"They were at most just to send some gangsters and gangsters and send more guards. The hiring camp recruited another 3,000 people, ten people in small counties, twenty people in central counties, thirty people in Shang County, fifty people in those lush prefectures and cities. The caravan transported goods and sent twenty to two hundred people to think they were guards." Zhao Yan didn't believe that evil, and sent some soldiers and horses to escort them.

"What if they bribe the government, what if the government army? They don't know you, young master!" Zhao Quan said.

But Zhao Yan was stunned for a moment, and after thinking about it, he suddenly said coldly: "It's okay, let's do this in the grain business! They don't know me, Zhao Yan, and they will be famous for them in the beginning of next spring."

"Young Master wants to use his sword?" Zhao Quanleeng said.

"There will be war in the Central Plains next year." Zhao Yan said, pointing to the map and said, "Anhui, Henan, Huguang, how should we go if we want to transport grain on a large scale?"

According to the historical trend, the Xingyang Conference will be held in the first month of next year, and then Zhu Youjian’s ancestral tomb will be dug out. Zhao Yan doesn’t remember the details very clearly.

Zhao Quan looked at the map and thought for a while and said, "First transport it to Qingzhou by land, then follow the official road to the Yishui River and transport grain along the Yellow River."

The entrance to the Yellow River is in the Huaihe River, not in Shandong, so it is indeed a bit troublesome to transport grain. Naturally, the cost of transporting grain is low on water routes, and it will be a bit of loss when traveling by land routes.

However, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the loss of transportation had been reduced a lot. First of all, the development of roads, water transportation, and water transportation were relatively convenient.

...

Before we knew it, the seventh year of winter was coming. After the villagers harvested spring wheat, they planted winter wheat. The green wheat seedlings were preparing to face the test of the cold winter.

The sweet potatoes in the field were also collected, not much different from the expected output, and were still a little higher. Most of them were stored, leaving about 70,000 tons of sweet potatoes ready to be transported out.

The refugees who were reclamating in the plains have also sowed winter wheat and are carefully caring for them. The other half are waiting to plant sweet potatoes next year.

The business is undoubtedly the busiest. This autumn, it collected more than 500,000 shi of grain in Jiangnan, and 700,000 dan of cotton in the east and three prefectures in Shandong and the south.

Originally, he only planned to spend 600,000 taels to develop the textile industry, but in recent months, the sales of glass mirrors are very gratifying. There are about 800,000 taels of silver every month. Zhao Yan's backlog of silver reached 3 million taels, so he invested 2 million taels in cotton acquisition.

Under the strong acquisition of Jimin Commercial Bank, cotton in the south was raised to 4 taels, and cotton in the north also rose to 2 taels. Cotton in Dongsanfu, Shandong was also more than 3 taels. Cotton in Xisanfu rose to 2 taels. People who were self-sufficient have already planned to grow cotton vigorously next year.

Zhao Yan divided the textile market into two parts: north and south, textiles were carried out in the Shahe River in Laizhou in the north, and textile factories were opened in Songjiang Prefecture in the south for textiles.

If all the cotton with such a large amount is transported to the Shahe River in Laizhou, it will take a lot of effort. It would be better to drive the textile factory to the south.

The textile factory was opened to the south, which was beyond Zhao Yan's sphere of influence, but troops could be sent to guard it. The defenses of various places were lax, so that soldiers could take off their armor and go to Songjiang Mansion, and transport the armor and weapons over.

Songjiang Prefecture is Shanghai in later generations. It was the most developed region in the Ming Dynasty with cotton cloth sold all over the world. It has a superior geographical environment. It can walk along the Yangtze River, or from the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal. There are many waterways to the south.

The more Zhao Yan looked at it, the more he realized that Denglai was not suitable for transportation, because inland rivers were inconvenient. It was more convenient to walk on the sea, but there was no boat yet.

At present, people have been sent to Fujian to buy a boat, and I don’t know if it can be bought, after all, it is Zheng Zhilong’s territory.

If you have a boat, you can use Japan as the dumping place for cotton cloth.

...

On December 15, 2018, Zhao Yan was enjoying a rare leisure in Zhaojiabao. The soldiers all went home for a holiday in advance to prepare for the New Year. Zhao Yancheng was writing and reading with Yuan'er at home, and was practicing writing and ingeniously cultivating his love.

A little ambiguity is naturally indispensable, but Zhao Yan should have been during his mourning period and has not been able to defend much, but this level is still under control.

A fast horse galloped.

"Report..." I heard a shout from afar. Yuan'er quickly tidied up Zhao Yan's clothes, and then Zhao Yan pushed open the study and rushed out.

I saw a dusty detective cavalry half kneeling on the ground and reported: "Report to the master, the third time, the army of bandits has arrived in Xingyang."

"So fast? Are you reading it right?" Zhao Yan wondered, wasn't the Xingyang Conference held in the first month? Why did it turn into December?

"Xingyang has indeed been defeated. There are thousands of thieves riding over the traitors. The thieves have passed by people and animals, and the road is five or six miles wide, and they don't know the size of their people."

"Go down and rest!" Zhao Yan nodded and thought to himself that he was wrong. He didn't know which fool made up the Xingyang Conference. What's even more stupid is that he actually believed it.

I originally thought that time was enough and I was ready to start the first month of the year.

But now the soldiers have been home on holiday, so they have to be gathered together. With some trivial preparations, it may take several days to live.

"Zhu Youjian's ancestral tomb was dug and I was imprisoned. Let's talk about it after the New Year!" Zhao Yanxin thought about it, but it was not so anxious. The digging of ancestral tombs was nothing to do with him. He said to his personal soldiers: "Go and call the battalion commanders, political commissars, and chief of staff for a meeting."

"Yes, sir." The soldier hurriedly ran to inform.

After receiving the notice, all the senior officials of the Zhao family army rushed to the conference hall. Twenty minutes later, the battalion commanders of each battalion, Zhao Quan, Zhang Buyun, Liu Heng and others arrived.

"Young master, I bought the ship and bought three great blessings." Zhao Quan came relatively late and said to Zhao Yan as soon as he arrived.

"I bought it? Have you driven it back?" Zhao Yan asked.

"I've driven back, and the Fujian maritime business cannot continue, so I sold the ship, one ship costing 100,000 taels of silver." Zhao Quan said.

Zhao Yan couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth, 100,000 taels! It's a sky-high price. However, it's only a matter of earning back this little money, and there's a lot of money overseas.

"I'll talk about this later." Zhao Yan nodded, then looked up and said to everyone, "I just received the news that the bandits' army has entered Henan again and has now gone to Xingyang, so I summoned everyone to discuss the matter."

Everyone spread the map, Liu Heng pointed to Henan and said, "The Central Plains is a place of four battles, and there is no danger to defend. It will inevitably be difficult for bandits to enter the Central Plains."

"Sir, I want to send troops to suppress the thieves?" Wang Wenyue asked in anticipation. Since the establishment of the Second Battalion, he has never fought a tough battle. Instead, the first Battalion has been in good luck. He fought a group of insults and fought another battle with Wu Anbang. The second Battalion only saw some blood when suppressing bandits.

"As a Ming minister, we should serve the country. However, the main purpose of this suppression of the bandits is to train troops." Zhao Yan said that training troops was his main purpose. According to the original plan, the first stop was Fengyang, so we should first save Zhu Youjian's ancestral tomb. However, the situation seemed to have changed a little, and the Xingyang Conference did not happen.

;
Chapter completed!