On the New Year, the sound of firecrackers and fireworks in Nanjing City were fragrant. Amid the laughter, the seventeen years of Chongzhen passed, and the Ming Dynasty ushered in the Shaowu period. The prosperity of the south of the Yangtze River made the people in the south temporarily forget that they were already in troubled times. The wars in the north were flying, and the hunger everywhere seemed to have nothing to do with the south.

In fact, the Ming Dynasty was not peaceful at this time. The Qing Dynasty and Dashun fought a protracted fierce battle in the north, and Zhang Xianzhong, in the southwest areas such as Sichuan, actually had control over Sichuan.

Qin Liangyu, a famous female general in Sichuan, is already old and has a great power. The White Roof Soldiers are fighting against Zhang Xianzhong, but they end up encountering a white-robed young general who was beaten to almost annihilation. Later, Zhao Peng learned about the information about the White Roof Soldiers. His name is Zhang Dingguo, and he is one of Zhang Xianzhong's four adopted sons.

Although Qin Liangyu was old, after all, he was still in power, but he was defeated by Zhang Dingguo, a young general with an infrequent reputation. Which famous general is Zhang Dingguo? Why have you never heard of this person in history? Zhao Peng, a novice in history, was puzzled, and finally his mind was filled with an inspiration: It turned out to be him! Li Dingguo! Because he was Zhang Xianzhong's adopted son, he changed his surname to Zhang. After Zhang Xianzhong's death, he restored his original surname to Li.

Although Zhao Peng is a novice in history, he still remembers the national heroes in history. So he finally remembered that Zhang Dingguo was actually Li Dingguo.

Zhang Xianzhong was rampant in Sichuan, but Zuo Liangyu, who was guarding Wuchang, dared not think of Zhang Xianzhong in Sichuan attacking. Although Zuo Liangyu had many soldiers and a wide range of generals, he fought with Zhang Xianzhong many times, and was beaten to pieces by Zhang Xianzhong every time.

Zhao Peng wanted to get rid of Zuo Liangyu, who could not fight against the Qing Dynasty outside and could not suppress the bandits inside and only knew how to bully the people, but at present he was not very strong in his hands.

If we want to quickly expand the scale of the Nanjing New Army, in addition to building weapons and training the army, food is a very important link.

At that time, the grain production area of ​​Huaxia land was mainly in Huguang, so there was a saying that Huguang was well-versed in the world. Huguang is currently controlled by Zuo Liangyu, and the Ming Dynasty court could hardly obtain taxes from Huguang.

Originally, Jiangnan was also a grain-producing area, but with the development of marine trade in the late Ming Dynasty, Jiangnan's textile industry developed rapidly, and a large number of silk and cotton cloth produced in Jiangnan were sold all over the world. Therefore, the gentry and landlords in Jiangnan no longer allowed tenants to farm rice fields, but asked farmers to plant mulberry trees and cotton to satisfy their ability to make high profits.

The cotton planted by the tenants and the silkworms sprouted by the silkworms eventually turned into white silver. Then the grain merchants used the silver to buy grain in Huguang and transported it to Jiangnan for sale. Farmers bought grain from the grain merchants.

Shortly after the New Year, the spring plowing of the new year will begin.

Kong Jie was a farmer who came from Qufu. He was the man who was in Qufu. After the family of six arrived in Nanjing, because Kong Jie was over thirty years old and was not suitable for joining the war team, he was incorporated into the imperial village.

At first, Kong Jie was unhappy when he heard that he had become a military household, because the status of the Ming Dynasty military household was lower than that of the farmers. If it were to say that the first military household had its own farmland, then by the end of the Ming Dynasty, ordinary military households would not have their own land? They had long become tenants for officers. When they were also tenants, the status of the military households was much lower than that of farmers.

Zhao Peng did not deceive them, the farmers. They helped the Ming army transport silver south. Each farmer paid fifty taels of silver and twenty taels of silver for the children. Kong Jie and his family of six received a total of 240 taels of silver.

According to Kong Jie's original plan, with the money in his hand, he could buy dozens of acres of good land when he arrived in the south and live a good life. Who knew that after he arrived in Nanjing, he realized that it was not so easy to buy land in the south. After Kong Jie arrived in Nanjing, he not only went around Nanjing to ask about buying land, but even went to Zhenjiang, Changzhou, Suzhou, Songjiang, Huzhou, Hangzhou and other places, wanting to buy a piece of good land, but he returned in vain.

In the Jiangnan area where there are many people and few lands, how easy is it to buy a good piece of land? There are only mountains with many stones or low-lying swamps that are difficult to cultivate.

In the three months since he arrived in Nanjing, Kong Jie has never bought the land, but he can't live in vain, right? He had to accept his fate. He also heard that except for 40% of the tenant rent, he did not need to pay taxes to the court or bear corvee or other things. The only requirement was to conduct military training during the slack farm.

In the past six months, Kong Jie's wife has joined a textile factory opened by the Nanjing Huangzhuang Military Household and became a female worker. She can receive three taels of silver every month. With her wife's salary, Kong Jie's family has not been spared.

After Kong Jie participated in the labor of the imperial village, he also had two taels of silver to receive a monthly salary. The first month of work was to build a house in Nanjing and renovate the barracks in the city.

The project of converting the barracks in the city into the Nanjing Ming Dynasty Royal Silver Bank was a contribution from Kong Jie and a large number of military households. With the efforts of the military households, the originally dilapidated Nanjing military camp was completely renewed and completely changed. The dilapidated barracks were reinforced and renovated and turned into beautiful dormitory areas and warehouses. A magnificent building was also built within the walls of the barracks, turning into a storefront shop.

After the hard work of the military households, the Nanjing veteran barracks became the Royal Silver Crown of the Ming Dynasty, and the former Nanjing military households who originally lived in the military camp were moved to the near the farmland they cultivated outside the city.

After completing the Nanjing Royal Bank project, the military households began to dig low-lying land outside the city and raise dry land.

At first, Kong Jie didn't know what they were doing these things, and thought they were to build the outer city defense fortifications of Nanjing City. It was not until the eve of spring plowing that they were told: "The low place was to build fish ponds, and the raised one was to plant mulberry trees, and the farmland between the mulberry trees was used to plant paddy fields."

However, as an outsider, Kong Jie was unable to get the best paddy fields when he was allocating the farmland. He did not even get the better dry fields, but was divided into a piece of terraced fields on hills.

"It's all your fault. I've been wandering around outside for three months and haven't bought the land. When we allocated the arable land, we got the worst land!" The husband blamed Kong Jie in his heart resentfulness, "There is not much harvest in this kind of land. Fortunately, I learned to weave cloth and can support my family. But when you go out, people say that you are a soft-hearted person and rely on your wife to support me. Isn't it embarrassing?"

"Can I blame me? We are foreign households, not local military households. Of course, they took the good land away from them by the locals in Nanjing. It would be great to give us mountain land!" Kong Jie defended him, "If it really doesn't work, just work for my uncle. If you build a house, you still have two taels of silver a month to get."

The seeds for spring plowing were distributed. The seeds assigned by Kong Jie were not rice or wheat, but tuber-like objects, as well as some fruit seeds, rapeseed, tea seeds, etc.

The general flag that distributed seeds to the military households said: "These tuber pieces are good things. This is called sweet potatoes, which are a high-yield crop. After planting, a mu of land can be harvested several thousand kilograms a year. The harvested sweet potatoes can be eaten or ground into powder. The leaves can be used for cooking, and the stems can be fed to pigs. This is a treasure all over the body."

The current small flags, general flags, and Baihu are not hereditary officers in the original Duke of Wei system. The original Nanjing officers were all over the country because of the Duke of Wei's conspiracy and rebellion, and were deprived of their status as hereditary officers. Zhao Peng selected a group of good farming experts to serve as grassroots military officers such as the General flags and Baihu, and they were not hereditary officers. They were elected every five years and were elected by the military households. If they were not good, they would be replaced five years later.

The role of these grassroots officers is to teach military households how to cultivate fields, guide them to plant economic crops such as tea and mulberry leaves, and take military households to conduct military training during the slack farming period. Nowadays, military households are actually half-agricultural and half-army militias.
Chapter completed!