In order to make up for the shortage of soldiers and cannons, Li Xijue suggested at the meeting that in addition to instructing Foshan and other places to "rush work day and night", other nearby blacksmith shops could also start casting. [Full text reading] **In addition, we asked the Portuguese for help with artillery. As for soldiers, you can recruit Chaozhou Yong, who is fierce and brave enough to fight. It is estimated that at least 10,000 people can be recruited in half a month.
But Li Fengjie was not interested in his proposal. Although hiring brave men is cheaper than recruiting soldiers, it still costs a lot to recruit 10,000 people at once. Moreover, hiring brave men from Chaozhou and waiting for them to be fully recruited before driving to Guangzhou will cost you a lot of money in travel expenses. Li Fengjie did not intend to use this money - Wang Zunde's crusade against Lingao took away a lot of money from the vassal treasury.
Li Fengjie is not opposed to hiring brave men - on the contrary, he is very enthusiastic about hiring brave men. Hiring brave people is a very profitable thing. Yong Ding is employed on a temporary basis and will be disbanded as soon as the work is completed. Therefore, there are many loopholes to be exploited, including how many people are actually in the camp and how much salary and salt each person receives. I don’t know how many people have made a huge fortune by hiring a brave man once.
He insisted on hiring local braves, or to be precise, Danjia boat people along the Pearl River. They are all residents of the water, who rely on the water to draw water. They are either boatmen or fishermen - they are very familiar with the Pearl River water system. Li Fengjie believes that hiring them as Shui Yong has the advantage of being in the right place at the right time.
Another of his high-sounding reasons is: "When the defense is tight, he is afraid that his people will be used as traitors or used to transport goods. They will inevitably fight for the benefits. They still collect them and use them. In many officials, A brave man in water means one less bandit in the foreign country."
"This is the result of the people of Fudi killing each other, using their swords to control their swords, and using their poison to fight their poison."
Li Fengjie's words were both private and public. Not entirely for profit. Because there was news in the pond newspaper a few days ago that the thieves were "recruiting water slaves" on the islands outside the Pearl River Estuary. The Dan family, who had no fixed place to live, were familiar with the nature of water, and knew the Pearl River water system very well, became his inner thorn.
The government has never had an exact number of boat households and boat people on the Pearl River. There are probably tens of thousands of people. If these people are seduced by bandits to "act as traitors", the consequences will be very serious. **
Li Xijue could not refute his reasoning. Saving money is the most effective reason for every generation. But he still muttered: "The Kun thieves are extremely powerful, and it is difficult for a mob to defeat them."
He Chengzong came out at this time and asked: Could it be that Chaozhou Yong, who was recruited temporarily, was not just a mob?
Li Xijue was speechless. Not to mention that such temporary hired warriors are the masters of government and military control. What use are they in front of thieves? Thinking of this, he sighed secretly and said no more words.
Li Fengjie decided to hire 5,000 people first. Depending on the situation, another 5,000 people will be hired. In this way, there will be ten thousand water braves at your disposal at any time. The bravery of water is better than that of a boat, and the courage of water is better than that of water. It may not be possible to fight the Kun thieves by water, but it is okay to engage in harassment such as setting fires and sinking ships. Anyway, Shui Yong is an unestablished temporary worker and costs very little. A few more casualties will not put great financial pressure on the Guangdong vassal.
According to the current market situation: each Shuiyong's monthly salary includes 2 taels of salt and vegetable money, and another 2 taels of Anjia silver is paid as a lump sum. Give him another reward before the battle.
This amount of money is of course not an expenditure from the Guangdong vassal treasury. According to the traditional thinking of the government, at this time it is up to the common people to "contribute money and strength". If the poor come to be Shuiyong, the salary and silver will have to fall on the powerless. It's on the rich people - to be precise, it's on the businessmen's heads.
According to the idea of the staff, the cost of hiring brave men includes three months of military pay, salt and vegetable money, settlement expenses and various public expenses and miscellaneous expenses, totaling 120,000 taels, and is paid by the three major business groups in Guangzhou: foreign merchants, salt merchants Share it with Chaozhou merchants. The smelting merchants in Foshan were asked to "repay" the cost of casting the cannon, which totaled ten thousand taels.
As for the ships needed by the water warriors and the warships that the navy urgently needed to supplement, Li Fengjie also followed this thinking and ordered the ships on the Pearl River to be nailed for use. **
In this way, various Guangzhou defense policies were arranged and implemented in accordance with the policy of "spending less money and doing more". Everyone had no objections and went about their own affairs.
After everyone dispersed, Li Fengjie left He Chengzong behind and asked him to handle the "recruitment" matters exclusively.
The target of the solicitation is of course not the "three businessmen" - since they have to pay a large sum of money to hire Yong, enough is enough. The targets of Xinde's solicitation are other industries and landlords and wealthy people near Guangzhou. According to Li Fengjie's intention, he had to show some sense. Defending Guangzhou means protecting everyone's lives and property. Otherwise, when the thieves come, everyone will be destroyed and nothing will be left.
"Sir!" He Chengzong said puzzled, "Although there is not much money in the vassal treasury, the cost of hiring brave men to cast cannons has already been raised by various merchants. If we want to raise money again..." The implication is that boss, don't be too greedy. .
"Old sir, this money is for the last resort." Li Fengjie said softly, "Now we are preparing for war, but what if we are defeated..."
The words were spoken softly, but the meaning was already understood. He Chengzong suddenly woke up. If they are defeated, the Kun bandits will come to Guangzhou city. When the time comes, they will only have bank funds to withdraw their troops - how can they do it without a large amount of money?
He Chengzong bowed: "Students understand."
Li Fengjie nodded slightly: "You go ahead and do it. The whole story is not enough for outsiders to understand."
"Yes Yes."
A sloop, with its patched sail spread out, slowly sailed into a river bend. On the bow of the sailboat stood a middle-aged man who looked like a gentleman. Although he pretended to be calm on his face, anxiety showed in his brows and eyes from time to time.
The river bend is covered with reeds, but there are many orange trees growing along the bank, with many green oranges hanging. Between the orange trees stood a dense bamboo fence, as tall as a man, with sharpened tops.
The boat continued to go inward and turned into a narrow river. Among the lush green orange groves, a tall watchtower emerged from the top of the trees. The watchtower is made of bricks and is as high as three stories. There is also a strange decoration on the top - a suspended balcony that is not found in traditional Chinese architecture.
On the balcony, there were several Xiangyong armed with wooden guns, horns, and gongs.
The middle-aged man did not watch this rare sight, but paid attention to the landforms on both sides of the river. Best o There are orange trees everywhere along the coast. When the boat reached the end of the river, a stone bridge spanned both banks. Under the bridge, there is a wooden sluice gate, which is now open, but a thick iron chain hangs on the river, blocking the ships crossing the bridge.
The bridge is made of stone and is very strong. There is a bridge building on the bridge. It was originally open on all sides, but now the side facing the river has been blocked by bricks and wooden boards, with small windows for observation and shooting left on it.
The sailboat lowered its sails, and several boatmen worked together to lower the mast. Ready to cross the bridge.
Several village warriors stood or squatted on guard at the bridgehead. Seeing the arrival of the sailboat, some people stood up and patted the dust and grass blades from their clothes.
When they saw the two white gauze lanterns hanging on the bow of the boat with the words "Wanli Jiwei Guangdong Provincial Examination Juren" and "Luo Zhai" written in Song script, everyone stood up and stood up respectfully. This is the return of Mr. Luo from this town.
A rural leader looked around and wanted to ask a question. Seeing Mr. Luo himself standing at the bow of the ship, he quickly shouted loudly to the people on the opposite side to loosen the cables and sink the chains to let the ship pass.
The boatman took a few poles down, and the boat passed quietly across the bridge and entered a pond with stone banks. There are stacks of houses and streets along the coast, and only the north side is already covered with dense orange groves. A bamboo fence can be vaguely seen. A river flows through the street and flows into the pond. There is a rice pounding workshop at the mouth of the river, and the sound of pounding rice is being made.
This is Sanliang City, an ordinary town in Dongguan County in the Pearl River Delta. There are more than 600 households, most of which grow rice. However, like most villages and towns in the Pearl River Delta, it has also been affected by the new commodity economy. In addition to growing rice, Sanliang City also uses more and more land to grow indigo and tobacco. The large orange groves surrounding the town also bring considerable income to the villagers. Every harvest season, ships heading to county towns and markets are loaded with agricultural products every day, bringing back rice, salt and various daily necessities.
Although the water surface has not been very peaceful recently, this place is not far from the provincial capital. Pirates rarely go as far as the Pearl River to plunder, and some are just small water bandits. The people of Sanliang City organized group training, built artillery, and built bamboo fences under the organization of the town's gentry. Although there were several intrusions by water bandits, there was no damage.
The pond is filled with boats of all sizes. Like most villages and towns, there are almost no roads here, and most pedestrian and freight traffic relies on waterways. Surrounded by water, with river branches, bays and paddy fields everywhere, it is like a small isolated island. The houses in the market town are irregularly located next to each other, and the streets are also somewhat winding. There are three east-west streets and four north-south streets, and there are many small streets connected between them. To the south of the street is a threshing floor, which also serves as a market. Next to the threshing floor is a large pond. It is equivalent to the port of Sanliang City.
There are two rice shops, three banquet shops, a pawn shop, a fishing stable, a wine shop and a tooth shop on the street. In addition, there are large and small taverns, restaurants, small inns, teahouses, meat shops, tofu shops, and yao shops. There are shops, grocery stores, blacksmith shops, as well as silk and satin shops, tailor shops, washing and dyeing shops. There are lumber shops and ship repair shops next to the threshing floor... There are drummers, singers, opera singers, and jugglers. Although there are no brothels, there are about a dozen "sīméntou"... Every market day, there are cries and songs. The noise was like a large hive, gathering into a humming din.
To be continued
