The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

Yangzhou City has a very long history.

In ancient times, around 5000 BC, the Huaiyi people planted rice and worked in the Yangzhou area.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, the place where Yangzhou City was located was called Han.

In the tenth year of King Fuchai of Wu, Wu destroyed Han, built Han City, and dug the Han Canal to connect the Huai River and the Yangtze River.

Later, Yue destroyed Wu, and Chu destroyed Yue. They built a city on the site of the old city of Han and named it Guangling.

The Qin Dynasty established Guangling County, which belonged to Jiujiang County.

In the Western Han Dynasty, Guangling City was called Jiangdu, and it was a fiefdom for the princes. At this time, there were records of Huai salt. Liu Bi, the King of Wu in the Han Dynasty, "cast coins from the mountains and boiled the sea for salt" and opened the Salt River (the predecessor of the Yang Canal).

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Guangling was changed to Wuzhou. After the Sui Dynasty unified the country, Wuzhou was changed to Yangzhou, thus unifying the place name with today's name.

It can be said that Yangzhou was the production area of ​​Huai salt at least in the Western Han Dynasty. At this time in the Chu Dynasty, most of the Huai salt merchants also gathered in Yangzhou for trading.

In addition, Yangzhou was a large city with prosperous commerce and a very suitable climate for living. Therefore, many big salt merchants simply settled in Yangzhou.

Before this, when Liu Sheng had just captured Yangzhou City, although he had several evil gentry, bullies, and corrupt officials tried and confiscated their property, the salt merchants were not among them.

It’s not that all the salt merchants in Yangzhou are good people, but compared to those notorious evil tyrants and corrupt officials, most of the salt merchants are famous for their wealth, and their bad deeds are less known.

However, Liu Sheng controlled Xunfengwei and Xiuyiwei, so it was easy for him to investigate the details of these big salt merchants...
Chengzhai.

In the city of Yangzhou is a large mansion that is low-key in appearance but luxurious in interior.

Cheng Hao, one of the top three salt merchants in Yangzhou City, lived here.

Cheng Hao is already in his fifties and has no other hobbies but beautiful girls and opera.

Therefore, he was not only the behind-the-scenes boss of Fengyuege, a famous brothel chain in Da Chu, but he also selected twelve beautiful girls with excellent looks to keep in his house and taught them opera skills, and called them the Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou.

The girls among the Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou are all between the ages of twelve and sixteen. Those who are over sixteen will be "given" by Cheng Hao to important business partners, or dignitaries and officials of the Great Chu.

The brand of "Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou" created by Cheng Hao himself has been around for more than twenty years and is still quite famous among the middle and high-level dignitaries, top wealthy officials and gentry in Da Chu.

Therefore, although the salt merchants Cheng family committed many illegal acts over the years, they have always lived a comfortable life in Da Chu.

Cheng Hao has always been very proud of the network of contacts he has built up through the "Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou". He asked himself that even after his death, as long as his descendants continued his ideas and maintained the brand of the Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou, the Cheng family could at least be prosperous for three generations.

However, he never expected that the Great Chu seemed quite prosperous more than a decade ago, and even had the reputation of being a prosperous country, but suddenly bandits emerged everywhere.

What was even more beyond his expectations was that a bandit suddenly appeared out of nowhere last year, first occupied half of Shandong, and now has captured the entire Jiangbei area.

He also sent warships to bombard the city of Nanjing, forcing the Chu army to retreat without even showing its head - this seemed incredible to him.

The Chu army, equipped with guns and cannons, has been almost invincible since the founding of the Chu State. How could they be defeated repeatedly by this bandit who was said to be a pirate?
After the Chu State easily captured Yangzhou City, they found several typical cases for public trial and confiscated their property, which greatly shocked Cheng Hao.

Then he felt fear instinctively.

These days, he was thinking about whether to move to Guangzhou.

But this is not an easy task.

Firstly, the Cheng family relied on Huai salt as the foundation of their commerce, and leaving Jiangbei would mean giving up the business of Huai salt.

Second, after the rebels captured Yangzhou City, they had been conducting strict inspections on the vehicles and horses entering and leaving.

If he wanted to move, all the gold, silver, treasures and other assets in Yangzhou City would probably have to be loaded onto dozens of carts or several ships.

It would certainly attract attention, and the thieves might not let him go, or even bring him into trouble.

If he didn't leave, he would have to think about how to curry favor with the bandits.

But he was also worried that the bandits would be defeated by the Chu army in the future, and his flattery of the bandits would be exposed, and his property would be confiscated and his family would be exterminated by the Chu court. He was a man of insight. In his opinion, the bandits had won consecutive victories against the local Chu troops before, but they might not be able to win against the border troops of the Chu.

In addition, you need to have connections and methods to curry favor with thieves. If you do it recklessly and lose money, it will be a way to disaster.

The best way, of course, is to directly curry favor with the bandit leader Liu Sheng.

But he didn't know Liu Sheng's exact age, or whether he liked beautiful girls - logically speaking, any normal man should like the beautiful girls he trained.

But even if he was willing to take the risk, he couldn't find a way to present the "Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou" to the bandit leader.

These days, Cheng Hao was very worried about this matter and he even had no appetite for the delicious duck tongues prepared by the chef at home.

That afternoon, Cheng Hao called all the Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou into the ice room to check their opera skills in order to relieve his worries.

Not to mention, these Twelve Beauties of Jinling were all little girls under the age of eight that he adopted through various channels and slowly nurtured.

Even the youngest girl, who was twelve years old, had been trained for several years and her singing skills and dancing skills were excellent.

After the Twelve Beauties showed him the results of their studies over the past half month one by one, Cheng Hao felt much more relieved.

Immediately, he prepared to personally guide these beautiful girls.

As a result, Cheng Hao had just given a hint when he heard a hurried knock on the door.

"Master, it's bad, the bandits are attacking!"

what?
The bandits are attacking?

He was just an ordinary citizen, neither an official of the Great Chu nor the notorious villain who was publicly tried a few days ago. Why did the bandits want to target him?

A series of questions came to my mind, but I couldn't find the answers.

After coming to his senses, Cheng Hao asked the twelve beauties to stay in the ice room and not run around, and he hurried out to see what was going on. If the situation was irreversible, they would hide in the tunnels and dark rooms inside the house.

Unexpectedly, as soon as he came out, he heard the sound of weapons colliding approaching quickly.

Before he could ask the butler about the situation, a team of well-armored soldiers blocked him outside the ice room.

At this moment, his housekeeper suddenly said: "My fellow soldiers, this is Cheng Hao, the head of the Cheng family!"

Cheng Hao was stunned for a moment, then he angrily said: "You evil slave, I treated you so well, but you actually betrayed me!"

Hearing Cheng Hao's curse, the butler completely changed his position and said, "I know many secrets and crimes of the Cheng family. I am willing to be a witness. I only ask the general to spare my life!"

The leading captain also despised the steward's character, so he said, "Catch them all together!"

Seeing a large group of soldiers surrounding him, Cheng Hao became extremely anxious and said hurriedly, "I have prepared twelve beauties to present to His Majesty the Emperor Dalai, so don't mess around!"

You know what, his shout really had some effect.

Because these soldiers are all royal guards, they are considered the royal private army in Dalai, and they absolutely respect Liu Sheng.

Therefore, when it comes to Liu Sheng's affairs, they really don't dare to act recklessly.

The captain immediately asked: "Where is the beauty you mentioned?"

Cheng Hao said: "Take me to see His Majesty, and I will tell you where the beauty is."

Cheng Hao wanted to present the beautiful woman to Liu Sheng in person in order to save his life.

As soon as he finished speaking, the butler said, "My fellow soldiers, don't listen to Cheng Hao's nonsense. The Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou that he trained were originally used to bribe the powerful people of Da Chu. Now they are all in this ice room."

"You little dog slave! You little dog slave!" Cheng Hao was so angry that he wanted to vomit blood when he saw the butler stabbed him in the back again. The soldiers of the Hui army immediately opened the door of the ice room and brought out the twelve beautiful girls hiding inside.

It has to be said that Cheng Hao’s ability to create the “Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou”, a brand of beautiful girls that is well-known among the middle and high-level dignitaries in Da Chu, shows that he has a very high level of appreciation.

Although these twelve beauties are not the most beautiful among the twelve beauties, they still make the soldiers of the Hui army stunned.

Of course, that’s all.

The imperial guards were well-disciplined and experienced, and they quickly took control of Cheng Hao and other important members of the Cheng family, as well as the family servants. They were ready to follow the rules and make a solid case so that they could be punished and their property confiscated...
Temporary Palace (Yangzhou Prefecture Government Office).

When Liu Sheng saw the Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou sent by the imperial guards, his eyes lit up. But he was not moved and wanted to possess them all.

Firstly, he had been emperor for 10 to 20 years and had seen many beauties, not to mention that he also had the knowledge of later generations.

Although the Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou were beautiful, they were just so-so in his eyes.

The most important thing is that they are too young. In his eyes, they are just middle school girls who have nothing. He really has no interest in them.

However, Liu Sheng still considered the opera skills of these Twelve Beauties.

Found it really good.

So he said, "Send them all to the art troupe."

The art troupe was considered to be a non-staff unit of the Imperial Guard, and was specifically responsible for rehearsing various operas, which could provide entertainment and relaxation for the soldiers and could also undertake various propaganda tasks.

Therefore, Liu Sheng established a cultural troupe as early as when he started a newspaper in Dalai.

Now that he had arrived in Da Chu, he naturally brought along the backbone members of the art troupe and formed a second art troupe.

When these twelve beauties were sent to Liu Sheng, they were originally very scared. After seeing Liu Sheng, they mistakenly thought that they would most likely be added to Liu Sheng's harem.

I didn't expect that I would be sent to some "art troupe".

They didn't know what the art troupe was, and no one dared to resist, so they could only accept it in fear.

The story of the Twelve Beauties of Yangzhou created by Cheng Hao was just a small episode in the crackdown of Jiangbei salt merchants by the Yan army.

In fact, various small episodes occurred in every link of the investigation of salt merchants, and there were many interesting ones, but only a few of them made Liu Sheng know and pay attention to them.

In this way, it took about ten days for the Hui army to complete the investigation of the major salt merchants in Huaibei.

On that day, Minister of Finance Lin Jiading, Brigade Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard Zheng Zunqian, Right Censor-in-Chief Yu Chenglong, and Commander of the Second Regiment of the Huben Guard Chen Wu came together to report the results of the investigation to Liu Sheng.

Yu Chenglong said first: "This time, we have investigated seven salt merchants with assets of more than 100,000 strings of cash, and 39 salt merchants with assets of more than 10,000 strings of cash."

"Among them, there are 23 salt merchants who have serious problems and should be tried and have their property confiscated according to the law. Among the big salt merchants with assets of more than 100,000 strings of cash, only two need to be fined, but their crimes do not warrant confiscation of their property..."

The so-called family wealth of more than 100,000 strings of cash or more than 10,000 strings of cash are just two levels divided into by the Dalai Inspectorate according to the customs of Da Chu. It does not mean that their family wealth is only 100,000 strings of cash or 10,000 strings of cash.

Liu Sheng was not surprised after listening to Yu Chenglong's report.

Although being rich does not necessarily mean being unkind, in this era, no one who can become a big salt merchant is truly clean - if you really want to be spotless, you cannot work in this business, let alone become a big salt merchant.

Just like the investigation of Yangzhou's big salt merchants in Dalai, even the salt merchants with the lightest crimes would be fined, and most would be sentenced to have their property confiscated, or even exiled or executed.

Although the corruption of officials in the Great Chu at this time was not as bad as that in the late Ming Dynasty, it was not far behind. Against this dark social background, it was natural that the salt merchants did many illegal things.

For example, let’s not talk about the illegal means Cheng Hao used in running the salt business. The chain of brothels he created, Fengyuege, alone involved some illegal human trafficking.

Combined with other miscellaneous charges, Cheng Hao was eventually sentenced to death.

Most of the Cheng clan members were also exiled to Kuwu Island, north of Ezo Island.

As for the Cheng family’s property, it was naturally confiscated.

Soon, it was Lin Jiading's turn to report the money obtained from the house search.

"Your Majesty, this time we have confiscated the property of five very large salt merchants and eighteen major salt merchants."

"In the end, we seized 240,000 taels of gold, more than 1,360,000 taels of silver, and 780,000 strings of copper coins from the Chu State."

"In addition, there are 1.17 million acres of farmland, 68 properties, 973 shops..."

As the report continued, Liu Sheng did not show any special expression, but Lin Jiading couldn't help but smile.

Although he was the one who was responsible for the investigation of the Yangzhou salt merchants there, he still couldn't help but sigh at the wealth of the salt merchants when he experienced it again.

The most important thing is that with this money, the pressure on him as the Minister of Finance was greatly reduced.

Liu Sheng was actually secretly sighing that the Great Chu was only at the end of the 14th century and the amount of silver it possessed was far less than that of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, the amount of gold and silver seized from the Yangzhou salt merchants was not much. Instead, there were a lot of fields, real estate, shops, rare antiques and jewelry, etc., whose value could not be estimated at present.

As for food, there was some, of course, but not too much.

However, since he has money, Liu Sheng can send a fleet to the south of Da Chu or Indochina to buy food.

···
While the Hui army was busy investigating the salt merchants in northern Jiangsu, the Chu court was busy mobilizing border troops.

This matter is definitely not easy for the Chu court.

Because many border troops are in arrears of wages, if there is no war and they are not mobilized, they can be barely appeased.

But if you want to mobilize them, you can't do it without paying them a portion of the military pay. After all, the border troops of Da Chu are all recruited soldiers, they have families, and one of the main purposes of being a soldier is to make money to support their families.

Emperor Jiahua gritted his teeth, took out 300,000 strings of cash from the treasury, and together with the Ministry of Revenue, Imperial Household Department and other financial departments, raised one million strings of cash for military pay, specifically for the mobilization of border troops this time.

As a result, a quarter of the money was lost when it left the central government of the Great Chu.

By the time it reached the hands of senior generals of each border army, only about half of it was left.

Senior generals also have a large family to support, not to mention that many of them have to support servants and concubines, enjoy themselves, or train household servants.

Therefore, the actual amount of military pay distributed to the grassroots border soldiers was less than one-fifth.

On the other hand, the food and fodder that the Chu imperial court specially mobilized for the border troops was tainted by corrupt officials and finally reached the hands of the grassroots soldiers. Both the quality and quantity were far inferior.

It was under such circumstances that senior generals, due to strict orders from the court, urged their soldiers to march to Runing Prefecture.

For a time, many border soldiers felt extremely resentful...
Zhu Chongyang carried a matchlock gun, a rattan shield, and an exquisite cloth armor passed down from his ancestors on his back, and held a sword in his hand. He walked with a grunt and one foot deep and one foot shallow.

There were many soldiers like him around, but among the more than one hundred people around, he was the tallest and the best equipped.

Zhu Chongyang's ancestral home was in Fengyang, but his great-grandfather's generation had gone to Gansu to recruit soldiers, that is, to serve in the border army.

By the time of his grandfather's generation, he had become the commander of the border army, in charge of hundreds of people, and became a general of the Great Chu.

Unfortunately, when it was his father's turn to join the army, he found it difficult to get along in the army, which became increasingly dark. In the end, his father only became a general flag officer, with only 100 soldiers under his command.

When it was his turn, he had made many contributions, but now he is only a small flag officer with only fifty soldiers under his command.

Zhu Chongyang had great ambitions since he was a child. When there was a famine in Gansu, in order to win over his friends, he slaughtered one of his own cows and shared the food. Afterwards, he was severely beaten by his mother.

So after he joined the Gansu Border Army, he first actively trained, worked, and made contributions. With the help of some connections left by his grandfather and father, he became a small flag officer. (End of this chapter)