"Li Xiao is so hateful, he has already been in a relationship with the governor. He asked me to pay 40,000 yuan to redeem people. It's really outrageous!" After returning to his mansion, Liu Zeqing, with a gray face, punched the table hard, shaking the teacup on the table so that the teacup on the table jumped up and the tea flowed everywhere.

"Sir, I am the only one who is inferior. The situation is not good now. I'd better to give in and agree." During this period, the military advisor Li Huajing, who looked much haggard, whispered to him.

"Hmph! I can bear it, it's unbearable! If you hadn't had the bad idea that day, I would have chopped Li Xiao into meat sauce. Now you ask me to be patient, but how can I swallow this tone!" Liu Zeqing jumped up irritably from his seat and paced back and forth in the room.

"Sir, the matter has come to this point, we can only follow the situation. The governor Li Maofang has been persuaded by Li Xiao, and he can't persuade him to issue military orders to gather the troops of various garrisons. Our army has lost its elite troops and is very depressed. How can we attack Li Xiao's already solid and complete Chifeng Castle! Sir, the future is long, and there will definitely be a chance to eliminate Li Xiao in the future. The current plan still needs to be patient for the time being." Li Huajing looked embarrassed, but he still had to bite the bullet and persuade him.

Liu Zeqing walked in the room for a long time, finally stopped, and then sighed to the sky.

"Stop it! Just let's arrange the manpower for you, Li Huajing, bring the money to redeem people." Liu Zeqing gritted his teeth and said with a sinister look: "This time a certain family admits their defeat. Humph, next time I have another chance, I will chop off Li Xiao's dog head with my own hands!"

Three days later, Li Qianjing sent someone to Chifeng Fortress and brought Li Xiao 40,000 taels of silver to buy silver. Li Xiao smiled and then ordered to release the prisoners, so that the envoy would immediately take back the prisoners with a frustrated face, a shaved face and a frustrated face.

During this period, these prisoners could only eat one meal a day, which was also a temporary measure taken by Li Xiao to prevent them from making trouble. After all, the number of prisoners was too large, far exceeding the number of Li Xiao's army. If it caused trouble, it would not be fun.

The careful Cui Yu was also released by Li Xiao. Li Xiao was not worried that he would make trouble again after he went back. After all, it was this person's realistic acting skills to save his life that made Zheng Longfang eventually fall into a trap, and the entire army was destroyed. Li Xiao believed that after this person returned, Liu Zeqing would be extremely favored to spare this person's life.

Li Xiao was very happy. He thought to himself that with Liu Zeqing's 40,000 taels of redemption silver, he built the Chifeng Castle completely. Not only did he spend money, he even made nearly 20,000 taels. It seems that Liu Zeqing, the captain of the transportation team, is really good for him.

Li Xiao has been busy with two things these days.

The first thing is to train Tian Wei and Wang Yishou to recruit recently.

This time, Tian Wei and Wang Yishou recruited 1,020 qualified refugee soldiers from the entire Denglai area, but more than 200 more than Li Xiao's plan, and another 2,350 family members were recruited.

With these new recruits, Li Xiao finally expanded his troops to 80 Xuanhu Heavy Cavalry and 100 Feihao Light Cavalry. The 6 Shield Soldiers had a total of 732, the 10 Gun Soldiers had a total of 1,220. The remaining more than 90 were all reserve auxiliary soldiers. After the troops had a casualty quota, they would be replenished immediately.

Originally, Li Xiao seized hundreds of war horses this time and wanted to vigorously expand the cavalry troops. However, he did not expect that most of the refugees recruited this time were from Henan and Shandong, and some from Datong and Beizhili, mostly local farmers and laborers, but few refugees who could ride horses were forced to cancel the plan to expand the cavalry a large number of them, and finally only added more than 50 people to join the cavalry team.

Li Xiao thought to himself that maybe he would have to expand the recruitment of cavalry in the future, but he would have to go to Liaodong to recruit refugees.

As the size of the troops expanded, Li Xiaojun's organization began to be adjusted.

Li Xiaojun now has a new two general group A and B. Each general is under the jurisdiction of 3 teams of shield soldiers, 5 teams of gunmen, 40 Xuanhu heavy cavalry, and 50 flying kites.

The firearms troops and the navy are kept in separate units because they are small in number.

The former captain of the Xuanhu Cavalry, Tian Wei, was promoted to the commander of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the General Secretary of the

Captain of Feiyazi Wang Yishou was promoted to Chief of General B, and Deputy Chief of General B was the former Spear Sent.

The salary standard set by Li Xiao for them was 15 taels per month for the chief and 12 taels per month for the deputy chief. The monthly salary of the auxiliary soldiers and the public security brigade was slightly lower than that of the soldiers, both with a monthly salary of 1 tael.

After each person is promoted, the vacant position will be replaced by Li Xiao.

The total number of Li Xiao’s army is now: 80 heavy cavalry of the Xuanhu, 100 light cavalry of the Feijiazi, 732 shield soldiers, 1,220 spear soldiers, 150 firearm troops, 30 naval divisions, 95 auxiliary soldiers, and 20 public security brigades, a total of 2,427 people.

It can be calculated that in Li Xiao's army, in addition to the military soldiers, plus the salary of civilians and a group of craftsmen, the monthly salary is about 5,300 taels.

Let’s calculate the food expenses. One stone of rice and wheat in Daming is 188 kilograms. The amount of impurities that can be removed from bran is much less. The food that can be eaten is about 150 kilograms. Based on the consumption of 2 kilograms of rice and 3 taels of meat per person a day, 1,213 shi of rice and grain that cannot be removed from bran is consumed every month. In addition, food is provided to more than 500 craftsmen and more than 300 bandits and soldiers, and more than 100 civilians in each department, and another month is supplied with nearly 475 shi of grain. In this case, 1,688 shi of grain is consumed every month.

It is now in the spring famine, and the food price has risen sharply, and it has now risen to 3 taels per stone, which means that the monthly food expense is 5064 taels.

Now the price of pork in Shandong has also risen slightly, at about 2.5 cents of silver per catty. It can be calculated that the total amount of pork consumed per month is nearly 34,000 kilograms, and another 850 taels of silver is required.

There are also nearly 560 war horses in total. Based on the four kilograms of grain and eight kilograms of grass per day, each horse consumes about eight cents of silver in the money of soybean and grass per day, and horse feed costs about 1,350 taels per month.

There are more than 4,950 families in the whole castle, about 1,500 households. Based on the 0.5 taels of silver per household, and the monthly preferential pension for injured and dead soldiers, the monthly food subsidy is nearly 900 taels.

It can be calculated that now, the monthly silver supply expenses of Li Xiao’s entire army have reached nearly 13,500 taels of silver.

Now the entire army is using up all the cotton armor seized this time, so Li Xiao only needs to provide the newly formed 3 teams of shield soldiers, 4 teams of spearmen, and newly added cavalry armor and weapons costs. After all, it will cost nearly 20,000 taels to complete.

In this case, with Liu Zeqing's 40,000 silver as a supplement, Li Xiaojun's remaining gold, silver and money was still as much as 450,000, but it could provide Li Xiao's entire army with more than two and a half years of spending.

However, this seemingly sufficient money cannot satisfy Li Xiao's ambitions.

He made up his mind that in the future, Chifeng Castle would be expanded, the army would be expanded, and various factories would be built. In this way, the spending speed of these silver would be astonishingly fast.

It can be seen that in this situation where money is like flowing water, Li Xiao must be prepared for danger in times of peace and make plans and ways out in advance for his future.

Now Li Xiaojun’s only income is commercial tax. There are more than 30 stores outside the fort, and each company pays an average of 20 taels of commercial tax per month, totaling more than 600 taels.

This is like a drop in the bucket for Li Xiaojun's huge expenses.

So the second thing Li Xiao does now is to expand his financial resources again.

Li Xiao planned to use existing horses to set up a carriage and horse carriage.

This is the most realistic choice made by Li Xiao based on the current situation.

In Li Xiao's army, in addition to the existing cavalry and war horses, more than 300 horses are idle. If you just eat grass every day without any value, it would be a huge waste.

Li Xiao planned to prepare two horses for each cavalry to ensure the use of the cavalry. In this way, more than 100 horses with poor qualifications or injured four hooves can be picked as horses to use for carriages and horses.

During the Ming Dynasty, the transportation industry was already very developed. There were ships in the south and horses in the north. Mules and horses were mainly big trucks in the north. There were also foot carriages in various cities and counties, and there were a large number of porters. The short-distance ones were purely driven by human power and the foot power was used to provide force. Mules and horses were used as coachmen, helping to drive mules and horses and load and load goods. It was said that it was a mules and horse carriage, but it was not rented for mules and horses, but it was equipped with a porter to help transport items and charge fees.

The legal standard in the past is 100 streets worse than that in later generations. There are not enough local officials, and the three yamen runners and idle helpers in the yamen are not enough. The main work is just to collect taxes and maintain public order. The countryside is mostly clan autonomy. If it were the Wanli period, the world would be peaceful and merchants would still be safe to travel. However, now the world is in chaos, and in order to ensure the smooth delivery of goods, this journey came into being.

Most of the people who are in the foot traffic are refugees composed of bankrupt farmers, and there are also a small number of urban poor people. Most of these people are scum with poor character, and some are Lahu who leave the business. These people sneak into helping people transport goods is just a trivial matter, blackmail and robbery occur from time to time, and it is not uncommon to even kill cargo owners when they are far away.

Because the quality of the porter is too poor, merchants rarely hire the porter directly, but find reliable footwork, contact the head of the feet, and after inspecting the goods, give the head of the feet a large pen, the porter only develops a small pen. After transporting this way, the loss is inevitable, but it is much stronger than the loss of both people and money.

As the saying at that time, the chalet and shop should be killed even if you are guilty, but it actually makes sense.

The carriage and horse carriage that Li Xiao wanted to establish was actually an improved version of the mule and horse carriage that was found in various parts of the Ming Dynasty.

The porters used by Li Xiao were all strong old men among his family. This was completely different from those who asked rascals to be porters. In addition, he arranged his own military troops to escort the escorts, making him a professional escort team that combines car owners, foot merchants and escorts. In addition to selling the items produced in Chifeng Castle to the public, he also provided long-distance transportation of materials to some wealthy merchants.

Since bandits are rampant in Denglai area, businessmen who are moving forward to Dengzhou and Laizhou are all safe and unsecured. If someone can provide credible and reliable escort services, it will undoubtedly make the merchants rush. And as they are formal and reputable, as their business continues to expand their business in Shandong, the profits will be quite considerable and can be maintained for a long time.

In order to set up a carriage and horse carriage, the existing horses can be used to pick up horses, Li Xiao is now focusing on improving a matching thing.

If he succeeded, it would be a major invention in this world in the late Ming Dynasty.

This thing is the four-**** carriage.
Chapter completed!