One of the very important reasons why the Xuanfu army and horses under Zhang Cheng have strong combat effectiveness is that they often have meat to eat. If they eat well, they will have enough strength, and they will naturally be brave.
In today's Ming Dynasty, if we only talk about the generous treatment of sergeants, the Xuanfu army ranks first among all the armies of the Ming Dynasty. Even the servants of the generals in various places can hardly compare with the food of the Xuanfu sergeants.
After all, all the systems in Zhang Cheng's army are very complete. There are clear rules for marching, camping, woodcutting, etc. Especially for the meals of the sergeants, the system is complete, and there must be meat every three days.
However, now that they have come all the way to Liaodong to participate in the war, the heavy logistics and transportation pressure is a big problem.
In this era, even the best bacon can only be stored for about seven or eight days in such hot weather, and no more than ten days at most.
There is another way, which is to transport fresh pigs and sheep to the front line of Liaodong. However, the mainland of Ming Dynasty is suffering from the ravages of rogue bandits, and it has not yet completely recovered from the pain of plunder by Tartar bandits.
What's more, the population in Henan, Shandong, Ji'nan and other places is now depleted, natural disasters continue to occur, and there is also a major disaster of plague. Where can we find those many pigs and sheep to transport to the front line?
Another one is a new product developed by Xuanbei Yunzhou Workshop-meat porcelain can!
These meat porcelain jars are actually fired porcelain jars filled with fresh meat. Each meat porcelain jar can hold about five kilograms of fresh meat. Once sealed, it can be stored for a long time.
Cans have been around for a long time in this era, and they are not high-tech.
There is a record in "Qimin Yaoshu": "Cut the livestock meat into pieces, add salt and wheat flour, mix well, mix well, and seal the head with mud inside the porcelain."
This is actually the canned food in ancient times, and it can also preserve food for a long time, so there is no technical threshold at all, it is mainly a matter of marketing.
Meat porcelain jars are expensive and not ordinary families can afford them. However, those rich families rarely buy meat porcelain jars. If they want to eat meat, they can just slaughter pigs and sheep by themselves, and they can still eat them.
Fresh.
But ordinary people would rather keep some bacon or cured meat at home, which can also be stored for a long time and is relatively cheaper.
Therefore, although there is the technology to make meat porcelain cans, due to marketing problems, there are few workshops that make and sell them.
It was only after Zhang Cheng returned from the Henan aid campaign that he learned that the Yunzhou workshop had begun trial production of meat porcelain cans. Judging from the several batches of test products produced here, the longest one had been stored for three months.
It hasn't spoiled yet, it's just a little salty.
Since he was about to enter Liaodong, Zhang Cheng did not wait for the final test conclusion to come out. He directly asked the military ration preparation workshop in Yunzhou to immediately start production according to the originally planned canned meat formula with the longest shelf life in preparation for Liaodong.
Necessary for war.
Although it is said that under emergency conditions, one can work overtime and produce a batch of canned meat porcelain, but after all, there is no reserve, and the quantity is always limited due to temporary production.
When Zhang Cheng led his army to leave Xuanfu, he only had more than 3,000 meat porcelain cans, which were transported to Liaodong along with the army's baggage.
A few days ago, colleagues from the Xuanbei Business Gang organized another long-distance transportation. In addition to some medicinal materials, gunpowder, and lead, more than 4,800 newly produced meat porcelain cans were also transported to Liaodong.
Compared with some of the jerky and meat floss previously sold by Zhang Chengjun, these porcelain meat jars are more popular, but due to insufficient quantity, they are not open to supply.
Only on the first and fifteenth day of each month were some cans of meat porcelain opened to improve the food for the soldiers, but usually they still used the previously stored dried meat and cured meat as meat.
This is considered to be considerate of the subordinates. After all, the other armies in Liaodong are not even guaranteed meat. Even the elite servants under their command have to find ways to spend money to get some meat from outside.
Just say that after Zhang Cheng's meat porcelain jars appeared, many servants from other armies collected money privately, and then begged their respective superiors to come forward to ask for help in the Xuanfu army. They bought some meat porcelain jars privately and went back to improve them secretly.
Damn!
However, the supply of meat porcelain jars in Zhang Cheng's army was also insufficient, so the quantity put on the market was even rarer, because Zhang Cheng also had to pay filial piety to Hong Chengchou, Zhang Ruoqi, and Qiu Min. Although they had nothing to ask for, it was not a bad thing to have personal relationships with them.
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And even if colleagues from the Xuanbei Merchant Gang vigorously mobilize their forces in various places to participate in the transportation of baggage, they can also use this to lay out their own commercial networks in Gyeonggi and Liaodong.
But after all, it was thousands of miles away, and it took them three to five months to organize such a long-distance transportation, which was simply unable to meet the needs of the huge number of Xuanfu Army officers and soldiers.
Therefore, Zhang Cheng set his sights on the sea fish here!
The ocean is the largest treasure house of resources in the world, but in this era, people's utilization efficiency of the ocean is really too low.
Take the sea fish at this time as an example. No matter how many sea fish the coastal fishermen caught, they did not have the preservation technology and means of later generations.
Especially in the summer, when they often go to sea for a day or two, they will become smelly and spoiled. They cannot be used for trading or selling, nor can they be stored for food.
Therefore, most of the fishermen along the coast are very poor. It can be said that they are guarding their golden mountains and begging for food!
In the inland areas, fresh fish are very valuable, so one is expensive and the other is cheap, which is a sharp contrast.
It was in view of this that Zhang Cheng suddenly had an idea. He recalled some information about dried fish that he had accidentally seen in later generations, and proposed a method of making it.
That is to remove the internal organs from the fresh fish, boil it in a large pot, and then dry it in the sun. The processed dried fish is easy to store and can be stored for at least one or two months even in the hot summer.
This is very similar to the canning method of later generations, or the processing method of meat porcelain cans at this time. It just uses local materials and is much simpler and more convenient to make.
As soon as this method came out, it immediately caused a great sensation in the area around the river mouth.
You should know that although there was some dried fish production in the coastal areas at this time, the fresh fish caught were directly placed on fishing boats to be dried, and there was no large-scale fish drying place or fixed output.
Moreover, after such dried fish is produced, it cannot be stored for long in the hot summer. In addition, its color is not good, and it is prone to insects and other problems.
If you want to preserve dried fish for a long time, you need to use a lot of salt.
In this era, salt is very expensive, so how can those poor fishermen be willing to use it on a large scale?
Even if some businessmen have the financial resources, if people buy dried fish with salt, they can eat meat and eat salt at the same time. This not only conflicts with the government's salt policy, but also offends the huge salt merchant interest groups.
If someone dares to do it, I'm afraid in the end, they won't even know how they died!
Therefore, for thousands of years, although coastal fishermen have guarded the treasure mountain, they have been struggling on the edge of poverty, and the huge and rich marine resources have never been fully utilized.
Although the method proposed by Zhang Cheng now sounds simple, it also involves the same risks, except that he has gathered in the governor, the commander-in-chief of the army, the governor of Liaodong, and the generals of the various towns in Liaodong.
In this way, with officials such as Hong Chengchou, Zhang Ruoqi, and Qiu Minyang, and the protection of the generals such as Wu Sangui, Wang Pu, Chen Jiugao, etc., even if they offend some interest groups, they still have to think carefully.
After all, the top ten generals gathered in Liaodong are the last and strongest force of the Ming Dynasty. What kind of interest group dares to take action against them at this time?
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Just imagine if the method of making dried fish proposed by Zhang Cheng could be vigorously promoted.
Not only does it allow large-scale coastal aquatic products to enter the inland, countless fishermen here can make a living and have enough to eat, but it can also support countless people. At least the people on the coast, in times of famine, it is better to eat fish than to eat bark, grass and roots.
Okay?
Of course, many people could not imagine this huge and great historical significance at this time.
In fact, at the beginning, Zhang Cheng just wanted to use this to alleviate the demand for meat in his army, but he did not expect that the Xuanbei merchants had such a keen sense of smell and immediately saw the huge business opportunities contained in it.
In the Ming Dynasty, it was very difficult to raise pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, and cattle. After all, due to technical limitations, there was nothing that could be done about livestock and poultry diseases.
Now, except for Zhang Cheng's implementation of collective farm methods in Xuanbei and large-scale centralized feeding, farmers in other places still raise their own free-range animals, and the number is very limited.
However, the marine fish resources in this era can be said to be endless. Although there is a fish season, there is obviously no shortage of huge and abundant fish resources.
Think about it, how much profit is there from the huge amount of dried fish produced every year?
Not to mention anything else, in Liaodong alone, the hundreds of thousands of Ming troops currently stationed require an astronomical amount of dried fish.
Yang Wanjin, the owner of the security guard Shunlongchang Cattle and Horses Store, and Xu Qingyi, the owner of Sihai Car Dealer in Dushikou, were in Songshan at this time. They were transporting baggage to the Jinzhou front line on behalf of the Xuanbei Merchant Gang.
At this time, the two of them visited Zhang Cheng in person and expressed their wishes on behalf of the Xuanbei Merchant Gang. They were willing to cooperate with Zhang Cheng in the dried fish business.
In addition to giving priority to supplying dried fish to the Xuanfu army and the Ming armies stationed in the Songjin area, they also planned to traffic this dried fish to various parts of the Ming Dynasty for sale.
And they even thought of the name of the dried fish in advance.
"General Fish", that's what they planned to call the dried fish made using the method proposed by Zhang Cheng, and this was of course included.
Not only the merchants of Xuanbei, but also many officials and generals in Liaodong were ready to take action under the temptation of such huge benefits.
It's not that Zhang Cheng doesn't know how to be a good person, not to mention that he has a large number of products in his workshops in Xuanbei, which are very popular in all parts of the Ming Dynasty, and there is no shortage of ways to make money.
Therefore, he took the initiative to find Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao, Zhang Ruoqi, the commander-in-chief of the army, Qiu Minyang, the governor of Liaodong, and others, saying that he was willing to cooperate with them in the dried fish business.
Of course, the big head still has to stay with Zhang Cheng, and the Xuanbei Business Gang must lead the business operations.
In this war, in addition to the transport teams officially organized by the Ming Dynasty, there were also a large number of merchants who transported or provided food and grass for the army. It can be said that merchants from Shanxi, Beijing, Zhejiang, and Huizhou all came out. They also followed the army on the tip of the knife.
make money.
However, Hong Chengchou and other Liaodong officials paid more attention to the significance of dried fish as a substitute for part of the food supply, especially as a supplement for the soldiers.
At present, the Ming Dynasty is extremely urgent in supplying grain and grass to the front line. If they really fish locally and make a large amount of dried fish, they can not only supplement the lack of meat, but also save a lot of grain and grass.
After all, the cost of fishing locally in Liaodong is much lower than transporting grain from thousands of miles away. In the past, it was difficult to preserve fresh fish, but now that there are such good and new methods, why not use them?
?
At this moment, merchants from all walks of life gathered in Ningyuan and Songshan areas were all eager to profit from it.
Just imagine, if Zhang Cheng was still a cavalry commander in Xuanfu Town at this time, and he had such a good way to make money, they would collude with various officers and soldiers, and they would copy the fortress if they wanted to, or steal if they wanted to.
.
Zhang Cheng is in a humble position and has low power, so what can he do to them?
However, at this time, Zhang Chengyi became the chief military officer of Xuanfu Town, and he had tens of thousands of brave and powerful troops under his command. Who could not understand the depth and dare to take it by force?
The military power in Xuanfu Town has already shocked the world. In the eleventh year of his stay in Chongzhen, Zhang Cheng was awarded the title of "Brave Champion of the Three Armies" by the current sage Jinkou.
After he left the town of Xuanbei, he killed Xue Liangqing and other rebels. Even deputy commander Zhang Guowei died at the hands of the bandits without any explanation, and his whole family was massacred.
Now if you offend Zhang Cheng and he lets you meet a Tatar bandit on the road in anger, what will you do?
Although each businessman also had a rich background, many of them had close relationships with governor-general Hong Chengchou, military commander-in-chief Zhang Ruoqi, governor Qiu Minyang and other high-ranking officials.
However, it is not necessarily possible that their backstage will come forward to protect them at the risk of falling out with Zhang Cheng for the sake of their own interests.
Therefore, it became an inevitable choice to choose to cooperate with Zhang Cheng and earn a share of the profits.
Behind the general soldiers of each town in the Ming Dynasty, there are also densely packed merchants. They are the umbrellas or partners of many merchants in their jurisdictions. Most of the industries within their respective territories have their participation in them.
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For example, the previous commander-in-chief of Datong Town was actually one of the spokespersons of Shanxi merchants. For example, the current commander-in-chief of Datong, Wang Pu, was elected by the forces of Shanxi merchants behind the scenes.
Nowadays, most of the troops stationed in the border towns of the Ming Dynasty have secretly communicated with each other outside the Great Wall. This has been a long-standing thing.
Before the rise of Manchuria, the Mongolian Northern Barbarians were powerful. At that time, generals in various border towns secretly smuggled and transported commercial goods and sold various kinds of in-demand prohibited materials, and made a fortune from this.
But of course they would not personally do such prohibited things and do it in public, so local businessmen, big and small, in various border towns became their partners and their spokesmen in the outside world.
Of course, these generals and commanders had to speak for the businessmen behind them, and they could also make a little fortune themselves. For a time, there was an endless stream of people visiting Zhang Cheng.