[Anti-piracy has been withdrawn]
Gaizhou was an important town in Liaodong where merchants gathered as early as the Han Dynasty. It was also known as Gaizhou during the Jin Dynasty. In the fourth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, Gaizhou was renamed Gaizhou Wei, and the new city of Gaizhou was built in the following year. This new city is now the summer and autumn residence of Yuan Masiqing of Liaodong (spring and winter residence in Haizhou).
Gaizhou is located in the southeastern part of Liaoning Province and in the northwest-central part of the Liaodong Peninsula. It is the junction of the Liaohe Plain and the hills of southern Liaoning.
And if we focus purely on the current period of the Ming Dynasty, then the Gaizhou area is still the choke point that divides western Liaoning and eastern Liaoning - because the Liaohe Hetao area at this time was still in the hands of the Mongols. To be precise, it was In the hands of Duoyan Sanbu's Huahua Department.
Yuanma Temple in Liaodong was originally an institution for managing horse affairs, so the setup was relatively simple. There were "one chief minister, two minor ministers, four chief ministers, and one chief secretary". Among them, the minister of Yuan Masi Temple was the chief official and the third rank subordinate; The fourth rank of Shaoqing is responsible for the affairs of the temple; the sixth rank of Temple Chief is responsible for overseeing the horse breeding affairs of the six prisons and twenty-four gardens under the jurisdiction of Yuanma Temple in Liaodong; the seventh rank of chief bookkeeper is responsible for compiling and correcting documents of the province.
However, as mentioned before, this job of raising horses has basically been abolished for the most part. Qing Yuanmasi rarely devotes his time to raising horses, and has become the chief military and political officer in Liaonan, so among these subordinates For example, Shaoqing, although his rank is not low and he is already a prefect elsewhere, his actual status in southern Liaoning is very average.
There are only two truly important figures in southern Liaoning. One is Yuan Masiqing, whose main authority comes from his concurrent position as deputy military envoy; the other is a military official, "the right general guarding Haigai".
The currently serving Haigai General is named Kong Dongru, a member of the Liaohai Guards. He took up his post in the seventh year of Wanli and was previously a guerrilla in Guangning Zuoying. (Wufeng's note: Based on "Records of Shenzong.")
What does this mean? It means that he is Li Chengliang's man.
why?
First of all, he is from Liaohaiwei. Although Liaohaiwei has the word "Hai", it is actually located in Kaiyuan, the northernmost place in Liaodong. Kaiyuan has two guards: Thirty Thousand Guards and Liaohaiwei. To the south of Liaohaiwei is Tielingwei, Li Chengliang's hometown and foundation.
After Li Chengliang became famous, the first thing he did to expand his power was to control the Thirty Thousand Guards and Liaohai Guards north of Tieling Guards, because in this way, he formed his "sphere of influence" in northeastern Liaoning. This happened many years ago .
Since Kong Dongru was able to reach this stage with his background as Liaohaiwei, without Li Chengliang's nod or even recommendation, it can be said to be almost impossible.
Secondly, his previous position was Guangning Zuoying guerrilla. This position was not simple. In fact, he was the first among the most critical guerrillas under the Liaodong General Army - the Liaodong General Army is currently stationed in Guangning.
Li Chengliang has managed the Liaodong Army almost into the "Li Family Army" over the years. How can the most critical guerrilla under him not be a close confidant?
Besides, if he wasn't a close confidant, how could he release a top general like General Hai Gai from Liaonan? dream.
General Kong Dongru, probably under Li Chengliang's orders, was very affectionate towards Gao Pragmatic, but never had a heart-to-heart relationship with him. Although he personally led more than a thousand soldiers and horses to the Empress' Palace in Yingkou to welcome Gao Pragmatic to Gaizhou, he only praised Gao Pragmatic indiscriminately along the way and said nothing serious.
Gao Pragmatic had seen a lot of such things as flattery, and Kong Dongru's flattery didn't necessarily have any new ideas. It was just about being both civil and military and having unparalleled achievements. Gao Observation had long been immune to this.
So Gao Pragmatic took the initiative to change the topic. On the way from Yingkou to Gaizhou, Gao Pragmatic mainly asked some questions about the topography, transportation and even the economic situation of Gaizhou and even Haizhou.
Gaizhou’s landform is characterized by “six mountains, three rivers and one field.” Judging from the grain output of this era, farming alone cannot support people. Moreover, it is not convenient to cultivate fields in Gaizhou because there are too many saline-alkali lands, so it is difficult to cultivate them. There is not much food to be grown in the fields - later generations of the Red Dynasty solved this problem. As for now, it is out of the question. They are very pragmatic and do not have such professional agricultural technology.
Therefore, Gaizhou's economy mainly uses its geographical location as an intermediate station - the intermediate location between Liaodong and Liaoxi is just for this purpose.
Other than that, it’s all about water.
There are two types of water, one is rivers such as Liaohe River and Daqing River; the other is the sea. Gaizhou faces Liaodong Bay to the west.
Rivers such as the Liaohe River were not originally very useful. After all, ships from the south and horses from the north were used. People in Liaodong previously preferred land transportation. However, since Gao pragmatically built the new Yingkou Port near the Empress’ Palace a few years ago, everything began to change quietly.
Because Yingkou Port is backed by Jinghua, a commercial giant, and has business partners and huge resources, its annual throughput is rising rapidly and steadily.
Like other ports, goods cannot just be transported to the port, but must also be transported to various places, which requires convenient transportation.
In fact, given the location of Yingkou, even if we take the land route, we can easily reach the two wings of Liaodong and West Liaoning, and the same is true for southern Liaoning. But if we just talk about Liaodong (east of Liaohe River), then rivers such as Liaohe River and Taizi River are very useful.
Jinghua quickly discovered the business opportunities - of course, this was because Jinghua always did this kind of thing, so he quickly established river transportation, from a dozen inland river transport ships at the beginning to more than a hundred large and small inland river transport ships now. So many, they completely control the inland waterway transportation business in Liaodong.
Although inland river ships are far smaller than sea-going ships, there are obviously too many ships to transport Jinghua's own goods. Being able to operate like this can only be achieved by changing the local transportation methods in Liaodong.
After all, in this era, water transportation is definitely cheaper than land transportation. The only trouble is that it is too cold in Liaodong. When winter comes and the river freezes, it will be difficult. Even these ships have to leave early and sail to special river ports for storage. It is serious Affects Jinghua’s transportation efficiency and money-making efficiency.
Gao Pangshi already knew these things before he came. Kong Dongru's general talk made Gao Pangshi not very interested. He simply changed the subject and asked: "How many soldiers are there in Haigai and how many can be used?" ? Horses...oh, I won’t ask you about this.”
Although Kong Dongru is a member of Li Chengliang, he obviously also knows Gao Pragmatic's background. This is not something Li Chengliang can easily handle, and he cannot take it lightly.
So when Gao pragmatic asked, he quickly said: "Haigai has more than 40,000 soldiers."
Gao Pragmatic was shocked and immediately asked: "How much?"
"More than 40,000." Kong Dongru said humbly but firmly.
At this moment, Gao Pragmatic gradually came back to his senses, put away his surprise, coughed slightly, and asked again: "So, is it suitable for use?"
"Two thousand six hundred people." Kong Dongru said honestly without doing Tai Chi.
Gao Pragmatic was simply stunned!
What's going on in Liaodong? In an important place that is one of the most important towns on the nine sides, how come this ratio of army availability is worse than that of Guangxi?
Kong Dongru may have seen Gao Pragmatic's surprise, and said seriously: "Gao Observation, I'm telling you the truth, because there are fewer battles in Haigai, Liaonan, there are too many soldiers to use. The two thousand six hundred soldiers mentioned by the last general No one in the army that can be used is from Liaonan, they are all servants brought by the general from Guangning." As he said this, he couldn't help but show a hint of pride in his eyes.
Oh, now I understand.
Gao Pinggong said sincerely: "Together, there are about 40,000 soldiers on the guard post here in Jinfu, Liaonan, Haigai, but in the eyes of Li Chengliang's favorite general, these are all useless and cannot fight at all." It cannot be considered "useable". The only ones who are truly "useable" are the servants he brought with him.
The so-called accompanying servants are the personal direct descendants of the general. The reason why they are called "accompanying" means that these people do not belong to the place, but belong to the member. If the general is transferred elsewhere, these servants will also be taken with him.
With 2,600 servants at his disposal, Kong Dongru is quite powerful. Why am I not impressed by such a character?
