Facts have proved that the world operates the same without anyone. The war on the Western Front experienced a brief defeat without Liu Ziguang's participation, and finally developed in a direction beneficial to the Ming army.
Successful news came frequently. At most, twelve telegrams a day were sent from the Tongguan front line. The court officials were ecstatic. The Henan Ming army marched west from Tongguan and defeated the Xixia army. They fought and won consecutive battles in just over ten days.
Hundreds of large and small battles were carried out, ranging from dozens of beheadings to thousands of beheadings, and the Xixia army was driven westward for more than a hundred miles.
After all, Yuan Chonghuan was a famous general. He was praised by the emperor and his ministers. He agreed to the Western Front's request for more troops and more food and pay. Five hundred thousand taels of cash was immediately loaded onto a truck and sent to Tongguan to reward the three armies. He also had another 100,000 dans of military rations and a large number of gunpowder and iron cannons.
The armor was loaded onto trucks and sent to the front line, almost emptying out the warehouses of the Ministry of War in the capital. Even Liu Ziguang had never spent so much material during a war.
But no one in the imperial court raised the issue of Yuan Chonghuan's waste. Fighting is all about fighting for the economy. As long as you can win, spending more money is not a big deal. Anyway, the economic situation of the Ming Dynasty has been much better in the past two years, so it is all about spending money.
Buy peace of mind.
In fact, there is a deeper problem, that is, Yuan Chonghuan's victory can offset Liu Ziguang's prestige in the hearts of the people. When Liu Ziguang was out of office, there were some disharmonious voices in the civil and military circles, saying that the Ming Dynasty would fight if they left Zhenwuhou.
There is no such thing as crazy talk about winning the battle, and Yuan Chonghuan's victory is equivalent to a loud slap in the face of these people.
Zhu Youxiao was very happy these days, and from time to time he said proudly in front of Wei Zhongxian: "Liu Aiqing thought that I would be blinded if he gave up the challenge, and he had to hand over the military power to him obediently. Hehe, you are wrong, I don't have Liu Ziguang, and
Where is Yuan Chonghuan?"
When Liu Ziguang handed over the military power of the Shandong Army, he also resigned from his position as Minister of the Bodyguard and Admiral of the South Factory. Zhu Youxiao was not only happy but also a little unhappy because he felt that Liu Ziguang was demonstrating against him and wanted to wait and see.
It's a joke. When Yuan Chonghuan was defeated in Shaanxi, Zhu Youxiao once wanted to ask Liu Ziguang to come out to take charge of Shaanxi's military affairs, but he finally resisted because Huang Zongxi told him that if an emperor only has one general to rely on,
Then he will be emperor soon. Now that Yuan Chonghuan is so ambitious, he turned defeat into victory and defeated the Xixia army. Not only did he regain the face of the Ming Dynasty, but also saved Zhu Youxiao's face. How could he not be happy?
Wei Zhongxian was also very happy. Whenever Zhu Youxiao recited something sarcastic in front of him, he would always say flatteringly: "Your Majesty is wise."
The Ming army's military communications mainly relied on long-wave radio stations and expedited horses. The construction of radio transmission towers invested a lot of money, and the core technology was in the hands of people from the Song Dynasty. So far, only a batch of them have been built in coastal areas for naval communications, while the mainland
The upper armies can only use portable radios, which have a relatively short transmission distance. Because they are expensive and require professional and technical personnel to operate, except for the red shirt army, which has more equipment, the ordinary Ming army is not even qualified to be a general at the general level.
Equipped with it, the entire Western Front battlefield is just one radio station.
Now Yuan Chonghuan has moved westward to Tongguan. Because the signal in the mountainous area is not good, the radio station still stays in Luoyang. The battle report has to be sent to Luoyang on an expedited route of six hundred miles. The radio station in Luoyang will then send it to the relay station in Xuzhou Prefecture, and then the radio station in Xuzhou will send it to Luoyang.
In Beijing, after the telegram was translated, it was sent directly to Zhu Youxiao's desk without going through any department.
In the afternoon of that day, the telegram from Yuan Chonghuan, the commander-in-chief of the West Route Army, came again. Zhu Youxiao took it and took a look at it. He couldn't help but said with joy: "Supervisor Yuan is really a famous general in the world. He promised me to recover Shaanxi within three months.
But this is asking for too much. The five hundred thousand taels I just gave him are not enough, and I need another two million taels of silver and a large number of firearms."
Wei Zhongxian was holding a fly whisk to accompany him. Hearing this, he said: "From my perspective, Governor Yuan's war is more expensive, but two million taels of silver can be exchanged for Shaanxi and it is not considered a loss."
Zhu Youxiao laughed loudly and said: "Yes, it is certainly cost-effective to exchange two million taels for one province. The shares I invested in China Merchants Group will earn two million in dividends a year. Now we have a lot of money in Ming Dynasty, so we just use our money to spend it."
, can also kill those Xixia troops. Xiao Weizi, show the telegram to the cabinet, and say that I think it is okay, and let the Ministry of Revenue prepare to pay for it."
There is no airtight wall in the world. The news that the Western Route Army was about to regain Shaanxi came out immediately. The first thing to be affected was the stock market. The originally sluggish Xipiao was pushed up crazily, rising several times from the position below the issue price.
, while Beipiao, which had already reached a high level, continued to fall because the war was stable and there were no expected benefits.
In the Zhenwu Hou Mansion, Liu Ziguang held the same telegram as Zhu Youxiao's hand and was full of doubts. He asked Peng Jingrong: "The Western tickets on the market were bought up by people at the lowest price more than ten days in advance, making them now priceless and unmarketable."
, infinite short-term rise, who did this? Don’t you guys who open exchanges know?”
Peng Jingrong said: "War stocks are bearer stocks that can be traded freely and are free of transaction commissions, so they do not have to be traded on the exchange. As long as you have money on hand, you can buy them in any big teahouse in Shanghai or Beijing.
When it comes to Xi Piao, our exchange cannot monitor all buying and selling activities. As for someone getting the news a few days in advance to scan the goods, it must be that the news from the West Route Army was leaked in advance."
Liu Ziguang said: "This is strange. Last month, the Western Route Army lost 50,000 people in Shaanxi, and Tongguan was in panic. Within a few days, defeat was turned into victory. Could it be that the Jade Emperor sent heavenly soldiers and generals to come down to earth to help Marshal Yuan fight the war?
No? Besides, the battlefield situation is changing rapidly. How can he be sure that he can recover Shaanxi in three months with money? And he also said it with certainty and vowed to do so, otherwise no one would buy the Western tickets in advance. "
"In short, abnormality is a monster. Whether it is the war situation or the stock market, no one can say what the situation is now, but it is always a good thing to win the war. Buying goods at the bottom does not violate the trading rules. We can only take it one step at a time.
Peng Jinrong said.
This is very helpless, because the exchange has only been established for a short time, and the rules are not perfect. Everything is moving forward through trial and error, and people can only look at it if they find loopholes and exploit them.
Liu Ziguang was silent, the wisdom of the ancients should not be underestimated. The stock exchange has been operating for only a few months, and some people have learned to use inside information to build rat warehouses to make huge profits. Although the Western tickets have already fallen below the issue price and no one cares, but
Buying in large quantities also requires a lot of funds. With insider information, funds and expert guidance, the mastermind behind this is not simple.
Wireless telegraphy technology was the product of military cooperation between the Ming Dynasty and the Song Dynasty. All coastal transmitting towers were jointly managed by the two countries, while the various transmitting stations and relay stations in the interior were in the hands of Nanchang. Every radio operator was a Nanchang.
He was trained in the factory, so as long as it is an official battle report transmitted by telegram, it cannot escape Liu Ziguang's eyes. When Zhu Youxiao gets the telegram, Liu Ziguang will also get it. He is not like Zhu Youxiao who is overjoyed to see the victory.
He was confused. The great changes in the war situation in Shaanxi made him very suspicious, but he couldn't explain why. Coupled with this mouse warehouse incident, the war situation in Shaanxi became even more confusing.
"Let Nanchang send some capable officers to Shaanxi to see the situation." Liu Ziguang's order to Sun Gang read like this. Although he is no longer the admiral of Nanchang, the spy organization he established by himself is still under his control.
Under control, his Admiral's Hall and all the furnishings were kept for him. Sun Gang never regarded himself as an Admiral. He often taught his subordinates that there was and will be only one Admiral in Nanchang, and that is Zhenwu.
Wait for him, old man.
In addition to investigating the military situation in Shanxi, Nanchang also allocated some manpower to monitor stock trading. The stock trading market was established to promote the economic development of the Ming Dynasty, not for the selfish interests of some people. Logically speaking, this matter does not belong to Liu Ziguang and
The manager of the South Factory, even if some officials were involved, was handled by the Procuratorate, but he still asked Sun Gang to investigate. Half of Liu Ziguang's net worth was invested in the stock market, in case the market was messed up by some people.
After losing his credibility, Liu Ziguang was the first to be unlucky.
What Liu Ziguang bought the most was China Merchants, a super-large blue-chip stock. Now this stock has paid dividends and issued shares many times, and its stock price is still the highest among dozens of stocks and bonds on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. It has a price but no market.
Money can't even buy it.
It’s no wonder that China Merchants Group is so profitable. Even Beipiao, which is extremely profitable, can’t compare to China Merchants Group’s stocks. China Merchants Group’s mercenaries have conquered cities overseas, occupied large tracts of land, and opened countless plantations and ranches.
, the mine uses cheap Nanyang natives to work, the cost is extremely low, and the profit is extremely high.
Every day, thousands of cargo ships are busy on various routes, transporting various minerals, grains, and rough-processed industrial semi-finished products back to Daming from overseas, as well as local high-quality and low-price Songjiang cotton, Hangzhou silk, and various porcelain.
, industrial products, and even weapons were loaded onto ships and shipped overseas to be sold at high prices in exchange for countless gold and silver coins. In this way, Ming Dynasty absorbed the milk from all over the world and slowly became more and more powerful.
I heard that the China Merchants Group opened a route to Tianzhu and occupied a port city called Bombay in the east of Tianzhu. It rented and grabbed tens of thousands of hectares of fertile land. The labor there was extremely cheap, and the food crops were harvested three times a year.
It was even cheaper than Siamese rice. Shiploads of rice were shipped to the country, filling the palace's granaries. The old rice from previous years was used as feed to feed the army and horses. The Ming Dynasty no longer had to worry about the lack of harvest.