come to Yunnan.

Because he knew based on historical experience that King Yan might let him go to Yunnan to become a vassal.

Dian Sheng took people to Yunnan around September last year, and then bought a house near the home of Hou Musheng in Xiping.

There are three doors in Xipinghou's house, and Dian Sheng arranges people to monitor them in the direction of the three gates.

On the eighth day of October last year, a man wearing a hat entered Xipinghou's house through the back door.

Xiping Hou has a lot of people in and out of the house every day, but rarely see Dai Li, Dian Sheng immediately paid attention to it, and personally waited to follow, after this person came out, went straight to the inn, Dian Sheng also chased to the inn, at that time I found that there were several people in the inn, one of them was like a eunuch, and several people were like guards, and the people in the room had not come out.

"Little Emperor?" Zhu Gaoxu's first thought when he heard the news was the little emperor.

Calculating the time, the Jingshi was broken in June, and it is also possible for the little emperor to go to Yunnan in October.

But Zhu Gaoxu didn't let Dian Sheng check the emperor at that time, and only let him monitor him, so Dian Sheng didn't know, the key was that Dian Sheng didn't know either.

"Is the one who wears the hat taller and stronger, a bit like me and Ping'an?"

What the king of the Dian Sheng Dao said is exactly.

"Hahaha, that's what a lot." Zhu Gaoxu said excitedly, this is really an unexpected surprise.

After Zhu Di ascended the throne, there was a left governor of the Imperial History of the Imperial Inspectorate in the court, and Chen Ying, who was known as the cool history, reported He Fu many times.

said that He Fu's younger brother He Lu was missing, and the whole family was gone, and he suspected of fleeing, but in fact, he suspected of escorting Emperor Jianwen away.

Zhu Di didn't think so on the surface, because on the surface, Emperor Jianwen had been burned to death, and he didn't pursue He Fu (not for the time being, not for the time being, a few years later, Chen Ying reported impeachment again, and He Fu was forced to commit suicide. ）

According to Zhu Gaoxu's understanding, usually this kind of report is Zhu Di's acquiescence, so He Fu is also interested, like Ping An and others in history, someone is impeached, that is, Zhu Di wants their lives, it is better to commit suicide.

This matter, when leaving Beijing, Zhu Di also told Zhu Gaoxu and asked him to come to Yunnan to investigate.

Zhu Gaoxu thought at the time, I checked your sister's, and I won't tell you if I find it.

disappeared with He Lu, He Lu's wife Qi, and He Lu's sons Kui 2 and Kui 5 and He Fu's youngest son Kui 6 disappeared at the same time, so it can be said that He Lu's whole family disappeared together.

"Where are they now?"

"At the foot of a mountain in Fumin County." The ceremony was done well, followed them, and saw that they fell at the foot of a small county in Fumin County (northwest of Kunming).

"Okay, okay, you're doing a good job." Zhu Gaoxu was overjoyed, this is the advantage of the traverser, if nothing else, Emperor Jianwen may be among them.

After hurriedly explaining, Zhu Gaoxu immediately changed his clothes and went out, taking Zhou Hu, Yang He and a team of personal soldiers, as well as Dian Sheng.

In the afternoon, more than 30 horsemen rushed out of Kunming and headed to the northwest.

About an hour later, everyone came to Fumin County, Dian Sheng took Zhu Gaoxu and them to a newly opened rice shop, and the people inside quickly came out to meet Zhu Gaoxu.

This person's name is Dian Yong, he is Dian Sheng's nephew, and he opened a rice shop in Fumin County, selling rice for a living, and serving as a cover.

Dian Yong led the team, and everyone went out of the city from the north and entered the mountains.

Zhu Gaoxu came all the way today, and found that there are mountains everywhere, the terrain of Yunnan is indeed not very good, and the Ming army conquered here after decades of war, which is indeed not easy.

After running north for about five miles, Dian Yong signaled that he wanted to dismount and couldn't run anymore.

"They live at the foot of the mountain, and there are two dwelling places, the first of which is less than two miles from us, and is on a high place, and if a large caravan of horses passes by, it will be discovered."

"Then they'll alert a second place to live."

"We'll have to get around quietly and carefully."

Zhu Gaoxu looked left and right, they were indeed a bit of a many, and they were also very conspicuous, the other party was prepared, and they lived in two places, and the first residence was still in a high place.

"Let's go, let's see the situation first, if you can't control the people in the first place first."

Zhu Gaoxu left five people to look at the horses, and the rest quietly touched forward.

Sure enough, I soon saw a hillside with a hut on it, and I could see the road below.

They jumped into the grass by the side of the road and slowly touched the grass along it.

When he touched the neighborhood, Zhu Gaoxu carefully stretched out his head, and saw that there were several acres of land on the other side of the hillside, and a man about twenty years old was plowing, and his movements were not skilled.

(End of chapter)