Regarding the rise of the Chu Empire, no one among the top officials of the Ming Dynasty knew more about it than Li Yuankui.
Because before Luo Zhixue proclaimed himself emperor and founded the country, the Chu army was still entrenched in Funiu Mountain, and when it was still called Funiu Mountain Baoxiang Camp, Fenghe Trading Company had already established business relations with Luo Zhixue and others.
By the time Luo Zhixue led his army eastward out of Lushan County and then southward to Nanzhao County, Nanyang Prefecture, that was during the period when the "Baoxiang General's Mansion" was established, the cooperation between Fenghe Commercial Bank and the Baoxiang Army had reached the level of strategic cooperation.
Fenghe Commercial Bank provided extremely valuable various types of iron materials, finished gunpowder, and the raw materials of gunpowder, saltpeter, sulfur and other strategic materials to the Baoxiang Army at that time.
At the same time, from that time on, Fenghe Trading Company also became the main channel for the Baoxiang Army to sell various types of seized materials.
When the Baoxiang Army first went south to Nanyang Mansion, the trade volume between the two sides had already reached hundreds of thousands taels of silver.
Later, when the Baoxiang Army gradually moved south and captured Nanyang Prefecture and even Xiangyang Prefecture, Fenghe Trading Company was on the one hand because it was difficult to get off the tiger. On the other hand, it was indeed optimistic about the combat effectiveness of the Xiangbao Army and even more optimistic about Luo Zhixue's personal ability.
Therefore, we began to adopt a comprehensive strategic cooperation with the Baoxiang Army, and the scale of trade increased sharply to a scale of one million taels of silver.
In order to allow the Baoxiang Army to obtain enough strategic weapons of all kinds, especially gunpowder raw materials such as saltpeter and sulfur, Fenghe Commercial Company used the power and connections of the Li family itself, that is, Li Yuankui, to forcibly open the Yangtze River route, directly from the coast The sea merchants purchased saltpeter and sulfur raw materials.
In this process, Fenghe Commercial Bank actually no longer makes much money.
Subsequently, Luo Zhixue proclaimed himself emperor and founded the country, and Fenghe Trading Company continued to cooperate with the Dachu Empire. However, at that time, it was not actually a cooperation, but that the Dachu Empire was doing things.
The Ministry of Commerce and Trade and even the Military Intelligence Department had sent people to Jinling City early to set up a secret stronghold. On the one hand, it was to continue to collect all kinds of intelligence from the Ming court, but more importantly, it was to communicate with the Li family to ensure that The supply of gunpowder raw materials to the Chu Empire.
From that time on, even several main managers of Fenghe Trading Company had secretly held official positions under the Ministry of Commerce and Trade of the Dachu Empire.
Li Siyuan, the big shopkeeper of Fenghe Trading Company, is now a fourth-rank official in the Ministry of Commerce and Trade of the Dachu Empire and the director of the Jiangnan Trade Department.
The current Fenghe Trading Company is said to be the Li family's trading firm, but it is better to say that it is a caravan affiliated with the Ministry of Commerce and Trade.
This also means that the Li family has completely tied the Chu Empire together, and as the head of the Li family, Li Yuankui cannot avoid it.
Well, it goes without saying to use the word avoid.
Because the cooperation between Fenghe Commercial Bank and the Dachu Empire, especially the cooperation in the middle and later stages, was also approved and promoted by Li Yuankui.
Without Li Yuankui's personal intervention, how could Fenghe Commercial Bank have opened up the Yangtze River waterway? In the past year or so, it purchased and transported various strategic materials worth more than two million taels of silver for the Chu Empire.
In order to open up and maintain this strategic material transportation line, Li Yuankui personally killed a fourth-grade prefect and a dozen other officials who were getting in the way.
In this process, Li Yuankui was also able to learn about many aspects of the Dachu Empire through Fenghe Trading Company.
And he has a very full understanding of the combat effectiveness of the Chu army.
With the combat effectiveness of the Chu army, the Ming army will never be an opponent. Whether it is those battalion sentries or any new standard army that has been tossed in the past year, they will definitely not be an opponent of the Chu army.
Even Li Yuankui didn't think he would be a match for the Chu army in Dongdu.
Li Yuankui was not a civil servant who knew the military, let alone a military general. He didn't know much about the army.
But he knew that the Chu army now spends more than 20 million on military expenses a year!
Not to mention other things, so far this year alone, that is, in the past ten months, the Dachu Empire has purchased saltpeter, sulfur, copper, lead, and cotton worth more than 1.6 million taels of silver through Fenghe Trading Company. and other types of strategic materials.
And this is just one of the purchasing channels of the Da Chu Empire.
Although Fenghe Trading Company is the most important channel supplier and the largest channel supplier in the Dachu Empire, there are many other channels for purchasing various strategic materials in the Dachu Empire.
For example, this year the Chu Empire has successively opened up purchase channels for saltpeter and even sulfur from Sichuan and the northwest.
What does Sichuan have? This place is currently the largest saltpeter producing area in China. The saltpeter produced is called Sichuan Saltpeter, which is quite famous.
In addition to Sichuan, there are currently several other major saltpeter producing areas in China, one is Shandong, the other is Shanxi, and the last one is the northwest region.
Unfortunately, none of these places are currently under the control of the Chu Empire!
This is why the Da Chu Empire tried so hard to open up various channels to purchase saltpeter and sulfur from these places.
Although the Da Chu Empire also tried to promote the folk method of making saltpeter, that is, making saltpeter from places such as toilet corners, the technology was backward. At the same time, the Da Chu Empire's gunpowder consumption was too large, and the amount of saltpeter produced by the local method was very limited. And the quality is also poor.
If saltpeter can be solved partially by itself, then sulfur is even more troublesome.
In the vast Central China region, natural sulfur production areas are extremely rare. The only relatively large-scale natural sulfur production areas are in the Western Regions. The rest are scattered in low-producing areas, mainly in Shanxi.
But in fact, the sulfur production in Shanxi was also very limited and strictly controlled by the Ming court. It was difficult for the Chu army to purchase large-scale purchases through secret channels.
Therefore, the Chu army's procurement of sulfur was also diversified. They looked for merchants in the northwest, Shanxi, and along the coast. Where they could get sulfur, they would see spies from the Chu Empire's Department of Commerce and Trade.
Li Yuankui didn't know whether the soldiers of the Chu army could fight, but he did know that the Chu army had used a huge amount of various strategic materials in the past year.
The amount of gunpowder used alone was more than that of the Donglu and Ming armies combined, and it was much more!
Huge material consumption, military expenditure of more than 20 million taels a year, and this figure is a real military expenditure, no wastage, no deduction, more than 20 million taels are all spent on guns and soldiers.
Such a huge military expenditure cannot be matched by the Ming army and Dongdu combined.
If you throw so much money at it, you can kill the Ming army just by throwing money at it.
Even though Li Yuankui was not a military general, he also knew that to fight a war, one could not rely solely on the bravery of the soldiers, but also needed food, grass and ammunition.
Based on the huge military spending on the Chu army, Li Yuankui trusted the Chu army's combat effectiveness more than many of the Chu army's own generals.
Based on his trust in the combat effectiveness of the Chu army, Li Yuankui also firmly believed that after the Chu army occupied Huguang, it would continue to expand. As long as no major accidents occurred and they expanded step by step, sooner or later everyone in the world would be named Luo.
But Li Yuankui did not expect that the Chu Empire's eastward advance would come so quickly, and that after the army advanced eastward, it smashed the Jiujiang defense line that Shi Kefa had worked so hard to manage, and then swept all the way eastwards. Along the way, the Ming army had almost no The power of resistance.
It is a foregone conclusion that Chu will dominate China!
This is Li Yuankui's judgment!
Once the Chu army occupied Jiangnan, with the style of the Chu Empire, they would inevitably consolidate Jiangnan in a short period of time and utilize the population, money and food of Jiangnan.
After obtaining the money and food from the population of Jiangnan, it is a high probability that the Chu Empire will sweep the world.
Under such a big situation, Li Yuankui was naturally not willing to be a bystander, let alone let the Li family become royal merchants in the future.
Money is nothing in the face of power.
Therefore, he would not let Fenghe Trading Company make money from the trade with the Dachu Empire Trading Office, so that it could continue to operate without repaying. All strategic materials were sold to the Dachu Empire at cost prices.
What Li Yuankui wanted was to be able to ascend to a high position in the new Chu Empire.
On the Mingting side, Li Yuankui had no hope.
Last year, he had hoped to be transferred to the capital, but the money he received was not as much as others, and his connections were not as strong as others. As a result, he was rejected and only got a comforting position as the right minister of the Nanjing Ministry of Industry.
This kind of position is a typical pension position. Unless the sky breaks, he has no hope of taking it any further.
But he is not willing to give in!
Mingting could no longer survive here, so he naturally aimed at the Chu Empire!
There are many opportunities in the Dachu Empire. As long as you have the ability and a correct attitude, you are not afraid of not being able to climb up.
As long as you do your job well, it is not impossible to become a counselor and become truly one person inferior to ten thousand people.
However, it is not easy to achieve this goal. At least after voting, you need to get a relatively high starting position with real power. The right minister of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade is very suitable.
However, if you want to obtain such a high position of real power, you can't just rely on Fenghe Trading Company. Li Yuankui must also produce a real certificate of investment.
Therefore, when a part of the vanguard cavalry of the Chu army appeared outside the city, Li Yuankui also secretly met with several colleagues who he had been observing for a long time.
During the conversation, he naturally did not directly say anything about surrendering to the thieves, but conducted language tests.
After some testing, Li Yuankui gained some confidence.
But this is not enough, he also needs real strength support, which is the garrison in the city.
As a result, he contacted many parties, and finally, with the cooperation of the Military Intelligence Department, he met with several military generals who had already had intentions.
Most of the people who were able to show up and meet with Li Yuankui had the intention to surrender, but these generals did not expect it.
In their eyes, Li Yuankui, who was aloof from above, actually wanted to surrender to Chu, and judging from his familiarity with the leaders of the Military Intelligence Department, he might have already surrendered to Chu.
In addition, with such senior civil servants taking the lead, it would be easier to start an uprising.
Looking at the expressions of these generals and thinking of the attitudes of the colleagues he had contacted before, Li Yuankui was convinced!
This time, he planned to play a big game: directly dedicate Jinling City to the emperor Luo Zhixue as a certificate of vote!
If you do it well, you will be rich and wealthy!
And just when Li Yuankui was running around meeting people and contacting other civil servants or military generals who were interested in surrendering to Chu in the name of discussing city defense and how to retreat from the enemy.
Several people also walked into a teahouse in the city. These people looked like masters and servants. The leader was a middle-aged man, dressed in rich clothes, followed by two long followers.
After the three people entered the teahouse, they quickly entered one of the private rooms.
But after waiting for a while, one of them knocked rhythmically on a wall in the private room several times. After a while, a huge landscape painting hanging on the wall was lifted, and then the wooden wall behind it unexpectedly It was opened directly.
Shockingly, this is a secret door.
After the secret door opened, a figure popped out and looked around, then nodded slightly.
At this time, the middle-aged wealthy businessman also stood up, entered the secret door and closed it. The two young men in casual clothes outside put down the paintings on the wall and returned to the chairs to continue eating.
After the middle-aged wealthy businessman entered the secret passage, he entered a secret passage. After walking for more than ten meters, he arrived at a room.
Entering the room, I looked up and saw three people already sitting inside.
Seeing this scene, the middle-aged man dressed as a wealthy businessman smiled softly: "I didn't expect that I was the last to arrive!"
At this time, a thirty-year-old man dressed as a scholar in the room complained: "Every time there is a meeting, the people from your Military Intelligence Department are the most arrogant and the last to come."
A man dressed as a young man in his twenties smiled and said: "The Military Intelligence Department is busy with business, so it is understandable that we came late!"
The last person, who was also dressed as a middle-aged man and an old master, snorted coldly: "Your Military Intelligence Department is not doing very well, but your ability to procrastinate is getting better every day!"
Military Intelligence Department, just by hearing this name, you can know this middle-aged wealthy businessman: a person from the Military Intelligence Department of the Dachu Empire.
Because now in the land of China, including the Great Chu Empire, the Ming Dynasty, the Eastern Banquets, and even the Tatars on the grasslands and all the forces in the Western Regions, there is only one institution with the special title of Military Intelligence Department: the Great Chu Empire General Staff Military Department Intelligence Division.
It's called the "Military Intelligence Department" for short. Even the Ming court knew that the Great Chu Empire had a "Military Intelligence Department" similar to a factory security agency. The spies in this department were extremely brutal in their work.
The Military Intelligence Department was the first to be established in the Dachu Empire and is currently the largest intelligence agency in the empire. It is currently responsible for all kinds of intelligence on the Ming court and other surrounding enemies, especially the spying of military intelligence. It is also responsible for assassinations and bribery. Winning over Ming court civil and military officials and other business.
The reason why the Military Intelligence Department is the largest intelligence agency, not the only one, is because there are four other intelligence agencies in the Dachu Empire.
Among them, the largest intelligence agency is second only to the Military Intelligence Department, and it is also the most powerful intelligence agency with law enforcement powers. Naturally, it is the Internal Affairs Section of the Hanlin Academy, also known as the 'Internal Affairs Section'. This section is responsible for internal counterattacks. Spying, monitoring officials and other internal intelligence operations.
However, this organization is very special, because the company's business scope is very wide, and there are no clear boundaries. As long as it threatens Luo Zhixue's rule, they can theoretically get involved... Besides, although the Great Chu Empire has not yet Capture Jinling City, but Jinling City is also a part of China, so it’s not too much to send people from the Military Affairs Department to attack the front line in advance...
Then, there will naturally be a conflict with the Military Intelligence Department, which is responsible for foreign intelligence affairs, and the conflict is not small.
After all, in the view of the Military Intelligence Division, the Hanwu Branch had gone too far.
In addition to the intelligence agencies in the Dachu Empire, there is also the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade.
However, the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade is relatively small in scale, and its business scope is also relatively small. Its biggest task is to cover and protect the external strategic material procurement channels of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade. The Yangtze River Channel operated by Fenghe Commercial Bank is indispensable for the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade. The spies are protecting.
Because of my external activities, I also collect other intelligence materials incidentally. However, because of my own business tendencies, I collect more economic intelligence. At most, I just collect some official trends in the Ming court. of.
Finally, there is the Naval Intelligence Office. This intelligence agency under the navy is also small in scale and specializes in the navy's own intelligence collection. Its main spying direction is the Ming Navy. Well, recently they sent it to the fleet under Zheng Zhilong. A lot of spies.
As for the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Supervisory Office, which was previously responsible for supervising hundreds of officials and could barely be regarded as an intelligence agency, it has now been directly made public and has become a formal administrative agency. It specializes in anti-corruption business and has basically nothing to do with intelligence agencies. , naturally it is impossible to send people to Jinling City.
Therefore, there are currently only four official intelligence agencies in the Chu Empire, namely the Military Intelligence Department of the General Staff, the Naval Intelligence Department, the Internal Affairs Section of the Hanlin Academy, and the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade.
Although these four intelligence agencies have different business scopes and different focuses, due to the special nature of Jinling City, they have basically established intelligence stations here early.
Now, the heads of these four intelligence agencies are gathered in a private house behind this inconspicuous restaurant.
