In October, with the onset of winter, ice floes began to appear in all rivers in the north, which also meant that water transportation outside the customs was about to stop.

Before it completely froze, Yishaha personally led the sailors to send more than 100,000 stone grain, and Meng Zhang received all of it as usual, and took Yishaha to the Ordnance Bureau.

When they walked into the Ordnance Bureau, they could clearly hear the lively sound of wrought iron.

Due to the constant smelting of scrap metal and the continued forging of cannons, the temperature inside the Ordnance Bureau was much warmer than outside the walls.

"How many people are in this Armory Bureau now?"

Yisha walked on the concrete road of the Ordnance Bureau, looked at the Ordnance Bureau made of concrete, and asked Meng Zhang curiously.

"The one hundred and twenty-six craftsmen you brought before, plus the two hundred and seventy-two apprentices you sent later, are a total of three hundred and ninety-eight."

"Is it enough?" Meng Zhang was explaining, and Yishaha also asked about him.

"There are enough craftsmen, but what is not enough is manpower now." Meng Zhang said while leading the way:

"The road in this northern mountain is rugged and narrow, and it is not easy to appease the Jurchens, since His Highness came back to the present, it has only taken more than half a month to appease more than 300 Jurchens."

"Among them, the men have to join the army, the children study, and only the healthy women and the old and weak can take advantage of the winter to engage in some light work of clay molds."

The production method of Heishui City is different from that of Jilin City, which mainly focuses on grain distribution and farmland reclamation, but Heishui City is mainly based on handicrafts.

In Blackwater City, the men who served in the army were called reservists by Zhu Gaoxu, and their training was the same as that of the Bohai Navy, learning culture every morning and doing professional training in the afternoon.

Their military salary was not as good as that of the Bohai Navy, only three yuan a year, twelve stones, a piece of cloth, and three catties of salt.

But even so, they trained with all their heart, after all, their military pay was enough to keep the family from starving.

This kind of life of not having to worry about food in the cold winter and go hunting in the forest is simply the life they dream of.

What's more, their families were also arranged by the royal government to have corresponding jobs, as well as corresponding rations as wages.

Children learn, one pound of rice per day, healthy women in summer and autumn farming, winter drilling gun barrels, billet molds, two pounds of rice per day.

Even if you are old and weak, you can take away a pound and a half of food just by doing some light work.

As for the men, their rations are solved in the barracks, so there is no need to worry about it at all.

Therefore, every family accepts the work arranged by the officials of the royal palace, and each family can eat enough, and occasionally when the men go out to train, they can also take some meat and come back to divide it equally, which is much more comfortable than when they were in the tribe.

Meng Zhang believed that as the winter continued, many tribes would leave their tribes due to lack of food, and would be taken over by Blackwater City.

Even if it only maintains the scale of more than 1,000 people a month, when the winter passes, the number of Jurchens in Blackwater City can increase to the scale of eight or nine thousand.

In Meng Zhang's opinion, this is already very good, at least two thousand soldiers can be trained.

However, such a speed obviously cannot reach the speed that Zhu Gaoxu wants, so this time he also brought many Jurchen men.

Their families were placed in Jilin City, and they came to Blackwater City as a reserve from the army.

"I have brought more than 3,600 people this time, and if nothing else, His Highness should put all of them in the reserve."

Yizha talked about the things he brought people here, and Meng Zhang was also pleasantly surprised after hearing it: "Really? ”

"Eight or nine is not far from ten." Yisha smiled and looked back, only to realize that they had come to the place where the musket was made.

They walked in, and soon saw the craftsmen who produced guns, arquebuses, and butts like an assembly line.

They were the largest number, sixty men, and were able to make and assemble about 200 arquebuses a day.

"Is Your Highness here?"

Meng Zhang asked a craftsman, who pointed at the shooting range without raising his head, looking very rude, but Yishaha and Meng Zhang were not angry.

Once a craftsman goes to work, unless there is a potential safety hazard, he only needs to do his own thing the rest of the time, and he doesn't have to talk about who he gets up to cater to, which is the rule set by Zhu Gaoxu.

The phrase "Shinong" and "Gonggong" does not exist in the territory of the Bohai Sea, and every profession is respected and exchanged for fruits of labor.

No one here will feel that being a soldier is bad, but that it is glorious.

In such an atmosphere, no one who joined the army and was selected for the Bohai Navy would dare to run away from the battle.

The fingers faced by his family after being a deserter alone were enough to make the man return to the battlefield and be shrouded in horse leather.

'Bang!! ’

Meng Zhang took Yishiha to the shooting range, and before he saw Zhu Gaoxu, he heard the gunshots first.

"This gunshot is different......"

Yisuha had never heard the sound of arquebuses, but he had heard the sound of Hongwu bronze guns.

But in terms of sound, the gunfire at the shooting range is more penetrating.

"Your Highness!"

Meng Zhang found Zhu Gaoxu, and walked towards him with Yishiha, Zhu Gaochu also turned back when he heard the sound, and after seeing Yishiha, he immediately walked towards them with a smile, and was a bear hug at Yisha: "You guy, but you can bear it." ”

"The south side is too busy, the slave really doesn't have time to come......" Yisha couldn't cry or laugh, and was also very happy to be hugged by this hug.

"Look, this is Wang Yuan's new flintlock pistol, although it does not meet the standard of going to the battlefield, but it is much more powerful than the arquebus, tomorrow Wang Yuan will make improvements, before the end of winter, this flintlock pistol should be perfected."

"Flintlock pistol?" Looking at His Royal Highness's excited appearance, Yi Chuan asked curiously: "What is the difference between this flintlock pistol and the Hongwu bronze pistol and the arquebus?" ”

"It's a big difference." Zhu Gaoxu picked up the four-foot-long flintlock pistol in his hand and said: "This flintlock pistol can shoot three to four times per minute, it can pierce armor at a distance of 80 paces, it can hit the target at least once in five shots, and it can hit two times in five times in 60 steps." ”

"Every minute?" Yizha felt that there were a lot of things in his highness's mouth that he didn't understand, although he had been like this before, but he had not changed so much.

"A quarter of an hour is fifteen minutes, and a word hour is five minutes." Zhu Gaoxu explained, while holding the flintlock pistol in his hand, he couldn't stop the pride in his heart.

If he was thrown into the Qin, Han, Tang and Song dynasties, let alone get a flintlock pistol, with the iron-smelting technology at that time, even if he made an arquebus, it was estimated that it would be easy to blow up.

In contrast, the iron-smelting technology of the Ming Dynasty could fully support him to make front-loading cannons and flintlock pistols.

With these things, he didn't know how he lost the Battle of Jingyan, and the problem now was ......

"Your Highness, since this flintlock pistol is better, why don't you let the craftsmen in the musket room make this flintlock pistol?"

As soon as Meng Zhang opened his mouth, he not only interrupted Zhu Gaoxu's thoughts, but also interrupted his conjecture.

There was an embarrassing thing in front of him, that is, he didn't know the flint mine branch in the northeast, and everything he knew was in the south.

That's why he didn't dare to say anything about producing flintlock pistols, because he didn't have enough flint.

"After the beginning of spring, I have to ask Yang Bin to get me some high-quality flint."

Zhu Gaoxu thought about it while fooling Meng Zhang: "This gun is not perfect yet, let's talk about it after Wang Yuan is perfect." ”

Saying this, Zhu Gaoxu also felt a little lost in his heart.

He pushed for the advancement of firearms, but in this way, the strengths of his body were also limited.

It's just that the replacement of cold weapons with hot weapons is unstoppable, and he should be happy to be the one who has promoted the progress of firearms, rather than staying conservatively in the era of cold weapons fighting.

If it was really an era of cold weapons warfare, it would be difficult for his Bohai Navy, which had less than 10,000 men, to defeat the Liaodong Dusi with 30,000 or 40,000 armor soldiers on the frontal battlefield.

Even if it was Zhu Di, it took four years to completely defeat the southern army when the three guards of Yanfu went south to defect to him.

The four-year civil war can not only destroy the army's external and internal discipline, but also destroy the northern economy that Zhu Yuanzhang has finally recovered.

Beiping, Henan, Jianghuai, Shandong......

These places were devastated because of the Jingjing, and Lao Zhu spent more than 20 years and finally trained the millions of elites, and more than half of them were reimbursed in this civil war.

The death of this semi-elite led to the decline of the guard system, and also led to the destruction of the military camps in Beiping, Shandong, Henan, and Lianghuai.

If these elites are used to expand their territory and garrison the Quartet, then the Ming Dynasty will at least be able to control one or two more provinces, but unfortunately they all died in the end at the hands of their own people.

He does not deny that Zhu Gaoxu wanted to be martyred for his own sake, but at the same time he also wanted to narrow the scope of the martyrdom.

Even if he could make the Battle of Jingjing end a year earlier, the trauma suffered by Da Ming would be reduced by one percent.

Compared with the hundreds of thousands of troops who died in the four years of the Battle of Jingjing, millions of people were displaced.

Zhu Gaoxu wanted to narrow down the scope of the Jingyan Campaign to less than three years, with more than 100,000 casualties and minimize the devastation of the war to the north.

No matter whether others say that he is hypocritical, or that he wants the torii when he is a bitch, he always thinks so in his heart.

If the Battle of Jingyan can be completed within two years, then the three major corps in the southwest, at least Xu Huizu, Mu Chun, and He Fu in Yunnan, will not have time to send troops.

Of course, the best time to appease is actually after the death of Zhu Li and Lao Zhu one after another.

If he rises up at this time, he can definitely end the martyrdom early, and the only thing he has to bear is to bear the infamy of a rebellion in the history books, but he doesn't care.

But the key is that he can throw off his face and rebel, but can Zhu Di?

If Zhu Di could, he would not have watched his military power to control the Beiping Sandu Division being cut, his three guards being transferred, and he being confined in the palace.

Let Zhu Di be shameless, this is what Zhu Gaoxu wants to do most at the moment, but this is difficult......

"Let's go, go to the study to rest, and tell me how the situation is in Jilin City."

Zhu Gaoxu thought of Zhu Di's matter, so he was no longer happy about the flintlock pistol, and took Yishaha and Meng Zhang to his study in the Ordnance Bureau.

After just one word, the three of them returned to the study under the escort of the soldiers, Zhu Gaoxu sat in the main seat, and Yishaha and the two sat in the positions of the left and right heads.

Picking up a cup of hot water, Zhu Gaoxu smiled and said to Yisha: "There is no tea in this place, and it is good to drink more hot water." ”

"His Royal Highness drinks hot water, how dare the slave and maid dare to drink tea?" Yisha responded with a smile, and at the same time took out a document from the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies from his arms:

"Your Highness, before talking about the matter of Jilin City, the slave maid has to show you this promotion document first."

He got up and handed the document to Zhu Gaoxu, Zhu Gaochu took it and looked at it, and sure enough, as he expected, nearly half of the military attaches who participated in this northern tour were transferred, and unlike the last time Jilin City self-supplemented military attachés, this time the Governor's Office of the Five Armies sent 25 military attaches of all sizes to Jilin City.

Among them, the lowest official positions are all hundred-household officials, and it can be said that if they wait for the spring of next year, then a quarter of Jilin City's military power will be deprived.

It's just that Zhu Gaoxu was not worried about this, but said to Yisha: "All these people are transferred to Zhaozhou City." ”

"Yes!" Yisha responded decisively, because he also thought so.

Zhaozhou City can be said to be the least secret city among the four cities in the Bohai Sea today, and because it is in charge of patrolling, this place is dangerous enough to scare off some of the embroidered pillows among the twenty-five people.

After Zhu Gaoxu finished giving the order, he continued to look back, and then he saw some orders that Lao Zhu gave him a few months ago.

"Transfer 2,000 households, let me choose a place to build a thousand households."

Zhu Gaoxu had a smile on his face, and he also took the opportunity to say: "Why don't you choose that place as the place that Your Highness took a fancy to before?" ”

What Yisha said was the ruins of the former Kim Long An Mansion that they passed through when they went north.

The ruins of Long An Mansion are 300 miles away from 30,000 Wei, which is enough for Zhu Gaoxu to react after the start of the Battle of Jingyan, and the construction of a thousand households there, you can also use some stone bricks from the ruins of Long An Fu, saving a lot of trouble.

Thinking about it this way, Zhu Gaoxu also said to Yishiha: "In this way, you go back this time and take Wu Ming with you, promote him to a thousand household officials, and let him take a thousand households of soldiers and horses and three thousand Jurchen people to build a city in Long'an of Qianjin after the beginning of spring, then the city will be called Changchun." ”

In order to facilitate his memory, Zhu Gaoxu moved the name of the city 'Changchun' to the early Ming Dynasty more than 400 years in advance.

Meng Zhang and Yishaha didn't have any opinions on this kind of trivial matter, and they all nodded in response.

Seeing that this matter was finished, Zhu Gaoxu continued: "Okay, this matter is not difficult to do, let's talk about the situation in Jilin and other cities first." ”

"Yes......" also lost his response, and then dictated the situation in Jilin and other cities.

"Your Highness this year, you brought back a lot of animal power after the northern expedition, although it is already September, but before the winter, the people below still trained them to reclaim a lot of wasteland, so this year's wasteland is more than originally expected, more than 326,000 acres have been reclaimed."

"Counting the previous ripe fields, there are now more than 675,000 mu of cultivated land in the four cities of the Bohai Sea, and more than 350,000 mu of cultivated land for harvesting grain this year, more than 27,000 stones of rice, more than 64,000 stones of soybean feed, and more than 152,000 stones of millet, wheat and other grains."

"If you calculate according to the current set of five stone per year for adults and six stone per year for military horses, the grain produced this year will probably be able to support more than 56,000 people and more than 16,000 military horses."

The good news was that the city of Jilin was able to feed more than 56,000 people.

Meng Zhang showed a smile on his face and looked at his Royal Highness, but he didn't want Zhu Gaoxu to deal calmly: "What is the military and civilian under the command of the palace now?" ”

Answering his question was already familiar to Yishiha, and he already had a draft, so he replied without thinking: "In the past few months, after passing through Fudaha, the two cities of Jilin and Andong have each appeased many Jurchens. ”

"Today, in the four cities of Bohai, there are 9,000 soldiers, 496 reservists, 88,927 people, and nearly 54,000 naturalized Jurchens."

Yi Weiha said while looking at Zhu Gaoxu's expression worriedly.

After hearing this, Zhu Gaoxu did not react in a hurry, but continued: "In this way, if we can harvest 450,000 stone grains in the autumn harvest, then we can be completely self-sufficient. ”

"Theoretically, but we have too many herds." Yi Lost Ha couldn't help but have a headache:

"At present, the number of cattle and horses in Jilin City has reached more than 30,000 cattle and more than 50,000 horses."

"Because the herd is too big, when Yang Shanren came last month, the slave maid sold half of the more than 80,000 sheep in Jilin City to him in exchange for 10,000 yuan."

When the fur business was cold, Zhu Gaoxu once asked Yizha to find some ways to make money by himself, so he took advantage of the large number of sheep seized this time and deliberately sold half of them.

In this way, it not only reduces the burden on Jilin City, but also increases income.

10,000 guan may not seem like much, but it is enough to pay the salaries of more than 1,000 soldiers.

"In the palace, how much money is there now, and the money may be raised in the coming year?"

Zhu Gaoxu asked him about the things he cared about, and Yizha also replied cautiously to this question: "At present, Yang Shanren's fur has not been completely sold, although he bought some ginseng, deer antler velvet and other medicinal materials this year, but counting the herd and salt, it only brought more than 26,000 guan to the palace. ”

"The palace will have 10,000 soldiers after the spring of the next year, and counting the money and salaries of the military attachés, the palace will have to come up with at least 110,000 yuan."

"At the moment, with the money and grain given by Yang Shanren, as well as the copper coins allocated by the imperial court in the spring next year, there is still a gap of at least 40,000 yuan."

The gap of 40,000 guan is not small, even Zhu Gaoxu has to worry.

Of course, more importantly, this is only the money in the military salary, and compared with this, the proportion is heavier than the food salary.

"The salary is about 260,000 stones, and each ploughing ox pulls the horse at least three stone beans a year, except for the more than 7,000 military horses selected from the 50,000 horses, and the remaining ploughing oxen and horses need at least 200,000 stone beans every year."

"If it is self-sufficient without relying on the capital of Liaodong, then Jilin City will have to produce no less than 250,000 stone beans, 800,000 stone grain and 140,000 yuan of artisan soldiers and other money under the current situation."

Yizha also told the needs of self-sufficiency under the status quo in Jilin City, and Zhu Gaoxu had a headache.

After he slowed down, he found out after a slight discount that Jilin City had also reached a force with an annual expenditure of nearly 500,000 yuan.

What is the concept of spending nearly half a million yuan per year?

You must know that in addition to countries such as the Ming Dynasty, Timur, Ottoman, and Holy Rome, such as England, Korea, Portugal, etc., the annual national income is only two or three million yuan of fiscal revenue after conversion.

The cost of less than 90,000 soldiers and civilians in Bohai is almost a quarter of England's fiscal revenue, and Bohai's population is less than one-tenth of England's.

With such financial pressure, Zhu Gaoxu felt uncomfortable just listening to it.

The faster he develops, the deeper his dependence on Da Ming becomes.

In the face of such financial pressure, if it were not for Lao Zhu, it is very likely that he would die in May next year, and Zhu Gaoxu even has the idea that he can stop and do a good job in the agricultural economy.

Now he knows why he wants to engage in million-dollar disarmament.

If we do not stop the pace of armament, we will simply not have the energy to develop the economy.

It's just a pity that he doesn't have time to develop the economy, and if he insists on saying that there is, it will only be next year.

"In my opinion, according to last month's reclamation, will the four cities of Bohai be able to break through one million acres of cultivated land next year?"

Zhu Gaoxu also lost his forehead and asked, obviously this huge financial pressure made him feel heavy.

"There should be no problem." After all, almost every person in the four cities of Bohai has a ploughing ox and a horse, and in addition to the busy days of farming and harvesting, they can spare five months to reclaim the wasteland in summer and autumn.

With the animal power of more than 70,000 cattle and horses, it is not a problem to cultivate more than 500,000 mu of land in five months, and it is not difficult to break through one million mu.

"That's good......" Zhu Gaoxu bowed, no one knew why he was in such a hurry, and he couldn't tell others.

"Your Highness, in fact, we don't have to be in such a hurry, after all, after the two thousand households allocated this time come, the imperial court can solve the military salary of 170,000 stones, as long as we survive next year, we will be self-sufficient when we wait for the autumn harvest of the following year."

Yisha comforted Zhu Gaoxu, but his words were not comforting in Zhu Gaoxu's ears.

How could he not know that he only needed to survive until the autumn harvest of the next year to achieve self-sufficiency, but the question was where he would have the time to survive until the autumn harvest of the following year.

Next year, Lao Zhu will die, and Zhu Yunwen's kid will take the stage to sing and start cutting the domain.

In the year after tomorrow, Zhu Gaoxu may not even see the autumn harvest, so he has to respond to his father's martyrdom.

He really waited for the autumn harvest, not long after the autumn harvest, the road outside the gate was about to be buried by snow, and he couldn't lead his troops south, so he could only let Zhu Di face the encirclement and suppression alone.

By the time he was able to lead his troops south, it was already April of the second year of Jianwen.

From July of the first year of Jianwen to April of the second year of Jianwen, Zhu Di will experience the Battle of Hutuo River, the surprise attack on Daning, the Battle of Beiping, the Battle of Zhengcunba, the Battle of Baigou River and other major battles.

Among them, if there was no figure of himself in the battle of Baigou River, then Qu Neng's father and son would probably really pick off Zhu Di's head.

In other words, it was impossible for Zhu Gaoxu to stay in Bohai for a few months, and he had to rush to enter Liaodong in just three months from July to September of the first year of Jianwen.

If he can't do it, then when the snow melts, then he won't have to participate in the Jingjing, just surrender directly, and the "Jingyan Battle" in history will probably become "Jianwen Suppression".

If he wanted to participate in the Battle of Jingjing normally, Zhu Gaoxu had to get enough food.

According to what Yizha said just now, if he wants to successfully participate in the Battle of Jingjing, he must at least ensure that the grain in Jilin City can be eaten for two years.

"How much grain do we have in our treasury now?"

Zhu Gaoxu lowered his eyes and asked Yishiha, and Yishiha said without thinking: "Counting the food sent by Yang Shanren, it is enough to eat until August of the next year, that is, enough to eat for ten months." ”

"Ten months ......" Zhu Gaoxu muttered, and after muttering for a long time, a trace of entanglement flashed in his eyes, as if he already knew what to do in order to ensure that he could participate in the battle of Jingjing in time.

(End of chapter)