"Child, what's your name? How old is this year? Who else is there in the family?" Princess Kunxing asked gently.

The little boy replied: "The boy's surname is Chen, his name is Xinyuan, and he is from Pingyang, Shanxi (now Linfen). He is twelve years old this year. He originally had his father and two sisters in his family. Unfortunately, he had already become hungry on the roadside. His mother took the boy to escape from famine. When he arrived in Datong, his mother kidnapped him for the thief, and the only boy was left, and he followed others to escape from famine. "

"Chen Xinyuan? This name doesn't look like an ordinary farmer's child." Zhao Peng murmured softly.

"What the sir said!" Chen Xinyuan had a very quick ear and heard Zhao Peng's words, "My father was originally a scholar, not an ordinary farmer."

"Scholar? How could a scholar fall to the point of starving to death on the road?" Zhao Peng asked curiously. The scholars of the Ming Dynasty had a very high status. They had a tax exemption qualification for 80 acres of land since the scholar, and there were subsidies from the court every month. Although the scholar was not very rich, they had no worries about food and clothing but no pressure.

Chen Xinyuan replied: "My father was still a child student all his life and never passed the student."

Zhao Peng said softly, "No wonder."

The Tongsheng of the Ming Dynasty was not qualified to be called scholars. He did not have any preferential treatment or benefits from the court, and was no different from ordinary farmers. He was even worse than ordinary farmers. Farmers could also cultivate land. What could Tongsheng who could not get into the student exam? He had no energy to farm, and could not get into the student exam. He was useless to be a scholar, referring to these old Tongsheng who could not get into the student exam in his lifetime.

The student of the Ming Dynasty, that is, scholars, was at the bottom of the gentry class. Those who could pass the county, government and college entrance examinations and become scholars would also enter the bottom of the gentry class. The child was not considered a gentry class, but only had the title of a scholar.

After being admitted to the scholar, you can enjoy the privilege of being free from the customs of 80 acres, as well as subsidies from the government. If you do not kneel when you see an official, the county government will not punish the scholar (but the scholar will not kneel when you see an official, and the prefect has the right to deprive the scholar of the fame; and so on, the juren can see the prefect not kneel when you see an official, and the provincial governor, the censor and the governor have the right to deprive the scholar of the fame; and the Jinshi is even more amazing. Except for the emperor, no one else has the right to deprive the Jinshi), and there is no need to travel freely.

In fact, scholars in the Ming Dynasty had more privileges than scholars in the Song Dynasty, and the threshold was even lower. Juren in the Ming Dynasty was already a master of Juren, and scholars had already entered the gentry class. The Song Dynasty, which had a very high status as a scholar, even Juren was nothing. Juren in the Song Dynasty called Juren and had no privileges except for being able to take the Jinshi exam. Only when scholars in the Song Dynasty were admitted to Jinshi could they truly enter the literati class. How could a small Juren have any tax exemption privileges? Moreover, Juren in the Song Dynasty was a one-time job. Once the imperial examination was over and did not pass the Jinshi exam, the identity of Juren would be invalid. The next time he took the imperial examination, he would take the exam again!

The Ming Dynasty had too many privileges for scholars. From scholars to scholars, they had more privileges for life, and there were more privileges for scholars. Needless to say, the Jinshi made a large number of scholars a country's borer, and emptied the Ming Dynasty's financial and national strength little by little. At this point, the Ming Dynasty did not do as good as the Song Dynasty, so even if the Song Dynasty paid compensation for foreign races every year, there was no financial problem, and it was dragged down by finance in the late Ming Dynasty.

Of course, the demise of the Ming Dynasty cannot be entirely blamed on scholars. The royal family of the vassal kings was also a major borer in the Ming Dynasty. There are also hereditary nobles and military officials, all tax-free borer.

He accepted a young Jinyiwei Chen Xinyuan, and Zhao Peng then issued an order, asking people to select a group of teenagers from the refugees and ship workers to join the Jinyiwei. However, the order he gave to his command was to buy a boy as a slave. Although Jinyiwei could not be a slave, this was not a problem at all. When these children grew up, they could be dismissed from their slaves and become good people.

The grain prices in the north were already outrageously high, so Zhao Peng ordered that the food be exchanged directly for children.

Dozens of Jinyiwei walked into the crowd and shouted loudly to buy children. Children around ten years old would buy them back as slaves.

Soon a refugee with his children surrounded him. The Jinyiwei chose children like a livestock. As long as he was not disabled or sick, he met the conditions.

A Jinyiwei picked a boy, took out a contract for selling his body, asked the child's parents to press the handprint on the contract, and then stuffed it to the child's parents two cooked cakes, and then completed the transaction and took the child away.

Someone completed the transaction one after another and sold his child to the Jinyiwei for two full-bodied cooked cakes. At this moment, only one Jinyiwei shouted: "Why did you get a girl to hawk? Don't you, take it back!"

The skinny couple knelt on the ground and cried: "Master, okay, Caomin hasn't eaten for seven days. If you don't want children, our family will starve to death."

"Buy it." Zhao Peng's voice came from behind.

"Girls want them too?" asked a Jinyiwei.

Zhao Peng nodded: "You want the girl too. A trained girl will not lose to a man. Moreover, in the future, women will have their own conveniences for collecting intelligence."

In fact, there is another thing that Zhao Peng didn't say, that is, when these girls grow up, they can be betrothed to the young Jinyiwei as their daughter-in-law. Both the husband and wife are young Jinyiwei raised by themselves. They are loyal and reliable, so there is no need to worry about any problems.

So the Jinyiwei sent two cakes to the girl's parents and asked the girl's parents to press their handprints. He took the girl who was not covered by her clothes and could not distinguish between men and women without looking carefully.

"Thank you for your life!" The girl's parents knelt on the ground and kowtowed to the Jinyiwei, thanking her deeply.

In a blink of an eye, more than 200 boys and 120 girls were successively bought one after another. These children became Zhao Peng's slaves on the surface, but in fact they were the backbone of the new army in the future. Referring to the Turkish Sultan's personal soldiers, these children were definitely Zhao Peng's loyalty when they grew up, and they were definitely the elite among the elites since they were trained to grow up.

It takes a long time for the young Jinyiwei to grow up, which is for the sake of preparation in the future. At present, the most urgent task is to need a group of new forces that can escort His Royal Highness the Crown Prince to the south, which requires recruiting a group of young and middle-aged men to join Jinyiwei.

When recruiting young and middle-aged people, they will recruit from miners according to the standards of the Qi family army.

Several Jinyiwei stood in front of the refugees and shouted: "Whoever has ever been a miner has stood up. Our commander has to select personnel. Those who choose can join the army, and from now on they have food and clothes to wear!"

I heard that I could join the army, and from then on I had food and clothes to wear, the refugees stood up one after another. No matter whether they were miners or not, they all stood up, and there were thousands of them. Of course, many of them were not miners at all. Most of those guys were treacherous people and wanted to fake miners to take advantage of the situation.

However, it is not easy for these guys who are trying to take advantage of the situation to hide from Zhao Peng, who has more than 300 years of knowledge than them. All refugees who come to apply for the recruitment must undergo Zhao Peng's personal assessment.

The assessment is to ask them about mining knowledge. Zhao Peng not only has certain mining knowledge, but also has strong insight as a modern soldier king. Under his inquiry, whether a person lies can be observed soon.

After Zhao Peng's personal screening, the guy who was fishing for troubled waters was quickly screened out and was ruthlessly eliminated. In the end, less than 400 people who signed up passed the assessment and successfully became the Jinyiwei.

The miners with strong organizational discipline are indeed a group of people who are easily trained into an army in a short period of time. Unfortunately, the shortcomings are that the number of miners among the refugees is too small. Zhao Peng only recruited more than 600 people in two days when he came to Tongzhou. Only this kind of person wants to escort the prince south? It is not enough for others to get stuck in the teeth when they meet the enemy.
Chapter completed!