At the beginning, Emperor Wanli felt a little apologetic towards Liu Haojia, because he felt that he owed Liu Haojia a grand victory ceremony. But when he heard that Liu Haojia had held a ceremony in Tianjin, he felt dissatisfied with the boss.
Be happy! Because in his opinion, kindness comes from above! Only what he gives is yours, you can't take it yourself!
But when he heard that the person who reported the report said that Liu Haojia only gave them a small amount of silver reward, and did not go beyond himself, and only gave those meritorious personnel a medal called something, he didn't care at all!
He even said to Zhang Jia: "When did this Wu Ninghou become so stingy, actually holding a copper plate to coax others?"
Seeing that Emperor Wanli didn't care, Zhang Jia breathed a sigh of relief and said, "This is also what Wu Ninghou meant by refusing to overstep his bounds! After all, the Long Live Lord has rewarded him, so he can't go beyond the Long Live Lord! So he got some kind of medal."
I fooled those Qiu Ba! Anyway, those Qiu Ba are easy to fool!"
The two people discussed the medal for a long time, and concluded that Wu Ninghou was fooling people! But the two of them had no idea that the Wu'an Army was very different from other armies of the Ming Dynasty! The other soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were probably soldiers
As a job, they also have the intention to protect their homeland and country, but they may not have such a clear conceptualization.
The Wu'an Army is completely different! Liu Haojia emphasized the sense of honor and responsibility of soldiers at the beginning of the founding of the army, making everyone in the Wu'an Army regard themselves as the hope for the future of the Ming Empire! So they have a very high recognition of honor!
Take the officers, for example. If they were asked to choose the same thing between medals and bounties, they would definitely choose medals first. This is the biggest difference between the two armies!
When the news spread throughout the capital, Liu Haojia received a lot of ridicule! In the eyes of Shilin and officials, those Qiu Ba people only needed to give money, so why hold the ceremony with such fanfare!
However, they were very interested in Liu Haojia's issue of medals. They didn't think this method was easy to use, but they felt that if it could be adopted, it might save the court a lot of money! Many civil servants were even thinking about following suit.
Marquis Wu Ning gives more medals to other soldiers, so maybe they can deduct some more money!
But they also don’t think about it. The most basic thing for an army with a sense of honor is that the soldiers can be fed and clothed, and their families can be fed and clothed accordingly. Only on this basis can there be room for the pursuit of honor! If like they want
It is simply a joke to issue medals to some soldiers who have difficulty living in the same way and expect them to suddenly become brave and good at fighting!
After the awarding of honors, Liu Haojia became busy again, because he had too many things to do! First of all, the Wu'an Army had discovered many areas in urgent need of improvement during its two battles, and he wanted to make a relatively large-scale adjustment to the Wu'an Army.
The first thing to be purchased is the sword and shield soldiers. The number of pikemen should be reduced as appropriate, and the length of the pikes should also be shortened. The number of artillery carts should be increased, especially the artillery carts equipped with Franco cannons are really useful! In short, zero
The bits and pieces are enough to keep him busy for two or three months!
At the same time, he also sent a group of people to Zhang Zhi and others to inspect coastal locations and draw drawings. Finally, he produced drawings of the salt field.
In Liu Hao's family's plan, the salt farm was to be built in three phases. He wanted to build a very large salt farm that would produce enough salt to meet the needs of half of the Ming Dynasty! However, in order not to alarm too many people, the first phase of the salt farm project was not completed.
Big, more experimental.
At the same time, news came back from various places in Jiubian. Some of Zhang Shunping and others rushed to Jiubian in person, and some sent their confidants to go. With the cooperation of military attachés from various places, they obtained a large amount of land! Especially many of them had been cultivated before.
, but a deserted land!
Unlike the mainland, Jiubian is located on the border and wars are frequent, so military attachés there are much more independent. Especially since these military attachés are from local prominent families, even civilian officials have to give some face. Not to mention that these civilian officials have to rely on them.
The military attaches communicated with the caravans outside the Great Wall to make money, so they turned a blind eye to many things, which allowed them to obtain a large amount of land quite smoothly.
And after getting the land, they immediately organized the refugees and hired workers to rest and prepare, preparing to prepare the land before winter, and plant the first batch of food after spring.
At the same time, what excited Liu Haojia the most was that a merchant actually delivered all the sweet potato vines! When talking about sweet potato vines, we have to mention the man known as the father of Chinese sweet potatoes: Chen Zhenlong!
Since sweet potatoes were brought to the East by white colonists, they were first planted in Southeast Asia. After the sweet potatoes gradually adapted to the local climate, they gradually returned to their high-yielding nature. However, the local whites stipulated that they were not allowed to be exported, and smugglers would be executed!
In 1593, when a great famine occurred in the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese businessman Chen Zhenlong risked his life to steal a sweet potato vine from the Philippines and saved tens of millions of people in our country. Today, this "Father of Sweet Potatoes" has been forgotten by many people!
Chen Zhenlong was a businessman from Fuzhou, Fujian Province. He often went to the Philippines (called Luzon at the time) to do trade and export business.
He was attracted by this novel food when he first arrived in the Philippines! Sweet potatoes can be eaten raw or steamed and roasted. They are soft, glutinous, sweet and delicious, and have a strong sense of satiety. Eating one can make up a full meal! In the local area,
People call sweet potatoes "sweet potatoes".
Sweet potatoes have very long vines and the fruits grow in the soil. Not only are they big, but they also bear many fruits. One root can produce a large bunch. More importantly, they are easy to feed. So when Chen Zhenlong saw these sweet potatoes, it was as if he was seeing domestic sweet potatoes.
Life-saving food for people.
That year there was a famine in the country. There was a severe drought in central Fujian and there was no harvest. People had to eat bark, grass roots, and Guanyin soil to satisfy their hunger. Especially in Chen Zhenlong's hometown, many people starved to death.
At that time, even if there were no disasters, the domestic yield of rice and wheat was only 200-300 kilograms per mu, while the yield of sweet potatoes in the Philippines was as high as more than 2,000 kilograms per mu.
Chen Zhenlong also learned that sweet potatoes in the Philippines were introduced by the Spaniards. He was very moved and wanted to introduce sweet potatoes into the country. However, food is the key to the survival of a country, and sweet potatoes, as the staple food of the Philippines, were required to be banned from export.
Chen Zhenlong thought of the starving people and their families in China, so he made an astonishing move and planned to risk his own life to smuggle sweet potatoes back home!
He found local farmers and began to study cultivation methods seriously. After a period of study, he became familiar with the growth rules of sweet potatoes and mastered the basic planting methods. More importantly, he learned that sweet potatoes only need one vine to survive.