As the saying goes, "The bleak autumn wind is here again, and the world has changed."
The weather in autumn and winter these years was particularly cold. Even Hangzhou, a place like Jiangnan, was severely frozen. Just like Daming's world, it made people feel cold. Time jumped from 1617 to 1618.
Before the New Year's Day, Ouyang Jun and Luo Lie went all the way from Jing City to Jiangnan. The two originally wanted to see the scenery of Jiangnan where there was heaven above and Suzhou and Hangzhou below, but they were disappointed. They were rushed to work.
"Sigh … Now the country is difficult, and Hangzhou is no longer a paradise on earth." Ouyang Jun stood on the temporarily opened drill ground outside the city. In front of him were hundreds of lazy recruits. He was originally a member of the Jinyi Guards. Since the rise of the Revolutionary Army, he had been following them. He had been scared but not in danger, but he had no achievements. This time, he came to Hangzhou to seek refuge.
The Ouyang family had some power in Jing City, but they also knew that Daming's country was getting worse. In the past year, the Revolutionary Army only did business in Tianjin. They didn't need to spend a single soldier. They just relied on business to destroy the Ming Army in the north.
After nearly a year of construction, the Revolutionary Army's wooden track connecting Tianjin and Tangshan was slowly opened to traffic. The production of Tangshan's coal and iron mines was getting bigger and bigger. Even a blind person could feel that the Revolutionary Army had more and more iron tools in their hands, and the price was getting cheaper and cheaper. This was the embodiment of strength.
Although there were still many loyal soldiers who wanted to be loyal to Daming, the Ouyang family felt that they should send more of their children out. Since the Revolutionary Army generally didn't trust people who came from old bureaucratic families, the Ouyang family sent Ouyang Jun to Hangzhou. Hangzhou was now the place where the counter-revolutionary forces were the strongest.
"Bah … Strong my ass!" Ouyang Jun squatted on a side carriage, holding a newspaper in his hand and scolded, "These Jiangnan literati are really shameless. They even boasted that the Yangtze River defense line is impregnable. Impregnable my ass, with these useless people in front of me? "
It was hard to get a sun in the winter. The recruits squatted on the drill ground to bask in their moldy bodies. Many of them were trying to catch each other's lice, laughing and joking. Luo Lie was standing at the side of the drill ground. He was waving his whip and whipping his soldiers until they screamed. He was learning how to march in unison.
Ouyang Jun glanced at his friend, shook his head, and continued reading the newspaper.
The Revolutionary Army's newspaper was very successful, and the propaganda effect was excellent. It also caused many forces to follow suit. There were many wealthy merchants in Hangzhou. Raising some money to set up a printing workshop and hiring some people to write articles was a piece of cake.
But as the saying goes, 'It's hard to draw the skin and draw the flesh, but it's hard to draw the bones.' This Jiangnan Times was neither fish nor fowl. The article looked like it was written by an old pedant. It was full of puzzles, obscure and difficult to understand, and it especially liked to drop the bag of books to dig up allusions that ordinary people would not understand. For example, last time, someone showed off how many ways to write the word 'Hui', which made Ouyang Jun so angry that he used the newspaper to wipe his ass …
Ouyang Jun went to the brothel at night. As soon as he took off his pants, the maid who helped him to push his butt couldn't stop laughing. His butt was full of black ink. At first glance, it was scary, but at a closer look, it was funny. The courtesan who spent twenty taels a night usually knew how to behave, like Hua Jieyu. That night, she couldn't hold back her silly laughter. As a result, Ouyang Jun had to spend twice the price to seal it up.
Hateful …
Ouyang Jun was arranged by his family to go to Jiangnan to find a job. In the end, he was sent to train soldiers. There was no hope for the Northern Ming Army. Not colluding with the enemy meant great loyalty. At present, they could only hope that Jiangnan could train a strong army. For example, Grandpa Qi's Qi Army was mainly made up of Zhejiang soldiers. The officials in Jiangnan decided to follow the prescription and make a strong Zhejiang army.
In order to train a strong army for the northern expedition, the merchants in Jiangnan were generous. The cloth merchants in Songjiang Prefecture and the salt merchants in Yangzhou were cut off from making money, so they had a deep hatred with the Revolutionary Army. Those who had money contributed money, and those who had money contributed people. At the end of last year, they raised a huge sum of one million taels.
Then there was no more …
"Tsk … What is one million taels?" Ouyang Jun saw that the newspaper was still bragging about how united the scholars in Jiangnan were. They always talked about one million taels. But he had been in the north for a long time. He had seen the huge consumption of the Ming Army. He had also read the budget of the Revolutionary Army's newspaper. He knew that building an army was really expensive.
"The scholars in Jiangnan were happy to raise one million taels as if they had made a great vision. But it's not even one and a half million taels. What can this little money do? Grand Marshal Zhou invested fifty million taels to take over North Korea. " Ouyang Jun held the newspaper and kept complaining. He looked at Luo Lie who was training the soldiers and shouted, "Stop training. It's useless."
Several sticks in Luo Lie's hands were broken, but he still couldn't teach the soldiers how to line up. He angrily threw away the stick and ran back to Ouyang Jun. He grabbed a booklet and shouted madly, "I clearly practiced according to this Militia Training Manual. This is a secret military book of the Revolutionary Army. It cost me eight taels of silver to buy. Why can't it work? "
Ouyang Jun looked at Luo Lie with a sympathetic look and whispered, "This Militia Training Manual is pirated by my family."
"What?" Luo Lie immediately became furious, "Didn't I ask you to buy me the original?"
"It's not different. The original costs one hundred taels. My family only printed and sold eight taels. In fact, the content is the same. "Ouyang Jun said," Anyway, it's all words. I promise it's not wrong. "
"How could it be the same? The words are the same, but the spirit is definitely different. I can't practice this military formation, it must be because of the pirated version you sold. "Luo Lie was even more furious. He suddenly thought of something and turned to the back cover of the booklet and asked, "It's clearly printed on it that each book is five taels. Why did you charge me eight taels?"
"This …" Ouyang Jun found it a bit difficult to answer. He moved his body slightly and said softly, "It's gone."
Luo Lie jumped three feet high and reached out to grab Ouyang Jun's neck. He shouted, "You even dare to let my money go?"
This grab didn't catch him at all. Ouyang Jun was not good at other things, but his lightness skill was first-class. In the blink of an eye, he jumped ten feet away. Seeing that Luo Lie was about to catch up, he shouted, "My father said that pork should be left with oil on the palm of your hand. When the money passes through our hands, we have to leave some. This is the rule of officialdom. "
"You really are a despicable person. If you have the guts, don't run." Luo Lie's cultivation was higher than Ouyang Jun's, but he couldn't catch up with the latter. Seeing that Ouyang Jun had disappeared, he could only angrily return to the drill ground after cursing a few times.
On the drill ground, the soldiers that Ouyang Jun was in charge of training were listless. The soldiers that Luo Lie trained were all stupid. The latter let out a long sigh and flipped through the booklet in his hand. He really didn't understand why he couldn't train the Revolutionary Army to be in a neat formation and strong soldiers that followed orders.
In order to show off their strength, the Revolutionary Army often held public military exercises in Tianjin. Every time, it could attract a sea of spectators. Although it was only the most basic formation training, as long as they could feel the uniformity of the entire phalanx marching together, everyone would be fascinated.
'Slow as a forest, swift as the wind, aggressive like fire, immovable like a mountain.' Luo Lie and Ouyang Jun also secretly went to see the Imperial Guard's practice. But after seeing it, the two of them had different reactions. Ouyang Jun completely dispelled the idea of joining the army. He felt that he would never be able to train such a strong army in his lifetime. Luo Lie, on the other hand, wanted to copy the Imperial Guard's infantry phalanx.
One didn't want to train the soldiers, but was chased to Hangzhou to train the soldiers. The other wanted to train the soldiers, but couldn't. Both of them had a bellyful of worries. Ouyang Jun ran away without a trace, and Luo Lie also lost the motivation to train. He let his soldiers stand in formation, and he grabbed the 'Jiangnan Times' that Ouyang Jun had just thrown away.
Not only did Ouyang Jun look down on these Jiangnan scholars, even Luo Lie looked down on them. "These poor people can't even run a newspaper well. The 'Revolutionary Times' doesn't hide good or bad things. There are special reporters to interview the people, let the people know, and let the world know. But this Jiangnan Times is full of fake news, not even a dirty joke. "
The only thing that could be trusted in this newspaper was probably the merchants' advertisements. Luo Lie knew that prices in the north were generally falling. Normally, there was no need to transport grain this year, so the price of grain in Jiangnan should have fallen. But when he glanced at it, he found that the price of grain, cloth, and salt in Hangzhou did not fall, but rose. This was really strange …
"How much do you usually buy grain for one stone?" Luo Lie asked the soldiers on the drill ground. The answer was about two taels and five coins for one stone. But the price of grain in Jiangnan during winter was about one tael and five coins. As for the north, it had now fallen below one tael. "Why did your grain prices rise?"
"I heard that this time, all the rich merchants in Jiangnan pooled money to build the army. Everyone felt that they had put in a lot of effort and wanted to earn back the money in grain."
"The cloth and salt merchants did not make money last year. They would rather not sell than lower the price. They said that they would rather burn it than let us poor people benefit. "
"There are also people who would rather sell grain to the north at a low price, and then sell some popular goods from the north back. It would make more money."
Listening to the words of the soldiers, Luo Lie seemed to understand something, but he was even more confused. The price was high, and the people's lives were hard. The Jiangnan area was even less of a match for the 'Revolutionary Army'. Such a simple truth, why didn't those scholars understand?
The 'Revolutionary Army' would rather lose money to keep the people's food rations, desperately trying to push down the price. If someone dared to raise the price of grain, a crime of 'speculation' would be enough to put the profiteer in jail. This group of painstakingly managed to exchange for the people not wanting the Ming Army to fight, and even the Ming Army themselves defected to Tianjin.
"These officials talk about benevolence and morality, and the newspapers they run are all beautiful articles, but the things they do are all bastards." In the end, Luo Lie was also discouraged. He threw the newspaper away and looked at the 100 soldiers who were trembling with fear after being scolded by him. He could only wave his hand to let them rest.
After a while, Ouyang Jun, who had just run away, slipped back and waved his hand to call the soldiers he was training to gather. Luo Lie did not argue with him about what just happened and asked, "What do you want to do?"
"Do business, big business." Ouyang Jun said happily. As soon as his subordinates heard that they were doing business, their originally lazy appearance immediately became spirited. They lined up when he told them to, and walked when he told them to. They were even better than Luo Lie, who had been training tirelessly.
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