"Your Highness, Li Yuchun asked me to bring the money. I hope I can give him a receipt."
Zhu Yihai did not expect Li Yuchun to be so active in repaying the loan, "This thief Li is very good at making money. It seems that he has been plundering a lot of land."
"Seeing that Bolo was about to take over, he was afraid that Your Highness would cause trouble at this juncture. His life was entirely in His Highness's hands, so he sent the money in advance. He still had a lot of money on hand.
Would you like some more, Your Highness?" Mr. Yan is very aware of Li Yuchun's little family background.
"Li Thief also gave me a lot of money, and I brought it all together."
"The army has been expanding rapidly recently, and we are really short of money. Yan Qing is helping us in times of need. I would like to note this as a great achievement."
The Northern Expeditionary Army has now expanded to fifty-two battalions of men and horses. Although each battalion has only 500 soldiers and 180 men, the total number is more than 30,000, and there are many horses and mules. It costs a lot for these people to eat horse chews.
However, Zhu Yihai's lone army went deep into the enemy's rear, and he wanted to raise his troops generously to maintain military discipline and enhance combat effectiveness.
Nowadays, a battalion head needs almost 3,000 taels for monthly salary. Even if it is half-paid, it will cost 1,500 taels a month. For fifty-two battalions, that is more than 70,000 taels. This does not include the army.
Military rations, salt vegetables and horse feed, as well as military uniforms, flags, tents, etc.
It is said that if you are not in charge of a family, you don’t know how expensive firewood and rice are. If you are not in charge of an army, you also don’t know that military expenditures are huge.
Zhu Yihai also gave the soldiers Anjia Yin before. Last time, he started to give the soldiers wedding gifts and dowries. After each battle, the pensions for the casualties of the soldiers were even larger.
The monthly military expenditure now amounts to more than 100,000 taels of silver.
When he first crossed the sea, there were few soldiers and a lot of money in his hands, so there was no problem. Now the money is flowing out every day, and he has to maintain his promise. He can't collect food and pay from the local area, can't recruit strong men to work, or buy and sell.
It must be fair according to the market price.
The benefits of this were immediate. Although the Northern Expeditionary Army expanded rapidly, its morale has always been high, military discipline has been maintained well and is getting better, and there are very few incidents of harassing the people.
Zhu Yihai's Northern Expeditionary Army was also well supported by the gentry and common people in various parts of Jiaxing. Now everyone is no longer afraid of these soldiers. They even take the initiative to contact them. Some send food and salary, and some come to do business. They even heard that Admiral Zhu gave soldiers
They get married, and some poor families bring their daughters to choose sons-in-law.
Although Jiangnan is rich these days, there are still many poor people. When encountering floods, droughts, and wars, there is no way to pawn off your wife and sell your daughter. Compared with selling your daughter into a brothel or selling her daughter to a wealthy family as a slave, marrying off
Being the wife of Admiral Zhu's soldier can not only find a way out for his daughter, but also get some money to help him out, which is always good.
Zhu Wu, the admiral of Jiangnan in the Ming Dynasty, and his Northern Expeditionary Army are becoming more and more famous, but the huge military expenditure has always been a burden on their heads.
Yu Dafu, who was in charge of the grain station, now had a lot of gray hair. The grain station was responsible for the logistics of food, pay, equipment, and logistics for tens of thousands of troops in the army, which was very stressful. Although Zhu Yihai also continued to help him recruit local scholars, scribes, etc. to enrich the grain station.
In order to improve the business, we began to improve the leasing fee bureau throughout Jiaxing and replace the old tax system with leasing fee.
The Shaoxing branch over there has sent three batches of money and grain across the sea to help the army, but it was squeezed out by tightening the belt. After all, there are only a few prefectures in eastern Zhejiang. Now the front line of Qiantang River has been numbered from the 18th Route Rebels to the present.
The ten rebel armies, plus Wang Zhiren, Fang Guoan and other regular armies, together totaled more than 100,000 troops at each camp.
Zhang Guowei, Yu Ying and others now have a headache. They simply cannot meet the same food and salary standards as Zhu Yihai's soldiers and horses, and can only reluctantly divide the wages according to the territory.
Each group of soldiers and horses were allocated a piece of land under the jurisdiction of the defense area, and then they ate food on the spot. Which area was assigned to defend which area. The required money and food were collected directly from that area. The Eight Immortals crossed the sea and each showed their magical powers.
Overall, it's quite confusing.
But Fang Guoan, relying on his status as a regular soldier in the official army, took away all the taxes, money and food from Yanzhou, and gave none to other volunteers. He led troops to garrison in the upper reaches of the Qiantang River, and assigned the area to other battalions of rebels.
The money and food were taken away, causing disputes between regular soldiers and rebels for land and wages, and even serious conflicts.
Zhang Guowei, Zhu Dadian, Yu Ying and others tried their best to reconcile, but the effect was not great.
Nowadays, Taizhou Bank is unable to provide money and food for these hundreds of thousands of horses, so they can only let them find their own solutions. In the end, the so-called land distribution and salary distribution plan still relies on their own strength. The strong ones do not care about demarcation and often make money.
In the world, the weak Yiying can only be bullied and cannot even eat.
According to reports over there, more than a dozen rebel armies have finally disbanded and gone home because they didn't have enough to eat.
Fang Guoan has now become the strongest force in the Qiantang defense line. Wang Zhiren, who originally had high hopes from Zhu Yihai, has been forced to mobilize the troops from Ningbo and Taizhou because Huang Binqing from Zhoushan has been making small moves recently after his strength has greatly increased.
Huang Binqing's small-scale battle did not take into account the Qiantang River.
The Lijin established by Zhu Yihai was not implemented very smoothly in Shaoxing. Fortunately, Song Zhipu, the first assistant, reported to Zhu Yihai that now He Tengjiao, the governor of Huguang, Ding Kuichu, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and Zheng Zhilong, the governor of Fujian, had all come forward to support the Lu supervisory state in Shaoxing.
They also sent local troops to the north to meet King Qin, and also escorted the first batch of money and grain.
King Qin's army and money and food may not be much, but the ministers who stayed behind are very excited, because this means that the Lu Jianguo court has basically won the support of the ministers of the Ming Dynasty.
And He Tengjiao successfully recruited the remaining 13th Battalion of the original bandits, making the situation even clearer.
The remaining cabinet, even under Fang Guoan's persuasion, was considering whether to launch a counterattack against Hangzhou and regain it in one fell swoop.
When this idea came to Zhu Yihai, he was very angry. In front of the two accompanying bachelors, Shen Chenquan and Xu Shiqi, he scolded the left-behind cabinet. He even said that Zhang Guowei, the supervisor, had neglected his duty and failed to restrain Fang Guoan. How could a handsome man do it?
Can either one be affected?
Zhu Yihai asked Shen Chenquan to prepare a decree for him to stay in the cabinet and Zhang Guowei, and asked them to transfer Fang Guoan back to Yanzhou to garrison, prohibit him from staying on the Qiantang River defense line in Shaoxing, and prohibit him from interfering in the river defense indiscriminately.
At the same time, the cabinet and the two supervisors Zhang Guowei and Zhu Dadian were asked to reprimand Fang Guoan and not to collect food and pay without authorization. Fang Guoan's department must report the roster of officers within a time limit. Zhu Yihai set a military quota of 12,000 for Fang Guoan's department.
From now on, the supervisor Zhu Dadian will be responsible for their food and salary, and the bank will send another food station to take charge of it.
This move is to cut off Fang Guoan's ability to collect grain and tax on his own, and also to pave the way for the formal introduction of Lijin in eastern Zhejiang. Fang Guoan is not allowed to collect money and grain by himself. The food and salary will be provided by the court, and the court can slowly control Fang Guoan's headquarters.
The troops and horses are no longer completely out of control, and at the same time, it can also reduce the disturbance and harm to the people by the Ministry of National Security.
Zhu Yihai's decision was remonstrated by many ministers, saying that Fang Guoan's unit was now the strongest army in eastern Zhejiang except Wang Zhiren. Compared with other rebels, his unit was a regular army of the imperial court after all, and Fang Guoan was also a general of the imperial court.
.
But the more this happened, the more Zhu Yihai felt that it was time for Fang Guoan to rein in the situation. Otherwise, if he was allowed to develop, he might kidnap the remaining cabinet or even take over the military power of the Qiantang River defense line.
This is a very dangerous matter, so even though he knew that such a change might cause Fang Guoan's dissatisfaction or even worse things happen, Zhu Yihai could no longer sit idly by.
If another Zuo Liangyu is raised, then Zhu Yihai runs to Sanwu to open a second battlefield, only to have a fire in his own backyard. Wouldn't he be homeless then?
Wu and Yue were closely related to each other. East Zhejiang was the base camp, and Sanwu was an important battlefield to contain the Qing army from going south. The two relied on each other and were indispensable.
Because of what Fang Guoan has done now, Zhu Yihai finally decided to take action against Huang Binqing.
He issued an order to Wang Zhiren, asking him to gather the Dinghai, Shipu, Haimen, Ningbo and other battalions to launch a general attack on the Zhoushan Islands. He gave Huang Binqing a chance, showed his goodwill several times, and even gave him the title of naval admiral to the earl, but Huang Binqing refused
He, the supervisory state, ignored them and even sent troops to harass the coast of Ningbo several times.
Zhu Yihai also ran out of patience.
He must solve this hidden danger as soon as possible. Only by solving Huang Binqing can Wang Zhiren, a close general, be free to lead his troops to the Qiantang River front line in Shaoxing, take over the heavy responsibility of the former enemy general, and assist the supervisor Zhang Guowei in defending against the possible Tatar movement south.
After Wang Zhiren passes, he can still act as a deterrent to the domineering Fang Guoan.
To deal with these domineering warriors, it is not enough to just show kindness and reward them. The more generous the reward, the less aware these people are that the sky is the limit and the more difficult it is to control them. Only if they can truly feel that they have the ability to deal with him can he listen.
make.
Zhu Yihai also thought about returning to eastern Zhejiang, first joining forces with Wang Zhiren to destroy Huang Binqing, recapture the Zhoushan Islands, and build an arsenal and other logistics bases here, and then go to the Qiantang River defense line to bring the domineering Fang Guoan into submission.
However, after careful consideration, Zhu Yihai gave up the idea of returning to his teacher.
After all, it is now an established fact that the main force of the Qing army in Hangzhou has returned north. It is unlikely that the Qing army will go south at this stage. Their main task in the next stage is to eliminate the resistance forces in the Jiangnan area and to raid the Huguang and Jiangxi areas in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
Before these two areas are cleared, they will not easily go south to the eastern Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong and Guangxi areas.
Therefore, Zhu Yihai led the Northern Expedition southward and missed a valuable opportunity. After the Tatars really cleared the south of the Yangtze River, eastern Zhejiang would be in danger without the Wu rebels to help contain the Qing army. At that time, Zhu Yihai might be forced to follow
The Tatars fought a river defense position battle on the Qiantang River.
And history has long proven that this idea is completely wrong, and the Qiantang River cannot be prevented at all.
We must take the initiative to go north to Wu while the opportunity is still there. We must not only rescue them but also develop and strengthen them before the Qing army destroys the resistance in Wu.
As for the Zheng family in Fujian, He Tengjiao, Zhongzhen Ying, and Ding Kuichu from Guangdong and Guangxi, Zhu Yihai actually doesn't have much hope now. Zheng Zhilong is just a group of pirates who want to take advantage of the chaos to turn Fujian into his own independent kingdom.
Although He Tengjiao was the governor of the Ming Dynasty, his reputation in the history of the Southern Ming Dynasty was very poor. He was a very selfish person. He only regarded Huguang as his own independent kingdom and did not care about the life and death of the Southern Ming court. This kind of person has a warlord mentality. I hope he will also
Disaster.
As for Ding Kuichu, it is said that he had already planned to support King Gui and proclaim himself emperor, but Zhu Yihai took the lead. Because of the current situation, he did not dare to openly establish a separate court, but his support was definitely not that good.
He is a sincere and half-hearted guy, and he may stab you in the back at any time.
Whether it was the constant friction between Huang Binqing, the arrogant and domineering Fang Guoan, or the half-hearted Zheng Zhilong, He Tengjiao, Ding Kuichu and others, all of them made Zhu Yihai understand one more truth. In the current world of Nanming, don't put your trust in others.
There is too much hope, and it is better to rely on yourself than to rely on others.
In particular, you must have an army that truly belongs to you so that you can avoid being betrayed by these people.