When Chen Kai mentioned this, Zheng Xiyuan certainly understood what his husband was referring to. This offensive was originally Chen Kai's choice to strike first in response to the war situation after Li Dingguo entered Yunnan. He relied on his own strong soft and hard skills.

With strength, Chen Kai did achieve his original strategic goal - to regain the southern Jiangxi region.

However, after Hong Chengchou's operation, Chen Kai did control more than half of the government's territory, but not only will he return to the dilemma of fighting on two fronts, but he will also face a more severe internal and external situation.

And if he does not fall for this deception, the initiative in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions will completely fall into the hands of Hong Chengchou, and the strategic situation in the next few years will become even worse.

Chen Kai had to choose the lesser of two harms, but writing this light word may not be much better than the heavy word. However, this was a choice he had to make.

"Husband, what should be done next?"

"What else can I do? Just take it one step at a time." Lying slumped on the recliner, Chen Kai said this with helplessness written all over him.

This path is not what Chen Kai wants to take, at least it is not his original plan. Chen Kai is not very confident about what should happen next. However, he has always believed in the saying "

"You have to be strong to make iron", the resources he has now are much stronger than before. When more unknowns appear in the future, his first reaction is to try to continue to enhance his own strength in order to

Whatever remains unchanged should be subject to change.

The rest time only lasted until dawn the next day. After the war, Chen Kai should have rested and recuperated, but Chen Kai quickly returned to work. The first step was to sit down in the office room and review the documents that needed his understanding and approval.

, in order to understand as quickly as possible what changes have occurred on the ground in Guangdong during the four months he was away on the expedition.

In four months, it spanned from the ninth year of Yongli to the tenth year of Yongli. First of all, in terms of taxes, the tax reduction and exemption policies in some areas are about to end. These policies were originally intended to realize the trauma caused by the eight years of Yongli war.

of healing work.

In fact, as early as the autumn tax in the ninth year of Yongli, the tax reductions and exemptions for the eastern counties of Guangzhou and Huizhou Prefecture have ended. It is now March. According to the Ming Dynasty autumn tax collection regulations, which cannot be collected in February of the next year, these areas are different from

The two places, Chaozhou Prefecture and Qiongzhou Prefecture, which were previously controlled by the Zheng Group, were treated equally.

However, the tax reduction and exemption has just ended, and the difficulties in collection will not disappear with a piece of official document. Everyone has selfish motives, and if they can escape, there will always be people who try to do so. Therefore, when the tax collection work begins, Guangdong cloth

Political envoy Wang Jiang has been paying close attention to the progress of the collection work in those areas.

"Fifty percent..."

When it comes to collecting taxes, it is extremely difficult to collect 10% of the total, because it will inevitably involve various phenomena such as contributions, tax avoidance, evasion, and tax evasion. Even if it is based on the examination law, local

Those who collect less than 90% of the official tax will be punished. The tax exemption in these areas has just ended, but Wang Jiang's bottom line for tax collection is only 50%. Naturally, there are considerations for the inevitable occurrence of tax evasion, but

In more aspects, it is still a compromise.

"After the war, local acres were undercultivated, which was inevitable even after half a year of tax reduction and exemption. For this reason, in order to complete the examination quota, local officials will inevitably allocate the taxes payable on the abandoned fields to ordinary people. Yes.

Therefore, the official believes that the tax collection of the newly recovered land should be slow rather than urgent, and the priority should be to effectively restore people's livelihood, rather than chasing short-term tax revenue and damaging the foundation of people's livelihood..."

Wang Jiang wrote clearly in the report. Chen Kai read it carefully, put it aside for the time being, and dug out the autumn tax collection report of the ninth year of Yongli from among the documents. He roughly estimated the collection status in these areas.

There is an unevenness, but roughly speaking, it is about 50%, it is just that some places have more and some places have less.

According to normal logic, the greater the situation of strategic confrontation, the more resources are needed to strengthen the army, thereby increasing the chance of winning the Qing counterattack.

This has been the case since the Southern Ming Dynasty and the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Civilians collected taxes forcefully, and vassal towns turned the people into armies and used the guard system to serve as serfs. For example, Sun Kewang turned the whole province of Guizhou into military camps to maintain

The supply of food and fodder to the more than 100,000 troops of the Western Camp. Even as early as the beginning of the Liao Dynasty, the Liao pay played by the Ming court, as well as the continuous increase of Liao pay and the subsequent suppression of pay and training pay, were the result of the murder of the Hou Jin Dynasty and the Qing court.

This is the principle of killing the rich, killing the poor, and extorting money. After all, people need to eat to survive, and the army will disperse without food. This is the ideal of military strategists.

It was not that Wang Jiang had not mentioned the suggestion to Chen Kai at the beginning, but at that time Chen Kai was busy planning the war to regain southern Jiangxi, so he just dealt with it at his own discretion and let Wang Jiang play freely.

Now it seems that Wang Jiang did not regard these as the same thing at all. Instead, he chose to continue to reduce taxes in a disguised manner. This is indeed an inevitable weakening of Guangdong's military food and salary reserves, especially under Chen Kai

After having just mobilized a large army to engage in such a level of battle with the Qing army, the warehousing situation in various prefectures and counties in Guangdong seemed so out of place compared with the reality that tax collection would still have to wait until this summer.

"Short-term benefits or long-term development, this is probably Wang Jiang."

Chen Kai remembered that someone had mentioned to him some things about the Ming army in Dalan Mountain. Among them, Wang Yi and Wang Jiang's "sustainable development" formed a clear situation in which the anti-Qing movements in various places used all their efforts to compete with the Qing court.

Comparison. Now, it seems that Wang Jiang is transplanting the spirit of the past to Guangdong. Whether it is conscious or unconscious, it is actually contrary to the normal thinking mode.

The autumn taxation of the ninth year of Yongli is already like this. This is a fait accompli, and Chen Kai has no intention of creating any complications. The key is the summer taxation of the tenth year of Yongli. If it is still carried out in this state of levy and suppression, under the current situation of the army

Now that Guangdong has entered a two-front war situation, the supply of military rations and salaries is bound to be stretched.

Next, Chen Kai put aside other documents and reports, and concentrated on Wang Jiang's report on the autumn tax of the ninth year of Yongli. At the same time, he asked people to bring in earlier records, such as the Qing court's control

The tax records of these prefectures and counties, as well as the income and expenditure records of the past year or so. Just like this, I kept tossing until the afternoon, and I didn't even bother to eat lunch, and finally re-calculated all the figures.

I figured it out.

"If I had known earlier, I should have let Wang Jiang do it himself. I'm really out of my mind."

In terms of income and expenditure, Wang Jiang has always done well, but Chen Kai spends money like water and has no idea of ​​thrift. Fortunately, Chen Kai's lavishness will always benefit this group, this army, this dynasty, and this nation.

There are more or less benefits, and the capital invested is basically earned in the end. It is nothing more than the difference between earning more and earning less, earning earlier and earning later.

Wang Jiang did not write the numbers clearly in the report, but he said that he had calculated them, so he dared to put down the courage to do it. Chen Kai wrote the vertical calculation and calculated it again, and indeed got more accurate numbers.

, but time was wasted on work that is enough for an accountant. The moment the calculation was completed and the actual figures were obtained, Chen Kai was suddenly speechless for a while.

"According to the original expectations for this year, this should be enough. However, the war situation has changed. Now we are attacked on two fronts. Not only the normal expenditure is even greater, it is likely that more resources will need to be spent to do more things.

, can we continue to ensure the continuation of the counterattack. In other words, the plan cannot keep up with the changes."

Chen Kai doesn't know how much of the difference there is. However, fortunately, both armies are subsidized by the Zheng Group, but the Zheng Group also collects royalties in Hong Kong and South Australia, which means that Guangdong

The market revenue will inevitably decrease.

Increasing subsidies needs to be discussed carefully by Zheng Chenggong. By the way, there are other things that need to be discussed clearly at once. Chen Kai is still waiting for the news. Once he is sure that no new war will break out for the time being, he will

You can set off to meet Zheng Chenggong. The location is of course still on Nan'ao Island. It is where they started and it is the middle point between the two provinces, so it is the most suitable place.

These would take time, but regarding the issue of summer tax collection, Chen Kaisi decided to send someone to invite Wang Jiang to have a good discussion. After all, there was a lot involved, and Wang Jiang's chief envoy Si Yamen was far away.

The governor's office is not far away either.

The meeting quickly took place in Chen Kai's official room. Wang Jiang came well prepared and persuaded Chen Kai without much effort. In his words, the army now has subsidies for military food and salary from the Zheng Group.

The most important expenditure does not put too much pressure on Guangdong's finances. There are indeed many places that really need to spend money, but compared with long-term recovery, it is still worth sacrificing limited benefits for this.

"What you said makes so much sense, I'm speechless."

Chen Kai joked with a smile, in fact, Chen Kai already had a relatively strong tendency before he found Wang Jiang. What was more important here was that Wang Jiang put down the decisive weight on the scale.

The matter came to an end for the time being, and Chen Kai turned over another report sent by the Chief Envoy Si Yamen. It was about Wang Jiang's initiative during the slack season last year that Guangzhou and Huizhou governments should learn from Chaozhou's advanced experience and convert ordinary farmland into mulberry trees.

Compound agriculture such as fish ponds and rice field fish farming can be used to increase production, and following the example of Fujian's large-scale planting of sweet potatoes in the 9th year of Yongli era, the situation of grain production in Guangdong Province has been further improved.

Compared with tax reductions and exemptions, this is undoubtedly a good thing, because there are already successful precedents in Chaozhou and Fujian. Whether it is the increase in grain production in Chaozhou, the development of the breeding industry, or the alleviation of grain shortages in Fujian, it is

There are many places where we can learn from experience.

There is no need to cross the river by feeling the stones like in Chaozhou and Fujian. It stands to reason that the development here in Guangzhou will be more rapid. But the fact is exactly the opposite. During the slack season last year, the people of Guangzhou and Huizhou responded to this

He behaved very coldly and lacked the enthusiasm of Chaozhou and Fujian people at all.

"The Di newspaper that Kuang Zhanruo is responsible for has been focusing on promoting Master Wang's achievements these days. There is very little space on the three aspects of mulberry fish ponds, fish farming in rice fields and sweet potato cultivation."

New things inevitably lead to incomprehension due to unfamiliarity. In this regard, in fact, mulberry fish ponds and fish farming in rice fields are not too new in Guangzhou. In fact, the familiarity is better than that in Chaozhou before.

Otherwise, there would not have been a large number of Chaozhou people hiring Guangzhou people who were temporarily living in Chaozhou.

However, what Wang Jiang mentioned here is indeed true. The army's recapture of southern Jiangxi was the largest strategic operation carried out by the Ming army after the counterattack in the eighth year of Yongli. Moreover, this time it was not as good as the previous one.

The offensive was launched by Chen Kai in cooperation with Li Dingguo. Chen Kai was the initiator and leader, assisted by the Zheng Group's partial forces. Kuang Lu naturally wanted to write a big book about it, not only to strengthen Guangdong

The people's confidence in Chen Kai was more important for the stability of the place after the army went out for battle.

Kuang Lu's approach was justified, and Wang Jiang did not criticize it too much. In comparison, Chen Kai became a victim of the disaster, and he couldn't laugh or cry.

"Last year during the slack season, the army went out and recruited a large number of civilian men. Not to mention the lack of civilian manpower, many people couldn't even get together with their families during the Spring Festival, let alone have the energy to take care of these things."

This is the reality. Wang Jiang did not say what Chen Kai meant when he said it, but just stated a fact. Chen Kai can agree with this point. After all, this is still an agricultural society, and the amount of manpower plays an important role in production.

What plays a decisive role is not like the Second World War in later generations, where men went to war. In cities and rural areas, women can operate machinery to ensure production. Since so much people's power has been used, it is inevitable that other aspects cannot be taken into account.

"In the next period of time, as long as Hong Chengchou does not owe money, I will still tend to digest the territory in southern Gansu and further resume production."

He said this with a smile, seemingly to comfort him, but in fact it was more of an attitude towards the future direction of development. Wang Jiang could also understand this point.

After the Ming army's major counterattack in the eighth year of Yongli reign, they lost two provinces in one breath, making the Qing government's defense line in the southeast extremely fragile. It is undeniable that they did invest a huge number of soldiers and formed one army after another.

Troops came to defend these areas. However, this line of defense was too long. Even with Hong Chengchou's talent, with the help of the Changsha shogunate, he could not stop Chen Kai's breakthrough to southern Gansu.

Today, there is still a pattern of strategic confrontation, but a hole has been poked in Hong Chengchou's long border. However, Hong Chengchou used various means to capture the city of Wuzhou, giving the Qing army a relatively large advantage on the battlefield in Guangxi.

, and better realized the strategic barrier to the east and west Ming armies. However, it was penetrated by Chen Kai at the most critical node, and the Qing court's strategic situation was even worse than last year. In this regard,

Wuzhou cannot offset it at all.

At this stage, the Qing army must still try to ensure its defense, and wait until it has accumulated enough strength to launch a counterattack against the Ming army. During this period, as long as the Ming army does not jump out and mess around, they will not have the leisure for a while. But

After this, the Qing army's next attack is bound to be a thunderous one.

Chen Kai has entrusted all civil affairs affairs to Wang Jiang, and it is natural for Wang Jiang to lead the post of Chief Envoy of Guangdong. However, Chen Kai still needs to discuss relevant matters with Zheng Chenggong in the newly recovered southern Gansu.

Important military and political matters cannot be explained clearly in one or two sentences.

The matters that needed to be discussed with Zheng Chenggong were too complicated, and Chen Kai had to continue to wait for the development of events in southern Jiangxi and western Guangdong. The latter undoubtedly delayed the meeting between Chen Kai and Zheng Chenggong, but as Chen Kai and Zheng Chenggong

Wang Jiang's conversation was in progress, and before the next shift came, a letter was delivered by horse to Chen Kai's case, and the delay had to disappear on its own.
Chapter completed!