Xiao Niangpi stood in front of the sand table at the military headquarters, surrounded by Yang Fan's subordinate military and civilian officials. The chaos in Jizhou is a rare opportunity to practice general mobilization.
Xiao Niangpi decided to seize this opportunity to test whether the plan designed by the master to integrate the army with the people, hide wealth among the people, have a small standing army and a large militia organization was feasible.
Now, the population in Yang Fan's territory has exceeded two million. Among them, there are half a million people on the grasslands. There are 1.5 million people in this territory alone.
According to this era, the average family of five people has one strong man. It can arm 300,000 people.
However, in fact it is impossible. Because production cannot be stopped. Those who can really use it are mainly farmers.
The factory cannot stop for a moment. It is not easy to train workers, and they cannot be wasted on the battlefield. Nowadays, the Xincheng steam power plant and the hydraulic machinery factory near the dam work in three shifts every 12 hours, with people resting and machines producing non-stop.
Because whether it is steel, steel products, textiles, food processing, leather and fur, traditional Chinese medicine and proprietary Chinese medicine, mining and mineral processing, machinery manufacturing, shipbuilding and other industries, the demand is huge and cannot be stopped.
In particular, steel and textiles are in short supply. Countless merchants in Xincheng are waiting to pick up their goods.
Canned marine fish and beef and mutton are also basically out of stock. Especially in the past two years, droughts have intensified, grain output has dropped sharply, and grain prices have soared.
City residents cannot make ends meet. Now in Beizhili and Beijing, Yang Fan provides low-priced cornmeal, and he can still maintain his original life.
The situation in other cities is already very serious. Nowadays, trawlers can catch thousands of tons of marine fish in one boat.
Then the food processing base in Beitangkou makes tinplate cans weighing 50 pounds each. These fish are added with a lot of spices and fried, and the texture is simply delicious for this era.
The price is still cheap. Because there are too many fish in the sea in this era. Compared with the 50 to 60 million tons of catch per year in later generations, it is equivalent to no development at all.
The sea fish is peeled and cleaned, then put directly into a huge iron pot and fried with spices. In this era, sea fish are very fat and will be fried with more oil.
These are heavily salted and taste a bit salty. The crispy fish meat soaked in oil immediately conquered the taste buds of everyone in Daming.
These fried fish go perfectly with porridge and rice porridge. Salt, fat, and protein simply meet all the needs of the people of the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, as many of these cans are produced as possible, they will be taken away by merchants who queue up all night to pick up the goods.
These cans have even appeared in Yunnan and Guizhou regions. This shows how powerful the businessman is. This kind of thing has a shelf life of three years and is easy to transport.
Grocery stores in many cities and towns in Ming Dynasty sell this kind of canned fried sea fish. They open barrels of cans and sell them by the pound.
Many poor people can afford it. Yang Mansion deliberately set the price very low, with a profit of only 10%.
Mainly to alleviate the food crisis. As a result, strange phenomena occurred in Beizhili during the Ming Dynasty.
Fish and meat are cheaper than cereals. The price of meat has actually gone upside down. Of course, as the trafficking distance becomes longer, the price will gradually rise.
In the Yunnan-Guizhou region, it is estimated that only the rich can afford it. However, this kind of heavy oil, salt and spice taste is loved by everyone, and they are also very active in buying it.
Even this kind of canned food was trafficked to North Korea and Japan. In Mrs. Taozi's letter to Yang Fan, she mentioned that she eats some crispy canned sea fish for breakfast every day.
Textiles are mainly cotton cloth woven by water-powered looms. North Zhili, Shandong and Henan are cotton producing areas.
Therefore, Yang Fan focused on developing the cotton textile industry. The grassland mainly involves wool spinning, cotton-wool blending, leather and fur processing, etc.
Only the textile workshops of arsenals produce the lowest-grade and cheapest silk silk, which is used as wrapping material for ammunition.
The quality of the products produced by Yangfu's textile factories far exceeded the coarse cloth produced by handlooms of this era.
Yang's cotton cloth is thin and strong. Because Yang Fan's spinning machine can spin high-count cotton yarn.
The higher the cotton yarn count, the stronger, thinner, softer and smoother the woven cotton cloth will be. High thread count cotton can even achieve a silky effect.
The best-selling items were white gray cloths, which merchants bought and dyed themselves. Because the territory promotes long-staple cotton, Yang Fan's cotton mainly focuses on 40s cotton.
Cotton count refers to the length of cotton yarn per pound. It is often used to measure the thickness of yarn, with higher numbers indicating finer yarn.
For example, 40 count yarn is finer than 20 count yarn. 40s cotton refers to cotton that contains 40 yarns per inch of yarn.
This number represents the fineness and quality of the cotton. Yang Fan has his own dyeing factory, but it only serves the territory.
He has various dyes for later generations. However, the factory still mainly produces gray cloth. It is to drive downstream industries and provide more employment opportunities.
Alleviating the current severe situation of large numbers of refugees.
"Has our current business been greatly affected?" Xiao Niangpi asked, looking at the large eroded sand table map to the west of the territory.
Now the rebels have reached Tongzhou. If Tongzhou cannot be defended, the capital will be destroyed. Now the Grand Canal must be broken, and Tongzhou has become a battlefield.
"Madam, only the merchants from Shanxi can't come here at the moment. The impact is not big. Our main channel for shipping is sea transportation. Now we have mobilized the militia to keep the rebels out of the territory. The merchants are heading from Jiyun River to Beitangkou The transportation of steel ingots and gray cloth has not been greatly affected. It's just that there is a war in Tongzhou, and the Grand Canal will not be able to travel." said Han Jinxi, director of the Commercial Department.
"Well, the wheat harvest will be finished today, and our pressure will be reduced a lot." Xiao Niangpi nodded.
"What's going on over there in Tongzhou now?" Lin Yueru picked up the wooden pole, pointed at the sand table and said: "The latest information, His Majesty sent out the car camp, 6,000 Rumi musketry troops, and the cavalry regiment trained by the Xinghe regiment. An army of 14,000 people has arrived at Tongzhou City." Xiao Niangpi nodded, and His Majesty decided to use his trump card.
He wanted to quell the riot as soon as possible.
"Who will the Lord be?"
"The general is General Zhou Yuji, and the eunuch overseeing the army is Wang Kun." Hearing this, everyone raised their heads in surprise.
The words "supervising army eunuch" attracted everyone's attention. Originally, Chongzhen was opposed to eunuchs interfering in government affairs.
Wei Zhongxian's exclusive power made him extremely disgusted. After he took office, he directly recalled all the guard eunuchs and mining tax eunuchs sent by the Tianqi Dynasty.
Why have eunuchs been sent out again? The little girl was so naughty that she wasn't surprised at all, she just glanced and curled her lips.
She believed that she had been an errand in the palace. I know his Majesty quite well. Since he established his own palace and moved out of the palace, he has taken the young eunuchs to learn and read at a young age.
Many of the eunuchs in Prince Xin's Mansion grew up studying with him. Song Yingsheng sighed and said: "Eunuchs have been causing trouble for the government for a long time. For thousands of years, they have caused too many serious consequences. Unfortunately, although successive courts have seen their danger, their power has continued to rise. Among them." Lin Yueru was an out-and-out eunuch, and couldn't help but retort: "Eunuchs are just a part of the court's power structure. Civil servants, nobles, eunuchs, gentry, and local wealthy families only restrict each other. How can there be Director Song? That's so serious." Song Yingsheng shook his head and said: "The eunuchs in the Han Dynasty only participated in administrative power. At most, they interfered with court administration. In the Tang Dynasty, eunuchs not only interfered with administrative power, but also took control of military power. They commanded the army and launched coups to dethrone the emperor. , as a common occurrence. In our Ming Dynasty, eunuchs not only intervened in administration and took over military power, but also added judicial power. Dongchang became almost a lawless place. Even personnel appointments were interfered by eunuchs." Xiao Niangpi nodded and said: "What Director Song said makes sense. Your Majesty has re-sent the eunuchs to supervise the army. The general and the eunuchs to supervise the army are jointly in charge of military power. The civil servants control the supplies, food and wages, and the three of them restrict each other. The eunuchs who were trained in Prince Xin's Mansion to accompany them are now He has grown up. Your Majesty has been planning this for a long time, and this matter has become unstoppable. In the future, we will also have to consider how to deal with these supervisors." The Yang family is a general, and the eunuchs who supervise the army cannot escape.
They were both the eyes and ears of the emperor and the tools for decentralization of power. I am afraid that the battlefield in the future will not be decided by General Neng and his family.
