Of course you have to spend money when you have it. It is not Zhou Shixiong's character to leave money moldy in the warehouse. "Send one hundred thousand taels to Gong Liu. Tens of thousands of taels may not be enough." One hundred thousand taels is not enough, Li Fusheng said in his heart. He had received several letters from Gong Liu asking for money. Building a wharf was not just about building a few wooden boards by the river. It was also about digging a deep channel to facilitate the entry and exit of large ships, and building strong dams and large warehouses along the river. All of this cost money. The tens of thousands of taels of silver had long since been spent.
"Hongchang, there are many places in Pingxiangzhou that require money. Shenglong Mansion is just laying the foundation. There is no need to invest so much." Guan Chongguang understood Li Fusheng's difficulties, and Pingxiangzhou was spending money. The big households were three thousand households. As the magistrate of the state, it was necessary for Guan Chongguang to leave some wealth for himself.
"Have you ever thought about it, if we have our own overseas fleet, we don't have to look at the faces of those Folangji people. The most important thing is that with our own fleet, we can open markets outside Thang Long Province , to prevent the interests in Jiaozhi from being controlled by the Northern Vietnam or the Le Dynasty." Zhou Shixiong thought very long-term, but he did not tell Guan Chongguang and Li Fusheng that building an ocean-going fleet was the escape route he left for himself. In the future, if he is unable to resist the southern invasion of the Jian slaves, Zhou Shixiong can go to sea by boat. As for whether to seize an island in the South Seas and become the island owner, or go to North America to establish a continental kingdom and rewrite world history, that is a matter for the future.
"But now all the neighbors are enemies, and the governor of Guangxi is bent on planning to rely on Xiangzhou. If he doesn't strengthen his military power as soon as possible, he may not be able to sustain the fleet until the day it is completed!" It was Li Fusheng who made the request for military expansion. Zhou Shixiong looked at them The two shook their heads, "Now the more actions we take, the more dangerous it becomes. Even if we expand the army, we can't do it in Pingxiangzhou. Aren't you afraid of being labeled as raising private soldiers with the intention of rebelling?"
Guan Zhongguang smiled and pulled out a newspaper from his sleeve, "Hongchang doesn't know something. The imperial court has allowed local organizations to organize team training. As long as they don't ask for money or food from the court, there is no limit on how many people can join." Zhou Shixiong took the newspaper from his Look, it turns out that what Guan Chongguang was talking about was an accompanying decree when Emperor Chongzhen issued a royal edict to the whole country. Each state government can organize its own regiment training, which is directly under the jurisdiction of the military preparation road of each province. According to the number of regiment training, the recruitment and training of general soldiers will be established, and the soldiers will be raised by themselves. A can apply for transfer from Bingbei Road.
"Is this thing useful?" This edict from King Qin was issued to deal with the immigration of slaves. It should be an emergency order. Pingxiangzhou only organized team training at this time, and Zhou Shixiong was worried that someone would make a fuss about it.
"The imperial court has not issued a separate edict to ban it, so this thing has always been useful. No one can fault us." Since Guan Chongguang and Li Fusheng both said categorically that there is no problem, Zhou Shixiong certainly has no problem, "How many people are you planning to get?"
"Ten thousand." Guan Chongguang did not use Li Fusheng as the vanguard this time and casually reported a number.
"The food and salary for ten thousand people is at least fifty thousand taels. Even if I can spare this money, do you think Wang Zunde will give us ten thousand sets of armor?" Zhou Shixiong's doubts are reasonable. He has seen Wang Zunde's two most powerful men. There are two troops, Zuojiang Battalion and Youjiang Battalion. Although these two battalions bear the banner of the navy, at least half of them are pure army soldiers. But except for a few people who have standard military weapons and armor, most people only have a red battle coat and a wooden gun. Even the two most important battalions under his command could not be equipped with a full set of armor. Zhou Shixiong did not believe that Wang Zunde could equip the Pingxiangzhou regiment with complete equipment.
"Hongchang, what we want is justice. It doesn't matter whether Wang Zunde gives him soldiers or not." Li Fusheng was crying about poverty just now, but now he acted like a tycoon, as if he had a lot of money at home and no place to spend it.
"I agree with the expansion of the army, but with the deployment of 10,000 young people, how many people are left in Pingxiangzhou to work? I don't want you to have a peasant army that plows the land and fights." The military camp seems to be very advanced, but in fact, apart from its initial efficiency, after all Outside of high places, military garrison is the most stupid way to raise troops. Of course there is evidence for Zhou Shixiong to say this. The military system of the Ming Dynasty was developed from military camps. Soldiers were allowed to farm their own land to support themselves. At the same time, they had to shoulder the responsibility of protecting their families and the country. The result was that they would have to support themselves. If you can't take care of yourself, and you can't take responsibility, both ends will be ruined.
"Catch both hands and be tough. This is just a slogan. No one in history can do this. Cao Cao established military camps because there were a large number of refugees in Qingzhou. He used military control to resettle these refugees, and at the same time mobilized young men from the refugees to help him fight. The reason why Cao Cao was able to create a military garrison model was because the population base and the proportion of soldiers were very reasonable. Unlike Zhu Yuanzhang, a great man who had one soldier per household, that is to say, one family could support a professional soldier, and one could only rely on breeding. How much food can a family that lives hand to mouth prepare for this professional soldier? If you don¡¯t starve to death, it¡¯s God¡¯s blessing.
"Hongchang, you don't know, we want to start this group training because of the population problem. In the past two years, not counting the young men sent by the chieftains, just because of the wealth of Xiangzhou, there have been more than 50,000 people from other places to make a living. Xiangzhou is a small place, and each village has absorbed more than 20,000 refugees, so there is no way to absorb the population, leaving more than 20,000 people.The barracks has recruited 5,000 people, and more than 10,000 people have been temporarily organized to open roads and dredge rivers, and they are raising them on a work-for-work basis. Seeing that trouble is going to happen if we don't find a way out for them, there is nothing I can do about it. . "After Guan Chongguang complained, Zhou Shixiong realized that Pingxiangzhou seemed prosperous, but there was an undercurrent surging underneath.
"Why didn't you say it before?" Zhou Shixiong remembered that when he first came back, neither of them mentioned it, and he felt a little unhappy.
"In the middle of the year, harvesting and sowing requires a lot of manpower, and these people are not a trouble. And the two of us thought that Lang Son Province would need a lot of manpower, and it was nothing to spend a small amount of money to support them. We didn't expect that it would be such a big problem. The twists and turns, and now good things have turned bad, it was unexpected." Li Fusheng quickly explained that he could not make Zhou Shixiong unhappy.
Speaking of Lang Son Mansion, Zhou Shixiong¡¯s eyes lit up. "Let's do this, recruit 10,000 soldiers, pick the best 5,000 to stay in Pingxiangzhou for training, and the other 5,000 soldiers and the remaining minzhuang will go to Lang Son to build roads, so that the people of Lang Son can get used to having a Ming army. Activities within the government. When I take Bei Chiu Prefecture in the next year, I will build a city in the enclave given to me by Lang Son Prefecture. There is a lot of work for these people." Assisting in the attack on Bei Chiu Prefecture in exchange for an enclave belonging to Pingxiang Prefecture , both Guan Chongguang and Li Fusheng knew about this. As soon as they heard that Zhou Shixiong was going to build a city in the enclave, Li Fusheng found that all the money in the warehouse had flown away, and the days ahead were even tighter.
After spending all the money he just received, Zhou Shixiong wanted to find a place for himself. "I always feel uneasy when I stay here. I'd better go to Li's Villa. I'll leave it to you two to take care of Xiangzhou." Regarding this point, not to mention that Guan Chongguang and Li Fusheng couldn't disagree, even if You You Neither Min nor Shimazu Nan could say anything against it. The two women could only watch Zhou Shixiong get into the carriage with resentment and leave Pingxiang Prefecture under the protection of Wan Qian.
When they arrived at Lishi Villa, Liu Wang and Zhou Si secretly met Zhou Shixiong once, and then sent him to the craftsman camp, where Zhou Shixiong temporarily lived in seclusion.
A few days after arriving at the Craftsman Camp, Ruan Phu Ajiang came to see him. Zhou Shixiong didn¡¯t understand what this woman meant, and he also didn¡¯t understand who revealed the news to her.
"Are you really Zi Qi?" Ruan Phu Ajiang did not enter the craftsman camp, but took Zhou Si's famous post to find a man named Ji Hongchang.
"Who told you?" Zhou Shixiong had to understand this. He couldn't bear to have such a big thing done by himself and have others see through it casually.
"Tiaotiao told me, what, do you have any objections?" Ruan Fu Ajiang has been accompanying Li Jie in Pingxiangzhou, hoping to relieve her pain of losing her husband, but Li Jie can still act decently outside. , I couldn¡¯t hide my joy when I got home. The husband will live in Lang Son for a long time in the future, and You Min and Shima Jinnan will play widows in Pingxiangzhou. How can this huge contrast not excite Li Jie. Therefore, her godmother saw the flaw, and when Ruan Phu Ajiang questioned her about having a wild man outside, she couldn't help but speak out.
Zhou Shixiong looked up to the sky and sighed. It is really difficult for a woman to keep a secret. It is as difficult as climbing to the sky. The ancients are sincere and I can't bully them! Now that everything was exposed, Zhou Shixiong had to admit that he was not dead, because he could not kill Ruan Phu Ajiang to silence him. Doing so would only result in more losses than gains.
"Mother-in-law, this matter is related to the lives of my whole family. I hope my mother-in-law can't reveal it to anyone else, not even my uncle." Zhou Shixiong didn't care whether Ruan Phu Ajiang would tell Ruan Phu Bao, but he had to emphasize this matter. importance, he hoped that Ruan Phu Ajiang would use this opportunity to blackmail him. In that case, there would be no obstacles for Zhou Shixiong to kill people.
"Why do you do this?" Ruan Phu Ajiang has no interest in blackmailing Zhou Shixiong, or Zhou Shixiong doesn't know how to seduce a woman and blackmail a man. Anyway, Ruan Phu Ajiang is only interested in the secret itself.
"There is some friction between me and Emperor Ming. In order to avoid the situation getting worse, I can only take this approach." Even if Zhou Shixiong wanted to make it clear, he couldn't do it. Should he tell Ruan Phu Ajiang that I knew that Ming Dynasty was going to Perish, did you do this because you didn¡¯t want to accompany Emperor Chongzhen to die in the capital? Only if Zhou Shixiong is willing to say it can Nguyen Phu Ajiang be willing to believe it. The people of Jiaozhi have an impression of the Ming Dynasty that it is huge and powerful. If the Ming Dynasty will perish at the hands of the Jiannu with only a few hundred thousand people, the Jiannu themselves will not believe it.
"Since Zi Qi faked his death to avoid disaster, what about the covenant between Lang Son Prefecture and Pingxiang Province?" Ruan Phu Ajiang did not ask for details. She was only concerned about whether her eldest brother would be affected by this incident.
"Pingxiang Province is still under my control. The cooperation with my uncle will not be destroyed but will be strengthened. I have ordered people to organize 15,000 people to come to Lang Son to help my uncle build bridges and roads. This matter is still Ask my mother-in-law to help facilitate it." Of course, sending people to Lang Son Province to build roads requires Nguyen Phuc Bao's consent. The reason why Lang Son Province has not been notified yet is mainly because it takes time to select young men to join the army. We will not contact Ruan Phuoc Bao until this matter is completed. Fu Bao discusses road construction.