Bai Wenxuan's 5,000 troops have been stationed in Hongji City in Annam for almost a month, and when he saw Hongji City for the first time, Bai Wenxuan sighed that the world is developing too fast. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Hung Kai City is a port "leased" by Nanyang Company in Annam, and in fact has become the territory of the Ming Dynasty. Outside the port, which later became known as Ha Long Bay, the Nanyang Company built four fortress-like forts, each with two 64-pounder cannons and eight 24-pounder cannons, and four batteries guarded the entrance to Ha Long Bay.

There's no denying the beauty of Ha Long Bay, known as Guilin on the sea, with a curving coastline and fortress-like forts hidden within limestone mountains. In the midst of the dense vegetation, the fortress looms.

For this reason, Bai Wenxuan also took a boat to walk around Halong Bay, and found that this is indeed a beautiful Guilin on the sea.

The boat circled around Halong Bay and returned to the port. Bai Wenxuan stood at the bow of the ship, looking at the port he had just left. It was different from when I came out, I looked outside the port when I came out, and when I came back, I looked inside the port, and then I realized that this is indeed a huge port city.

Huge animal cranes are erected on the wharves of the harbor deep overseas, and donkeys, mules and oxen pull the winch discs and lift the goods from the wharf to the ship by the force of ropes and pulley sets.

The goods transported from here are raw materials and grain, including coal, non-ferrous metal ores, cotton, rice, various fruits and meat products from Annam.

The meat products were produced by Nanyang Company on land borrowed from Annam, and the land around Hongji City was developed. Annam men are lazy, but Annam's women are very diligent. Nanyang hired women to farm and taught them how to grow high-yielding crops such as sweet potatoes and corn. The crops grown are then sent to the farm, and the local women of Annam work in the farm.

The men of Annam were not good at farming and were very lazy, and although Annam had rich land, the harvest of the farmland cultivated by the Annamite people was poor, so their lives were not very good. Now that Nanyang Company has hired Annam women to do things, relying on the diligent Annam women, those men's lives at home are also better.

The women who work on the farm feed pigs, cattle, chickens and ducks with the scraps of crops such as sweet potato leaves and corn stalks. The animals are slaughtered and sent directly to canneries or bacon factories to be made into finished meat and then loaded onto the mainland.

The women who work in the factories are also hired locally in Annam.

Nanyang Company also set up a cigarette factory in Annam, where cigarettes were produced and sold to various parts of Annam, or to Siam and other places, and even many cigarettes were sold to Guangxi by land.

The Nanyang Double Happiness cigarettes produced in Annam are not much different from the Nanyang Double Happiness cigarettes produced in Singapore or Myanmar, and it is difficult to distinguish them in taste.

In fact, the Nanyang Double Happiness Cigarette Factory was also established in Shanghai, and the cigarettes produced were exported to North Korea and the Japanese Kingdom. Cigarettes are a luxury item that is deeply loved by Koreans and Japanese people. At this time, the Nanyang Company sold a small amount of special offerings of the Eight Banners to Korea and the Japanese Kingdom, but the price of the special offerings of the Eight Banners was so expensive that even middle- and upper-level Koreans or ordinary Japanese samurai could not afford to consume them, so they could only consume cigarettes as a mid-grade luxury.

Ships laden with cargo docked at the pier of Hongji City, and animal cranes brought boxes of goods ashore, where they were loaded and sent to various parts of Annam.

Most of the goods delivered to Annam were cotton cloth, glass products, ceramics, iron pots, oil lamps, kitchen knives, coal stoves, silk clothes, wine, and other daily necessities.

Originally, Annam was a subsistence small-scale peasant economy, as was China's, with men farming and women helping in the fields and doing household chores at home, as well as weaving.

However, with the entry of a large number of Nanyang Company's goods, Annam's small-scale peasant economy gradually collapsed, and the original male farmer and female weaver became a woman working for Nanyang Company to make money, and men either went to work in the mines or were recruited into the Nanyang Company's escort team. The people of Annam use the money they earn from their part-time jobs to buy goods.

Bai Wenxuan looked around, only to see a cement paved road to the seaside wharf, and both sides of the cement road were planted with all kinds of beautiful trees, which not only beautified the environment, but also shielded from the scorching sun. On the cement road, locals in Annam pushed carts to deliver truckloads of coal mines and other goods to the wharf.

"The Annanites are lazy, and these Annanites seem to be free people, not slaves, so it's not easy for you to let them work honestly." Bai Wenxuan was very surprised.

Liu Qi smiled: "They are lazy, but we can use carrots and sticks to make them work honestly!" ”

"Carrots and sticks?" Bai Wenxuan was stunned.

"Yes!" Liu Qi nodded, "They are free people, not slaves, of course we can't force them to come." But as long as they come to us to make money, they have to come by our rules. Punch in and out of work every day, and deduct your salary if you're late! Clocking in and out of work, leaving early will deduct wages. Calculate the workload and efficiency when doing things, and deduct wages if you can't reach it. There is a bonus for overcompletion, a bonus for those who have not been deducted from their salary for a month, and a full attendance bonus for a year. ”

"The Annanites are also strange, aren't they lazy? It's good to have women come to work, why do you have to come to work yourself? How unfree is this for them? Bai Wenxuan asked.

Liu Qi smiled and said, "Isn't it for good food, good cigarettes and good wine?" Their women can only earn enough money to cover their family's normal expenses. If they want to eat good food, smoke our cigarettes, and drink our wine, these men have to go out to work in order to earn what they need. ”

It is undeniable that Nanyang Double Happiness brand cigarettes and Wuliangye wine produced by Nanyang Company have a great attraction to Annan men, and they can come out to work and make money for tobacco and alcohol.

"How long are we going to be here? When can troops be sent to Guangxi? After getting off the boat, Bai Wenxuan asked.

"Wait! Wait for our army to enter the territory of Guangdong! You will be able to send troops to Guangxi! However, it is not enough to deal with the Han Eight Banners of Guangxi Guoan, Guangxi also has Sun Yanling, Ma Xiong, Meng Yimao, Hu Tongchun and other Qing troops, and there are more than 8,000 Han Eight Banners in Guangxi alone. Liu Qidao.

"Lian Guoan did not enter Fujian?" Bai Wenxuan asked.

Liu Qidao: "The relationship between Lian Guoan and Monk Kong Sizhen is extremely bad, not only will he not enter Fujian, but when our army enters Guangdong, he will not send troops to Guangdong!" ”

"It's also strange, when the King of Jin destroyed Kong Youde, speaking of which, this Guoan was still Kong Sizhen's savior, how could the relationship be so ossified?" Bai Wenxuan was surprised.

Kong Sizhen is bent on cutting Guoan's military salary, and she has an unclear relationship with Shang Kexi's son. Lian Guoan himself wants to be the king of Dingnan, but now the Dingnan palace is occupied by Kong Sizhen and Sun Yanling. Kong Sizhen was loyal to the Qing court, and naturally he was unwilling to restore the king of Dingnan, so there was a contradiction between them. The military salary received by Lian Guoan was insufficient, so he could only reclaim wasteland in the Nanning area by himself, barely supporting his 8,000 men. Liu Qi said.

"I see! So can we fight for national security? Bai Wenxuan asked.

"Lian Guoan is also loyal to the Qing court, and it is simply impossible for him to take the initiative to surrender to us. We can only surrender if we beat him to the bridle. Liu Qi replied.

The two walked to the training camp of the Nanyang Company's escort team, only to see the shouting and killing in the training camp all day long, and a large number of new recruits of the escort team recruited from Annam were training. These Annam locals wore the red uniforms of the Ming army and wore six-petal iron helmets. Some are trained in cold weapons, others in firearms.

"These Annam people enlisted in the name of joining our escort team, but when you sent troops to Guangxi, as long as they changed their banners, they were Ming troops." Liu Qi said.

The Annam men are lazy, but the level of fighting is not bad, otherwise the little Annam would not have dominated the Indochina Peninsula. Those Annan soldiers are all cannon fodder, but they are all relatively good cannon fodder.

"There are more than 8,000 people recruited locally in Annam, will we be able to suppress them when the time comes?" Bai Wenxuan asked.

Liu Qi replied with a smile: "We don't have many people in Hongji City, but we can transfer people from Luzon and Qiongzhou at any time, and we can send an escort of 5,000 people from these two places. When the flag is changed, it will be the Qiongzhou Army. ”

"So is there enough food and grass for military salaries? We are now fighting on two fronts at the same time, fighting with Hongmaoyi in the south and Tatar in Fujian. If Guangxi goes to war again, it will be a three-front battle! Bai Wenxuan asked.

"In the south, we fight with the Hongmaoyi, and this military expenditure is all from Singapore and Borneo, and we don't need much manpower, and there are Japanese people to help us, whether it is manpower or military supplies. We sent troops in Guangxi, and the military salaries and grain and grass were all obtained here in Annan! Liu Qi said with a smile.

"We are in Annam, just one city, and one city can feed twenty or thirty thousand troops?" Bai Wenxuan exclaimed.

"Don't underestimate Hongji City, not to mention feeding an army of twenty or thirty thousand in this city, even fifty or sixty thousand people are enough! A lot of the food produced in Annam has been provided to us! We just need to exchange the goods. Liu Qidao.

Bai Wenxuan camp, because he has not yet sent troops to Guangxi, the cavalry of the 5,000 Ming army has nothing to do for the time being. On weekdays, in addition to training, they just walk around the city.

"This Annan woman is pretty good." A soldier swallowed as he watched the Annan woman walking down the street.

Another soldier said: "How many years have our brothers been fighting in the north and south, and many of us have not yet had a daughter-in-law!" It would be nice if you could find a daughter-in-law in Annam. ”

"I just don't know if they can understand us." The first soldier sighed.

The second soldier said, "It seems that many Annan women have learned our words. (To be continued.) )