This deputy economic envoy to Liaodong was obviously the cabinet and Wanli who did not want to put Liaodong completely under the control of the Li family.
But fortunately, the top leader in Liaodong is Yan Mingtai. For now, this brother Yan is pretty good to me. Apart from Xiong Tingbi, he is also one of the few civil servants in the Ming Dynasty who knows the military.
Yan Mingtai also had the experience of holding on to Qinghe Fort and fighting in the bloody battle at Nanguan, so he would not hold back Li Xianzhong militarily.
Regarding the current situation, Li Xianzhong is quite satisfied. He has considerable control over Liaodong and will not arouse too much suspicion from the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty.
Yan Mingtai was well aware of Li Xianzhong's expansion of the commercial port in Yingkou and his private customs collection, but he did not point it out.
Li Xianzhong put 30% of the tax revenue from Yingkou Customs in Yan Mingtai's name on the grounds of congratulating Yan Mingtai on his promotion to the governor of Jiliao.
Yan Mingtai is a person with high EQ and IQ. He knows that the reason why he was promoted so quickly is largely due to the imperial court's fear of Li Xianzhong and the Li family behind him.
So on the surface, the two of them have less contact with each other, and there is even some deliberate alienation between them.
But in fact, the two of them are in a mutually dependent relationship. One prosperes and the other suffers.
After they established a copper smuggling route southward along the Liaohe River from Kaiyuan to Yingkou, the income of Shenyang and Liaoyang along the way also increased.
Li Xianzhong also gave a share of the proceeds from this smuggling line to Li Huaizhong of Shenyang and Liu Wei of Liaoyang.
After all, everyone makes money, and it is better to be the king of hell than to deal with the devil. Although the upper management from Wanli to the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Liaodong Governor's Yamen are all vested interests in the Hongtoushan Copper Mine.
But if these guards along the way don't get any profit or water, they will definitely be angry with the smuggling traders, which will eventually affect the smooth flow of the trade route.
It can be said that various roads in Liaodong are actually gradually recovering.
After the Saarhu War, the move to establish the state was not insignificant.
Attack Kaiyuan in the north and Kuandian in the south.
Although both sides suffered heavy losses, the Ming army even lost Kuandian Six Forts.
However, Jianzhou has never been able to break through Ming Dynasty's Liaodong border wall. This is an indisputable fact. The people of Liaodong are no longer threatened by Jianlu.
Their confidence in the imperial court is gradually recovering. At least now, no one will secretly run to Jianzhou to work as a slave for the Tatars because they can't survive.
Under the propaganda and instigation of the Intelligence Department, from time to time Bao Yi from Jianzhou fled back to the border of Ming Dynasty.
With the rise of Kaiyuan border trade and the proliferation of maritime smuggling in Yingkou, the entire Liaodong economy began to be activated.
Nowadays, among the various roads in Liaodong, except for the Qinghe Road that was severely damaged, the economy of all other roads has actually been boosted by the trade routes.
Li Xianzhong's current income is also steadily increasing, although after the implementation of the "Kaizhong Law", Kaiyuan's commercial taxes on trade with Mongolia mainly turned into the storage of grain and materials.
However, through Liang San and Fan Yongdou's external sales, especially after the trade in Jianzhou was restored, Li Xianzhong's monthly income is now as high as 30,000 taels.
My own sales of ginseng, fur, and dongzhu to the capital can currently be stable at around 10,000 taels per month.
But it is income from North Korea that is gaining the most momentum.
The coarse salt produced by the Yellow Sea salt field currently almost monopolizes the salt road between Liaodong and Mongolia. Li Xianzhong sold "Yellow Sea Salt" at low prices in Liaodong and quickly occupied the market. Other businessmen also wisely gave up selling salt to Liaodong and Mongolia.
Moreover, through cooperation with the Andong Kim family, North Korea’s upper class society has also monopolized their demand for refined salt.
The salt industry currently has an income of tens of thousands taels per month. If the inland market of the Ming Dynasty can be opened in the future, or sold further to Khalkha and Mongolia, the income will be greatly increased.
With the influx of goods from the Ming Dynasty into North Korea, and the goods from North Korea being smuggled back to the mainland of the Ming Dynasty.
Incheon Tongyingkou Port 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 Li Xianzhong's monthly income is almost 70,000 taels.
Of course, Heaven and Earth is also a huge profit project, but currently this revenue belongs to the Intelligence Department and is used to support the development of the Intelligence Department across the country.
After all, with the expansion of intelligence points, the Intelligence Department has to support more and more people.
However, the industries opened by the intelligence base in various places also have certain profitability, and Mao Yuanyi currently has a surplus.
In addition to Liaodong, Grassland, and North Korea, the intelligence points of the Intelligence Department have expanded to various towns in Jiubian, as well as Nanjing, Macau, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Quanzhou, Guangzhou and other places.
According to this development trend, within three years at most, there will be strongholds of the Intelligence Department in basically all parts of the Ming Dynasty.
After taking over the newly established Fushun Road, Li Xianzhong added another 5,000 troops.
After the imperial court's five hundred pairs of armor were in place, the Liaodong cavalry could finally be expanded to 3,000 men.
At present, the total strength of the Ming army in Kaiyuan, Tieling and Fushun has reached 26,000.
Among them, the "Liaodong Iron Cavalry" and the "Assault Battalion" each had three thousand cavalry as mobile troops, and they were also the main force of Li Xianzhong's foreign campaigns.
Kaiyuan City includes 8,000 garrison troops at Kaiyuan Three Passes, while Tielingwei and Pinglu Fort belong to the rear garrison of 3,000 troops.
The newly established Fushun Road is currently closest to Jianzhou and has 9,000 troops stationed there.
Zhao led 4,000 troops to guard Fushun Pass, while Mangui led 3,000 troops to garrison Jiefan City, including 2,000 well-equipped civilian guards.
Although these two people are not from the Li family in Liaodong, they are two capable men that Yuan Chonghuan relied on very much in history. Li Xianzhong now uses his divine perspective to take the lead in promoting and re-employing them.
Although there are still relatively many new soldiers now, with the Ming army's cloth armor and firearms, holding the pass should not be a big problem.
The remaining two thousand people are used to guard the copper mine in Hongtou Mountain. After all, this is the "money bag" of the entire Liaodong.
In fact, Li Xianzhong's private copper mine in Hongtoushan is also very profitable, but the copper currently produced is basically used to cast cannons, so it is not used for trade.
After more than eight months of development, Pinglu Fort has transformed from an abandoned fort into a large base.
Although Pinlubao is still the small town it was on Thursday, it is now only used as a warehouse.
All the belongings of Ning Yuan Bo Li Xianzhong are now in Pinglu Fort, where 500,000 taels of silver and 600,000 shi of grain are stored.
There are also large amounts of salt, tea, cement and gunpowder.
Fan Wencheng, a fifth-grade Qianhu of the Pinglu Guards, actually had more silver than the current amount of silver in Taicang, the Ministry of Revenue.
The current Pinglu Guards have a total of more than 46,000 military households.
This does not include 20,000 North Korean workers.
Due to the arrival of these free labor forces, the Pingluwei labor force has greatly increased. Heavy physical work such as iron ore mining, coal mining, and marl mining now mainly relies on these Korean laborers.
Even land reclamation work mainly relies on them, so that more than a dozen Pinglubao military households can be freed to engage in various kiln production and equipment manufacturing.
Li Xianzhong has not been to Pinglu 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 built these waterwheels?"
Fan Wencheng said: "These were built under the guidance of Deacon Tang Ruowang. The waterwheel we originally built ourselves was much smaller than this one."
"According to 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 water channel in front and said: "At present, we have built a diversion channel with cement to introduce a large amount of water from the Fan River into the reservoir."
In fact, he was very puzzled. Uncle Ning Yuan asked them to build large reservoirs. The more the better.
However, their fields are located on both sides of the Fan River and are not too far from the water source. How can they still be short of water?
However, since it was Li Xianzhong's order, he had no choice but to comply. It would also be beneficial to build some reservoirs in places far away from the river. The efficiency of irrigation could be improved a lot.
Li Xianzhong said: "It's almost December now. I'm afraid the river will freeze soon. You have to hurry up and store water."
Fan Wencheng said: "Uncle Ning Yuan, don't worry. Now there are 200,000 acres of fertile land near Pinglubao planted with wheat. Another 30,000 acres of wasteland have been developed. Although it cannot keep up with this year's winter wheat sowing, we will continue to do more. Developing wasteland.”
Li Xianzhong nodded with satisfaction and said: "Mr. Fan is a great talent. You have been wronged by a fifth-grade Guardsman Qianhu. I will definitely turn you into a civil servant if I have the chance."
Originally, Fan Wencheng was very concerned about this. For a scholar like him, although the rank of fifth-rank official was not low, the official of the Wei Department was a military attaché.
The Ming Dynasty valued literature over martial arts, which was tantamount to ending his path to the imperial examination.
But he is relieved now. As a military general, Li Xianzhong can be the deputy economic envoy of Liaodong and the governor-general of Ming Dynasty in North Korea. As long as you follow the right person, why don't you worry about losing your own future?
With the help of the Intelligence Department, his brother Fan Wencai was also very prosperous among the Tatars. He, a Qianhu of the Fifth Grade Guard House, was in charge of more treasury silver than Taicang of the Ministry of Hubu (the Hubu of the Ming Dynasty was now poor. Ding dong, most of the time Taicang's treasury silver really doesn't have 500,000 taels).
This trust is the most rare thing!
Fan Wencheng raised his hand and said: "Fan is just a young boy, and he has benefited a lot from being able to serve under Ning Yuanbo. Not to mention having the rank of fifth rank, it is Fan's honor to be white!"
Li Xianzhong said: "Then we can't wrong Mr. Fan! Can Pinglu Fort be self-sufficient now?"
Fan Wencheng said with pride: "At present, in addition to briquettes and cement, Pinglubao also has pastures and porcelain kilns under its jurisdiction."
"The mutton and dairy products produced by the ranch have been supplied to major cities in Liaodong; the porcelain produced is not only supplied to Liaodong, but also sold to North Korea."
"In addition, Pinglubao has opened a bronze workshop to make bronze mirrors and copper furnaces. The sales are very good."
"Currently, Pinglu Fort can receive more than 20,000 taels of silver per month. In addition to paying the salaries of some officials in Pinglu Fort and rewarding craftsmen, it is enough to support the purchase of other weapons-making materials and the expansion of some workshops."
"There is currently a surplus of more than 8,000 taels of silver in the accounts."
"It's just that now, including those North Korean workers, there are more than 66,000 people, and their monthly food ration consumption is as high as 40,000 dan."
Li Xianzhong didn't expect that Pinglubao actually had a porcelain kiln. It seemed that after the private mines in Hongxiushan were moved to Pinglubao, Pinglubao became more wealthy.
Fan Wencheng was able to save a lot of money besides carrying out extensive construction projects.
However, the food that the merchants turned in through the "Kaizhong Law" each month was only 70,000 to 80,000 shi. Excluding the ration consumption of Pinglubao, there would not be much food left every month.
So Li Xianzhong said: "The autumn harvest has just ended, and food in Jiangnan should be cheap. You can keep half of the money sent to Pinglubao through other channels every month, and give me the other half in exchange for food."
Although the price of food in Liaodong remained high a while ago, with the increasing number of merchants, the supplies in Liaodong are still relatively sufficient, and the price of food has also dropped to seven to eight yuan per stone.
Fan Wencheng asked in confusion: "Pinglubao has already stored 600,000 shi of grain. Isn't that enough? We have to build a new warehouse to buy more grain."
Li Xianzhong said: "According to my observation, there will be a severe drought next year, and food will become more expensive by then. Don't worry, saving food will definitely be more cost-effective than saving money!"
Although Fan Wencheng had some doubts in his heart, Ning Yuanbo was actually so sure that there would be a severe drought next year.
They are building water reservoirs and hoarding food desperately.
However, Li Xianzhong really never missed anything, so he said: "I humbly obey my orders!"
Soon the two came to a shooting range south of Pinglu Fort.
This was also the main purpose of his coming to Pinglubao today, because the Hongyi cannon made by Pinglubao itself was about to be tested.
To be honest, even Li Xianzhong did not expect that Tang Ruowang could successfully create the Hongyi cannon in less than two months after arriving at Pinglu Fort.
But he soon figured out the reason, because they were casting copper cannons. Copper has a lower melting point than iron and is easier to cast.
In fact, bronze cannons and iron cannons have their own merits.
Copper cannon has a low melting point, good fluidity, and is easy to cast. It has good toughness and is not easy to explode; even if the chamber is exploded, the iron pieces will not fly around like iron cannons, causing casualties; it is not easy to rust, has a long service life and is simple to maintain.
However, it is precisely because of its low melting point that it is not heat-resistant and is not suitable for continuous emission.
Fortunately, the Hongyi cannon was cast, and its rate of fire was relatively slow. If it's a rapid-fire cannon like the Folang machine gun, I'm afraid it won't last long before it has to stop.
At this stage, the quality of steel is not that good. Generally speaking, the performance of copper cannons is better than that of iron cannons.
However, because the cost of copper was much higher than that of iron, the Ming Dynasty did not cast bronze cannons in large quantities. Not to mention 12-pound artillery pieces like the Hongyi Cannon.
This test firing was very successful. The range of the bronze cannons cast in Pinlubao steadily exceeded 1,500 meters, even farther than the Portuguese cannons.
But when the second test shot took place, Li Xianzhong was dumbfounded.
Although the range was slightly closer to 100 meters than the first time, the huge explosion instantly knocked down the surrounding trees.
It turned out to be a blooming bomb.
Originally, he wanted to suggest that the craftsmen study explosive bombs, but he didn't expect that they had already made them.
In addition, the Suifa-style Lumi gun has also been researched.
However, Li Xianzhong was not too surprised by this. Europe developed the Suifu gun fifty years ago, but currently the matchlock gun is still the mainstream on the battlefield.
The reason is very simple. The Suifa gun cannot defeat the already mature matchlock gun.
Suifu guns of this era were not much faster than matchlocks in terms of rate of fire.
To fire a musket, soldiers need to first clean up the residue in the barrel, then put a certain amount of gunpowder into the barrel, then put lead bullets, stuff some rags to fix the bullets and gunpowder, and then put another refined gunpowder Fill the ignited gunpowder pool, then fix the match rope to the trigger, open the gunpowder pool, aim, and fire.
The firing gun only saves a little time in the last two steps compared to the matchlock gun.
The tedious steps before are actually the same.
However, due to technical reasons, flintlock guns often failed to fire and the ignition rate was low.
In this way, the only slight advantage in rate of fire is gone.
In this era, if you ask soldiers to use flintlocks to fire matchlocks, you will basically die.
So much so that many soldiers in Europe refused to use flintlock muskets.
Of course, there are ways to speed up the loading. For example, you can use paper shells to quantitatively load gunpowder, so that soldiers don't have to estimate how much gunpowder is needed each time and just pour it all in; you can also directly wrap the lead bullets with deerskin in advance, so that It will save you the time of stuffing rags.
Li Xianzhong has given these two methods to the Pinglu Guards, so the Pinglu Guards can fire the matchlock gun at a rate of 30 seconds, which is almost twice the speed of ordinary fire guns.
So he wasn't interested in flintlocks.
To completely solve the problem of firecrackers' rate of fire, it is necessary to create a breech-loading gun, and with mini bullets, fixed bullets can be pushed directly into the bore.
This kind of technology did not appear until the American Civil War, and it was impossible for him to complete these transformations with his ability as a "keyboard warrior".
However, what is unexpected is that the ignition rate of the flintlock gun manufactured by Pinlubao is actually 100%. After being fired ten times in a row, there was no problem of not being able to ignite.
Li Xianzhong originally thought it was Tang Ruowang's credit, but he said: "Dear Uncle Ning Yuan, you should thank this Eunuch Han. He used your Ming Dynasty's Bailiang Steel as the material of the spring, which greatly improved the ignition rate."
"Furthermore, he was the one who made the explosive bombs, and he is also very knowledgeable about cannon casting. It was with his assistance that we were able to complete the casting of the Hongyi cannon so quickly."
Tang Ruowang's words shocked Li Xianzhong. This was Mr. Han who he had shamelessly asked Eunuch Liu of the Military War Bureau to help guide Lumi's gun craftsmanship.
Unexpectedly, I actually picked up a treasure.
Originally, he provided three people to the Intelligence Department: Song Yingxing, Xu Guangqi, and Bi Maokang.
It is a pity that Song Yingxing was only in his twenties at this time and had just passed the imperial examination four years ago. He was still working hard on the imperial examination and had no interest in coming to Liaodong. Historically, he gave up the imperial examination after failing the imperial examination for six times.
And Bi Maokang is now the salt patrol censor in Shandong. He is not a big official, only seventh grade, but he is not willing to make firearms for Li Xianzhong.
The Donglin Party members controlled the staff, and Li Xianzhong was unable to transfer people.
Don't even think about Xu Guangqi. Although he is not an important minister in the cabinet now, he is also a serious scholar of the Hanlin Academy and has a bright future.
And he also has an identity, the disciple of Ye Xianggao, the former chief assistant of Donglin boss.
As for the relationship between Li Xianzhong and the Donglin Party, there is basically no need to talk about it.
Unexpectedly, I unexpectedly ran into Eunuch Han, who was good at firearms.
Li Xianzhong said: "Liaodong Mine Superintendent Ma Eunuch is still short of a deputy. I think Han Eunuch is suitable. In the name of Liaodong Mine Superintendent's Deputy Commissioner, you can safely make firearms for me here. As for the War Bureau Liu Eunuch, I will say hello naturally, what do you think?"
The position of Mine Supervisor is notoriously lucrative, and the Deputy Envoy is much better than the head of the War Bureau, so Eunuch Han is naturally willing.
So he said: "Then our family would like to thank Uncle Ning Yuan for your support!"
Li Xianzhong said: "According to my rules here, there are rewards for making major reforms in firearms. Eunuch Han contributed a thousand taels of silver for his contribution this time. I hope Eunuch Han will accept it!"
I have long heard that Uncle Ning Yuan spends a lot of money, and he has never earned more than one thousand taels in his life.
However, Eunuch Han still said: "This flower bomb actually appeared as early as Xiaozong's Hongzhi period. Our family is just borrowing flowers to offer to Buddha. We really deserve it!"
Hearing what Eunuch Han said, Li Xianzhong felt that his character was pretty good.
Currently, with the help of Eunuch Han, the production of Lumi guns has been increased to 800 guns per month.
However, the ignition rate of the Suifa gun cannot reach 100%. The test firing just now was just a matter of luck, but it can definitely exceed 90%.
In this way, it basically does not affect the shooting efficiency.
Nowadays, the rate of fire of fireguns cannot meet the requirements of field battles. However, the ignition rate of muskets on rainy days is definitely much better than that of matchlocks. Although the increase in rate of fire is not too obvious, it can be regarded as significant. A little breakthrough.
In the end, Li Xianzhong decided to replace the matchlock gun with a Suifa gun. After all, this was also the trend in the development of firearms, and it might also lead to them creating a breech-loading gun.
Originally, according to the previous agreement, Tang Ruowang helped Li Xianzhong complete these technological innovations, and it was time for him to retire.
However, Li Xianzhong promised to help him build a Catholic church here in Pinglu Fort, allowing him to develop some believers here first and guide him in other techniques of the workshop.
It would not be too late for him to leave Liaodong after the church was built.
There is no problem with his previous promise to preach in North Korea. This kind of thing can be left to Jin Zidian.
Tang Ruowang also said that the drawings of the Spanish Galen ship and the target ship are already in sight, but he needs to send someone to Macau to negotiate the specific price.
If a worker wants to do his job well, he must first sharpen his tools.
The reason why he favored the Hongyi cannon was not just for defending and attacking the city.
The Hongyi Cannon may not necessarily be able to compare with the faster firing rate of the Folang Machine Artillery and the Tiger Crouching Cannon in terms of its killing effect in defending the city.
The effect of siege is not as good as that of mortars.
But he is the main force of ship-borne artillery. Li Xianzhong understands the importance of the ocean to a civilization better than anyone else. The reason why he is so anxious to make Hongyi cannon is to lay the foundation for building warships in the future.
But just when he was actively preparing for war and preparing for a big fight, a huge news came from the capital: Empress Wang died of illness, and Emperor Wanli's old illness relapsed!
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(End of chapter)
