Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 415: The Battle of Southern Anhui Begins
Tao Qixian came all the way from Jiankang to Hangzhou. In almost every county he passed through, he encountered cases where branches of large clans reported the main clan and asked the government to divide up the family property. He could not help but be secretly astonished.

With Lu Jin's approach, it would be hard to find even a big household in eastern Zhejiang before next year.

First, there was the suppression of tiered taxes, then the new banknotes were used to reduce the wealth of wealthy families, and household registration restrictions were used to force large clans to distribute cash property to side branches. In addition, art troupes were touring eastern Zhejiang to promote policies, and there was also a field army of a front stationed in eastern Zhejiang. It is no exaggeration to say that eastern Zhejiang has been transformed.

With the field army watching, those big families cannot fight back, and their families are also disunited due to the policies. In addition, the internal guards and town-level government offices have penetrated deep into the grassroots of the villages. Even if those so-called powerful gentry want to incite the common people to rebel, it is impossible. What else can they do? They can only be slaughtered by the government.

Countless wealthy families in eastern Zhejiang gnashed their teeth at Lu Jin, the new king of eastern Zhejiang, but they could do nothing about it. Many were directly reported by side branches of their clans, and their property was confiscated, they were beheaded, or they were sentenced to imprisonment and exile. Seeing this, other wealthy families could only huddle at home like quails and live in fear, for fear of angering the new dragon from across the river again.

However, with the continued issuance of salt and iron coupons, the prices of gold and silver in the market began to soar continuously, and there was a lack of demand. There were people offering bids, but those who had gold and silver held on tightly to them. Who would be willing to sell them at this time?

Obviously, everyone is still not confident about the new salt and iron coupons. After all, it is just a new kind of paper currency. If Lu Jin is also issued indiscriminately like in the Yuan Dynasty, the salt and iron coupons will depreciate, and we will have to rely on gold, silver and copper to prevent our wealth from depreciating.

Although Lu Jin did not prohibit gold and silver transactions in the market, contrary to the norm, the number of gold and silver transactions in the market became less and less, and more people used the new banknotes. They were all afraid that the salt and iron coupons would be useless and wanted to spend them quickly. This actually promoted the commercial activities of the people in eastern Zhejiang.

The big investors held onto their gold and silver and did not sell them, preventing a large amount of funds from pouring into the market. As a result, inflation did not occur in eastern Zhejiang.
Half a month later, the situation in some counties that were the first to exchange for the new banknotes stabilized, because they found that the salt and iron coupons could really be exchanged for salt and iron at the supply and marketing cooperatives in the town. However, due to the current salt production, purchases can only be made based on household registration. People can only buy once a month with their household registration, and the amount cannot exceed five kilograms at a time. Those with special needs and who need large amounts of salt must go to the county to purchase large amounts, and they must explain the purpose of the purchase.

As a result, some wealthy merchants began to have ideas. First of all, the value of the new banknotes was established in the hearts of the people.

The Yuan court's earliest treasure notes actually had a deposit. In the beginning, they were anchored by raw silk. The amount of raw silk produced was proportional to the amount of notes issued. However, raw silk was not a necessity of life. It was only the raw material for producing silk. The output was also very limited, and its circulation in the market was unreliable.

So after the collapse of raw silk, the Yuan court issued new banknotes based on copper coins. However, the copper coins in the local areas were secretly embezzled by the Yuan emperor and Seljuq merchants and taken home. As a result, the copper coins also collapsed. After that, the treasure notes began to be issued indiscriminately and there was hyperinflation, and the credibility of the court completely fell into the sewer.

However, some shrewd businessmen discovered that Lu Jin's new banknotes were anchored by salt and iron, which were obviously much more stable than raw silk and copper coins. Not to mention ironware, salt was definitely a daily consumer product that everyone needed, and they had to buy it. This meant that salt had high liquidity, and the new banknotes could maintain their value as long as salt could be bought.

In addition, salt is obtained by boiling the sea, and the salt in the sea is endless. This means that there will never be a day when Lu Jin's mansion cannot pay back the money. No matter how much money Lu Jin issues, he can boil more salt to fill the hole.

Of course, this is wrong in economics, but how many people are well versed in economics? In the simple understanding of this era, tying the new banknotes to salt almost means that the credibility of the new banknotes is stable.

However, some merchants who made a living by selling salt were a little dumbfounded. In order to ensure the stability of the currency value, Lu Jin put salt and iron into the supply and marketing cooperatives for sale. Citizens from every village could go directly to the nearest town to buy them. This was equivalent to the government directly monopolizing the terminal sales channels. Citizens could buy salt while going to the town to attend the market.

Although the government still had a monopoly on salt and iron in the past, it only monopolized the production process, while wholesale and terminal sales still depended on private merchants. Now Lu Jin has even monopolized terminal sales, and it will be difficult for them to do business, unless they wholesale from Lu Jin and then sell outside Lu Jin's territory, but this would be considered treason, which is obviously not acceptable.

This was of course what Lu Jin intended to do. As long as merchants were allowed to sell salt, private salt would flow into the market. This was almost certain. They used the name of selling official salt to sell their own private salt. Didn't Lu Zhen and Zhang Shicheng do this? How could Lu Jin not know this?

As for selling wholesale salt outside Lu Jin's territory, this is even more impossible. Lu Jin still hopes to use the sale of salt as an economic weapon to attack the Yuan army. How could he let merchants interfere in this?

Since the new banknotes were officially introduced in March, the sale of salt in southern Anhui, Jiangxi and the Central Plains has stopped. From now on, if you want to buy Lu Jin's salt, you must use real gold, silver and salt and iron coupons. Don't even think about using Yuan Ting Baochao to buy Lu Jin's salt.

It doesn't matter if you don't have gold, silver, copper coins, salt and iron coupons. You can sell things to Lu Jin first, and exchange them for practical goods such as grain, cotton, cloth, vegetable oil, livestock, porcelain, wood, and paper. Lu Jin will accept all your orders. I will take whatever you sell, but I have to decide the price. Who asked you to exchange it for my new banknotes?
Tao Qixian's trip was an eye-opener. After arriving in Hangzhou, he immediately wrote a long letter about what he had seen and heard, gave it to the two trusted servants, and returned to Wuzhou with Lu Jin's secret envoy. The group finally returned to Jinhua in early April.

"My dear, this is the letter that the headmaster asked us to bring back to you. He will stay in Hangzhou and will not be coming back for the time being. Mr. Yue Qingsong is the secret envoy sent by Marshal Gongshu. He can be called the headmaster's student to the outside world. He will stay in our house. The headmaster has written more things in the letter, so my dear must open it in person."

The trusted servant handed two long letters to Tao Guangyi and immediately explained the situation.

Tao Guangyi took the letter and said quickly, "Okay, okay, I'm glad you're all okay. Did anyone find you on the road?"

"No, we all went there by mountain roads. We didn't dare to take the official roads."

Tao Guangyi nodded repeatedly after hearing this, "Okay, then you two should stay at home and rest. Don't go anywhere during this period. Stay at home and avoid the limelight. I will ask you some questions after I read the letter."

"Yes, thank you, sir." The two servants agreed quickly.

"Jingming."

"Dad, is there something wrong?" Tao Jingming came over immediately.

"Give them both some reward money, and ask the east chef to prepare some wine and food to reward them and Mr. Yue." Tao Guangyi made arrangements immediately.

"Okay, I'll have someone arrange it right away."

After sending away the two servants and the secret envoy, Tao Guangyi opened the two letters and began to read. One was written to Lu Jin, and he took it back intact, except that there were some more comments from Lu Jin on it.

Seeing that Lu Jin confirmed his guess about the artillery, he was immediately excited, and thought to himself that he was right. But then, Lu Jin told him not to try blindly. Even if he knew the principle, it would be impossible for him to imitate the artillery of the same quality as the Shengwu Army. If he really liked artillery, he could wait until Wuzhou surrendered and then report to the Marshal's Mansion. Lu Jin could let him manage the artillery manufacturing.

This immediately made Tao Guangyi suspicious. What exactly did Lu Jin mean? If he was afraid that he would copy it and hand it over to the Yuan army, he could just deny that his guess was wrong. But now he confirmed his idea and said that he couldn't do it. Could it be that he was missing some key point?
However, seeing that Lu Jin was willing to let him manage the artillery manufacturing, he felt relieved again. It seemed that Lu Jin was still willing to trust him, so there was no need to worry. He could go and see it himself after Wuzhou surrendered. Then he saw Lu Jin's evaluation of his Divine Fire Flying Crow, which was like a child's play. He could easily make rocket weapons with a range of more than ten miles. Unexpectedly, this evaluation not only did not hit Tao Guangyi's confidence, but instead made him very interested.

It's good that Lu Jin has abilities, but he is afraid that Lu Jin is a fake Gongshu. He really wants to see what kind of mysterious abilities the owner of the Gongshu Secret Book has.

Finally, he asked Lu Jin whether Gongshu had really created something that could carry people and fly. The answer he got was Lu Jin's puzzling statement, "When humans look up at the sky, they are destined to grow wings of steel."

When Tao Guangyi saw this, he was so excited that he trembled all over, with goose bumps all over his body, as if he had seen some secret book of cultivating immortals. But after calming down, he couldn't figure out what Lu Jin meant by this. Could it be that Gongshu clan had made further progress in the past two thousand years, and their technology had improved, and they had evolved from splitting wood into bones and spreading silk into feathers like Gongshu to being able to use steel to make wings? Or was this just a metaphor?
But no matter what, Tao Guangyi understood the meaning of this sentence, that Gongshu Shi really had the ability to carry people and fly in the air.

Just as he was staring at that sentence, Tao Jingming also ran over. Seeing his father's shocked look, he couldn't help but wave his hand in front of his eyes, "Dad, what did you see? What did my uncle say in the letter? Did something happen?"

Tao Guangyi finally came back to his senses after hearing that sentence. When he saw that it was his son, he said, "I haven't read your uncle's letter yet."

"What's this, Dad?"

"You see for yourself, it seems that Gongshu clan is indeed worthy of its reputation. We made the right move by agreeing to surrender in advance." Tao Guangyi handed Lu Jin's reply to his son and picked up Tao Qixian's letter to read it carefully.

In the letter, Tao Qixian first talked about Lu Jin's decision to send secret envoys to each other. He was left in Hangzhou as a secret envoy to contact Wuzhou, while Yue Qingsong, sent by Lu Jin, would stay with Tao Guangyi for the time being. If there was any emergency, he could contact the Shengwu Army through him.

He also talked about Lu Jin's arrangement, asking him to select trusted generals and place them in various cities in Wuzhou, so that when Lu Jin sent out troops, there would be Tao's own people in every city, and they would be able to open the gates and surrender the city directly, so that it would be counted as Tao's credit.

Finally, it is about what he saw and heard along the way in eastern Zhejiang, including the tiered tax on Lujin, the internal guards, the art troupe, the town-level government offices that went deep into the grassroots, the disintegration of the gentry and powerful people, the issuance of new banknotes, and the dense garrisons in eastern Zhejiang.

He even exchanged a set of new banknotes, put them in an envelope, and explained Lu Jin's economic policies in detail. In the future, all the Yuan court's treasure notes would be invalidated, and the division of the Tao family was inevitable. He was asked to quickly and secretly deal with the family's property, and the land must not be touched.

If the excess land was sold, it would certainly alarm other high-ranking officials of the Yuan Dynasty in Wuzhou Road, and Tao's betrayal to the enemy would most likely be exposed. The family's excess land could then be divided among the various branches, and the remaining land could be given to some generals or confidants who have followed their family throughout the years. Anyway, it could only be given away and not sold, and this way a group of people could be won over.

As for the floating wealth in the house, such as treasure notes, they had to find a way to exchange them for gold, silver and copper coins as soon as possible, even if the price was low. Otherwise, when Lu Jin's new banknotes were introduced, the treasure notes would be worthless.

Tao Guangyi was secretly astonished and thought that Marshal Gongshu was truly a heroic ruler. He carried out such drastic reforms and punished the powerful gentry to death, but he was still able to keep eastern Zhejiang stable and avoid any chaos. At the same time, he was secretly impressed by Lu Jin's internal guards, town offices, supply and marketing cooperatives, and art troupe. With these institutions, no wonder he had such a strong control over eastern Zhejiang.

Tao Jingming, who was standing by, was also very shocked after watching it. "Dad, it seems that the General Gongshu is really the descendant of the Gongshu clan. Does he really have the ability to fly?"

Tao Guangyi nodded seriously, "Yes, that's why I said we made the right choice this time. This man has great abilities, how could we possibly beat him?

"Your uncle wrote to us and told us many things to do. You are sixteen years old now, and it is time for you to learn how to do things. I will arrange some things for you later. You must remember that this matter must be kept strictly secret and must not be leaked. Otherwise, our family will be destroyed. I will go and meet the secret envoy first. You keep these two letters."

"Well, don't worry, Dad. I will definitely keep the things safe."

So Tao Guangyi left immediately, and while the kitchen was preparing wine and food, he personally went to welcome Yue Qingsong, the secret envoy. Then the two of them went to the study to discuss the next steps. Tao Guangyi arranged for his confidants to be stationed in various cities. In addition, Yue Qingsong also asked Tao Guangyi to arrange an identity of a clerk in Wanhu Mansion for him, so that he could enter and leave Wuzhou government office freely. Then he asked Tao Guangyi to arrange a residence for him in the city, so that it would be convenient for him to contact the local intelligence station in Wuzhou and collect more intelligence to send back.

Of course Tao Guangyi did not dare to disobey the secret envoy's request and had to agree to all of it.

While Tao was preparing for an uprising in Wuzhou, Lu Jin was also busy.

By April, the five fronts had been reorganized, moved to their respective bases, and officially entered training mode.

Xu Jichuan from the Construction Department has been working very hard during this period. In the first month of the year, Lu Jin promised that as long as he could run the three iron factories well and ensure the supply of weapons and armor to the army, he would be given a title in the future.

Xu Jichuan suddenly became full of energy. Since crossing the river on the fifth day of the first lunar month, it only took him two months to straighten out the production line of the Dangtu Iron Works, which officially started production in March. Although the factory building had not been built yet, the blast furnace had been erected early. After finishing his work in Dangtu, he went to Xuzhou without stopping.

When he was in charge of work in Dangtu, he sent people to Xuzhou in advance to check the situation. Dangtu started production in March, the hydraulic rolling mill in Xuzhou had been installed, and the blast furnace began to produce iron. He brought several technical backbones from Luzhou and summoned local craftsmen in Xuzhou to formally set up an armor production line. The Xuzhou Iron Works officially started production in April.

Starting from April, the three ironworks in Luzhou, Dangtu and Xuzhou all entered full production mode. Then he announced a series of reward policies in the three factories to encourage workers in each shift to increase production and ensure quality.

In addition, with the issuance of new banknotes, the workers' treatment has also improved. Compared with the previous provision of food and accommodation, a formal wage system has now been promulgated, and there are cash rewards for exceeding production targets. In the future, the iron factory will also build buildings for the workers and give each person a house. Now the workers' enthusiasm for work has become even higher, and they will soon be able to meet Lu Jin's requirement of producing 27,000 sets of standard armor per month and replacing one army every month.

As for cloth, there is no shortage of it now. If there is not enough in his own territory, he can buy it from Jiangxi. Jiangxi in the Yuan Dynasty was also one of the main cotton producing areas. In addition, with the cloth from Lu Jin's own territory, the demand for cloth used to make armor can still be met.

They were busy until the end of April, and finally gathered nearly 40,000 sets of standard iron armor for Chang Yuchun's Fifth Front Army, raising the overall armor rate of the Fifth Front Army to more than 40%. In addition, with the arrival of two newly formed artillery regiments, the campaign to conquer Huizhou Road officially started on the first day of May.

After resting for nearly half a year, the Shengwu Army finally began its expansion in the 13th year of Zhizheng.

(End of Volume 3)
(End of this chapter)