This deputy envoy of Liaodong Economic Strategy is obviously the cabinet and Wanli do not want to completely put Liaodong under the control of the Li family.

But fortunately, the number one in Liaodong is Yan Mingtai, for now, this big brother Yan is still good to himself, in addition to Xiong Tingbi, he is also a rare person who knows the soldiers among the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty.

Yan Mingtai also had the experience of sticking to Qinghe Fort and fighting Nanguan in the bloody battle, so that he would not pull Li Xianzhong's hind legs militarily.

Regarding the current state, Li Xianzhong is still relatively satisfied, and his control over Liaodong is not small, and it will not cause too much suspicion of the Manchu Dynasty's civil and military forces.

Yan Mingtai knew about Li Xianzhong's expansion of the commercial port in Yingkou and the private customs collection of taxes, but he didn't point it out.

On the pretext of congratulating Yan Mingtai on his promotion to the governor of Jiliao, Li Xianzhong put 30% of the tax revenue of Yingkou Customs under Yan Mingtai's name.

Yan Mingtai is a person with high EQ and IQ, and he knows very well that the reason why he can be promoted so quickly is largely due to the imperial court's jealousy of Li Xianzhong and the Li family behind him.

So on the surface, there is less intersection between the two of them, and there is even some deliberate estrangement.

But in fact, the two are in a relationship of relying on each other, one is prosperous, and the other is lost.

After they established a copper smuggling route along the Liaohe River from Kaiyuan to Yingkou, the income of Shenyang and Liaoyang along the way also increased.

Li Xianzhong also took out a share of the proceeds of this smuggling line and distributed it to Li Huaizhong in Shenyang and Liu Wei in Liaoyang.

After all, everyone earns money, and there is a way that the king of Hades is better than a little ghost, although the upper echelons from Wanli to the household department and the yamen of the governor of Liaodong are all vested interests in the Hongtoushan Copper Mine.

However, if these guards along the way do not have any oil and water, they will inevitably be angry with the smuggling traders, and eventually affect the smooth flow of the trade routes.

It can be said that the roads in Liaodong are actually gradually recovering.

After the Battle of Salhu, the action of Jianzhou is not small.

Attack Kaiyuan in the north, and Kuandian in the south.

Although the losses on both sides were large, even the Ming army lost the six forts of Kuandian.

However, Jianzhou has never been able to break through the border wall of Liaodong in the Ming Dynasty, which is an indisputable fact, and the people of Liaodong are no longer threatened by Jianyu.

Their confidence in the imperial court is gradually being restored, at least now no one will secretly run to Jianzhou to be slaves for the Tartars because they can't live anymore.

Under the propaganda and instigation of the Intelligence Department, from time to time, there were also Baoyi from Jianzhou who fled back to the border of the Ming Dynasty.

With the rise of the Kaiyuan border trade and the flood of smuggling at Yingkou, the economy of the entire Liaodong began to be activated.

Now among the various roads in Liaodong, except for the tragically damaged Qinghe Road, the economy of the other roads has actually been brought up by the trade route.

Li Xianzhong's income is now steadily rising, although after the implementation of the "Kaizhong Law", Kaiyuan's commercial tax revenue from Mongolian trade has mainly been turned into the storage of grain and materials.

However, through the foreign sales of Liang San and Fan Yongdou, especially after the resumption of trade in Jianzhou, Li Xianzhong's monthly income is as high as 30,000 taels.

I sell ginseng, fur, and dongzhu to the capital, which can also stabilize at about 10,000 taels per month.

However, the biggest momentum is still from North Korea.

The coarse salt produced by the Yellow Sea salt works currently almost monopolizes the salt route between Liaodong and Mongolia. Li Xianzhong sold "Yellow Sea Salt" at a low price in Liaodong, and soon occupied the market, and other merchants also gave up selling salt to Liaodong and Mongolia with great interest.

Moreover, through the cooperation with Anton Kim, the demand for refined salt in the upper class of North Korea was also monopolized by them.

At present, the salt industry also has an income of tens of thousands of taels per month, and if it can open the mainland market of Daming in the later stage, or sell it to Khalkha Mongolia farther away, then the income will be greatly increased.

With the influx of goods from the Ming Dynasty into North Korea, and the smuggling of goods from North Korea back to the interior of the Ming Dynasty.

The port of Tongyingkou in Incheon can bring more than 20,000 taels of tax revenue to Li Xianzhong every month, and it is still growing steadily.

In this way, Ning Yuanbo and Li Xianzhong have an income of almost 70,000 taels per month.

Of course, heaven and earth is also a profiteering project, but at present, this revenue belongs to the Intelligence Division, which is used to support the development of the Intelligence Division throughout the country.

After all, with the spread of intelligence points, there are more and more people to be supported by the intelligence department.

However, the industries opened in various places also have a certain degree of profitability, and Mao Yuanyi is currently in surplus.

In addition to Liaodong, the grassland, and the North Korean Tongjing Division, the intelligence points of the Intelligence Department have been expanded to the towns of the Nine Borders, as well as Nanjing, Macao, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Quanzhou, Guangzhou and other places.

According to this development momentum, at most three years, there will be a stronghold of the Intelligence Department in all parts of the basic Ming Dynasty.

After taking the newly established Fushun Road, Li Xianzhong increased the establishment of 5,000 men.

After the 500 pairs of armor of the imperial court were in place, the Liaodong Iron Cavalry could finally be expanded, and it was now expanded to 3,000 people.

At present, the total strength of the Ming army on the three roads of Kaiyuan, Tieling and Fushun has also reached 26,000 people.

Among them, the 3,000 cavalry of the "Liaodong Iron Cavalry" and the "Assault Battalion" were used as mobile forces, and they were also the main force of Li Xianzhong's foreign campaign.

Kaiyuan City includes 8,000 garrisons in Kaiyuan Sanguan, and 3,000 garrisons in the rear of Tielingwei and Pingyu Fort.

The newly established Fushun Road is currently the closest to Jianzhou, with a garrison of 9,000 troops.

Zhao led 4,000 troops to guard Fushun Pass, while Man Gui led 3,000 men to garrison the Boundary Domain, including 2,000 well-equipped Pingyu guards.

Although these two people are not from the Li family in Liaodong, they are just two capable generals that Yuan Chonghuan relied on very much in history, and Li Xianzhong is now using his God's perspective to take the lead in promoting and reusing them.

Although there are still a lot of recruits now, with the cloth armor and firearms of the Ming army, there should be no big problem in holding the pass.

The remaining 2,000 people are used to guard the copper mine of Hongtou Mountain, after all, this is the "money bag" of the entire Liaodong.

In fact, Li Xianzhong's copper mine privately opened in Hongtou Mountain is also very profitable, but the copper produced at present is basically used to cast cannons, so it is not used for trade.

After more than 8 months of development, Pingyu Fort has changed from an abandoned fort to a large base.

Although Pingyu Fort is still the same small city on Thursday, it is now only used as a warehouse.

All of Ning Yuanbo's belongings are now in Pingyubao, where 500,000 taels of silver and 600,000 stone of grain are stored.

There was also a lot of salt, tea, cement and gunpowder.

Fan Wencheng, the five products and thousands of households of Pingyuwei, actually has more silver taels than the silver taels in Taicang, the current household department.

At present, there are more than 46,000 military households in the guards.

And that's not counting the 20,000 North Korean laborers.

As a result of the arrival of these free laborers, the labor force of Pyongyuwei was greatly increased, and heavy manual work such as iron mines, coal mines, and marl mining now relied mainly on these Korean laborers.

Even the work of clearing the land mainly relied on them, so that the more than one of the military households in Pingyubao could be liberated to engage in the production of various kilns and the production of equipment.

Li Xianzhong has not come to Pingyu Fort for a long time, and earth-shaking changes have taken place here.

Li Xianzhong pointed to the large waterwheel by the river and said, "You also made these waterwheels?" ”

Fan Wencheng said: "These were built under the guidance of Deacon John Tong, and the waterwheels we built ourselves were much smaller than this. ”

"According to my uncle's instructions, I have selected a group of young people with potential in various industries to study with Deacon Tang."

Then he pointed to the canal in front of him and said, "At present, we have built an aqueduct with cement to bring a large amount of water from the Van River into the reservoir. ”

In fact, he was very puzzled, Ning Yuanbo asked them to build a large reservoir, the more the merrier.

However, their fields are located on both sides of the Van River, which is not too far from the water source, so can there be no shortage of water?

However, since it was Li Xianzhong's orders, he had no choice but to do so, and it was also beneficial to build some reservoirs in some places far away from the river, and the efficiency of irrigation could be greatly improved.

Li Xianzhong said: "Now that it is almost December, I am afraid that the river will freeze soon, and you have to hurry up and store water." ”

Fan Wencheng said: "Ning Yuanbo can rest assured that there are now 200,000 acres of fertile land near Pingyubao planted with wheat. Another 30,000 acres of wasteland has been developed, although it will not be able to catch up with this year's winter wheat sowing, but we will continue to develop more wasteland. ”

Li Xianzhong nodded with satisfaction and said: "Mr. Fan is a great talent, a five-grade guard has wronged you, and if there is a chance, Ben Bo will definitely turn him into a civil official." ”

Originally, Fan Wencheng still cared about this very much, although the five-rank official was not low for him as a showman, the guard officer was a military attaché.

The Ming Dynasty emphasized literature over martial arts, which was tantamount to cutting off his road to the imperial examination.

However, he is also relieved now, he is also a military general, Li Xianzhong can be the deputy envoy of Liaodong Economic Strategy and the governor of the Ming Dynasty in Korea. As long as you follow the right person, are you afraid that you will not succeed without your own future?

With the help of the Intelligence Department, his brother Fan Wenyu is also very prosperous in the Tartars, and he, a thousand households in the Wupinwei Institute, is in charge of more treasury silver than the household department of Taicang (the household department of the Ming Dynasty is now poor, and most of the time the treasury silver in Taicang is really not 500,000 taels).

This trust is the most rare!

Fan Wencheng arched his hand and said: "Fan is just a child, and he has benefited a lot from serving in front of Ning Yuanbo, not to mention that he already has these five grades, and it is also Fan's honor to be white!" ”

Li Xianzhong said: "Then you can't be wronged Mr. Fan!" Will Pinjuburg be able to be self-sufficient now? ”

Fan Wencheng said proudly: "At present, in addition to briquettes and cement, Pingyu Fort also has pastures and porcelain kilns under its jurisdiction. ”

"The mutton and cow dairy products produced by the ranch have been supplied to major cities in eastern Liaoning; In addition to supplying Liaodong, the fired porcelain was even sold to North Korea. ”

"In addition, Pingyu Fort has opened a bronze workshop, making copper mirrors, copper furnaces and other items, and the sales are very good."

"At present, Pingyu Fort can get more than 20,000 taels of silver every month, in addition to the salary and silver of some officials in Pingbao and the rewards of craftsmen, it is enough to support the purchase of other materials for the manufacture of weapons, as well as the expansion of some workshops."

"At present, there is a surplus of more than eight thousand taels of silver in the accounts."

"It's just that now there are more than 66,000 North Korean laborers, and the monthly food consumption is as high as more than 40,000 stones."

Li Xianzhong didn't expect that Pingyu Fort actually had a porcelain kiln, and it seems that after the private mine of Hongxiu Mountain was zoned to Pingbao Fort, Pingyu Fort also became arrogant.

Fan Wencheng was able to save a lot of silver in addition to the construction project.

However, the grain handed over by the merchants every month through the "Kaizhong Law" was only 70,000 or 80,000 stones, and after deducting the rations of Pingyu Fort, there would not be much grain left every month.

So Li Xianzhong said: "Not long after the autumn harvest has just ended, the grain in Jiangnan should be cheap, and you can keep half of the silver sent to Pingyu Fort every month from other channels, and the other half will give me all of it for grain." ”

Although the price of grain in Liaodong remained high for a while, with the increasing number of merchants, the materials in Liaodong are still relatively sufficient, and the price of grain has also dropped to seven to eight coins of silver.

Fan Wencheng asked puzzledly: "Now that Pingyu Fort has stored 600,000 stone of grain, isn't it enough?" To buy more grain, we have to build new warehouses. ”

Li Xianzhong said: "According to my observation, there will be a big drought next year, and then the grain will become more expensive. ”

Although Fan Wencheng had some doubts in his heart, Ning Yuanbo was so sure that there would be a big drought next year.

It's a reservoir again, and it's a desperate hoarding of food.

However, Li Xianzhong really never missed anything, so he said: "Obey orders!" ”

Soon the two arrived at a shooting range south of Pingjubao.

This is also the main purpose of his coming to Pingyu Fort today, because the Hongyi cannon cast by Pingyu Fort itself is about to be tested.

To be honest, even Li Xianzhong didn't expect that it had only been less than two months since Tang Ruowang came to Pingyu Fort, and he could already successfully make the Hongyi cannon.

But he soon figured it out, because they were casting copper cannons, and copper had a lower melting point than iron, and it was easier to cast.

In fact, copper cannons and iron cannons have their own merits.

Copper cannon has a low melting point, good fluidity, and is easy to cast. Good toughness, not easy to blow up; Even if the bore is blown up, it will not fly like an iron cannon, causing casualties; It is not easy to rust, has a long service life and is simple to maintain.

However, it is also because of its low melting point that it is not heat-resistant and not suitable for continuous emission.

Fortunately, it is a Hongyi cannon that is cast, and its rate of fire is relatively slow. If it's a rapid-fire cannon like the Franc cannon, I'm afraid it won't be long before I have to stop cooking.

At this stage, the quality of steel is not so good, and in general, the performance of copper cannons is better than that of iron cannons.

However, because the cost of copper is much higher than that of iron, the Ming Dynasty did not cast copper cannons in large quantities. Not to mention the 12-pounder cannon like the Hongyi Cannon.

The test firing was very successful, and the bronze cannon cast in Pinggut had a range of more than 1,500 meters, even farther than the Portuguese gun.

However, when the second test firing was made, Li Xianzhong was dumbfounded.

Although the range was slightly closer than the first time, it was a little closer than the first time, but the loud explosion instantly knocked down the surrounding trees.

It's actually a flowering bomb.

Originally, he wanted to suggest that the craftsmen study the flowering bomb, but he didn't expect them to make it.

In addition, the reckless Lumi gun has also been studied.

However, Li Xianzhong was not too surprised by this, and the seifire pistol was developed in Europe fifty years ago, but the arquebus is still the mainstream on the battlefield.

The reason is simple, the firing gun cannot beat the arquebus, which is already very mature.

The rifles of this era were not much faster than arquebuses in terms of rate of fire.

A soldier needs to clean the residue in the chamber of the gun first, then put a certain amount of gunpowder into the barrel, then put in lead bullets, then stuff some rags to fix the bullets and gunpowder, and then pour another refined gunpowder into the powder pool, and then fix the fire rope to the trigger, open the powder pool, aim, and fire.

The pistol only saved a little time in the last two steps than the arquebus.

The previous tedious steps were all the same.

However, due to technical reasons, flintlock pistols often did not fire and had a low firing rate.

As a result, the little advantage in rate of fire that there was no longer existed.

In this era, if you let a soldier use a flintlock pistol to shoot an arquebus, it is basically a death sentence.

So much so that many soldiers in Europe refused to use flintlock pistols.

Of course, there are ways to speed up the reloading, for example, you can use paper shells to quantify the gunpowder, so that each time the soldier does not have to estimate how much gunpowder is needed, just pour it all in; Buckshot is then wrapped directly in deerskin beforehand, which saves the time of stuffing rags.

These two means have been handed over to Ping Yuwei, so the speed at which Ping Yuwei fires arquebuses can reach 30 seconds per shot, which is almost twice the speed of ordinary firearms.

So he was not interested in flintlock pistols.

In order to completely solve the problem of the rate of fire of the gun, it is necessary to create a rear-loading gun, which, combined with the Mini round, can directly push a fixed bullet into the chamber.

This technology did not appear until the American Civil War, and he could not have done it with the ability of a "keyboard warrior".

However, what was surprising was that the firing rate of the flintlock pistol made in Pingyu Fort was actually 100%, and there was no problem of failure to ignite after firing ten times in a row.

Li Xianzhong thought it was Tang Ruowang's credit, but he said: "Dear Uncle Ning Yuan, you should thank this Han Gonggong, he used your Ming Dynasty's hundred steels as the material for springs, which greatly increased the ignition rate. ”

"And he made the flowering shell, and he is also very good at researching the casting cannon, and it is with his assistance that we can complete the casting of the Hongyi cannon so quickly."

Tang Ruowang's words surprised Li Xianzhong, this Han Gongcheng was the one who asked Eunuch Liu of the War Bureau to help guide Lu Mi Gong craftsmanship before.

I didn't expect to pick up a treasure.

Originally, he provided three people to the Intelligence Department: Song Yingxing, Xu Guangqi, and Bi Maokang.

It's a pity that Song Yingxing was only in his twenties at this time, and he had just been promoted four years ago, and he was still working the road to the imperial examination, so he was not interested in coming to Liaodong. Historically, he gave up the imperial examination only after he failed the Jinshi six exams.

And Bi Maokang is now the imperial history of Shandong's salt patrol, the official is not big, and he is only seven grades, but people are not willing to make firearms for Li Xianzhong.

The Donglin Party controlled the officials, and Li Xianzhong could not transfer people.

Xu Guangqi didn't even think about it, although he is not a cabinet minister now, but he is also a serious member of the Hanlin Academy, and his future is immeasurable.

And he also has an identity, a disciple of the former head of the Donglin boss, Ye Xianggao.

As for Li Xianzhong's relationship with the Donglin Party, there is basically no need to speak.

Unexpectedly, I unintentionally inserted willows here, and met a Han father-in-law who is good at firearms.

Li Xianzhong said: "There is still a lack of a deputy from Gonggong Ma, the supervisor of Liaodong Mine, and I think Gonggong Han is fair and suitable. In the name of the deputy envoy of the Liaodong Mine Supervisor, you are here to make firearms for Ben Bodu, and as for Gonggong Liu of the War Bureau, I will naturally say hello, what do you think? ”

The mine supervisor is notoriously fat, and the deputy envoy is much stronger than him as the head of a military bureau, so Han Gonggong is naturally willing.

So he said: "Then our family will thank Uncle Ning Yuan for carrying it!" ”

Li Xianzhong said: "According to my rules here, there are rewards for major reforms in firearms, and Gonggong Han contributed a flowering bullet as a reward of 1,000 taels of silver this time, and I also asked Gonggong Han to smile!" ”

I have long heard that this Ning Yuanbo has made a generous move, and he has never earned a thousand taels in his life.

However, Han Gonggong still said: "This flowering bomb actually appeared as early as the Hongzhi period of Xiaozong, and our family is just borrowing flowers to offer Buddha, which is really deserved!" ”

Hearing what Han's father-in-law said, Li Xianzhong felt that his character was not bad.

At present, with the help of Han Gonggong, Lu Miquan's production has increased to 800 strokes per month.

However, the firing rate of the firing pistol was not 100 percent, and the test firing just now was just a bit of luck, but it could certainly exceed 90 percent.

In this way, the effectiveness of shooting is basically not affected much.

Now the rate of fire of the musket is not up to the requirements of the field, but the ignition rate of the firelance on a rainy day must be much stronger than that of the arquebus, although the increase in the rate of fire is not too obvious, but it is a little breakthrough.

In the end, Li Xianzhong decided to replace the arquebus with a fireload pistol, after all, this is also the trend of firearms development, and it may also lead to their manufacture of rear-loading guns.

Originally, according to the previous agreement, Tang Ruowang helped Li Xianzhong complete these technological innovations, and he should retire.

However, Li Xianzhong promised to help him build a Catholic church here in Pingyu Fort, let him develop some followers here first, and then guide him in other techniques of the workshop by the way.

When the church is finished, it will not be too late for him to leave Liaodong.

There is no problem with the things that promised him to preach in North Korea before, and this kind of thing can be left to Kim Zidian.

John Tong also said that the drawings of the Spanish Galen ship and the target ship were already known, but the specific price needed to be negotiated by himself to Macao.

If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools.

The reason why he took a fancy to the Hongyi cannon was not only to defend and siege the city.

Only with the lethal effect of defending the city, the Hongyi cannon may not be able to compare with the faster fire rate of the Franc machine artillery and the tiger squat cannon.

The effect of siege is not as good as that of mortars.

But he is the main force of the ship's artillery, Li Xianzhong knows better than anyone the importance of the sea to a civilization, and the reason why he is so anxious to make the Hongyi cannon is more to build his own warships in the future to lay the foundation.

However, just when he was actively preparing for war and preparing to do a big job, there was a big news from the capital: Empress Wang died of illness, and Emperor Wanli's old illness recurred!

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