The caravan slowly moved north, and Li Xin looked at the pack horse carts a little distracted. The guide didn't know why, so he casually told the origin of these merchant convoys.

"General, these are all caravans in our Shanxi, in addition to the border wall of Zhangjiakou Fort from Wanquanwei, there is also a way to go to Xin'an Fort in our town."

Li Xin nodded and did not respond. The guide was a little embarrassed by the hot face sticking to the cold buttocks, and muttered to himself in his heart, along the way, this chief soldier of the third grade of the official residence was polite to himself, why did he suddenly become cold? Could it be that what sentence offended the commander-in-chief?

Li Xin just thought of a key question and became obsessed, and it was the guide himself who thought about it. The guide is a local military household, his mind is relatively simple, and he is a person who wants to be faced, and he has been serving the chief soldier for a whole day.

"General, look at that flag, it's the Fan family's caravan, and five out of ten of the caravans that pass through our town every year belong to their Fan family." The guide pointed behind him again, his voice slightly surprised. "Hey, that's the Huang family's convoy, didn't it just pass a few days ago, why did you go out of the mouth again?" As he spoke, he put the hand that was scratching the hair between his sideburns behind his head again, his voice still full of doubt. "Seeing the end of the year, the caravans were closed at this time in previous years, how can they go more often today than in the last autumn?"

"Do you know what kind of goods these caravans are carrying?"

Li Xin finally spoke, and the guide became excited.

"Salt, iron, tea, and grain are all things that are in short supply. However, since the Chongzhen Dynasty, there have been more and more grains and iron......"

As the guide spoke, his eyes looked at Li Xin's eyes, and he saw that the cold light in his eyes made people shudder, and although he was wearing a thick suede sheepskin jacket, he still shivered heavily, and he was suddenly frightened and did not dare to continue to make noise.

Li Xinyi held the handle of the Yanling knife at his waist tightly with both hands, and he had an urge to immediately lead people across the Yanhe River and stop all these people. However, another voice kept reminding him in his head that he was still unstable in the town guard when he first arrived, and he must not act rashly and make extraneous branches. For a long time, the hand, which had turned red from too much force, left from the hilt of the Yanling knife.

"Let's go, it's getting dark, let's go back to the city!"

Li Xin knew that most of these caravans were the Jin merchants who were famous in later generations, and the so-called Eight Yellow Merchants of the Qing Dynasty originated here. In the name of mutual trade, these merchants sent pig iron and grain to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which lacked strategic materials outside the Guan. With pig iron, they could craft more weapons that could be used to slaughter the Ming army and civilians. With food, they could feed more Eight Banner armor soldiers and provide sufficient soldiers for the invasion of the Ming Dynasty.

Merchants are heavy profits, and war money is more convenient, so these merchants do traitorous things in the name of trade, and even do not hesitate to become the logistics transport team of the Manchu Eight Banners, they seized the opportunity of the war between the Ming Dynasty and the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and took the opportunity to control most of the transactions with the Manchu and Mongolian armies, and even became the world-famous Manchu imperial merchants after the Manchu Qing seized the world.

Of course, becoming an imperial merchant is a later story, and now they are still sending a steady stream of strategic materials to the customs outside the customs like ants moving.

The Fan family in the guide's mouth must be the famous traitor Fan Yongdou family in the history of the Jin Dynasty. At the end of the year, the transportation of materials is still being stepped up, which can only show one problem. In the current Manchu Qing Dynasty, materials must have been scarce to the extreme. In particular, Dolgon and Yue Tuo broke through the border this time, and did not bring back a large number of people and animal materials as expected. The grass valley was not completed, and the crisis of lack of materials became even more severe, and the only way to alleviate it was to export to the market by Jin merchants.

It seems that there will be no shortage of caravans passing through Zhenwei this winter, and an idea is forming in Li Xin's mind.

"Drive!"

The war horses then galloped quickly on the snow, and the sunset in the west was getting darker and darker, pulling out a long shadow of a whole group of cavalry, reflected on the south bank of the Yan River, Li Xin now had an urgent matter to deal with.

Just now, the soldiers who went to Gao Shan Wei and Yang He Wei to deliver the letter brought back bad news. Gao Shanwei's commander politely refused Li Xin's request on the grounds that it was cold in winter and the onset of cold illness. The commander of Yang Hewei was even more straightforward, directly informing the soldier who sent the letter and asking him to return to Li Xin, and Yang Hewei was subordinate to the Shanxi Xingdu Division, and there was no precedent for directly obeying the orders of the general army. Besides, the Sanwei General Soldier is a third-grade military attaché, and the Wei Commander is also a third-grade military attaché, no matter in terms of authority and grade, Yang and Wei have no reason to obey the orders of the Sanwei General Military Mansion!

Commander Yang Hewei was so arrogant that it was tantamount to slapping Li Xin's face hard, and it seemed that the shape was far less optimistic than he had estimated when he first left the capital. Although Li Xin was anxious, he could only eat one bite at a time, and the road could only be walked step by step. If you want Gao Shan, Yang and Liangwei to be willing to listen to the tune, you have to pack up the town guards first.

When he returned to the Weisi Yamen, Qian Tai came to see Li Xin in a hurry. told the rumors all over the place, and euphemistically raised his worries. Li Xin suddenly laughed, he clarified that the military household was of course not for the land, but for another purpose, as a time-traveler in the 21st century, his eyes had long been out of the land.

"Governor Qian is too worried, even if you go to refute the rumors, Li Xin will never force the military households to have an inch of land!"

Qian Tai got Li Xin's permission, and a big stone in his heart finally landed, and he was afraid that Li Xin's real purpose was to take the land. If this is the case, the task of sorting out the land will be made a hundredfold more difficult, even to the point that it will have to be forced, which is not what he wants. If Gu Tong is set up in such an extreme way, once Li Xin leaves office in the future, it is difficult to guarantee that no one will take advantage of this matter to play on him.

This is to leave hidden dangers, the cost is too great, Qian Tai has even prepared for the worst, as long as Li Xin has the slightest hint, he is ready to persuade him with an incorruptible tongue.

The matter of refuting the rumors was finalized, and Qian Tai relaxed and pulled a few words with Li Xin.

"What does the general think of the scenery of this town? If you change the day to be the general's guide, walk the mountains and rivers here, although it is not a place of interest, but the mountains and mountains also have a unique momentum! ”

Even if Li Xindang understood Qian Tai's misunderstanding of the purpose of what he did during the day, he smiled and didn't explain, is this a tactful persuasion? He's starting to like the money a little bit, and sometimes, the first impression isn't always accurate.

"The town guards the mountains and rivers, but unfortunately if the external troubles are not eliminated, there will be no peace for a day. Li still has a question, although the flat land here is wide, it seems that there is not much land for farming, I don't know why? ”

Qian Tai sighed softly.

"It's not that there have been years of war, and the original ones have been abandoned. In addition, there are few dingkou, even if a large area of wasteland is opened, it can't be planted! ”

"How does the yield compare to the mountains, the sun? It must be a lot higher! ”

Qian Tai suddenly realized that Li Xin went out of the city not to play, but to inspect the cultivated land, and he couldn't help but praise him in his heart, because he looked down on him.

"What the general said is not bad, the grain produced by our Zhenwei in a year, Gao Shan, Yang and the sum of them can't catch up."

The area where Zhenyuwei is located is a large plain in the mountains, and it can be seen at a glance that it was formed by the alluvium of the Yan River for thousands of years, and the land is fertile. In ancient times, this kind of transportation was inconvenient, and the loss of grain transportation was great, so the first thing to do was to garrison the troops. When the spring of next year begins, we can find ways to increase grain production again, which can also greatly reduce our dependence on foreign materials.

In addition to food, Li Xin also selected the site for his first batch of factories, and if he wanted to train a musketeer, he had to have the ability to produce a steady stream of muskets. Although the quality of the muskets in the Ming Dynasty was not bad, the models were different, and the production capacity was low. Coupled with long-distance transportation, the high cost is scary. But self-production is different, it is convenient and fast, and it can be improved at any time for problems that arise in use.

The problem that has been entangled in Li Xin has been the problem of power, but today, when he went out of the city to explore, he found that the Yan River has a large amount of water, which can provide enough power in spring, summer and autumn, and even build a small dam to irrigate farmland.

During this day, all kinds of ideas came to mind. However, the most important problem at the moment is the arsenal, which must be mentioned on the agenda, although it is the middle of winter and the snow is frozen, but the first thing to start is to find an experienced ironworker.

"Do we have an ironworker?"

Just talking about the land problem, Li Xin suddenly jumped on the ironwork again, and Qian Tai couldn't keep up with the rhythm.

"There are a lot of ironworkers in the military household, and the weapons in the border town guard are all made by them!"

Li Xin clapped his hands and smiled: "Great, how many ironworkers are there in our town guard, and I also bother to ask Governor Qian to count the numbers when he goes back, and give me the results tomorrow." ”

Qian Taiying should be, but he was puzzled in his heart, could it be that the chief soldier wanted to build farm tools? However, our town guards lack people and money, but there is no shortage of farm tools. Besides, the construction of farm tools can be solved by the military household itself, so why bother the general military government to come forward? After thinking about it, he still asked his doubts.

"I don't know ...... general assembles the ironworkers?"

Li Xin didn't intend to hide it from him, so he informed him of his initial thoughts, after all, he needed to be a local to take the lead in preparing for the construction of the arsenal.

"The General Military Office is going to build an arsenal by the Yan River to produce muskets and armor."

Chantai was curious about the term arsenal and dismissive of the production of muskets. The musket is time-consuming and laborious to build, but it is not very useful in battle, and after a round of guns is released, it has to be charged with real swords and guns......

Leaving Li Xin's station, Qian Tai had a new understanding of this Sanwei commander-in-chief, this person really wanted to do something practical, and he was often in a hurry, and many ideas were a little unrealistic, but he was not good at telling him.

In the darkness, Qian Tai sighed lightly and cleared his head of many chores. Now, he is only going all out for one thing, sorting out the military households, and then overthrowing Gu Tong.