"Bullet miners? Qingyuanwei still has a mine? ”

In March, 5,000 acres of land under the rule of Zongqi began to be sown.

Although the house of the flag army is simple, but there are only more than 50 households, it is not too difficult, the craftsman does a good job of sowing the car, and borrows cattle and donkeys from An Yuanyi, although the workload is large, not to mention the orderly training of the soldiers, Chen Mu has always attached importance to the flag army, and now his Shiqi is the bird gun team, Shao Tingda is the sword team, Fu Yuan and Lou Qimai are the spear team, Wei Balang is the longbow team, and the fifty flag army is the first to practice its spirit in strict order, and then practice the skills after the rewards and punishments, although it is not a great progress, but it looks like it is all the same.

Among them, the bird team is the most excellent, the most exquisite firearms supplemented by gunpowder practice marksmanship, and there are five Xiaoqi Xiaoqi scholars with the highest degree of Chinese led by indoctrination, which can be said to be the most elite troops under Chen Mu, and its morale can almost be compared to the Xiaoqi led by Chen Muqin at the beginning.

In other words, the other four small flags have not yet formed a reliable combat force.

Combat power is fought, and there is never a reason to train elite soldiers by standing in a queue. Without experiencing the war, even if the flag army stabbed with spears and spears with upright and powerful, longbows shot accurately and quickly, and swords and cards danced vigorously, what use could it be?

Chen Mu had experienced two battles, in which their training was not necessarily worse than that of the enemy, and their armor was better than that of the enemy. Whether it is Chen Guan, who wants to escape in the face of mountain bandits, or five firefighters who are blindfolded, they are born in a military family and grew up in the guard, are they really not as good as mountain bandits and widows?

There is no fear of death, and no matter how rough and bold a strong man is in a panic and fear, he will be killed by a thin and bold enemy.

Chen Mu has always thought about when he can encounter two or three less dangerous small battles, even if some people will be damaged on the battlefield, but only those who survive can be called the real flag army.

But he didn't expect to encounter such an opportunity again, and it was Bai Yuanjie who asked him to lead the small flag under his command to suppress the Qingyuan miners.

In the newly built and simple 'General Banner Yamen', Bai Qi, who was delivering the message, took two sips of water scoop, and then sighed with satisfaction, sat down and said to Chen Mu: "Of course there are mines, there are more than 20 mines in this Qingyuan Weili, seven or eight official mines, and more than a dozen private mines of the adults in the guard, even you, Chen Zongqi, are you also mining in the cave, this is not uncommon!" ”

Chen Mu was stunned by Bai Qi's words, and then realized that Bai Qi was referring to the fact that he asked Yu Ding to boil nitrate in the cave, and after thinking about it for a while, he didn't deny it, and asked, "Thousands of households know?" ”

"Know! This is not a big deal, Qingyuanwei is so big, people come and go, who does what can hide whom! In the past six months, Bai Qi and Chen Mu have made a lot of friends, and they are no longer as rusty as before, sneered, and then waved his hand and said: "Chen Zongqi doesn't have to go to his heart, the master said, it is not easy to feed a general banner person, pick some wood and dig some mines, and it doesn't matter if you rely on the things harvested by the sky to subsidize the family, he has no other requirements for Chen Zongqi, the fields are planted well, the soldiers are trained well, and then the flying water bridge is guarded, and he doesn't care about anything else." ”

"But Chen Zongqi, this soldier, you can have a snack, the master's barbarian battalion has practiced water and land warfare diligently, don't be embarrassed on the battlefield, our faces will not look good."

Chen Mu understood at this time, he said that he was thinking about why Bai Qi was talking so much today, and it turned out that he was beating himself for Bai Yuanjie, intending to persuade himself not to be confused by 'mining' and 'eating and living for nothing' to delay military training.

"Brother Bai, rest assured, the banner army will be able to fight again after another battle, even if it goes into battle now and faces the Japanese again, it will not be like last time." Chen Mu's heart was like a mirror, and he said with a smile on his face: "Thousands of households want to make war achievements, and Chen also wants it." There will be no disgrace to thousands of households on the battlefield! ”

"It's all old acquaintances, so I'll just say it casually."

Bai Qi smiled, seeing that Chen Mu had no other reaction, he was relieved, and then said: "Chen Zongqi has the opportunity to lead the troops to fight, the four official mines refused to pay the mining tax, the mountain owner gathered more than 200 miners to resist the collection, and the tax official handed over the matter to the thousand households, and the thousand households were unwilling to do such a thing, and they had to refuse the middle official, so this matter could only fall on the head of Chen Zongqi." ”

In this year, the people who collected the mining tax every month were all the political secretary, Chen Mu knew that the political secretary issued an order, and no one in the guard office could refuse.

Chen Mu also knew the group of miners in the Ming Dynasty, for example, Qi Jiguang recruited troops in Zhejiang, that is, he took a fancy to the Yiwu miners fighting fiercely for the mine, the father died and the son followed the brother and the brother, and even the women and children carried the mine pickaxe into battle, and the officers and soldiers did not dare to interfere, which was about the most famous miner in the Ming Dynasty. But the miners in Qingyuan are also like this?

Chen Mu didn't know.

"The focus of this matter is to force him to pay taxes, not to kill people, and not to have compassion for conflicts with the chief executive, otherwise the future is not guaranteed." Bai Qi obviously knew that this was a difficult job, and said, "The general flag should be careful. ”

Chen Mu was surprised by the manpower gathered by the official mine and asked, "Only 200 people?" If the tax collector closes the mine tax, will the private mine also be implicated? ”

What he worries about is that others think he is mining a mine, he doesn't understand how the mining tax is collected, whether it is to pay silver or ore, and pay silver, then he is afraid that he will lose money in making nitrate; If he pays the ore, where does he get the ore to pay the tax!

"Shhhh There is no need to worry about the general flag, those tax officials don't care about private mines, private mines are either dug by the officials and soldiers of our guard, or they are homeless officials who gather exiles on the mountain, five or six furnaces on each mountain, two or three hundred people gather in each furnace, and there are thousands or hundreds of them, and they disperse in the spring and summer. Bai Qi's smile converged in an instant, and said: "They also dare to oppress these mountain owners who abide by the rules, start a furnace on each mountain, and set a work of fifty per furnace, first pay ten taels of silver to register for the ticket, sell the work in February, and then pay another ten taels if they want to open a mine." ”

Each mountain can only start one furnace, each furnace can only employ fifty workers, the productivity is fixed, the output is also set, every year to open the furnace to pay the ticket money, burn things to the imperial court to draw lessons, plus the next point, Chen Mu doubts that the mountain owner has more money to pay taxes after sending out fifty labor money.

This is the result of any mistake in the middle or lack of money...... Bullet pressure with troops.

A thousand people are a popular uprising, and a hundred people are not a popular uprising?

Chen Mu didn't know, he only knew that since he was a military household, he couldn't run away if this matter was pushed to him.

How could this damn thing fall on me? Chen Mu was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot, and after sending Bai Qi away, he went around the house for a long time before he finally made up his mind and asked Wei Balang to go and give orders and gather the flag army!

Note: The mines, mountain owners, and mining taxes refer to Dai Jing's "Jiajing Guangdong Tongzhi First Draft" volume 30 "Iron Metallurgy" in the Ming Dynasty.