The capital is the central city of this land, and even war cannot affect its prosperity.

Song Xiance took Li Zicheng to walk on the prosperous streets, where people came and went, but because of the war, there were many more beggars in the capital.

On the busy street, there is a grain and oil shop that is particularly popular, with a long queue in front of the door, and the name of the Oriental Trading Company is on the signboard hung up. Song Xiance was familiar with the people here, said hello, and took Li Zicheng to the warehouse at the back of the shop.

Li Zicheng found that this shop was very interesting, the front door sold all kinds of goods, and the back door bought cotton, fur, medicinal materials and other materials, resulting in the goods stacked in the warehouse high, all of which looked dangerous.

"Wooden shopkeeper, this is a few of my friends, come to see your novelty, but they may not buy it." Song Xiance said.

"Hey, where to talk, where to speak, Mr. Song is our distinguished guest, we can open this shop, it all depends on Mr. Song's nod." The shopkeeper is not afraid of trouble at all. And Song Xiance is not afraid of Li Zicheng hearing the compliments of this shopkeeper, although he also shares the profits of the business in this shop, but any measures that can bring food to the capital and stabilize prices will only be supported by Li Zicheng.

Of course, Song Xiance also knew the truth that if you say too much, you will lose, and said: "Wooden shopkeeper, you go and get busy with yours, let's just take a look in the courtyard." You send some hot tea, and then set up a copper pot, and you don't have to worry about the rest, go and take care of your business. ”

The shopkeeper naturally didn't say anything, and hurriedly went to do it, while Song Xiance took Li Zicheng to check the neatly stacked goods in the yard.

Song Xiance first opened a half-human-high wooden barrel with a crowbar, and there was a little fishy and salty smell coming from inside, and there was a layer of oil floating on the contents of it, either yellow or black. And Song Xiance stirred, and took out a piece of meat weighing about three catties from it, and this piece of meat was ruddy all over.

"What is this?" Li Zicheng asked.

"Meat." Song Xiance said with a smile.

Li Zicheng said: "Of course I know it's meat, and I ask what kind of meat it is."

Song Xiance shook his head: "It's hard to say, pork, beef, mutton, horse meat are all possible, in fact, our common livestock meat may be soaked in this salt water." This is the ration of the water master of the Oriental Trading Company, which is salted meat, all kinds of meat, which is marinated in salt water.

It's also the best-selling thing in the capital, but it also depends on luck, if you're lucky, you'll get beef, donkey or even venison, and if you're unlucky, rough mule meat and horse meat are possible. The price is very cheap, and it is very shelf-stable, and people with a little money in the capital will buy it, or even buy more, in case of accidents.

As far as Wei Chen knows, in the past few days, various battalions have also been buying as a supplement to military rations. ”

Salted meat is one of the main military rations of the navy, and when the northern expedition was decided, Li Zhaoji had a large amount of salted meat in the materials he had reserved in advance, but most of these materials were not used.

The reason is very simple, the Eastern Brigade is from the land to the south of the Yangtze River, which saves a large part of the consumption of military rations, and the situations that were considered when stockpiling supplies have not happened in reality.

Bacon was essential for long-distance voyages, but the trading company's fleets would anchor between the north and south during the war. Starting from Guangdong, it will stop at Tamsui, Zhoushan or Songjiang, Yuntai Mountain (Lianyungang), Lushun and then arrive in Liaodi.

Each voyage takes as many as seven or eight days, and as little as three or five days to dock for supplies, although the ship will prepare a lot of salted meat, hard cakes and other shelf-stable materials, but as long as it docks, the captain will replenish the ship with all kinds of fresh food.

After arriving on Juehua Island, the local trade was also very developed, whether it was stationed on Juehua Island or during the battle in Liaodong, you could buy or loot all kinds of fresh materials. The resulting depletion of reserves is minimal.

In fact, these salted meats only provided a batch for the fleet of the British East India Company that came to help the war.

The reason is simple: those sailors are the ocean-going sailors who have crossed the oceans and crossed half the world, and they are accustomed to salted meat, and they do not like to eat fresh meat, not poultry such as chickens and ducks, or pigs and sheep.

When the fleet passed through freshwater, Liu Mingde enthusiastically replenished the fleet with some live poultry and live pigs, but the sailors on board refused to use fresh pork during the northward journey and were whipped.

As a result, the live animals were only used as a meal for officers and senior sailors, and a few pigs survived because the sailors insisted on keeping them as pets, and one of the pigs died on Sado Island because they were too fat.

Of course, the British don't like to eat fresh meat, which is also related to the poor cooking skills of the British ship's cooks. And like the Oriental crew, the British also liked to eat fresh fish.

And the second kind of thing that Song Xiance showed Li Zicheng was dried fish that was collectively hated by sailors from all over the world.

As long as it is sealed, cured meat will not emit a fishy smell, but dried fish is different, it will make the environment on the whole ship worse.

Dried fish, on the other hand, is easier to hold, and can be used in wooden barrels and pockets, which is cheaper than salted meat because trading companies can produce their own products.

The trading company's salted meat comes from two main sources, one is the reserve materials prepared in advance, which are procured from fresh water. Most of them are venison and pork. The other part of the production is in Liaodong.

Li Zhaoji distributed livestock to his family, but all the surplus was slaughtered, salted, and even during the armistice, Li Zhaoji organized several large-scale hunts, which enriched the salted meat barrels with more ingredients - roe deer, yellow sheep, wild boar, and even bears and wolves.

And among the plundered animals, all those who could not be served, whether old or wounded, were slaughtered and turned into salted meat.

Among all the salted meats, Li Zhaoji selected a batch of better quality, mainly corned beef and pork, as reserve materials for fortresses such as Lushun and Jinzhou, and even sent some of them to Sado Island, and the rest were all sold on the spot.

When the stockpiling began last year, because there were not many livestock in the freshwater area, cattle could not be slaughtered, the number of pigs was limited, and the source of deer was unstable, Li Zhaoji could only purchase dried fish on a large scale, which gave birth to the fishing industry in the freshwater area, especially the invention of the drag-plate fishing net, which increased the catch a lot.

From the very beginning, processed fish was the main commodity traded by trading companies with the island's many tribes.

With the beginning of the Northern Expedition, the trading companies concentrated all their ships and hired civilian merchant ships to go north, and during the period of Juehua Island, the Tamsui and Cantonese merchants who came with the ships found that because of the war, the local grain prices were high, but they had no way to meddle in the grain trade in the south of the Yangtze River.

Pulling the goods in his hand, he found that what could compete with Jiangnan grain was dried fish from freshwater.

It is said to be freshwater, but it has little to do with freshwater, so it is more appropriate to call it dried Ryukyu fish.

This is mainly due to the limited preservation capacity at this time, and live fish caught at sea must be disposed of as soon as possible or they will spoil. Therefore, it is only in close proximity to densely populated areas that a large-scale fishing industry is formed.

Obviously, however, the population of a trading company is limited, but fortunately, it is possible to handle all kinds of seafood by pickling.

Therefore, the place where dried fish is abundant must be the salt and fishing grounds.

Under the control of trading companies, only the Ryukyus met this.

When the Oriental Trading Company signed the "Hong Kong Treaty" with the Dutch East India and Du Company, Lee Siu-kee tried to occupy the famous Budai Salt Works in later generations through the exchange of interests. In order to solve the problem of salt used by the population under the rule of the trading company, smuggled from the Ming Dynasty.

However, the Dutch East India and Du Company firmly refused, and the two sides finally agreed to use the Potbelly Kingdom as a buffer zone for both sides, and the Budai Salt Farm was located in the area south of the Potbelly Kingdom.

Although this is a pity, it is also a blessing, if the Dutch side agrees, the trading company will set the salt industry base in Budai, then there will be no current dried fish trade flourishing.

The reason for this is simple: the main salt production of the Budai Salt Works is from March to May every year, and even if the trading company had the consent to occupy the Budai and then clean up the land and build the salt farm, it would definitely not be able to produce salt on a large scale this year.

It wasn't until the trading company attacked Ryukyu that it was discovered that Ryukyu Island had a salt industry foundation, and it was the most populous place in the trading company's sphere of influence, and there was plenty of manpower to dry salt.

Therefore, Li Zhaoji immediately sent people to plan the salt pans and recruited a large number of salt workers in the name of the Ryukyu court. During the rainy season in the Ryukyus, the trading company completed the preparation of the Ryukyu salt works, and when the salt pans were reclaimed and the salt workers were in place, it was just in time.

Under the influence of the subtropical ridge of high pressure in the western Pacific, the Ryukyu salt works produce salt on a large scale during the three sunny and hot months from July to September, and the combination of seafood caught by fishing boats from Guangdong and Tamsui has created a popular dried fish in the north.

Of course, in addition to dried fish and salted meat, there are also some dark dishes that Li Zicheng can't stand here, and the hard dry cakes that can knock his teeth down are naturally needless to say, like salted meat, they are also leftovers that are processed, and they can be eaten when soaked soft. While these bricks, which can almost be seen as made from flour, have all sorts of drawbacks, like bacon, they can be stored almost indefinitely.

The cheapest item in this shop is beef gelatin, which is a nice name, but in fact this food has little to do with beef.

This is made by boiling animal offal, meat and other slaughter scraps with vegetables to make a sticky paste, drying them, and cutting them into small pieces. When you use it, you only need to throw it into the pot and add water to boil, which is a pot of soup stock.

Although the color and flavor have little to do with it, it has to be said that it is a food rich in calories and nutrients.

"You don't like this soup?" Song Xiance asked.

Li Zicheng smiled: "A few years ago, when we were still being chased by those Ming officials and running for our lives, we ate all the bark of grass roots, and even boiled the bow and ate the glue inside. But who knows, I've only been the emperor for less than a year, and I can't eat these things. ”

"Actually, a lot of people can't eat it." Song Xiance said.

This shop actually serves the middle class in the capital, and although salted meat and dried fish are cheap, they are not something that ordinary people can enjoy. And these people don't come to buy dark dishes like beef gelatin.

Song Xiance also said: "The beef gum here sells the least, and they are ready to deal with it at a low price, and Wechen has already arranged for everyone in Shuntianfu to buy it and send it to the porridge factory for the refugees to eat."

"Well, the military advisor is very thoughtful. I can also see that the Oriental Trading Company is very powerful, and it can do a lot of work to deal with the famine in Kannai. Li Zicheng nodded slightly.

Whether it is salted meat or dried fish, it is a high-calorie food, and if it is purchased as military rations, a lot of food can be saved. And this food can be used to give relief to the victims. Song Xiance said: "Moreover, Li Zhaoji still has channels for smuggling grain from the DPRK, Xian and Wa countries.

Although the amount is not very large, it is also commendable. It is said that there is also rice from the South Seas, which is very cheap, but it is not the season and the distance is too far to reach. ”

Li Zicheng nodded slowly: "This is already very good." The most important thing is to make him promise not to intercept grain ships from Jiangnan. ”