Chapter 134

Although it is said that Cheng Shijie used banks to stimulate the economic development of southern Liaoning, the end of the Ming Dynasty was not the future of the information explosion after all, whether it was the people of southern Liaoning building houses, or businessmen building factories, road repairs and other projects, it would take time.

The homeless people are like poplars in the desert, they have a strong vitality and will also find water sources on their own in order to survive. As soon as the special working group of the Immigration Bureau set up by the Liaodong Management Committee arrived in Dengzhou, Shandong, they found that a large number of displaced people had already poured into Shandong.

"Go to Liaonan, there is a way to live in Liaonan!"

Last year, there was a drought in Henan, especially when the crops were jointed, there was no rain for more than 40 consecutive days, and most of the fields were seriously reduced except for a few fields that could be irrigated.

This year, rain after rain, but endlessly.

Forty miles west of Luoyang, there is a valley called Tanlong Valley. There is a group of bandits in Tanlong Valley, but the leader of the bandits is a young woman named Red Lady.

Red Lady is her nickname, her real surname is Tang, ranked third, and she is called Tang Sanniang.

Originally, she followed her father and brother to the rivers and lakes to perform, and when she came to Luoyang to perform, the red lady was taken by the big boss of the bandits in Tanlong Valley, nicknamed Yulangjun, and this Yulangjun snatched the red lady back as the lady of the village.

When Tang Sanniang was caught in Tanlong Valley, under the arrangement of several women, she put on a red wedding dress and was forced to marry Yulangjun in the church.

After worshipping the hall, Yulangjun drank with his minions, and when Yulangjun remembered that he was going to enter the cave room, the red lady broke free from the shackles, took the red candlestick, and smashed Yulangjun's head to pieces.

Tang Sanniang, who was like no one around, was dressed in red and covered in blood, and the minions were so frightened that they shouted: "Big boss!" ”

In this way, Tang Sanniang became a red lady and a big boss in Tanlong Valley.

The red lady who became the leader of the bandits, originally kind-hearted, saw that Mengjin crossed the Yellow River and burst the embankment, hundreds of people were ruined, and his wife was separated, so she used the food stored in the cottage to help the victims.

This rescue didn't matter, but it caused a lot of trouble, and more and more homeless people defected to her, and in a short period of time, the cottage of the red lady skyrocketed to three or four thousand people.

Tanlong Valley was originally a small valley with limited grain storage, and now the red lady was eaten by the victims and was about to go bankrupt. The red lady wanted to find food, but most of her subordinates were old, weak, sick and disabled, and tried to attack a large landlord, but the grain was not grabbed, but four or five hundred people were killed.

The red lady heard that Cheng Shijie organized the people in Tuntian in southern Liaoning, so she led these refugees all the way to the east and came to join Cheng Shijie.

"Has Cheng Dashuai heard of it?"

"Nope!"

"Cheng Dashuai is a good person, he takes people to reclaim the famine in southern Liaoning, set up a factory, and when he arrives in southern Liaoning, as long as he works, he will have food!"

"Big boss, Cheng Dashuai is an official, we are bandits, officers and soldiers catch bandits, let's go to southern Liaoning, wouldn't it be fatal?"

The red lady explained to everyone: "In southern Liaoning, Cheng Dashuai doesn't kill people, it's a big deal......"

"What's the big deal?"

"Big deal, I'll give me to him!"

Because the red lady inserted a pole, it also disrupted Cheng Shijie's plan.

The Red Lady's team is like a snake in the game, and wherever it passes, the people who can't survive follow their team.

A large number of displaced people have heard the news that there is work to do in southern Liaoning and they can survive. These homeless people dragged their families with their families, begged all the way, wandered all the way, and poured into southern Liaoning.

When she walked east from Luoyang, there were more than 4,000 people under the command of the Red Lady, and when she arrived at Kaifeng Mansion, there were tens of thousands of people around her.

According to the investigation report of the management committee, the vanguard of the displaced people has already passed through Jinan Prefecture and is advancing in the direction of Dengzhou Prefecture, and in a maximum of ten days, the displaced people will arrive in Dengzhou, and after half a month at most, southern Liaoning will usher in a large wave of displaced people.

The influx of a large number of displaced people to southern Liaoning will cause great pressure and burden on the livelihood of the people in southern Liaoning, which is an inevitable phenomenon. Although population is strength, the problem is that this needs to have a upper line, and once it breaks through the upper line, it will produce more contradictions.

Looking at Cheng Shijie's attitude, Song Xiance did not persuade again, what Cheng Shijie decided, that is definitely what he must do, what he needs to do is to do a good job in the essential work, ensure the stability and normal operation of southern Liaoning, and also ensure the smooth progress of the autumn harvest work.

Song Xiance frowned slightly and said: "Lord, my subordinates are puzzled, our Ning Navy obviously occupies a strong defensive line, but Jiannu is not good at attacking Jiancheng, if you take the initiative to attack, wouldn't you use your own shortcomings to attack the enemy's strengths?" ”

"Although you are right, the problem is that we will be timid in the face of Jiannu!"

Cheng Shijie nodded and said: "We take the initiative to defend, but Haizhou does not have the Great Wall, although more than a dozen castles have been built, can Haizhou be prevented from leaking?" ”

Song Xiance shook his head: "I'm afraid not!" ”

"It's absolutely impossible!"

Cheng Shijie smiled bitterly: "We finally laid a little foundation in Jinzhou, once Jiannu sent a small elite force to learn from Deng Ai's old wisdom, go to Yinping, climb the skyscraper, and sneak attack Chengdu, then it will be all over!" ”

There is another problem, if Haizhou is used as the decisive battle site, I am afraid that Haizhou and Fuzhou will suffer heavy losses, Cheng Shijie is unwilling to passively defend, but is willing to fight a decisive battle abroad.

Song Xiance continued: "Lord, if we take the initiative to attack, our Ning Haipin's strength is too small!" ”

Cheng Shijie's total strength is nearly 50,000 horses, but in fact, among these horses, 12,750 people are subordinate to the garrison department of the Ning Navy, responsible for guarding the fifteen towns and forts along the Haizhou line and the defense of Jinzhou, Gaizhou, and Fuzhou.

When the real war was fought, Cheng Shijie could only mobilize more than 13,600 people from the left and right capitals, plus 4,000 cavalry and more than 1,000 artillery troops, plus reconnaissance troops, less than 20,000 horses.

When attracting more than 26,000 people from the Dongjiang Army, Cheng Shijie did not expand the army, the most fundamental reason was not that Cheng Shijie had no food, nor that he had no money, but that there were too few veterans of the Ning Navy under his hands. The real veteran of the Ning Navy, the soldiers who have trained for more than three months, only the original 2,500 horses of the Ning Navy.

More than ninety percent of the soldiers are either from the Denglai New Army, or from the Dongjiang Army, or the Dengzhou Naval Division, in this case, Cheng Shijie did not dare to expand the army.

After more than half a year of uninterrupted training and particularly strict ideological education, the current Ning Navy no longer distinguishes between the Denglai New Army, the Dengzhou Army, the Dengzhou Naval Division, and the Dongjiang Army; more importantly, Cheng Shijie has taken advantage of the officer literacy class trained by Ma Shilin, and now there are more than 800 officers who can read more than 1,000 words and can write a formal official document, summary report, reconnaissance report, and military training report.

Many veterans can become officers, how long will they stay if they don't expand the army?

Cheng Shijie looked at Song Xiance and asked, "If this commander wants to expand the army?" How much grain and grass can the MC provide? ”

Food supply has always been the lifeblood of farming peoples, and most of the border passes are barren land, such as Shanxi, Shaanxi and Gansu, and of course Liaodong.

In fact, in these places, the land is okay, although the rainfall is slightly less, but the victory is that the territory is large enough, as long as it is properly managed, it can completely feed the border army.

But the problem is that under the influence of the disaster of the feudal towns in the middle and late Tang Dynasty and the Anshi Rebellion, like the Song and Ming and Qing dynasties, they all adopted a weaker side policy.

Liaodong obviously has the most fertile land, but it does not immigrate to the real border, nor does it spend effort to govern, so that the border army has always received the supply of grain and grass from the imperial court.

As a result, under the circumstance of deliberate manipulation, even the locals did not have enough food to eat in the border areas, let alone provide the army, and every grain of rice and every piece of cloth needed by the army had to be transported within the customs.

From the interior to the border fortress, not to mention thousands of miles away, thousands of miles of grain, the manpower required is unimaginable, and the consumption on the way is also unimaginable, the treasury allocated 100,000 stone of grain, and finally transported to the border can have 10,000 stone thank God, where did the rest of the 90,000 stone go?

Eaten on the way, of course! Coupled with the greed of officials at all levels, the consumption is even more amazing.

When Sun Chengzong was serving as the envoy of Liaodong, he adopted the policy of Tuntian Shibian, and he had actually made achievements and reported to the imperial court that Tuntian produced "more than 500,000 stone grain!" ”

Although these 500,000 stone grain is not much, it is enough to feed 50,000 or 60,000 troops, and if these 500,000 stone grain are transported from the interior, despite the advantage of sea transportation, it will also lose tens of millions of stone grain.

However, Sun Chengzong was ousted from power as soon as he made achievements.

Cheng Shijie's biggest advantage is that he emptied the treasury of Dengzhou, and also picked up Kong Youde's cheapness, in short, his entrepreneurial capital is stronger than Sun Chengzong, and he has cultivated more than 5 million acres of grain fields in one go.

"Rest assured, my lord, although we have cultivated more than 5 million acres of land, and we can harvest in the autumn in two months, we have not given up buying grain from the Guannai!"

Song Xiance smiled a little proudly: "At present, the management committee has established six permanent grain depots in Jinzhou, four in Gaizhou, two in Fuzhou, and two in Haizhou, a total of 14 grain depots that can store 100,000 stones, and there are still more than 160,000 stones of rice, 90,000 stones of wheat, 30,000 stones of flour, and a total of more than 300,000 stones of grain for various miscellaneous grains. ”

"There are more than 300,000 stone grains, and the confidence of that handsome man is enough!"

On July 6, the fifth year of Chongzhen, Cheng Shijie promulgated the conscription order of the Ning Navy, and with the issuance of this conscription order, the entire southern Liaoning region, and even Shandong and Henan regions caused a sensation.

Serving as a soldier in the army of the Ning Navy has many benefits. These young men who came to sign up for the army have already inquired clearly, as long as they have passed the recruit training period for three months, they can be allocated 50 acres of military field, which is the welfare of the soldiers of the Ning Navy.

Of course, if you are lucky enough to cut off the head of a Jiannu on the battlefield, then congratulations, you can get a reward of fifty acres of land, and if it is a white-armored soldier, it will be even better, you can be promoted, become a reserve officer, and if you pass the training in the officer training class, you can become a real officer.

As the development of the Ning Navy becomes more and more formal, it is no longer possible to ascend to the sky in one step, and it is even said that it is already difficult to ascend to the sky from the post commander to the rank of 100 generals.

Not to mention that it is difficult to be promoted in the Nanjing Navy, it is difficult to even become a soldier. Ning Navy's conscription requirements are very harsh, first of all, age, do not recruit young soldiers, must be at least sixteen years old, originally Cheng Shijie wanted to set the age at eighteen years old, but the problem is that sixteen-year-old young people in the Ming Dynasty don't know how many fathers are gone.

To get married is to start a family, then you can barely control the age at 16 to 22 years old, if you have a skill, the age can be relaxed to 25 years old, for example, you can operate artillery, you can operate firearms, you can shoot arrows, you can ride a horse...... If literate, the age can be relaxed to under thirty-five.

Qualification, can not become a soldier of the Ning Navy, this needs to assess height, height requirements must exceed one meter six five, Cheng Shijie is very unaccustomed to the Ming Dynasty unit of measurement, for example, one catty sixteen taels, grain and flour and other things, all use "stone" as the unit of measurement.

The units of length are inches, rulers, and zhangs.

Cheng Shijie originally thought about moving the unit of measurement in later generations, but after thinking about it, the craftsmen and people of the Ming Dynasty have long been accustomed to units such as rulers, inches, zhang, and steps.

I am also accustomed to the weight measurement units such as liters, buckets, and stones, and if I have to move the units of later generations, it is very unaccustomed.

Thinking of Great Britain, a small country with a small projectile, can promote their feet and inches to the whole world, then why can't Da Ming?

So, Cheng Shijie ordered a batch of tape measures in a hardware tool store in later generations, and the scales on them were directly canceled millimeters, centimeters and meters, and changed to the standard units of zhang, ruler, inch, minute, centimeter and milli.

Recruits in the Ning Navy need to be five feet two inches and eight minutes tall, which is about 166 centimeters. The second is weight, no matter how thin it is, it must not be less than 100 pounds.

Reaching age, weight, and endurance assessment, this requires the assessor to wear the armor of the Ning Navy, hold the standard spear, dog-leg knife, lunch box, and carrying gear of the Ning Navy, and run a thousand steps in full armor, and must pass within the specified time.

The next side should check the origin, it is best to be the children of the peasants, the border army is also fine, the businessmen, the officials, the ruffians, the bandits are waiting on the side, if the peasant children are not enough to gather enough people, and then choose from among them.

But there is little hope.

This time, not only the soldiers of the Dongjiang Army came to join the army, but even the soldiers of the Guanning Army also ran to join the army.

……

At the same time that Cheng Shijie began to recruit troops in southern Liaoning, a carriage drove into Jinzhou City, this carriage was engraved with the cloud pattern of the fan character, and he was followed by dozens of tall men in unarmed cloth clothes, with thick calluses on their palms, muscular, and fierce eyes, obviously his bodyguards.

The owner of the carriage was dressed in a blue round-necked shirt, about thirty years old, white and clean, with a bookish smell between his eyebrows, and the peculiar copper smell of the merchant left no trace on his body, which made people feel good.

This person is the head of the Jiexiu Fan family, Fan Yongdou, a representative of the Jin merchants.

The Fan family did business in Shuntianfu (Zhangjiakou), and it was passed on to Fan Yongdou's generation, which was already the seventh generation, and it can be described as a wealthy family in Shanxi, with deep roots.

Although the Fan family has a lot of wealth, it is always one step away from a real wealthy family. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang imposed strict restrictions on merchants, the biggest restriction was that merchants and their children and relatives were strictly forbidden to gain fame. In that era when only reading was high, there was no fame in the body, and there was always something missing.

Just when Fan Yongdou was weak and had not yet taken over the Fan business, by chance, as a big owner, he led a caravan to trade with Jiannu for the first time, and was received by Nurhachi.

And rewarded Fan Yongdou with the most precious pearl bucket, two beauties, during that time, Fan Yongdou received a very high courtesy from Nurhachi.

Nurhachi rewarded Fan Yongdou with beauties and pearls, and the reason for this is that, in modern terms, the Ming Dynasty imposed strict trade sanctions on Jiannu, prohibiting trade with Jiannu. And Zhangjiakou, to be precise, the Jin merchants who did business in Zhangjiakou, became the only channel for Jiannu to obtain materials.

After building a friendly bridge with Jiannu, Fan Yongdou's trade volume with Jiannu became larger and larger, especially after the forty-seventh year of Wanli, although the days of Jiannu were sad, a stone of grain in Zhangjiakou was only four yuan of silver, but it could be sold to Jiannu but it was eight taels of silver, which was twenty times the profit.

In the first year of the Apocalypse, the price of grain rose tenfold, and the greedy Fan Yongdou sold the grain to more than eighty taels of silver per stone, and in just a few years, the Fan family branch established more than 600 families, and there were as many as 30,000 or 40,000 men and servants serving the Fan family.

And Fan's family property also exceeded 15 million taels of silver, surpassing the original richest man Cao Sanxi.

In December of the fourth year of Chongzhen, a serious snow disaster broke out in Liaodong, especially the cold spring in February of the fifth year of Chongzhen, which made Jiannu even worse and suffered heavy losses.

Under these circumstances, the Jiannu had no choice but to use the silver they had stolen from the Guannai to buy valuable goods such as grain, salt, silk, and tea from their only good friends, the Jin merchants, and of course, forbidden materials such as steel and gunpowder.

But the problem is that from Datong to Zhangjiakou and then to Shenyang, this road is more than 2,000 miles. More than 2,000 miles of grain transportation, the consumption on the road is too great, 440,000 stone of grain, to Shenyang, only less than 80,000 stone left, the loss on the road is as high as more than eighty percent.

Due to the great drought in the north, the grain output was also low, and many influencing factors such as the rebellion of the Liukou, Fan Yongdou spent 123 yuan of silver per stone for the grain he bought, and the 440,000 stone of grain cost nearly 600,000 taels of silver, but the income was less than 200,000 taels of silver.

This was a huge profit, more than a month, 600,000 taels of silver, into more than 800,000 taels of silver, which itself made a lot of money, but people's desire and greed are endless, after hearing that Cheng Shijie had a large amount of grain in southern Liaoning, he decided to buy grain from Cheng Shijie.

You must know that the direct transportation from southern Liaoning to Shenyang is less than 800 miles, saving nearly two-thirds of the distance on the road, and more importantly, this trade route does not need to pass through the territory of the Mongols, nor does it have to pay protection fees to the Mongols.

Entering Jinzhou City, Fan Yongdou observed this brand-new city through the car window, where people come and go, bustling, and there are many goods in the shops on the street.

This made Fan Yongdou's confidence even greater, as long as Cheng Shijie did not discriminate against businessmen.

Located in the Ninghai Navy General Mansion, now opposite the Liaodong Economic Envoy Mansion, is a bustling teahouse, Fan Yongdou came to the second floor in front of a private room, only to see two fierce strong men standing in front of the door.

Entering the private room, Bao Chengxian was leisurely drinking tea: "Mr. Fan, it's too late!" ”

"The first thing to do in any business is to find out the ...... of your opponents"

Bao Chengxian said with disdain on his face: "The surname Cheng won a few battles by luck, and he couldn't tell the difference between east and west, north and south, do you really treat him as a character?" ”

"He's a big guy in the first place!"

Fan Yongdou said: "If you do his job, he can provide as much food as you want, but he can reclaim more than five million acres of land, and in addition to his own consumption, he can sell at least millions of stone of grain." ”

Bao Chengxian sneered gloomily: "Do you think we can spend money on this food?" ”

"If Mr. Bao thinks so, then Fan will set off!"

Fan Yongdou got up and left without the slightest hesitation.

Bao Chengxian stared coldly at Fan Yongdou's back: "You dare to ...... You're not afraid! ”

"What should be worried about you now, General Cheng has a grudge against Jiannu for destroying the family and destroying the clan, guess whether he will send you to the capital, or directly Ling Chi in southern Liaoning!"

"Since you know that he has a blood feud with Dajin, and you still want to buy him, how stupid are you?"

"That's not enough money, as long as the money is enough, you let Fan kill his own father, then it's no problem!"

"Bao wants to see, how do you buy it?"

"Wait and see!"

Fan Yongdou is full of self-confidence, he understands human nature very well, especially when he buys other people, what he likes most is to smash people with silver.

If you want to give a gift, then give a heavy gift.

With Cheng Shijie's current identity and status, a few thousand taels of silver will definitely not be taken into account, but what about a hundred thousand taels of silver?

Will Cheng Shijie be tempted?

……

Fan Yongdou directly asked people to deposit 100,000 taels of silver in Liaodong Bank, and after the 100,000 taels of silver were deposited in the bank, he signed a supplementary agreement with the bank's staff, and the money was authorized to be operated by others and could be withdrawn on his behalf.

Take the bank's special password and seal, and send these things directly to the General Army's Mansion.

Cheng Shijie was at dinner when he received a report from Yang Yunniang that a distinguished guest came to Liaodong Bank today, and without blinking his eyes, he saved 100,000 taels of silver, and became the first to store 100,000 taels of silver in Liaodong Bank.

"Who's that householder?"

"Jiexiu Fan's Fan Yongdou!"

Before Cheng Shijie could speak, he received a message from Fan Yongdou.

"I'll go, the fat pig will take the initiative to come to the door!"

Cheng Shijie knew too well who Fan Yongdou was, this was one of the eight great imperial merchants of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and Fan Yongdou actually came to the door in person and sent it to him to clean it up.

"Someone, let him go to the front side hall and wait!"

(End of chapter)