Chapter 101: Find a different path

The Ming Dynasty had been ruled to control the military with literature for hundreds of years. Generals and officers such as generals and generals were assigned to the civil officials sent by the court, and had no independent power. This was almost a common rule. Although Li Meng was a dignified fifth-rank garrison officer, Yan Zhizhou of Jiaozhou was still arrogant to him. According to management, the garrison should salute the magistrate respectfully when he saw the magistrate.

The situation in Jiaozhou City seemed to have not changed much to Li Meng. It turned out that those who feared him became even more awe at this time. It turned out that those cold people were still cold now. The difference is that the martial arts of the Yan Ding under Li Meng finally obtained a legal identity.

Having said that, these salt diced people stationed in the southern part of Laizhou Prefecture can appear as officers and soldiers, because this is the scope of the Jiaozhou garrison, and other places in Shandong Province already exist in the name of salt diced people.

I don’t know if it was because of the negligence or intentionally pretending to be confused. Although Li Meng had the actual lack of military power in the garrison of Jiaozhou, the position of the salt administration inspector stationed in Jiaozhou was still retained. A court gave him the right to lead troops, but this person still had a large sum of money to raise troops...

After the garrison head was officially released, all the people under Li Meng were busy. Ma Gang, who was originally in charge of the salt diary in Qingzhou Prefecture, was also recalled by Kuaima, and asked him and several old military households and old officers from Lingshan Guard to approve the camps near these soldiers.

Ning Qiangui and Hou Shan also made a round trip, called chariots and horses. They took the money and ran around the yamen in Shandong to complete the next procedures. They also had to purchase various camp construction materials to determine the manpower and input channels for future grain and fodder supply.

If these things are placed on other new guards, they will probably have the intention to commit suicide, and they need money everywhere and manpower everywhere. If they are a little nervous, they will probably be embarrassed to death.

However, for Li Meng's system, there was a shortage of manpower. More than 2,000 salt cubes were trained to block the entire Shandong's important roads to investigate and smuggle salt. One person wanted to divide it into two, and the manpower was short, and there was a lack of talent. Li Meng was a modern PLA non-commissioned officer and had some understanding of specific training and exercises. Other projects were very limited. Ma Gang had been a personal soldier for people, and the rest were all from farmers. Ning Qiangui was at best a dog-headed master, and Hou Shan and Luo Xi were at most a helper.

Li Meng's understanding and understanding of many things was expressed by Zhou Juren's big mouth. When doing things in this system, he was cautious and nervous, and was careful every step, for fear of doing something wrong.

However, what is most needed to prepare for the establishment of Jiaozhou Camp is silver. What Li Meng's system does not lack is silver. Although the cost of salt and silver is also quite large, it is a huge monthly income after all, so it is still very simple to make up for this hole. Anyway, it is rich.

When camps in Shandong heard a new garrison in Jiaozhou, they were all laughing at the attitude of laughing. They thought that in these days, there were still people in this poor place to join the army to eat food, and you would be poor if you build a large camp. The general Denglai who reported to Li Meng had the idea of ​​getting a bargain. The army was so poor that the locals were always stingy. The salary allocated by the court was allocated several discounts.

But this is not enough to provide money for establishing a large camp. When your army has no money and is embarrassed, you must have conflicts with the local government. At that time, the court will order it to be wiped out or disbanded. I will take people to annex your people and get a force for nothing. Why not do it?

But all those who wanted to watch jokes were stunned. These generals and officials who didn't know much about salt trading could not understand that the amount of money came from Li Meng, the garrison of Jiaozhou, built the camp at a very fast speed. According to the person inquiring about the news, Jiaozhou camp was very happy to pay and never defaulted.

Everyone is really confused. Nowadays, there are so much money, why don’t you do? You have to join the army and fight. The world is so chaotic, who knows when the war soldiers will be pulled up to die?

Li Meng's life is still the same. For him, he still sells private salt to make money and trains salt ditches every day. However, he has a legal status now. The salt ditches can be trained outside Jiaozhou City in a noble way. After all, this is a prefecture city, and things are much more convenient than Fengmeng Town.

Every family in Fengmeng Town earns profits from Li Meng’s private salt system, and there are also salt diligent stations. Lingshan Salt Field and Yantian have mobile power to provide reinforcements at any time. The place is very stable and there is no need to worry about anything.

However, for the Yan Ding Guards who inspected the yamen, or the personal guards of the Jiaozhou Guards, after May, Li Meng's lifestyle changed a little from the past. Now he stays in the room for a while every day at noon. In the past, Li Meng used to have lunch, either with his personal guards, or just stayed in the training ground.

A few careful discoveries should have started at the end of May. Now the training is very busy everywhere, especially after Gaomi brought back the dozens of horses, the number of horse riding salt has expanded to 100 people. They work hard every day under the supervision of Zhang Lin from Jiaozhou City.

Since the style of the musket was set, Guo Dong has built it, but the current manpower is mainly on armor and shields, and the muskets are also much slower. Moreover, Li Meng's strict requirements on the quality of muskets have made these blacksmiths treat them extremely rigorously, and the production speed has been slowed down. Until now, there are only twelve muskets.

And then again, although the muskets are built and lead bullets are not short, saltpeter gunpowder is really short, and it is enough for the construction and trial, but the actual training is really not enough. There is no way to do this. It can only be through salt merchants and salt dealers everywhere to collect saltpeter gunpowder at grocery stores.

For this, Ning Qiangui even offered preferential conditions for salt merchants and salt vendors from all walks of life, such as saltpeter gunpowder exchanged for concessions in salt trading, etc.

The salt diners were wondering if Li Meng was busy with this, but there were some things wrong. For example, Li Meng often sent people to Master Ning to get pens, ink, paper and inkstones, and Rossi went in and out too many times here.

Li Meng sat in the room, and his lunch was quickly eliminated in the form of a soldier. The bowls and chopsticks were removed, and a piece of white paper was spread out on the table.

The door of the house sounded, and Rossi outside greeted him. After receiving Li Meng's permission, he walked in respectfully. Li Meng looked at Rossi, but it was a little unnatural. He coughed dryly before he hesitating and asked:

"Can there be a reply?"

Rosie looked solemn, and there was no smile on her face. She replied in a stern voice:

"When the master said that it was the letter, Mrs. Su must have been placed on their lady's table, but I don't know if I didn't read it, because there was no reply."

Li Meng coughed a few more times, hesitated for a long time before speaking:

"Come in half an hour, and you can take it for me if I have a letter."

Rosie agreed respectfully, turned around and was about to go out, but Li Meng seemed to remember something again and asked:

"There are more than a dozen letters so far. Are you sure that the woman handed over these letters? Also, I will give you your money separately. Don't give it to the woman."

Hearing Li Meng say this, Rosie immediately got out of cold sweat, and quickly knelt on the ground, swearing to the sky and the earth:

"Master, the conscience of heaven and earth, I would not dare to greed for the little ones. Moreover, the old woman's son also came from home, so I arranged for her to be a clerk in Shaohailou. The whole family was grateful for the master's kindness, so the old woman helped to deliver the message."

The pen in Li Meng's hand kept turning, obviously not listening to Rossi's words at all. I guess he just asked casually just now. After hearing Rossi say it, he waved his hand and signaled him to go out.

Rossi didn't dare to continue to argue. He stood up and closed the door carefully. This was to wipe the sweat off his forehead. He thought to himself why he was obsessed with recruiting this job at that time. The risk was too great. Watching opera and listening to comments, this kind of matchmaking for people is not very much. If you are lucky, you can still be a maid and a wife. But until now, it seems like a dangerous job!

Speaking of which, the lady of Yan Zhizhou's family is not a beautiful woman. After hearing the servants and servants in their house, they told some people who had seen their lady that she might be beautiful, but if she was beautiful, she would definitely not be considered a beauty. God knows, how can she look at such a heroic figure like Li Erlang?

This work is really hard. When reporting, I dare not have a slight slick look in my jokes, for fear that Li Meng would make me think that she was laughing at something. Moreover, this woman might be her future mistress and offend others. It is not a joke. Even a grassroots character like Rossi knows that Li Meng, such as the fifth-rank guard, would be extremely difficult to marry a lady from the sixth-rank governor.

After giving gifts several times, he was turned away by the other party. He was also in a mess when he asked Juren Zhou to propose marriage. Seeing that the methods were exhausted, Rosie found a way and actually met a maid in Yan Zhizhou's Mansion. It was not difficult for these servants to bribe them. Especially Rosie helped Su's wife a few times and gave some money, saying that even if she was driven out by Yan Zhizhou after the incident, Li Meng would be sheltered. This was to motivate the woman to help. Rosie was one of Li Meng's housekeepers, and he helped many private matters.
Chapter completed!