Chapter 431: Six Hundred Miles Expedited, Japanese Bronze

The plan for the year lies in spring, especially for outside the pass where crops are only ripe for one season a year. The attack launched by Dorgon, the regent of the Qing Dynasty, on Liao Town was not large in scale. It was only Duoduo who led two Niulu from the Zhengbai Banner and the Inlaid Blue Banner to kill.

But the results were unexpectedly good. The Liaozhen border soldiers led by Wu Sangui, the general of Ningyuan regiment training, lost half of the territory outside the pass. The last line of defense between the two sides was determined to be in the area of ​​Shaheyi. The Liaozhen soldiers were hiding behind the Qiantunwei of Guangning, and were preparing to withdraw to the pass if there was any slight disturbance.

There were very few casualties and injuries on both sides. Most of the injuries caused by Wu Sangui's soldiers were accidentally injured during retreat. Anyone who had no time to run would surrender simply and neatly.

This time, the Qing army did not kill much, because the large number of people lost also needed the labor of these Liao Towns to supplement it. The battle, which had a small enough casualties, occupied hundreds of miles of territory, ended like this.

It is really gratifying that when the Regent Dorgon took office, he led the Eight Banners to achieve such a great victory. The relatives and nobles of each Banner all divided the population and fields in this battle. The disgust towards the Regent was greatly reduced, which was a very happy situation.

But the busy farming production cannot be delayed. After the battle here, the relatives of the Eight Banners knew that if the battle continued, they would definitely gain greater benefits. However, if agricultural production was delayed, the entire Qing Dynasty would be hungry. They had to set up defense lines in Shahe Post and withdraw their troops back to the hinterland of Shengjing according to the pre-war arrangements.

At the end of April of the 16th year of Chongzhen, Ning Yuan was lost and the news of retreating to the Qiantun Guard of Guangning reached the capital. Faced with this result, Emperor Chongzhen and the ministers in the court did not even feel lamented and angry. After a brief discussion, Emperor Chongzhen issued an order and said lightly: Duke Qi was the admiral of the military affairs of Yongping Prefecture, Ji and Liao were originally integrated, and Duke Qi should work hard to rescue him in the dilemma outside the pass.

The Qing Dynasty was used to entering the capital. It was not yet accessible to the pass, and it was the edge of your Li Meng’s defense zone. So let’s solve it yourself and fight face to face with the Qing Dynasty. This is a two-faced battle. No matter which side is damaged, the court will not feel embarrassed. When Wu Sangui reported this memorial to the court, it is hard to say whether the emperor and the ministers were secretly happy.

The country suffered a great disaster, and this place of failure was one of them. In the past, the Qing Dynasty was in Liao Town and refugees were in the Central Plains. Every time there was an invasion, there was a lot of grief among the world, but the reactions everywhere were not so intense. Everyone seemed to have some confidence in their hearts. Since the Duke of Qi won the last victory and annihilation, what else was wrong? I believe that when the troops from Shandong arrived, everything would be fine.

The most disappointing thing among them is Wu Sangui, the general of the Ningyuan regiment training. After the second letter from Shandong was sent, it was no longer important to stay here in Liao Town.

Although the officers and soldiers of Liao Town all had land and property here, if the Shandong soldiers intervened, the narrow and long area of ​​the western Liao Corridor could still accommodate so many people. Moreover, the Qing Dynasty's attack in the spring of the 16th year of Chongzhen further compressed the living space of Liao Town soldiers, and the meaning outside the pass was no longer great.

Wu Sangui has a unit that is a strong army in the Ming Dynasty. At present, there are few soldiers and horses that can fight in the Ming Dynasty. Take this opportunity. If he can bring his own troops into the pass, the court will also allocate a good territory. Even if he doesn't give it, what else can the local area dare to say when the Liao soldiers are stationed?

However, losing territory outside the pass can be explained as mutual victory or defeat, but if you completely give up outside the pass and withdraw the Liao soldiers to the pass, you will be responsible for losing territory. Even Emperor Chongzhen cannot bear the situation in the world. Such a move will make the reputation of the court even worse and make Li Meng even more popular.

The helpless Wu Sangui had to stay in Qiantunwei of Guangning. He just hated himself for not being able to do the situation like the Duke of Qi in Shandong. If there was no order from the court, Wu Sangui would rashly lead troops into the pass, Shanhaiguan General Gao Di would definitely close the door and wait for the battle.

The people under his command were afraid that they would turn against the enemy and mutiny. Without the great reputation given to him by the court, the subordinates under him would be a little unreasonable. To put it bluntly, Wu Sangui had never won many battles and had no convincing authority, while Li Meng had won many victories.

The imperial court had to give Li Meng a title, and the title of general Wu Sangui was just a normal appointment, and the significance of this was of course very different.

At this time, Wu Sangui was wondering whether he had been abandoned outside the pass. The territory between Qiantunwei of Guangning and Shanhaiguan was too cramped. If the Qing Tartars launched another offensive, they might not be able to organize a smooth retreat. Moreover, with less territory, there were many more troops that needed to pay for themselves, and even the money and military supplies were in a hurry. At this time, Wu Sangui hoped that Li Meng could come to Yongping Prefecture as soon as possible.

Anyway, the current situation is already like this, so why not wait for Li Meng to come and let him breathe a sigh of relief. I heard that Shandong is not only capable of fighting, but also rich enough to rival a country.

But when the other party intervened, Shandong wanted to send troops to intervene. When Shandong was waiting for Shandong to come, the troops of Duke Li Meng of Qi were still preparing slowly.

The Hejian Prefecture is different from the Nanzhili area. There are many large clans and gentry in the Nanzhili area. Local governments, governments, and even local forests are colluding with each other. Various relationships are very complicated. When the migration is launched, it can only be done by cooperating with both parties to develop local methods.

The northern Zhili area is different. The landlords and the manors are basically the property of royal relatives. Now, when these people heard that the Duke of Qi Li Meng came, who would dare to continue to stay in Hejian Prefecture? Others may be able to compromise with Li Meng, Shandong, to surrender, but the interests of these royal relatives are closely linked to the Ming court. If they lose all their losses, they will be really irreconcilable and mortal enemies with Duke of Qi Li Meng.

When Shandong soldiers came, these people were of course leaving, and gold, silver, treasures or treasures could be brought to the capital, but the land and manors were naturally left behind.

Not to mention the damage caused by the Tartar soldiers led by Abatai in Hejian Prefecture, and a large number of civilians were displaced. Therefore, for Shandong Prefecture, this Hejian Prefecture can be said to be a large area of ​​wasteland and "ownerless" fields.

After the war disaster, many civilians and small and medium-sized landlords returned to their hometowns, but suddenly found that they had cultivated land for many years. Now it has become a "badland" and "ownland".

Since it is a wasteland, Shandong land farms must naturally plan to divide large and small land farms according to the regional regions of prefectures, prefectures, counties and counties. For those poor people, if they want to survive, they must become rural farmers in Shandong land farms, lose their personal freedom, and become semi-serfs.

This is a cruel policy. The original free people were deprived of their freedom and became half tenants and half serfs. At this time, the Hejian Mansion was only about 3,000 troops led by Wang Tao. The follow-up troops in Shandong were still being reorganized and trained. If something went wrong, it would be a big trouble.

The troops led by Wang Tao were ready, and the old camp of Jinan Prefecture were also ready. As long as there were military farms causing trouble, they would immediately send troops to suppress them.

Shandong's military farm policy has never been a charitable policy. This policy is to build another pattern within the Ming Dynasty's ruling system and to more efficiently utilize the population and land in the Jiaozhou Camp ruling area. The ultimate goal is to ensure that the military rations are not short of when the Jiaozhou Camp is fighting, and when the mobilization is in place, there is no shortage of troops. As for rescuing a large number of refugees, this is just a by-product.

Therefore, this military farm is a virtue rule in Shandong, but it is not necessarily a virtue rule in Zhili, and most of the land holders of small lands were plundered. The original civilians, even small and medium-sized landlords with little assets, were turned into semi-serfs without personal freedom.

The only benefiters were Shandong's military group and wealthy merchants, but to Shandong's surprise, such policies did not cause much rebound.

After a careful investigation, I found out that although the years of Zhili in the north and south are very good and peaceful, land annexation is extremely serious. Most ordinary people are working as tenant farmers or pledge the land to the landlords for management. For these people, making cattle and horses for the landlords may not have food and clothing. Compared with making cattle and horses for the military farms in Jiaozhou, there may be food and clothing. It seems that there is no difference.

It seems that it is more cost-effective to be a farmer for the military farm. As for those small and medium-sized landlords with status and land, the so-called gentry, their number is too small and they cannot cause any storm.

However, the establishment of a military farmland area is not something that can quickly rise. Before this, Jiaozhou Camp will not move northward.

Compared with Hejian Prefecture and Jiangbei, the situation in Yongping Prefecture is a bit special. Although Yongping Prefecture is adjacent to Shanhaiguan and the front line of Liao Town, over the past six years, the Tartars have been breaking through other passes of the Great Wall, but instead dodging through the Yongping Prefecture.

Moreover, since the reign of Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, Yongping Prefecture was the first important military town of Jizhen, the Ming Dynasty. Although the troops were drawn in the Songshan Battle, there was still some foundation. Wang Yongji, the governor of Ji Liao, was also a civil servant and had no ability to lead troops to fight, but at least he would not care much about things he didn't understand. Gao Di, the general of Shanhaiguan, could at least manage Jizhen according to his own steps.

As a result, Yongping Prefecture was managed by people like the Ming Dynasty. Although the troops were not worth mentioning, it would not be so easy to drive into this military farm.

The generals and the military yamen in Jiaozhou camp have a consensus that if there is no military farm, then the logistics will not be effectively guaranteed if they go to other places to fight.

When going out to fight, soldiers' training, equipment and officer command are of course important, but logistics and supply are also very important.

When he was in Southern Zhili, the Huai Yang Army led by the gang general Chen Liu could only be transported through the Huai River water transportation system, and was provided by the big wealthy merchants, so the battle was always a fight and did not dare to make any big moves.

When entering Yongping Prefecture to fight, it was different from the Yang army in Fengyang and Li Meng in Hejian. The two in Fengyang have canal transportation and Huai River that can carry out convenient water transportation. They are very close to Shandong in Hejian Prefecture and also have the convenience of canal transportation. However, in Yongping Prefecture, there is no water transportation that can be relied on.

If there is no military farm like a warehouse, the troops entering Yongping Prefecture will be completely isolated. Jiaozhou camp has no luck. Under the idea of ​​the General Shi Dong, the Shandong troops entering Yongping Prefecture will face four enemies at the same time for a long time. "The General Gao Di, the General of Shanhaiguan, and the General Wu Sangui, the General of Ningyuan, trained the Ji Liao soldiers and horses of General Wu Sangui, and the local Heshuntian Prefecture of Yongping Prefecture sneaked into the landlords. There are also the Tartar soldiers who may break into the pass at any time, and the Mongolian bandits who rushed in from the north."

In order to ensure safety, the troops of Jiaozhou Camp must be completed before entering Yongping Prefecture after the military farm in Hejian Prefecture is complete. According to current estimates, this time will be until the second half of the 16th year of Chongzhen in any case.

In a sense, the significance of logistics to the Jiaozhou Camp exceeds that of any army on the entire Asian continent, although it cannot be compared with Europe. However, the killing of firearms in the Jiaozhou Camp accounts for a large proportion. Firearms need maintenance, gunpowder needs to be stored, and firearm equipment needs to be transported. Even after a large number of casualties, the army of the Jiaozhou Camp system has to draw the village guards in the military farmland to supplement it.

Jiaozhou Camp has actually been fighting on the inside, and they dare not be too far from their base or the place where there are military farms. If the distance is too far, the main general will not have much confidence in his heart.

However, this also has an advantage, that is, the expansion of Shandong's troops is not eager to make progress, and expands outward step by step. Every time a piece of land is obtained, the farmers occupying the majority of the population and the main sources of taxation are in their hands.

After thoroughly digesting this land and continuing to expand outward, this speed is too slow in the eyes of many people. But there will be no recurrence.

At least the local gentry and tribes will not pull back behind. In fact, what Li Meng and Li Zicheng do are the same. They are using force or other methods to snatch the population and territory of the Ming Dynasty from the control of the Ming Dynasty and turn them into their own.

However, the territory captured by the thief Li Chuang was certainly due to the majority of refugees. However, there were also landlords and merchants who set up camps to protect themselves, unite with each other, and use the teams of Zhuang Ding and the township soldiers to fight against the refugee army. In many places in Henan and Huguang, the forces of the Shun Army and these armed militias were intertwined. Li Zicheng's army could not use all the troops to attack the enemy, because the defense in the rear occupied a lot of power.

You should know that the so-called "imperial power does not fall under the county", outside the county town, most of the local affairs are governed by these big families. These local gentry can be called grassroots rulers, and if the interests are slightly touched, it will make you embarrassed to set up cards step by step. Li Zicheng broke up like this, and that is, everyone will fight desperately.

In Shandong, the Tuntianzhuang is actually equivalent to depriving many great tribes of ownership of the land. In Jiangbei, Nanzhili, it also deprived many big landlords of part of the ownership of the land. However, in Shandong, it is impossible to make any repetitions.

The first step was that Li Meng and Li Zicheng did the same thing, and used absolute superior force to completely suppress and destroy local forces. But next, Li Zicheng just distributed the land to the poor, while Li Meng formed the military farm. The poor people with land were still a mess of sand. When the landlords came back, they had no resistance. In a sense, the military farm was a larger landlord.

This "big landlord" can mobilize enough manpower, carry out more efficient production under semi-military control, and have a semi-military civilian team.

In the face of such power, those original landlords and gentry who have bad intentions and want to make mistakes have no advantage at all, let alone the farms and farms that even enclose many small and medium-sized landlords in these farms.

On the third day of the fifth month of the 16th year of Chongzhen, a messenger rode a fast horse into the dead capital. Since he rewarded the Duke of Qi and determined the scope of Li Meng's guarding, the Tartars outside the pass were handed over to Li Meng to deal with, and when Henan handed over to Li Meng, it was equivalent to the thieves who were also taken over by Li Meng.

For some reason, the capital, including Emperor Chongzhen, felt very relaxed. The big burden of the Tartars thieves that were originally suppressed was thrown to the Duke of Qi Li Meng, and the matter that the capital was busy with was to deal with Li Meng.

This relaxed mood is not only the emperor but also the ministers, but also the soldiers and people in the capital. In a vague way, there is a sense of peace and seasonal atmosphere. The business of the brothel and Chuguan is becoming more and more prosperous...

In the capital, not everyone could gallop at the foot of the emperor, but the messenger from outside the city did not slow down at all, and pedestrians on the road dodged and scolded.

But some old people in the capital saw some tricks and recognized the costumes on the messenger. This was the 600-mile rush that came from Nanzhili, and I didn't know what happened.

The messenger was familiar with the journey and rushed to the gate of the Ministry of War. "There are six hundred miles of rapid arrivals from Nanjing." The little flag guarding the gate said in surprise and hurriedly went forward. The messenger was obviously very tired, and almost fell down, but he still struggled to run into the government office of the Ministry of War.

The letters that were expedited by six hundred miles. Only the ministers of the department can be read by the ministers of the ministers and ministers. Anyone who blocks them is a serious crime of beheading them.

Seeing the messenger stumble towards the Shangshu with the support of several guards, the heads of each room and the outsiders all came out to watch. They really couldn't think of where there would be such an urgent military newspaper, and everyone suddenly had a sudden striking heart.

"Is it possible that the Li thief from Shandong attacking Nanjing?"

But the officials of the Ministry of War, who had a little bit of military knowledge, understood that if Li Erlang rebelled, the first one to attack would definitely be the capital, not Nanjing.

However, this matter was indeed extremely urgent. Zhang Guowei, the Minister of War, had just left the court. He ran out of the main hall not long afterwards, and repeatedly called for the sedan chair to come to the palace to meet the saint.

Compared with the hustle and bustle of the mainland, Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate ruled, it seemed much more peaceful everywhere. The sailors of the Zheng family fleet were indulging in pleasure, while Zhou Jihai had other plans.

After Zhou Jihai went shopping that day, he returned to his residence with peace of mind and investigated the problems of Japanese copper mineral production from everywhere. The translation originally didn't think this was a big deal, so he told Zhou Jihai everything like pouring beans on bamboo tubes.

It turned out that Japan had always produced non-ferrous metals such as gold, silver and copper, but in the past, the smelting technology was very poor, and it had a large amount of rich ore, but it did not produce much. However, during the Warring States Period, the ash blowing method was introduced from China, and the output of gold and silver soared, and it flowed into China in large quantities. At the same time, in order to mine gold and silver, a large amount of mercury was imported from China as raw materials, so exporting mercury and importing silver became a large amount of the Ming and Japanese trade.

However, although Japan has a large amount of gold and silver, it lacks small currencies such as copper coins. To a large extent, it can only rely on Song coins introduced by the founding trade of the Taisheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-Sheng-S

When they arrived at the Edo Dynasty, Tokugawa family occupied the world and originally used land coins. As a result, the amount of money was reduced in the Ming Dynasty and the quality was severely reduced, which also led to a serious deterioration of bad coins in Japan. Japan learned from the pain and decided to make money by itself. It happened that Japan introduced the advanced copper smelting method in the Ming Dynasty's "Tiangong Kaiwu" at that time. The copper production increased greatly, making it more convenient for self-cast copper coins. This is the Kuanyong Tongbao, which was cast in the third year of Emperor Kuanyong of Houmiyoshi. Because Japan's copper ore was rich and mostly rich ores, it was very willing to do it in copper coins. The bag of copper eight zinc and two was given to him was a copper coin of eight copper and eight zinc. It was much stronger than the "good coins" of copper six lead and four places in the Ming Dynasty, let alone the inferior coins in the Ming Dynasty.

However, that afternoon, Zhou Jihai was shocked again. He took the copper coins and went to the hotel owner to buy some candles. The owner of the residence (the Japanese call it the female general of the stay room) said in a half-baked Fujian dialect:

"Sir, you are a bad money. You have to pay a 10% discount on buying things from me!"

When he heard this sentence at first, Zhou Jihai was very surprised. He looked down at his hand and found that there was indeed a real amount of copper and good money. Such good money was actually bad money. So what was good money? But he saw the boss lady taking a few red copper coins and saying:

"Sir, this money is the best copper coins. The one you exchanged for is made by Maharaja. The money you made was made by Fujiya Nagasaki, which is different."

Zhou Jihai stopped buying candles, but instead exchanged dozens of good money and took them back to study. It turned out that the Japanese official minted money was cast with good red copper, and there was no lead added at all...

There has always been very few coins in the Ming Dynasty, and the official cumulative amount was only a few million jin. With private minting, the output was less than a fraction of the Song Dynasty. Moreover, a large amount of copper coins were still flowing out to Japan, which made the domestic market still circulate with a small amount of Ming and large amounts of Song coins. Since the influx of a large amount of silver in the Age of Discovery, silver has been cheap and copper is expensive. Official taxes and other exchanges are one thousand jin to exchange for one liang of silver, but if one thousand jin is melted and copper ware is minted, it can be sold for nearly two liang. Therefore, in the shortage of copper coins, a large amount of copper coins has been continuously melted, further exacerbating the shortage of copper coins. The quality of official minting has been very low in recent years. Bad coins drive out good coins, which is another vicious cycle.

In Japan, one or two silver liang can be exchanged for a good copper coins of 1,200 ci, and each ci is nearly twice that of Tianqi Tongbao. That is, the copper content is almost three times that of the land. The same one or two silver can only be exchanged for a poor money of 700 ci in China, which is actually equivalent to the same silver that can be exchanged for the same five times the copper in Japan!!

Zhou Jihai came from Shandong, so he naturally knew that Shandong had a huge demand for copper. A 18-pound long cannon requires more than 800 stags of copper contained in copper coins, and the future demand for artillery will be calculated based on thousands of guns. Not to mention the huge market, selling the copper in the shortage of Jiaozhou Camp and gaining the favor of the Duke of Qi. This is even more unlimited.

Early the next morning, Zhou Jihai found another translator and asked him to lead the way to the "Fujiya", which he had already known about a few days ago. In today's Japan, this one is the largest business in copper mines and private minting.

Fujiya's branch in Nagasaki is not conspicuous. It is an emerging trading company that only has thirty years of history and has not made a fortune in the chaos of the late Warring States Period.

After all, Sumitomo Masato, the founder of Fujiya, was only born in 1585. When the war between Sekihara and the so-called Tozawa God Tokugawa Ieyasu was pacifying the troubled times, he was just an apprentice.

However, with the introduction of "The Heavenly Works" in the Ming Dynasty, Masato Sumitomo was the fastest-leading person and the most dared to invest. He immediately ended all his business. He borrowed all the money he could borrow, and he betted overwhelmed the copper smelting business. As a result, he turned out to win the bet.

He did not act like other wealthy merchants to act as agents of Daming's vassal treasury or lend money to Daming, because the Damings had already formed a close master-slave relationship with those wealthy merchants in the chaotic times of the Warring States Period. After all, it is difficult for emerging wealthy merchants like Sumitomo to interfere in this intimate relationship.

But this kind of politically unreliable faction allows us to withdraw from the political chaos in Japan and develop calmly.

Zhou Jihai took the people and slowly moved to Fuji House. In this era, the Ming Dynasty merchants were in Japan, but it was like the modern foreigners in China. Everyone was respectful and they were the best.

When I arrived at Fujiya, the plaque of the shop was also in regular Chinese characters, and the calligraphy was quite good. Zhou Jihai directly lifted the half-hanged curtain and walked in. There were no customers in the shop. There were only a few people sitting cross-legged on the tatami, making a plan, Tongzhi went forward and asked softly:

"Is the shopkeeper's place again? The great Shang and Zhou Gong of Ming Dynasty asked for a meeting."

Those who were planning to plan raised their heads when they saw people coming in, and one of them stood up to greet them:
To be continued...