Lord of the House

After nightfall, Huang Jinnian also rushed to Lin Xuwen's house to meet Lin Mengde and Zhou Guangnan.

"The war in southern Zhejiang has just ended, and Kuaiji has won a great victory again, which is really relieved..." Huang Jinnian passed through the corridor and saw Lin Mengde and Zhou Guangnan, laughing loudly and looking very excited.

Zhang Xie was supported by the late emperor, and he took on the responsibility of staying behind. He surrendered to captives without fighting. And no matter how strong the Confucian scholar Qingliu was, it was a shame that Zhang Xie was regarded as a scholar in jokes, and his son Zhang Xitong was not able to escape the murder of the wine-giving, so the officials of the Chu party were naturally hit hard.

Yue Lengqiu, Huang Jinnian, Liu Yefei and other former Chu Party cadres, although they did not indict the new emperor, but from time to time, officials jumped out to repeat old things and expose their scars - Huang Jinnian was often impeached by officials in Jiangning during this time. , is also quite embarrassed. Although Emperor Yongxing does not pursue the past, he also allows the official to pass the impeachment document, which has his own connivance.

The Huaidong Army won another victory in Kuaiji, and news was reported to Jiangning. The day before yesterday, there was an official who repeated the old story and impeached Huang Jinnian, but he reprimanded Emperor Yongxing on the spot.

There are too many things involved, but after all, there is Huaidong's backing behind him, and he has enough confidence. No wonder Huang Jinnian is so happy when he sees Lin Mengde and Zhou Guangnan coming from Chongzhou today.

"The situation in Kuaiji is tense. After another battle, the situation on the southern front will be clear. Can Huaidong be fully confident?" Huang Jinnian asked.

Lin Mengde said with a smile: "I'm afraid it's hard to have a war, but it's hard to say..."

"Kaiji is a land of fish and rice, and we are fighting in a stalemate, so that the benefits of Kuaiji's food and resources are not given to the extravagant family, and it is a great victory for Huaidong." , said, "If the situation drags on like this, the She family will collapse sooner or later... Is the She family really willing to lose Kuaiji?"

The hinterland of Zhejiang and Fujian is full of mountains and mountains, and most of the land suitable for farming is concentrated in the coastal valleys and plains; East Fujian has been frequently harassed by the Huaidong water camp, and has shown signs of fatigue. Since two months, the luxury family has lost Yongjia, Taizhou and other coastal counties. This time, the Huaidong Army occupied Kuaiji City and turned the fertile land between Cao'e River and Puyang River into a war zone.

This is also the strategy that Lin Fu has formulated since his attack on eastern Zhejiang last year: even if the luxury family cannot be directly defeated, the luxury family must be dragged down.

Today, the Zhejiang-Fujian Army still has about 123,000 soldiers and horses in various places in Zhejiang County. In battle, the generals and soldiers need to fill their stomachs. In addition to the requisition of civilians and the food and transportation consumption of the mules and horses, the She family has less to say every year. Zhejiang County raised one million stone grains.

After Yongjia and Taizhou prefectures and coastal counties fell, Kuaiji became a war zone again. The main grain-producing area controlled by the luxury family in Zhe County was only Guyuan in central Zhejiang with Quzhou prefecture as the core. Where can they raise such food?

Once there is a large shortage of food resources in Zhejiang County, it will be transferred from Jin'an, Quanzhou, Jian'an and other places, and transported through Xianxialing Road.

What's more, when leading troops in battle, it's not over until the generals have enough to eat. Shoes, clothing, armor, arrows, arrows, wounds, medicine, tents, armors, mules and horses, there is no need to invest money in them - the more frequent the war, the more severe the consumption.

Huang Jinnian has served in the Ministry of Household for a long time, and this account is very precise. He believes that as long as the situation in eastern Zhejiang is dragged on for a year and a half, the luxury family will not be able to support it and will shrink the main force of troops and horses to the hinterland of East Fujian.

And once the luxury family abandoned Zhe County and shrunk their troops to the hinterland of East Fujian, Jin'an, Quanzhou and other coastal prefectures were also within the attack range of Huaidong Shuiying, and ultimately could not escape the end of destruction.

It is precisely because of this idea that Huang Jinnian judges that there will be a battle in Kuaiji in the near future - the plastered land of Kuaiji is too important to the luxury family.

Most people in Jiangning believe that the luxury family will not give up Kuaiji easily, and will inevitably gather a large army to fight Huaidong in a decisive battle in Kuaiji, which also makes the minds of many people extremely complicated - the situation in eastern Zhejiang is directly related to the safety of Jiangning's periphery, and naturally no one hopes Huaidong suffered a crushing defeat, but like Yue Lengqiu, Chen Xiyan, Yu Xinyuan, Zhang Yan, and even the new emperor Yuan Jianwu, no one hoped that the Huaidong Army would win another easy victory.

Among the generals led by Jiang Ning, there was no one whose prestige could surpass that of Lin Fu at this time.

Regarding Huang Jinnian's doubts, Lin Mengde explained: "According to your judgment, after the Huaidong Army occupies Kuaiji City, we will have a solid advantage in eastern Zhejiang, while the Zhejiang-Fujian Army has gathered heavy troops in Shanyin and Xiaoshan. There is no need to take the city by force, the actual force will be extremely difficult, and the casualties will be unimaginable - the Zhejiang and Fujian troops were defeated in a hurry in this battle, and it is impossible to gather more troops in eastern Zhejiang in a short period of time. This is a luxury. The brothers assembled a total of 60,000 elites in Shanyin and Xiaoshan, and the Huaidong Army crossed into the Cao'e River and entered the west bank with nearly 50,000 troops. It's hard to..."

"The luxury family can't fight in the east, will they fight in the west?" Sun Wenbing asked his guess.

"It's quite possible," Lin Mengde said, "but the brain grows on other people's heads, and what the luxury family will do next, I can only wait and see for the time being - I'm worried that the luxury family will collapse. Huaidong will not be able to support himself first, do you know how much Huaidong has invested in the southern front in half a year?"

"How much?" Huang Jinnian asked.

"Almost 1,400,000 taels of silver," Lin Mengde reported a number, and both Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian were quite surprised, laughed, and said, "This is still a figure that excludes casualty pensions and local donations, otherwise would be more terrifying."

Huang Jinnian was born in the household, and knew that when the war broke out, Yinzihua was like running water when he went out, and he couldn't cover it with his hands. The garrison and the scale of the war, such a cost, is reasonable, but Lin Mengde was shocked when he reported it himself.

"Even if this battle in Kuaiji will not continue, the Huaidong Military Division will spend less than three million taels of silver this year, right?" Huang Jinnian asked.

"We still have to leave some money for Huaisi. We have to raise a total of 3.6 million taels of silver this year, and we have to hope that the luxury family will stop fighting in Kuaiji," Lin Mengde said, "When making plans at the end of last year, This year, I only plan to spend 2.6 million taels of silver. As a result, there is a big hole missing... Guangnan and I will do everything possible to fill this hole."

"One million taels less?" Huang Jinnian asked.

"It's not that much worse; if we can raise a little more, we can also leave some margin for next year," Lin Mengde said. "Who knows how the war will be fought and how long it will last?"

"It's also a good thing that there are adults in charge of Huaidong, otherwise how could the situation in Jianghuai survive?" Huang Jinnian said with emotion.

Hailing, Huai'an and Mingzhou, the three prefectures can normally pay less than one million stone of tax and grain each year to the state treasury. Lin Fu used the land of these three prefectures to support three or four million taels per year. The military expenditure of silver - if it weren't for Lin Fushan's political affairs and the use of the land of the three prefectures, nearly two million taels of silver could be produced every year, how could it be possible to use troops on the eastern front and set down luxury families one after another? How could it be possible to focus on Huaiyang and build a solid Huaisi line of defense?

Today, there is still a shortage of military resources. The easiest and most direct way is to borrow from Huaidong Bank—but Huaidong Bank is also a chicken that can lay eggs without food.

As of today, Huaidong Bank has raised a principal of more than 6 million taels of silver, a huge amount that Zhou Guangnan and others could not have imagined when they were founded - but this number seems huge, but in fact it can't help spending lavishly. Lin Fu only borrowed two million taels of silver from the Qianzhuang branch in the name of the Huaidong Military Division, and Lin Fu instructed the Qianzhuang to vigorously support the construction of Huaidong's factories in various places, such as supporting various mines in the Haidong area. He has invested seven or eight hundred thousand taels of silver, and Huaidong Bank's money is also very tight.

The best way for the bank to expand the source of money for accumulating principal is to open semicolons in Jiangning, Weiyang and other places where the rich gather. Jiangning is the newly established imperial capital, where officials and gentry gather, needless to say; Weiyang salt merchants gather and accumulate huge wealth.

However, Huaidong Qianzhuang wants to expand to areas outside Huaidong, not simply to send shopkeepers and buddies to the past. Even if the local government does not take care of it, it must have a name of justice. Only in this way, if something goes wrong in the future, Huaidong also has an excuse to intervene through various means.

Jiangning and Weiyang, both Wang Xueshan and Shen Rong, were not friendly to Huaidong, so Lin Mengde and Zhou Guangnan came here because they wanted to directly obtain the imperial approval of Emperor Yongxing or the Guanwen of the Ministry of Household through Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian. Officials such as Wang Xueshan and Shen Rong who are not good to Huaidong can be directly bypassed.

"Of course, this is still superficial," Lin Mengde said, "to use the original words of the lord: You can't focus on using force to control more places. In fact, to control an area, other means of infiltration will be more effective. Force is only a means to be used in the end... Originally, Huaidong could not directly collect taxes from Weiyang and Jiangning, but in fact, Huaidong only dumped it to Weiyang and Jiangning last year. Cotton yarn and cotton cloth are converted into 400,000 taels of silver. Even if the profits of the factories under the jurisdiction of the Huaidong Military Division are not counted, the Huaidong Military Division also directly receives nearly 40,000 taels of silver from the dumping of cotton yarn and cotton cloth. In addition, most of the iron smelting workshops in Jiangning are now controlled for the production of ordnance, but Jiangning was first established as an imperial capital, and the dignitaries were busy building luxurious houses. The metallurgical supervisors directly under the military department dumped 1 million catties of iron materials to Jiangning and Weiyang in the first five months of this year alone, worth 140,000 taels of silver. Contributions made..."

"There are so many?" Huang Jinnian asked in surprise~www.readwn.com~ He was still quite unfamiliar with Huaidong's operation mode, and the path pioneered by Lin Fu suddenly expanded his horizons. He had never thought about the matter of support.

"Without these incomes, how could you support such a big deal as an adult!" Lin Mengde said.

"That's right," Huang Jinnian said with a smile, "Huaidong's military funding this year will reach 3.6 million taels. Will he get 5 million taels next year? The military funding allocated by Jiangning, On the surface, it is a bit more than this, but in actual use, I am afraid that there are not five million taels of silver! Regardless of those military achievements, just in terms of silver use, Huaidong is on an equal footing with Jiangning..."

"...Uncle Mengde is still complaining here. If it weren't for the methods of the old seventeen, where would Huaidong raise the money?" Lin Xuwen responded with a smile and added, "There is also the matter of the bank, which is a powerful weapon. ——Don’t say that there are still many people in Jiangning City who are scolding Huaidong with 'gutness', but I heard Wen Bing say that many people heard that depositing money in the bank can earn money and interest, rather than buying land and collecting rent. It's also convenient, and the conversation begins to change... In Weiyang and Jiangning, taking advantage of the situation, and dragging down the luxury family in eastern Zhejiang are the best strategies to defeat the enemy without fighting!"

At present, Huaidong has no possibility to directly control Weiyang, Pingjiang, Danyang, Hangzhou, Huzhou, Jiaxing and other places. The strategy that can be adopted is to weaken the military strength of these places, and then infiltrate and control them through soft means such as trade and banks.

To do these things, in the end, even if Huaidong cannot directly send troops to garrison these areas, these areas must be reduced to Huaidong's vassals economically, so that Huaidong can continuously extract from these areas through soft means such as trade. Money, grain and resources, and even win over and support a group of local forces who agree with Huaidong in these places. My QT room is open! More vulgar official QT room number [9167] Click to enter