After nightfall, Huang Jinnian also rushed to Lin Xuwen's house to meet Lin Mengde and Zhou Guangnan.

"The war in southern Zhejiang has just ended, and Huiji has won a big victory, which is really reliev......ing" Huang Jinnian passed through the corridor to transfer the household, and when he saw Lin Mengde and Zhou Guangnan, he laughed loudly and looked very excited.

Zhang Xie was the important auxiliary minister of the first emperor, and he also took on the important task of staying behind, and surrendered to the captives without a fight. And no matter how much backbone those Confucian Qingliu have, they regarded Zhang Xie as a scholar in a laughing and chatting, and his son Zhang Xitong did not escape the killing of the wine in the end, and the officials of the Chu Party were naturally hit hard.

Yue Lengqiu, Huang Jinnian, Liu Yefei and other former Chu Party cadres, although they did not ask the new emperor for their crimes, but from time to time there were officials who jumped out to revisit the old things and expose their scars - Huang Jinnian During this time, he was often impeached by the officials in Jiangning, and he was also quite embarrassed.

The Huaidong Army won another victory in Huiji, and the news spread to Jiangning, and the day before yesterday, there were officials who brought up the old matter again and impeached Huang Jinnian, but gave Emperor Yongxing a reprimand on the spot.

There are too many things involved behind the scenes, but after all, there is Huaidong's support behind him, and he has enough confidence, no wonder Huang Jinnian is so happy to see Lin Mengde and Zhou Guangnan coming from Chongzhou today.

"The situation in Huiji is tense, and if we fight again, the situation on the southern front will be visible, and Huaidong can be completely sure?" Huang Jinnian asked.

Lin Mengde smiled: "I'm afraid it's hard to have a big war, but it's hard to say ......."

"Huiji is the land of fish and rice, and the battle is stalemate, so that the benefits of Huiji's grain endowment are not given to the luxury family, which is a big victory for Huaidong," Huang Jinnian listened to Lin Mengde's judgment that it would be difficult to have a big war in eastern Zhejiang in the near future, and was quite puzzled, and said, "If the situation drags on like this, the luxury family will collapse sooner or later...... Are luxury families really willing to lose their accounts? ”

The hinterland of Zhejiang and Fujian is mostly lofty, and most of the arable land is concentrated in the coastal river valley plains. Since two months, the luxury family has lost Yongjia, Taizhou and other coastal counties, and this time the Huaidong army has occupied Huiji City, turning the anointed land between the Cao'e River and the Puyang River into a war zone, and the already overburdened finances of the luxury family will only make matters worse.

This is also the strategy formulated by Lin Jian after the attack on eastern Zhejiang last year: even if he can't directly defeat the luxury family, he must drag down the luxury family.

Now the Zhejiang-Fujian army still has about 1230,000 soldiers and horses in various parts of Zhejiang County, and the war must fill the stomachs of the generals, plus the requisitioning of the people's husbands and the food and transportation consumption of mules and horses, the luxury family has to raise 1 million stone of grain from Zhejiang County every year.

After the loss of the coastal counties of Yongjia and Taizhou, Huiji became a war zone again, and the main grain-producing area controlled by the luxury family in Zhejiang County was only the central valley of Zhejiang with Quzhou Mansion as the core.

Once there is a big shortage of grain in Zhejiang County, it will be transferred from Jin'an, Quanzhou, Jian'an and other places, and transferred through Xianxialing Road, which consumes a huge amount of money on the way, and it is not something that the luxury family can afford at this time.

What's more, leading the troops to fight, the matter is finished before the soldiers have enough to eat, shoes, armor, arrows, wounds, medicine, camp tents, ordnance, mules and horses, there is no place where there is no need to invest money into it - the more frequent the battle, the more intense the consumption.

Huang Jinnian has been serving in the household department for a long time, and this account is extremely finely calculated, and as long as the situation in eastern Zhejiang drags on like this, it will drag on for a year and a half, and the luxury family will definitely not be able to support it, and the main force of soldiers and horses will shrink to the hinterland of eastern Fujian.

And once the luxury family gave up Zhejiang County and shrunk their soldiers and horses to the hinterland of Eastern Fujian, its coastal counties such as Jin'an and Quanzhou were within the scope of the Huaidong Water Camp, and finally could not escape the end of annihilation.

It is precisely because of this idea that Huang Jinnian judged that there would be a war in Huiji in the near future - the anointed land of Huiji is too important for luxury families.

Most people in Jiangning think that the luxury family will not give up Huiji easily, and will inevitably gather a large army to fight a decisive battle with Huaidong in Huiji, which also makes the minds of many people extremely complicated - the situation in eastern Zhejiang is directly related to the safety of Jiangning's periphery, naturally no one wants Huaidong to be defeated, but people like Yue Lengqiu, Chen Xiyan, Yu Xinyuan, Zhang Yan and others, even including the new emperor Yuan Jianwu, no one hopes that the Huaidong army will easily win a big victory.

Among the generals led by Jiang Ning, at this time, no one had a reputation that could surpass Lin Lian.

Regarding Huang Jinnian's doubts, Lin Mengde explained: "According to the judgment of the adult, after the Huaidong army occupies Huiji City, we will have an advantage in eastern Zhejiang, and the Zhejiang-Fujian army has gathered heavy troops in Shanyin and Xiaoshan, so there is no need to forcibly take the city, and the actual strong attack will be extremely difficult, and the casualties will be unimaginable - the Zhejiang-Fujian army was defeated in a hurry, and it has been unable to gather more troops in eastern Zhejiang in a short period of time. There are also nearly 50,000 people-if the Zhejiang-Fujian army really wants to forcibly recapture Huiji, it is expected by adults, but it is actually difficult to achieve their wish......"

"If you can't fight on the Eastern Front, will you fight on the Western Front?" Sun Wenbing asked his guess.

"This is very likely," Lin Mengde said, "but the brain grows on someone else's head, what will the luxury family do next, for the time being, we can only wait and see what happens—saying that the luxury family will collapse, I am worried that Huaidong itself will not be able to support it first, do you know how much military money Huaidong invested in the southern front in half a year?" ”

"How much?" Huang Jinnian asked.

"Nearly 1.4 million taels of silver," Lin Mengde reported a number, seeing that Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian were quite surprised, laughed, and said, "This is still a figure that deducts the casualty pension and local donations, otherwise it will be even more terrifying." ”

Huang Jinnian was born in the household department, he knew that the war was booming, and the silver was spent like flowing water, and he couldn't cover it when he stretched out his hand, Huaidong was under the rule of Lin Bin, the official history was incorruptible, and there were few greedy things, according to Huaidong's garrison on the southern front and the scale of the war, such an expense was also reasonable, but Lin Mengde reported it in person, and he was still shocked.

"Even if this battle will not continue, the expenses of the Huaidong Military Division this year will cost three million taels of silver, right?" Huang Jinnian asked.

"I also have to leave a margin for Huaisi, and I have to raise a total of 3.6 million taels of silver this year, and I have to hope that the luxury family will stop fighting at the meeting," Lin Mengde said, "When I made a plan at the end of last year, I only planned to use 2.6 million taels of silver this year." In this way, there is a big hole missing...... Quang Nam and I have to do everything possible to fill this hole. ”

"One million taels left?" Huang Jinnian asked.

"It's not that bad; If you can raise more, you can also leave some more margin for next year," Lin Mengde said, "Who knows how the war will be fought and how long it will last?" ”

"It's also a loss to have an adult to govern Huaidong, otherwise how can the situation in Jianghuai survive?" Huang Jinnian said with emotion.

Hailing, Huai'an and Mingzhou, under normal circumstances, the taxes and grain that the three prefectures can pay to the national treasury every year are less than one million stones, and Lin Tie uses the land of these three prefectures, but he can support the military expenditure of three or four million taels of silver per year - if it weren't for Lin Tie's good governance of political affairs and the use of the land of the three prefectures, he could produce nearly two million taels of silver more every year, how could he use troops on the Eastern Front and defeat the luxury family one after another? How is it possible to take Huaiyang as the center of gravity and build a solid Huaisi defense line?

Nowadays, there is still a shortage of military funds, and the simplest and most direct way is to borrow from Huaidong Qianzhuang - but Huaidong Qianzhuang is also a chicken that can lay eggs without eating grain.

As of today, Huaidong Qianzhuang has raised more than 6 million taels of silver, a huge amount that Zhou Guangnan and others could not have imagined when they founded it - but this figure seems huge, and in fact it cannot help but spend lavishly. Lin Lian alone borrowed 2 million taels of silver from Qianzhuang in the name of the Huaidong Military Division, and Lin Lian instructed Qianzhuang to vigorously support the construction of Huaidong's factories in various places, such as supporting the mining of various families in the Haidong area, and has been investing 780,000 taels of silver, and the money of Huaidong Qianzhuang is also very tight.

The best way for Qianzhuang to expand the financial resources for accumulating principal is to open semicolons in Jiangning, Weiyang and other places where the rich and wealthy gather. Jiangning is the capital of the new Dingding Emperor, and there are many officials and gentry, needless to say; Weiyang salt merchants gathered, and they accumulated huge wealth.

However, if Huaidong Qianzhuang wants to expand beyond Huaidong, it does not mean that it is enough to simply send a shopkeeper and a man in the past, even if it cannot be taken care of by the local government, it must have a name of justice. Only in this way, if something goes wrong in the future, Huaidong will also have an excuse to interfere through various means.

Jiangning and Weiyang, whether it is Wang Xueshan or Shen Rong, are not friendly to Huaidong, so Lin Mengde and Zhou Guangnan came here to directly obtain the imperial approval of Emperor Yongxing or the Guan Wen of the household department through Lin Xuwen and Huang Jinnian, so that Wang Xueshan, Shen Rong and other officials who are not good to Huaidong can directly bypass.

"Of course, this is still superficial," Lin Mengde said, "Take the original words of the adult: you can't just think about using force to control more places, in fact, to control a region, the penetration of other means will be more effective, and force is only the last resort to be used...... Originally, Huaidong could not directly collect taxes from Weiyang and Jiangning, but in fact, Huaidong dumped 400,000 taels of silver in cotton yarn and cotton cloth into Weiyang and Jiangning last year alone. Even if the profits of the workshops under the jurisdiction of the Huaidong Military Division are not counted, from the dumping of cotton yarn and cotton cloth, the Huaidong Military Division directly received nearly 40,000 taels of silver in gold income. In addition, almost all of the iron-smelting workshops in Jiangning are now controlled for the production of ordnance, but Jiangning was established as the imperial capital at the beginning, and the dignitaries and nobles were busy building Huawu and spacious houses, and the consumption of iron and wood was very high, and the price of inferior iron also had copper. In the first five months of this year alone, the metallurgical supervision under the direct jurisdiction of the Huaidong Military Department dumped 1 million catties of iron materials into Jiangning and Weiyang, worth 140,000 taels of silver -- these revenues can be regarded as the contributions made by Jiangning and Weiyang to Huaidong......"

"So many?" Huang Jinnian asked in surprise, he was still quite unfamiliar with Huaidong's mode of operation, and the path opened up by Lin Tie suddenly expanded his horizons, which he had never thought of as a self-proclaimed proficient in supporting things.

"If you don't have this income, how can you support an adult so big!" Lin Mengde said.

"That's right," Huang Jinnian smiled and said, "Huaidong's military expenses this year will reach 3.6 million taels of silver, and will it get 5 million taels of silver next year?" The military funds allocated by Jiangning's side are a little more than this on the surface, but I am afraid that the actual use will not be five million taels of silver! Don't look at those military achievements, just from the perspective of silver, Huaidong is on an equal footing with Jiangning......"

“…… Uncle Mengde is still complaining here, if it weren't for these methods of Old Seventeen, where would Huaidong raise all this silver," Lin Xuwen smiled in response, and said, "There is also the matter of Qianzhuang, which can be used as a sharp weapon - don't say that there are still many people in Jiangning City who are quite 'backbone' scolding Huaidong, but I heard Wen Bing say that many people heard that depositing silver in Qianzhuang can eat money and interest, which is more convenient than buying land and collecting rent, and the conversation began to change...... In Weiyang and Jiangning, they are guided by the situation, and in eastern Zhejiang, they are all the best strategies for surrendering without a fight! ”

At present, Huaidong does not have the possibility of directly controlling Weiyang, Pingjiang, Danyang, Hangzhou, Huzhou, Jiaxing and other places, and the strategy that can be adopted is to weaken the military strength of these places, and then infiltrate and control them through soft means such as trade and money.

In the end, it is necessary to achieve the goal that even if Huaidong cannot directly send troops to garrison these areas, it is necessary to make these areas economically vassals of Huaidong, so that Huaidong can continuously extract money, grain, and resources from these areas through soft means such as trade, and even win over and support a group of local forces that identify with Huaidong in these places.