Great Wei Overlord

Chapter 788

Chapter 793
Through a series of actions, Sima Dan won the strong support of the military.He is the only emperor in the Jin Dynasty who can control the army since Jinwu Emperor Sima Yan. Even though the army directly under Sima Dan has only more than 6000 people, he has made a good start.

With the support of the army, especially the support of the Wucheng soldiers and horses stationed around Jiankang, Sima Dan's throne was truly secured.Only in this way can Sima Dan vigorously promote his reforms, but at this time Sima Dan found that the Jin army’s equipment was very poor. With the armor that Ran Ming gave to Sima Dan, the bows and arrows equipped by the Jin army could not penetrate within [-] distances. He used the horizontal knife given to him by Ran Ming and the ring-shou knife equipped with the standard equipment of the Jin army to slash against each other. Without exception, all the ring-shou knives were broken.

This made Sima Dan very worried. If such equipment were to fight against the Wei army, there would be no reason for victory.In fact, Sima Dan, a doll who grew up in a greenhouse, didn't know that the horizontal knives and Mingguang armor that Ran Ming gave him were all high-quality goods, not to mention the Jin army, even the Wei army, they were not heavily equipped.The set of Mingguang armor alone took 26 catties of refined steel and took three and a half months to forge. The refining level, coupled with the new quenching process, and the cooked copper and gilt handle, the cost alone is as high as 30 yuan. Such equipment, even the wealthy Ran Ming can't afford to equip the army.

But Sima Dan didn't know this. He only knew that Wei's equipment was much better than that of the Jin army. This time Wang Tanzhi was asked to go north to Wei, just to try it out and buy a batch no matter what.However, the ministers of the State of Wei were almost one-sided, and no one agreed to sell.

Wang Tanzhi had no choice but to tell the truth: "The purchase of military funds by the Jin Dynasty was definitely not aimed at the Wei State, but to prepare for the crusade against disobedient ministers."

Although Huan Wen was a courtier of the Jin Dynasty with a different surname on the surface, anyone with a discerning eye knew that Huan Wen was already the biggest tumor of the Jin Dynasty.Although some ministers were shaken by Sima Dan's reason, Ran Min disagreed: "Although the state of Jin is planning to attack the disobedient ministers, who can predict what will happen in the future? How can they sell such important military supplies to the outside world?" ?”

Ran Ming didn't take it seriously: "Sell it, why not sell it?"

Making war fortune, this is the easiest thing to get rich after dropping golden pancakes from the sky. In fact, even if the state of Jin doesn’t mention this problem, he will try his best to get the Jin Dynasty to buy it, sell it to the Jin Dynasty and then sell it to Huan Wen, and let Huan Wen The arms race with Sima Dan allowed Sima Dan and Huan Wen to devote their limited financial resources to the military competition.

Ran Min said: "The Jin Dynasty is our enemy... a potential opponent. In the future, whether Huan Wen defeats the Jin State, or the Jin State destroys Huan Wen, with so many excellent equipment in the hands of the opponent, it will always cause countless troubles for the Great Wei."

"How can a country's important weapon be given to others so easily?" Xie An was also excited: "Isn't this destroying the Great Wall and digging one's own grave?"

Ran Ming had a headache when he heard this.How should I put it? As for the law of economic development, in fact no one understands it.As everyone is drunk and I am drunk, Ran Ming can't wait to dig everyone's heads to see what they think.There is no way. Although he is a prince, he is not an emperor after all. Ran Ming needs to show evidence to convince everyone.Ran Ming thought about it carefully, brewed it up, and organized his language: "When the market needs it, social production will inevitably adjust itself according to the need, and then...don't understand?"

Not to mention the ancient times more than 600 years ago, even in the later Chinese dynasties, there were not many officials who really understood the economy.But Ran Ming himself understood that in his previous life, Ran Ming was not an official at all, he was a strong man who specialized in the economic field.In fact, for the profiteering industry, the sex industry and drug trafficking are simply weaker than the arms business.

Facing the officials who don't understand economics, Ran Ming has nothing to do.He is not the emperor, but he forcibly ordered the officials to execute it. If he wanted to facilitate this deal, Ran Ming had to come up with something that could convince all the ministers of the state of Wei.The argument that the market determines the economy may be a bit complicated, but who in later generations does not know how the US imperialism developed?It is not relying on war wealth. During World War I and World War II, it sold a lot of arms and became the world's number one overlord.But in this era, no one understands.

Ran Ming made a detour, and with Ran Min's consent, Ran Ming asked someone to bring in a batch of weapons from outside the palace.These weapons are still the current standard equipment in the Wei army, such as the Zhajia in the middle base army, the rhubarb crossbow in the Shesheng army, the horizontal knife in the infantry, the Mingguang armor in the Modao army, and the general prisoner. In the verified plate armor and so on.Ran Ming casually picked up a set of Zhajia and said, "Mentors and workers, this is the Zhajia commonly equipped by our Great Wei Dynasty. This kind of Zhajia can only barely defend against light bows, but if it wants to defend against spears, spears, stabbing, as well as chopping and chopping with horizontal knives and axes are relatively too poor. However, this kind of bright armor has a significant improvement over Zhajia in terms of defense against arrows, stabbing or chopping. As long as it is equipped with this kind of armor , can greatly reduce the casualty rate of soldiers on the battlefield.”

Without waiting for the ministers to ask questions, Ran Ming continued: "Some people may say, since the Mingguang armor has such obvious advantages, why don't you fully equip me, the Great Wei Huben? The answer is actually very simple, because there is no money. The cost of Zhajia is only 18 money, and the cost of Mingguang armor is almost twice that of Zhajia. At present, only one-third of the Wei army is equipped with Mingguang armor. Wan Jin. Especially weapons like guns and spears are much less powerful than rifles or horse lances, but the cost of lances is too high for Wei to afford."

Zhang Qiandao: "What does His Royal Highness mean? We can sell equipment to Jin, so that we can have the money to equip better equipment?"

Ran Ming nodded and said: "If this military purchase is completed, we will naturally not be able to sell it to Jin at the manufacturing price, at least double or triple the price. We can earn a profit if we sell a set of armor to Jin. One set. Another point is that the production scale of Wei’s general supervisor is not large. If there is a large-scale war, there is no way to meet the demand with the current production scale. It developed because of the need, and now it is sold to a competitor. However, the more the opponents need, the more workshops we will make weapons, and when the number of weapon workshops increases, we don’t have much investment. The cost of building weapon workshops is when those competitors buy from us Provided. So, the more they need now, the stronger our production will be in the future. I said this, do you understand?"

Others didn't understand, but Ran Min already understood.Ran Min said: "What the prince means is that we use other people's money to improve the internal affairs of the counties and counties. Our Great Wei now produces very fast steel. In addition to building roads, we even use plows, rakes, shovels, etc. The agricultural tools are all made of high-quality steel, which is very troublesome to store if you don’t use it, so you can sell it now. Use the money you earn to build ditches or roads in counties.”

The financial revenue of Wei State has actually been greatly improved, and it has exceeded 100 million gold. If converted into copper coins, this is equivalent to 1000 million guan. too little.But compared to the 6000 million guan in the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty, it is already much higher.

However, the state of Wei has abolished miscellaneous labor, and people do not need to bring their own money and food to serve corvee.All kinds of government projects are recruited for a fee. Since then, the expenditure of the Wei court has also increased too much.

Ran Min is an emperor who can't see the suffering of the people. He thought of the Zhouzhuang phenomenon he discovered when he was in Weifu. In fact, there are still many villages like Zhouzhuang that are self-styled. All kinds of corvee and miscellaneous taxes are scary.If you want to change this situation, you can't rely on coercion, but only rely on slow guidance.

Thinking of this, Ran Min paused and said: "Actually, we can take this opportunity to arrange functions according to the actual situation of each county. It is not only the characteristics of each county, even if it can strengthen the enemy for a while, it will not affect our strength." The benefits are even greater. At the same time, because of the increase in production, the production amount reaches a certain amount, which will inevitably make the process more perfect, and it is very likely to discover new technologies to increase production capacity and improve product quality."

Ran Min spoke very softly, paused every word, and stared straight at him. If those eyes could shine, the shots would definitely be lasers.

The ministers of the Manchu Dynasty began to discuss. Although the manufacturing method of armor is complicated, it can be seen that Wei Guo has already launched a standardized operation method, and the required accessories can be disassembled. For example, the northern counties that are rich in leather can use local products. The leather produced can be used to make armor linings and helmet linings. Where wood is abundant, it can also be used to make handles of horizontal knives and scabbards.

Ran Min's attitude changed, which made Ran Ming very happy.After all, Ran Min is the emperor of this country. As long as he is willing, this deal can be concluded.In fact, Ran Min's thinking is very normal. After all, the Jin Dynasty needed a huge amount of crossbow bolts. The 300 million crossbow bolts, the shaft and the arrows alone would consume a lot of raw materials. These raw materials can better improve the livelihood facilities in various places.

In terms of economic policy, in fact, the economic policy of the early days of the founding of China was good. As for the planned economy, if we wanted to implement a market economy when we were poor and without any foundation, I am afraid that China would only turn into a raw material producer for capitalist countries.Industrialization can only be achieved under the planning guided by the controllability of the state.

The damage to the foundation of the Wei State is very serious, and it is actually not easy to restore it.Qingzhou is better, because of Ran Ming's guidance, various industries are relatively more mature.But other states and counties are much worse.The first industrial revolution, to put it bluntly, was a steam engine. This thing is not too complicated, and Ran Ming understands the principle, but the specific structure is not clear.However, in this era, the market is far less large than during the first industrial revolution. Manpower, animal power, wind power or water power production can basically meet the current needs.

Ran Min's five-year planned economy actually already has a preliminary structure, that is, each county conducts guided development according to the advantages of each place.The initial success has been achieved. Ecological cycles of breeding, planting, and breeding have basically been adopted in all parts of Wei State. In this way, it can not only increase the overall income of the people, especially the breeding of chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, and sheep. They don't eat meat as often as the middle class, but having eggs and duck eggs has also greatly changed the physique of the people.

Production capacity can actually be increased through stimulation, and the demand for steel in ancient times was actually not too great.Except for weapons and agricultural tools, such steel needs are very little.Even if Wei's army was fully equipped with steel armor, the average weight of each person's equipment would be only thirty or forty catties, and 1000 million catties would be enough.However, after Ran Ming invented cement, he used cement and steel bars to build roads, houses, and cities on a large scale. Since then, the production capacity of steel has also developed rapidly under the stimulation of profits.At present, Wei Guo has begun to develop a blast furnace that can produce twelve tons of molten steel a day. Although the technical problem has not been solved yet, it is conceivable that this type of blast furnace will be put into normal production in the near future.

In fact, Wei's production capacity is almost saturated.Although the commercial roads in the Western Regions are opened, the land transportation capacity is limited, and only some expensive luxury goods, such as silk, can be sold.The sea route was blocked again due to the sudden rise of the Gupta Dynasty.The domestic demand market is becoming increasingly saturated, and Ran Ming still has a headache. Because the market is saturated, Wei's manufacturing industry will suffer. The military purchase plan of the Jin Dynasty is like giving a pillow when someone falls asleep.If such a good thing is not grasped properly, it will definitely be punished by God.

Regarding the sale of equipment to the Jin State, Ran Min finally made a decision: "The armor that the Wei army is about to change is mainly the armor, and the crossbows are mainly old-fashioned crossbows such as rhubarb crossbows and foot crossbows. The equipment of the Wei army is gradually turning to fine steel armor. And weapon conversion. And only sell finished products, fur, leather, etc. are not for sale.

At the same time, Ran Mingti intends to sell Wei's military dry food, such as canned food, beef jerky, and milk powder, to the Jin Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)