At the Hanyangmen Wharf in Wuchang County, Wuhan Prefecture, a group of officials dressed as officials stood on the embankment, watching coolies carry bags off the wooden boats leaning against the wharf. The rickshaw was already waiting on the inside of the embankment. The bags were piled up one by one, and when they were full of cars, they were immediately pulled away and entered the Hanyang Gate.

A somewhat chubby man dressed as an outsider said with his eyebrows fluttering: "It's finally time for the autumn grain to go on the market, and now the grain price in Wuchang City can finally fall a little, and the market will get better." The ransom rice collected by the government is also about to arrive, and many Hubei gentry who are in Wuhan can finally relax...... The market in Wuhan will gradually rise. ”

This fat member is Yao Daqiao, who is now a recognized rice merchant in Wuhan Prefecture! Although his capital is not the largest, he has become the head of Wuhan Grain Bank because he received a large order from the Jiangdu Left-behind Division and provided life-saving food for the Beifu refugees who were resettled in Wuhan.

With this identity, he was able to borrow a large amount from the branches of the two banks in Wuhan, and with the support of the loans from the two banks, his business would naturally be bigger. Not only did they sell rice, but they also rented a large amount of land and opened farms in Hanyang, Chengtian, Jingzhou and other prefectures in Hubei, and also started to build shops, wine shops, hotels, and rice warehouses on Hanzheng Street in Hankou Town.

A junior officer in a nine-rank green robe beside Yao Daqiao who looked like a big official sighed: "No matter how good the market is, we don't have much share...... Now the three counties of Wuhan are full of people from the north! ”

The one who complained about the northerners was Peng Ziqin, who lost three or four thousand acres of land in De'an, and he has now passed the Hubei Enke presided over by Huang Zongxi and has become the nine-rank official of the Ming Dynasty - these so-called Enke, in fact, are the recruitment examinations of low-level officials, and the original Jinshi Dabi is not the same.

Zhu Cihong is gradually abolishing the imperial examination system! It's just that the edict of repeal was not publicly issued, but quietly implemented.

The method of abolishing the imperial examination is to replace the unified national spring festival with the "official examination" of low-level officials.

This kind of recruitment of low-level officials was given a very nice name by Zhu Cihong, called "Enke", which was in charge of the provincial academic administration, the officials of the imperial court, or the officials (institutions) designated by Prince Zhu - because the system of "Enke taking scholars" was still groping, and a fixed system had not been formed, so there was a certain amount of confusion.

However, the general principle has been established, that is, to recruit low-level officials through examinations, to allow local appointments, and then to select higher-level officials through elimination at the end, promotion through meritorious service, recommendation by superiors, and general examinations for officials (official promotion examinations).

In addition to this method of selecting scholars from the local or official departments, the "three schools" such as Guozijian, Nanjing Xuetang (formerly Nanjing Shixuetang), and Nanjing Jiangwutang will also become the cradle of bureaucrats, sending batches of civil and military officials and trick officials to the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, Sanxue is not a university in the real sense, and the introduction of modern education and the establishment of a university cannot be done yet, so Zhu Cihong will not be in a hurry to pull out the seedlings to help them grow.

Behind Yao Daqiao and Peng Ziqin, there were still more than a dozen people, most of whom were "green-skinned" petty officials or civil and military officials, and they faintly surrounded the two "green-skinned" officials who looked a little cold. These two middle-level officials are none other than Ji Kun and Huang Zongxi.

Ji Kun was on his way to Shandong, waiting for the official ship to dock - he received the order in Changsha, and then went to Wuhan Mansion to select attachés, and selected some people from the sesame mung bean officials selected by Enke presided over by Huang Zongxi, plus some imperial history guards and Jinyi Wei secret agents, and finally put together a team of the provincial supervision department, which could go to Shandong to be a villain.

Before Ji Kun arrived in Shandong, Zhu Cihong did not send Shandong Province to supervise the imperial history (neither the left nor the right classes were sent), but only sent Denglai Road to supervise the imperial history.

However, the jurisdiction of Shandong Supervision Province (which governs Shandong Province and Huaibei, Xuzhou, and Haizhou, which does not include Denglai Prefecture) is very special, and almost all of them are the territory of warlords.

In Zhu Cihong's court, the work of the imperial historian was anti-corruption - anti-bureaucratic corruption and bribery! The warlords themselves are in charge, what is there to be greedy or not?

Therefore, anyone with a discerning eye knows that Ji Kun must have a special mission when he goes to Shandong!

"Brother Chunfan, you got your wish this time, although you have the name of the imperial history, but in fact you are the minister of Kipchak, patrolling the sky on behalf of the sky!"

Huang Zongxi seemed to be very envious of Ji Kun, but Ji Kun himself just sighed from time to time.

"It's not a true imperial history, but it's still a cool official, when the whip of the prince goes to beat those in Huaibei, Xuhai, and Shandong. But how can those few be easy to deal with? It's not easy to get this errand done! ”

Shi Kefa, Gao Hongtu, Zuo Maodi, Huang Degong and Gao Di are not Zuo Mengeng and the like, Zuo Jiajun's life in the past few years has been too comfortable, and he has lost his fighting spirit, so he can't fight much. And they're on the front lines of the fight against the Tartars!

"How so?" Huang Zongxi said with a smile, "His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is now in full swing, and his hands are about to reach out to Guangdong." ”

Ji Kun smiled: "It is because His Royal Highness the Prince's hand is stretched out that those people north of the Huai River are ready to move...... Up to now, there are only seven model divisions of the new army, and only two independent ironclad cavalry regiments and artillery regiments. With a total of only 1120,000 elite soldiers, how much territory can they control? Now that they are scattered everywhere, their grasp of Huaibei, Xuhai, and Shandong is naturally weak. Otherwise, how could Huang Degong and Gao Jie pinch up? ”

The model division was originally the front division, the rear division, the left division, the middle division, the right division, and the first division, and recently a guards division was added - the number of the guards division first appeared before the battle of Tangjiashan. However, it was soon revoked after the war, and the temporarily incorporated Shaanxi soldiers were also turned into new recruits for retraining, and some of them who could ride and raise horses were turned into cavalry.

In the autumn of the nineteenth year of Chongzhen, the Guards Division was reorganized and became the seventh model division.

At the same time, Spanish light muskets ordered from the Dutch also arrived in large quantities, and various model divisions began to be redressed in large quantities. The eliminated bird guns were equipped with the second-line team.

In addition to the seven model divisions, the Generalissimo's Office also successively formed 28 regiments with a full strength of 2,500 men and 12 infantry regiments reorganized from the cooperation of the Guards.

The equipment and training of these 40 regiments will gradually be the same as those of the front-line regiments that have been incorporated into the model division. It's just that Zhu Cihong can't get enough horses for the cavalry regiment and artillery regiment, so he can't use these regiments to form more divisions - a model division must be equipped with an artillery battalion (with two artillery companies and an engineer company, two of which can be split into four and a half companies with an infantry regiment) and a light cavalry battalion. Therefore, a large number of war horses and horses are needed.

In the absence of horses and the inability to equip three-pounder guns (the cannons of this year were heavier than in the nineteenth century, they had to be horse-drawn, and of course oxen could also be pulled, but oxen were more easily frightened and not suitable for maneuvering on the battlefield), the new army with infantry regiments as a unit did not have a strong field capability, but could be used to defend cities and fortresses - for Zhu Cihong, the number of artillery pieces was not a problem, so he could form many artillery batteries without horse-draws, and even give each infantry regiment one.

And these artillery batteries, which are not very mobile, are not completely immobile, as long as the battlefield is located along a navigable river, they can be transported to the battlefield by boat.

However, it will take a long time to equip all second-line infantry regiments with guns and artillery (without horses), so at present, the new army, which really has strong combat effectiveness, is seven infantry divisions plus four cavalry or artillery regiments.

In this case, Zhu Cihong can't tear his face with the warlords in Huaibei who act as meat shields...... He has progressed to become the emperor, and it is best to get their support, at least to support him.