After more than a month of busyness, Kaiyuan's conscription work was finally completed.

These days, Zhang Wenshan, the governor of Kaiyuan, and Li Sanshun, the general of Tieling, can be said to have traveled all over Kaiyuan, Tieling, Shenyang, and Qinghe.

I thought that it would be very difficult to recruit soldiers, after all, there were many bloody battles with Jianlu, and the casualties of the Ming army were very large, and it was a very dangerous thing to enter the border army at this time.

But I didn't expect it to be surprisingly smooth, not only did I quickly complete the recruitment of more than 9,000 soldiers, but I could even pick people.

This made Li Xianzhong feel very strange, this matter was too abnormal.

Although since the Liaodong War in March, the imperial court began to pay Liaodong on time, and no longer owed salaries.

But there must be other reasons why so many people are willing to join the army.

In the end, it was found that skyrocketing prices were the culprit, especially food.

During the Wanli period, the price of grain in the Ming Dynasty was actually not high, and one tael of silver in the south could buy 2 stone of rice.

On the whole, the price of grain in the north is higher than that in the south, and the rice in Beijing is currently 6 yuan per stone. Originally, the corn in the Liaodong region was about 6 to 7 yuan per stone, which was significantly higher than that of the Jingshi, but it could barely bear it.

Before the war in March, the price of grain in Liaodong rose to 8 yuan, but now it has risen to 1 tael of silver and 1 stone.

You know, this is the price of corn, which is usually a third or more cheaper than rice.

This makes it impossible for ordinary people to afford such high food prices.

In a normal year, they could still be self-sufficient by farming, but since last year's raid on the Qinghe River in Fushun, a large number of fields have been barren and people have been displaced.

Kaiyuan Tieling two roads are okay, although the battle is fierce, but after all, the Tartars are blocked from the side wall.

But Fushun, which is under the jurisdiction of Shenyang Road, and the entire Qinghe Road have become the hardest hit areas.

In some areas, because the people could not afford the price of grain, they even took the initiative to defect to Jianyu.

Joining the army has become a good choice, not only can you eat military rations, but now the military salary is also paid on time, which can subsidize your family.

Behind this enthusiastic participation in the army, a terrible reality is reflected, the price of goods in Liaodong has begun to skyrocket, and soon the economy here will collapse.

As a "keyboard warrior" who has been in the forum all year round in later generations, Li Xianzhong knows that this is the sequelae of Zhang Juzheng's "whip method".

Although the use of silver instead of physical goods has greatly improved the efficiency of the government's tax collection and payment, once there is a sharp rise in prices, it will cause the purchasing power of silver in the hands of the people to decline.

Compared with the traditional tax in kind, the people also have to bear the risk of price changes, which actually increases the burden on the people.

Of course, the "one whip law" is just a help, and what really led to the economic collapse of the Ming border was the collapse of the "Kaizhong Law".

The Kaizhong Law is a system implemented by the Ming Dynasty with salt tea as an intermediary.

The opening method is roughly divided into three steps: reporting, guarding the branch, and changing the market.

In the report, the salt merchants transported the grain to the granary in the designated border area in accordance with the requirements of the investment promotion list of the Ming government, and exchanged it for salt from the government.

Shouzhi means that after the salt merchant exchanges the salt lead, he leads the salt to the designated salt field to wait for the salt.

Shiyi is a salt merchant who transports the obtained salt to a designated area for sale.

Because of the huge cost of transporting grain over long distances, the salt merchants used to hire labor to cultivate the fields on various sides.

Produce grain, and put it in the warehouse on the spot in exchange for salt, so as to make more profits.

Because this form of tuntian is run by merchants, it is also called Shangtun.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Shangtun east to Liaodong, north to Xuanda, west to Gansu, south to the address, everywhere, its prosperity has a certain role in the border defense grain reserves and the development of border areas.

According to the needs of the Ming court, in addition to exchanging grain and rice for salt, sometimes cloth silk, silver money, horses, etc. can also be exchanged, but grain exchange is the main form.

In this way, the sufficiency of materials at the border areas has been ensured, and the prices in the border areas are almost the same as those in the interior.

During the Chenghua period of Xianzong, the opening of the law on all sides was stopped, and the salt merchants were ordered to be in the household department, and the grain was transported in exchange for salt.

However, the huge profits caused by salt led to the powerful people asking for salt through various channels and then selling it to salt merchants.

In this way, salt merchants can directly buy salt leads, and naturally they are not willing to waste time and effort to deliver grain to the border gates.

Therefore, during the reign of Xiaozong Hongzhi, Ye Qi, the head of the household department, changed the old system, and simply asked the merchants to replace the rice with silver, pay it to the Yunsi, solve it to Taicang, and then distribute it to each side.

For every salt and silver imported, it ranged from three to four dollars, resulting in more than one million dollars of silver in Taicang, and the country's financial revenue increased sharply.

Although this series of reforms enabled the imperial court to directly sell salt, it greatly increased its fiscal revenue.

However, this also led to the salt merchants who had been in the border of Tun to move to the mainland one after another, and the once prosperous Shangtun was gradually abandoned.

Then the prices at the border pass were getting higher and higher, and the cost of the imperial court to deliver materials to the border pass was also increasing.

So much so that in the Chongzhen Dynasty, due to internal and external troubles, the Ming Dynasty could not even afford to raise a town in Liaodong.

If it was a time of peace, the border wars were not so frequent, and the income obtained by the imperial court through the direct sale of salt could support the expenses of the border pass.

But as the war became more and more tight, the cost of the border passes became more and more expensive, and now the household department could not attract about 600,000 taels of silver from selling salt every year, and it was simply unable to support the war in Liaodong, so the imperial court had to levy more Liao.

Li Xianzhong knows that this is just the beginning, and the weather anomalies caused by the Xiaoice River will become more and more serious starting next year, resulting in a large reduction in grain production.

The price of grain in Liaodong as a whole will be even more outrageous.

He suddenly found that the silver had become less fragrant, and the food was the key.

In fact, Li Xianzhong is not short of silver now.

When he returned from Beijing, he only had 52,000 taels of silver.

Kengxiguan guerrilla Yu Shouzhi and raided his house to get 40,000 taels of silver.

The sweep of the Mongolian fried flower department and the Horqin department obtained a total of 150,000 taels worth of gold, silver and jewelry, and after deducting the dividends to the soldiers and the generals of Kaiyuan Road, he also got 110,000 taels.

Liang San's caravan was able to bring itself 30,000 taels a month by monopolizing trade with Mongolia.

The income from the sale of furs and ginseng can almost offset the salary and other expenses for the Liaodong Iron Cavalry.

Now he has 260,000 taels of silver in his hand.

Of course, the big head is still the reward that the Ministry of War owes itself, and the Ministry of War in Liaodong owed itself 106,000 taels last time.

He swept the Mongolian ministries and submitted a total of 7,200 heads, and finally the military department recognized 5,000 levels; The 3,700 Jianyu heads of the Kaiyuan War were identified as 2,500 levels, which is another 150,000 taels of silver.

In total, the military department owed itself 256,000 taels of silver.

Huang Jiashan, the secretary of the Ministry of War, is now in debt and does not worry, and he has urged him many times, but he has no intention of giving it at all.

It seems that I have to take the time to go to the capital in person, otherwise this "snowball" will get bigger and bigger, and I am afraid that I will not return in the future.

Today, the Tuntian model of Pingyubao has been recognized by Yuan Yingtai, the governor of Liaodong.

Although the Ming Dynasty's health system in the Wanli period has basically existed in name only, but now in the situation in Liaodong, many health centers still exist, and even some are operating well, and they can be completely self-sufficient.

Li Xianzhong took the opportunity to turn Pingyu Fort into a thousand households under Tielingwei, and even gave Fan Wencheng an official position of a thousand households in the Wupinwei Institute, and these homeless people have now also been converted into military registration.

And since it started selling cement and briquettes, now Pingyubao no longer needs to subsidize its own silver.

Fan Wencheng even has 2,000 taels of liquidity in his hands.

But the food reserves are not much, after all, the army under his command is a regular official army, and they eat the grain of the imperial court, so they don't need to spend it themselves.

At present, the grain stock of Pingyu Fort is about 8,000 stones.

This little food simply could not cope with the great famine.

Therefore, Li Xianzhong intends to reform the existing trade model of Kaiyuanlu.

Soon after, he feasted these Liaodong merchants in the name of Liang San.

Now Liang San is not the small shopkeeper under Ma Yuanwai, but a big businessman who monopolizes the entire Kaiyuan trade with Mongolian Yehe.

But any businessman who wants to get a piece of the Cypriot foreign trade who dares not to give Liang San face.

Although there are also horse markets in Quang Ninh, Xuanfu and Datong, Kaiyuan is still a huge cake, especially the trade of Inner Khalkha Mongolia represented by the fried flower department, Korqin and Yehe, which is only recognized by Liang San.

Today's Liang San can be described as a proud spring breeze, with a ruddy face, he is wearing a gorgeous silk robe, and he beckons all the businessmen to take a seat with Kong Youde.

This huge contrast made Li Xianzhong almost didn't recognize him!

Although these well-informed businessmen have long known that Liang San and Kong Youde are just spokespersons, the real behind-the-scenes boss is Li Xianzhong, the chief soldier of Kaiyuan.

But when Li Xianzhong appeared directly at this banquet, they were still surprised.

The businessmen who are well versed in the way of officialdom have an ominous premonition that this General Li has come to the front from behind the scenes, and I am afraid that nothing good will happen.

So everyone looked at the horse shopkeeper, and subconsciously said: Old horse, you have to stand up for everyone!

When Li Xianzhong saw that this group of people had a bitter face, he knew that they thought they were going to "rip off the bamboo".

He cleared his throat and said, "Don't misunderstand, Ben is not here to ask everyone to raise donations. ”

"Ben will know that you have complained about the previous trade rules, and you have to divide the price by half as a result of your hard work to transport the goods, do you think you have suffered a loss?"

Listening to this tone, Mr. Li is going to adjust the trade rules, but they don't dare to accept this, who knows how to adjust it?

The current rules do hand over most of their profits, but there are also benefits, that is, it saves trouble, after all, the most risky customs do not have to go by themselves, and they will make a profit without losing money.

And there is no need to face all kinds of exploitation by the government, which saves a lot of time.

It turned out that the time to complete one trade was enough for them to transport two rounds of goods, so in fact, they did not make a lot less, and their safety was guaranteed, and many merchants had actually accepted the current form of trade.

In order not to be cold, the horse crew had to say: "Actually, the current way is not bad, at least everyone is making a steady profit and not losing money, and there is no need to worry about living a life." Dare to ask Mr. Li how to adjust these trade policies? ”

Li Xianzhong said: "Very simply, we are going to re-implement the 'Open China Law', and everyone will exchange the method of transporting grain for a license to do business. ”

"After getting the license, the goods on the license can be directly exempted from customs, and then everyone will trade freely, and it is up to you to earn more and less."

These businessmen are no strangers to the "opening of the Chinese law", but they were used to exchange for salt introduction, and now they are in exchange for the qualifications to do business in Cyprus.

After some deliberation, the merchants accepted the plan.

The most important thing is that they can sell it at a higher price when they go to trade by themselves, and they can only suffer dumb losses according to the purchase price given by Liang San! As a result, many people signed a contract with Li Xianzhong on the spot to transport grain, and exchanged grain and other physical goods for business permits.

Li Xianzhong initially estimated that he could get 80,000 stone of grain every month, as well as a small amount of salt and cloth.

Although he lost tens of thousands of taels of silver every month, with this food, he could develop and grow with peace of mind and recruit displaced people.

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