Wanli retreated back to the harem, his head still buzzing, which was really tortured by Cheng Dong's croaking. Li Long followed Wanli, waited for Wanli to sit down, poured him some water, and then stood in awe with his hands hanging down.
Standing aside, waiting for Wanli to speak.
"Li Long, what do you think of Xiao Ruxun's intention to send troops?" Wan Li asked.
Li Long said: "Back to Lord Long Live, I don't know this Xiao Ruxun, so I can't say whether this matter is reliable or not. However, Xiao Ruxun's statement said that he joined forces with Su Hao, so this slave feels at ease.
.Long live Lord, think about it, if Su Hao takes action, there is nothing that can't be done?"
"Haha, I think so too!" Wan Li laughed, his gloomy mood swept away, "Whatever Cheng Dong said made me angry. What Su Hao said made me happy.
How can this person be so different from other people?"
Li Long said: "Long live my lord, since you like this Su Hao so much, wouldn't it be nice to have him come back to the capital and be a high official so that you can see him every day in court?"
Wanli said: "He is still young now. It will be good for him to practice more. If he can really go to the grassland and beat up the Tatars severely, it will be considered a bad breath for me."
"
Li Long said: "Long live Lord, the key now is that the court must allow Su Hao and Xiao Ruxun to send troops. But the words of the boy named Cheng made everyone speechless. What should we do about this matter? Long live Lord
You still need to have a charter."
Wanli sighed and said: "Don't I know this, but this Cheng Dong is a public official. I have to listen to what he says. If the ministers in the court do not agree to send troops, there is nothing I can do.
"
Li Long was also dumbfounded. He only gained Wanli's favor because he could help Wanli earn pocket money and flattered Concubine Zheng. He had no idea how to outwit Yan Guan.
He was silent for a while, followed Wan Li's example and sighed, saying: "Oh, this matter is really difficult to handle. If Su Hao is in the capital, maybe he can find a solution."
The monarch and his ministers were sighing in the palace, but the ministers did not have so many difficulties. After retreating from the court, they went out in groups to do whatever they wanted. Zhou Weian, the minister of the Ministry of Personnel, walked home in a sedan chair, followed by
A young boy came after him and said to Zhou Wei'an outside the sedan: "Shilang Zhou, my Marquis would like to ask if you are free today."
Zhou Wei'an opened the sedan curtain and recognized that the boy was a servant of Zhuang Migao's family. He smiled and said, "Oh, I'm free. What, is your Marquis also free?"
"Exactly, my Marquis said he wanted to go to Zhou Shilang's house to play a few games of chess." The boy also said with a smile.
"Go and tell your Lord Marquis. Zhou has already said what he wants, but he doesn't dare to listen." Zhou Wei'an said.
The boy ran back and reported to Zhuang Migao, who was also sitting in the sedan. Zhuang Migao laughed and told the bearer to follow Zhou Wei'an's sedan. The two of them arrived at Zhou Wei'an's house together.
After sitting down in the living room, Zhou Wei'an asked: "Brother Zhuang, what do you think of the matters discussed in court today?"
Zhuang Migao said: "I'm a little confused. Xiao Ruxun wants to use troops on the grassland, how can he do it without money? If he applies to the Ministry of War for hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, I would like to agree with his proposal. The money must be used
You're here to buy firearms from the Su Family Factory. By the way, Brother Zhou, have you heard that Li Rusong from Liaodong is willing to pay more than 100,000 taels to buy firearms from the Su Family Factory."
Zhou Wei'an smiled and said: "Of course I heard about it. You said that this young man Su Gaizhi is really capable. He can really sell these firearms for a big price. When Dong Tianzhang said that he wanted to invest in the Su family factory, I was not convinced.
Agreed, now it seems that the things produced by the Soviet reforms are really a cornucopia."
Zhuang Mi Gao said: "Isn't it? This guy Su Gaizhi really makes people look at him with admiration."
"That kid like Cheng Dong is so ignorant and can only recite some sage articles." Zhou Wei'an said disdainfully. In fact, he was also one of the ministers who once supported Cheng Dong, but in his heart, he only regarded Cheng Dong as a stick.
It's just a gun. After being an official for so many years, he has long known that all the sage's teachings are fake, and real benefits are real. And in terms of making profits, Su Hao is more than a hundred times better than Cheng Dongke
.
Dong Tianzhang and Yang Laizhen were the lackeys of Zhou Wei'an and Zhuang Migao respectively. Dong and Yang took shares in Su Hao's factory, and then under the banners of Zhou Wei'an and Zhuang Migao were responsible for selling various rare products produced in the factory, and received quite a lot of dividends.
It is quite impressive. A considerable part of these dividends will naturally be given to the masters behind them. Therefore, both Zhou Wei'an and Zhuang Migao are the beneficiaries of Su Hao's industrial business, and they naturally have a good impression of Su Hao.
This time, Xiao Ruxun proposed to go abroad to fight. What Zhou and Zhuang thought about most was not the issue of benevolence, justice, morality, or whether the imperial court's finances could support it, but whether they could support it in this battle.
Get benefits. If the imperial court spends a large sum of money to purchase the Su family's firearms for the purpose of fighting, then they will naturally benefit from it, and they will express their approval. But now, Xiao Ruxun stated in the statement that there is no need
Zhou and Zhuang couldn't see the benefits of increasing military spending, so they certainly had no interest in supporting it.
"Without additional military spending, how is Xiao Ruxun going to fight this war?" Zhuang Migao asked casually.
Zhou Wei'an shook his head: "I don't know, maybe he was really obsessed with his promotion and wanted to be new and different to make a name for himself."
"It's better to let Shen Shoufu and others have a headache with this kind of thing." Zhuang Migao also agreed.
Just as he was talking, a family member of the Zhou family ran in and reported: "The minister, Lord Zhuang, shopkeeper Dong and shopkeeper Yang have returned from Ningxia. I heard that the two masters are here and they requested an interview."
"Oh? Such a coincidence." Zhou Wei'an and Zhuang Migao looked at each other, then waved to their family members and said, "I would like to invite the two shopkeepers to come to the hall to give you a reply."
After a while, Dong Tianzhang and Yang Laizhen were brought in. As soon as they entered the door, they saluted Zhou Wei'an and Zhuang Migao respectively, and presented the treasures they had obtained from Ningxia Wei. Kuai Bai fled in a hurry, leaving behind a lot of jewelry, calligraphy and paintings in his house.
Collections of these items became the trophies of the Ming army. Dong and Yang were both agile people. They bought some of these trophies from Ye Mengxiong and brought them back to the capital, just to give them to key figures.
.
Zhou Wei'an and Zhuang Migao accepted the gifts, exchanged a few words with Dong and Yang, and then got to the point. Zhou Wei'an asked Dong Tianzhang: "Ting Ye, when you come back this time, did Su Hao ask you to bring anything?"
Have you heard back?"
"Going back to the minister, Tianzhang came back with the words of Deputy General Su." Dong Tianzhang bowed and said.
"Oh? He has something to say to us?" Zhuang Migao became more energetic. Based on his experience, anything Su Hao intervenes in must be interesting. As for how much benefit it can bring to him, it's hard to say.
.
Dong Tianzhang said to Zhou Wei'an: "Servant, can you ask the servants to bring a table? Deputy General Su asked Tianzhang to bring something, saying that the Minister and Lord Zhuang will know it at a glance."
This request is not complicated. Zhou Wei'an gave an order, and a servant brought a large table and placed it in the middle of the living room. Zhou Wei'an took out a piece of silk from his body, spread it on the table, and then said: "Servant and Marquis Zhuang
Please take a look, sir, this is what Deputy General Su asked the villain to bring back."
"Map?" Zhou Wei'an recognized the content drawn on the silk at a glance. He stepped forward, looked at it carefully, and said: "This is a rough map of the nine sides of the Ming Dynasty. Outside are grasslands... and mountains and
River, was this painted by the Soviet Union?"
Dong Tianzhang said: "It was painted by Deputy General Su and then embroidered by his embroidery workers. These mountains and rivers have not been surveyed and were imagined by Deputy General Su himself."
When the Kanyu Camp was in Pinglu City, they once went out of the border wall to conduct surveying and mapping on the surrounding grasslands, but this time the sketch map provided by Su Hao was wider, extending eastward to Liaodong and northward to the range of today's Outer Mongolia.
.Such a large area has not been surveyed by the survey camp. Su Hao can only roughly draw it based on the memory of later generations. The map he provided is only a rough map, so there is no need to pursue any accuracy.
"What's his purpose in presenting such a picture?" Zhuang Migao looked at it for a long time, but didn't see anything interesting, so he couldn't help but ask Yang Laizhen.
Yang Laizhen said: "Master Hou, please pay attention, there are these small marks on this picture."
Zhuang Migao followed Yang Laizhen's fingers and found some round, square, and triangular small marks on the map, dotted all over the grassland.
"What does this mean?" Zhuang Mi asked.
"Master Marquis, Deputy General Su said that the circle represents the gold mine, the square represents the coal mine, the triangle represents the iron mine, and these are lead mine, salt mine, alkali mine, and phosphate mine, all of which are treasures."
Yang Laizhen said.
"Mine!" Zhou Wei'an and Zhuang Migao's spirits were lifted. They looked at the map with greedy eyes, and gradually understood what Su Hao meant.
Dong Tianzhang said: "The minister, Lord Zhuang, and Deputy General Su said that there are treasures everywhere on this grassland, and it would be a pity not to use them. He asked the villain and Zhao Bo to come back and ask the two adults if they have any.
I’m interested in mining on the grassland.”
"It goes without saying." Zhou Wei'an said with a smile, "Did he persuade Xiao Ruxun to go out to the grassland just to mine these mines?"
Dong Tianzhang said: "Deputy General Su said that what he and General Xiao want is credit. As for these mines, they will be given to the two adults. However, the two adults must find a way to get the imperial court to issue a decree to send troops, or else
, these mines can only be placed there, and we can only look back and sigh."
"How can the two of us alone influence the court's decision?" Zhuang Migao muttered. He was itching about these mines, but he also knew that whether he and Zhou Wei'an could send troops could not be decided by just talking about it.
of.
Zhou Wei'an understood, he shook his head and said: "Lao Zhuang, we were all tricked by that Soviet reformer. He said he was giving all these mines to us, but in fact he was using us as his servants. We need the court to agree.
To send out troops, all the ministers must agree to it. Su Hao's intention is for us to get all the ministers to share these mineral deposits together in exchange for their support."