Chen Youliang's words were full of ambition. Everyone knew that Chen Youliang was very stubborn. Now that the matter had been decided, Zou Pusheng, Chen Wending and others felt that they could not persuade him to come back, so they could only follow Chen Youliang's instructions and start.

Make plans.

"If you want to capture Jiangnan, you must send troops from Jiangxi along the Yangtze River waterway."

"The Yangtze River waterway must pass through to reach the south of the Yangtze River. There are several places that need important nodes!"

"They are Anqing, Chizhou, and Taiping. The next step is the quarrying outside Jinling Mansion. As long as we capture this place along the river, we can maintain an unimpeded Yangtze River transportation line and support it with a steady stream of troops, horses, and grain.

Soldiers at the front.”

Soon, Chen Youliang and others formulated a plan to capture key points on the Yangtze River such as Chizhou and Anqing Taiping.

However, in order to capture these heavily guarded places, one must first explore the local military deployment.

Of course it is not possible to investigate openly.

Chen Youliang personally edited a letter and sent it to Zhu Yuanzhang in Jiangnan.

In the letter, Chen Youliang called Zhu Yuanzhang his brother in a very cordial tone, and then explained that the two Red Scarf armies unanimously crusaded against the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty, expelled the Tartars, and restored China. In order for the two sides to complement each other and share their needs, he hoped that Hu Guang could

Many merchants went to Jiangnan to do business.

In fact, the so-called businessmen were naturally spies sent by Chen Youliang.

They have a large number of local specialties in Huguang, especially the tung oil, copper ore, tin ore, etc. produced in Huguang, all of which are commodities that have been in short supply in Jiangnan recently.

When he received Chen Youliang's letter, Zhu Han was leading his army to attack Quanzhou.

Zhu Yuanzhang immediately responded to Chen Youliang's letter with the same enthusiasm.

The two sides agreed to live peacefully on the border, and Zhu Yuanzhang fully agreed with Huguang's idea of ​​doing business there.

After all, the fiscal revenue in Jiangnan is now very generous. One of the most important reasons is that the commercial taxes in Jiangnan have made Zhu Yuanzhang very rich. Just one Suzhou is worth a year's agricultural production in Jiangbei Province.

Tax, plus Jinling, Hangzhou, Mingzhou and other places.

That made Zhu Yuanzhang have so much money that he didn't know how to spend it.

Jiangnan's land tax has been reduced again and again in order to encourage local people to grow more food and restore people's livelihood as soon as possible.

Although local commerce in Jiangnan is prosperous, there is an extreme shortage of many minerals and other materials, especially large quantities of copper ore, tin ore and other minerals, as well as large quantities of tung oil.

All are consumables in today's military and industrial weapons.

In just one month.

There were as many as fifty or sixty caravans coming from Huguang to Jiangnan for trade.

These caravans brought much-needed copper ore, tin ore, tung oil, etc. to Jiangnan, which made Zhu Yuanzhang very satisfied.

At this time, Zhu Han also led the navy back to Jinling from Quanzhou.

After returning to Jinling, Zhu Han did not go back to his mansion first, but went directly to Prince Wu's Mansion and met his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang.

Seeing Zhu Han come back, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately smiled and said, "The battle in Quanzhou was really exciting. We were worried about letting those lustful people escape, but we didn't expect that not one of them was killed."

Zhu Han smiled and said, "Actually, we didn't kill them all. We kept some useful ones to serve as guides on our future voyages to the West."

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded and said, "That's the same reason. Since Hui Hui people can come and do business in the Central Plains, we have to leave some guides. We also have to find an opportunity to visit their hometowns in the future and learn about them."

The people who committed evil in Fujian came back to take revenge, otherwise we would really be sorry for the people of the Central Plains!"

The two brothers Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Han have been getting along for so many years.

Under the influence of Zhu Han's strong nationalist thoughts, his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang naturally had many national thoughts. Regarding the distinction between north and south, Zhu Yuanzhang no longer thought like a modern ancient man. He felt that whether it was Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian or the Han people in the north,

, they are all one family.

Therefore, when the people of Fujian suffered massacres by people with colored eyes, Zhu Yuanzhang also felt the same way in his heart. This is exactly the resonance that nationalism can bring, and national sentiments are common. From this point of view alone, even without Zhu Han's assistance in the future,

The dynasty established by Zhu Yuanzhang will also be very different from the Ming Dynasty in history.

"I have sent Hu Dahai to take charge in Quanzhou, restore local trade, and form a team. The Semu people left a lot of charts and logbooks. Following their tracks, they explored the route to Nanyang, where gold and silver are hidden.

Shan, after sorting out those nautical charts and logbooks, we immediately sent people to explore the Western Ocean!" Zhu Han said.

"Okay, it would be great to go on a voyage to the West!"

Zhu Yuanzhang now also has extremely high expectations for sea trade.

Jiangnan is so prosperous now precisely because of its prosperous trade.

The business and trade in Suzhou, Jinling, Hangzhou, and Mingzhou meant that Zhu Yuanzhang did not need to worry about the military salaries of his officials and soldiers, nor did he need to cruelly squeeze the people under his rule, which gave him a good reputation.

Vigorously developing commerce and trade has been an excellent means for Lao Zhu to govern the country.

Speaking of this, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately thought of Chen Youliang sending someone to request trade.

When Zhu Han heard that Chen Youliang had sent fifty or sixty waves of caravans within a month, he immediately realized the problem.

He said to his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang, "Brother, Chen Youliang is not a simple person! At a small level, he is a heroic figure, but at a large level... he is also a man with the world in mind. He will definitely not be satisfied with occupying a Huguang city.

I think the real purpose of these caravans from Jiangxi and Jiangxi is to inquire about our military deployment. Maybe Chen Youliang has started to prepare for war and wants to sneak attack on us in Jiangnan!"

Zhu Yuanzhang was a little surprised by Zhu Han's words.

"I heard that Chen Youliang was a man who killed the Tatars without blinking an eye. Now that the Tartars have not been wiped out, Chen Youliang should not do so."

But Zhu Han shook his head and said: "It's another matter whether you can do it or not. If Chen Youliang is really ambitious, he will definitely not show mercy."

Zhu Yuanzhang agreed with this sentence. He nodded and said:

"Indeed, I heard that Ni Wenjun was Chen Youliang's benefactor. Although he rebelled and wanted to kill Xu Shouhui, Chen Youliang had his head beheaded in public, and his family was wiped out. This is indeed disgraceful."

"So, Chen Youliang has to be on guard. However, the fact that he sent people to inquire about information in the name of merchants means that he is still very afraid of us. According to my speculation... Huguang and Jiangxi have been in constant war, and there should not be much food and grass.

Reserve, Chen Youliang can't go into the army for a while. At most, he is here to inquire about information. If he really wants to take action, he may have to wait for some time." Zhu Han said.

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded when he heard this and said: "Since Chen Youliang has evil intentions and comes to inquire about our news, we can't be idle."

Zhu Han nodded and said, "Yes, our Sihai Trading Company has gathered a lot of information in Dadu. We will immediately open a few more shops in Huguang to gather information about Chen Youliang."

After all, you have to guard against a ruthless person like Chen Youliang!

When talking about the Sihai Trading Company, Zhu Yuanzhang talked to Zhu Han about another issue!

That is, there is now a huge money shortage in Jiangnan.

Yes, it is money shortage.

Nowadays, commerce in Jiangnan is flourishing, even more than during the reign of Meng Yuan.

After all, Zhu Yuanzhang followed Zhu Han's suggestions and canceled many checkpoints and many miscellaneous taxes in Jiangnan. He also strictly prohibited officials and troops at all levels from exploiting merchants and only collected a unified fixed tax.

As a result, commerce has naturally prospered, and the taxes levied on the people are also very low. Many people have surplus grain in their hands. With the surplus grain, they can sell it for money, and with the spare money, they can buy more for their families.

necessities of daily life.

Naturally, commerce and trade prospered.

However, the coins originally circulating in the Jiangnan market gradually began to be in short supply. It can be said that the number of copper coins minted in the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties was very small.

Because the Mongolian Yuan has always used banknotes.

After all, as long as paper money needs to be printed, you can use a piece of white paper to collect a large number of goods of equal value.

After several currency reforms, the Yuan Dynasty's banknotes were already as worthless as wipes.

The excessive issuance of banknotes is actually a form of robbing the people.

A piece of worthless white paper with a few words written on it can buy the merchant's goods.

But when the merchants took banknotes and went to buy things for themselves, they could only buy goods at a discount of 10% or 20%. As a result, countless merchants went bankrupt, and all industries were in ruins for a while.

In today's era, only metal currency can circulate stably.

"However, if you want to cast copper coins, it is still not suitable... Many commodities nowadays are of large value, and the value of copper coins is too cheap. If you are doing business in other places, it is very inconvenient to carry large quantities of copper coins with carriages and horses, and it is the same as now.

If our important material for casting artillery is used to cast coins in large quantities, then our copper will not be enough." Zhu Han said.

Today, the various large and small artillery pieces of the Red Turban Army have achieved very mature manufacturing processes.

The major artillery workshops in Chuzhou, Jinling, and Suzhou are operating at full capacity to produce artillery, but they are still unable to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of troops and navies.

It's not that their craftsmanship isn't good, but that raw materials are often in short supply.

Copper ore is in short supply in the south of the Yangtze River. There is no copper ore in the first place, so it needs to be transported from other places. Now that the place is in chaos and the trade routes are cut off, it is conceivable that it is difficult to transport copper ore from other places.

In order to build artillery, Zhu Han ordered the confiscation of the bronze Buddha statues and bells in many temples!

It was melted and cast into cannon.

After all, in the era of war and chaos, these bronze Buddhas and bronze arhats cannot protect themselves. Only with bronze cannons in hand can they protect the people of the world!

"What do you think we should do in Qiwu?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked.

"Of course, use something else to replace the copper coins." Zhu Han said.

Zhu Yuanzhang asked in confusion: "What should we use instead of copper coins? Is it gold and silver? We are even more lacking in gold and silver here!"

The value and acceptance of gold and silver are of course higher than that of copper coins, and they are even used in maritime trade settlements.

However, it was difficult to earn a sufficient amount of silver and gold coins by doing business in Nanyang.
To be continued...