After Zhu Ming read the Zhang family's marriage proposal, he sat at his desk and thought seriously about the pros and cons of such a marriage.
There seems to be no harm, but there are not many benefits.
Mainly because the Zhang family is in Jiangxi and currently there is no one in an important position.
However, after the two parties got married, once Zhu Ming raised an army, he would deceive the Zhang family to death.
Zhu Ming originally planned to find a marriage between a family of Western military generals, such as the Zhong family, Zhe family, etc. But gradually he found that it was not feasible. Marriage between civil servants and military generals was normal in the early Song Dynasty, but gradually became rare in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty.
, firstly, civil officials looked down upon military generals, and secondly, marriage between civil and military officials seemed to be taboo.
If you really want to get married, it won't be too late to get married after you start the army. By then, it will probably become a concubine.
Ju Ming even wrote a letter in Pinyin, discussing the time of the rebellion in detail, and basically identified three time points:
First, after the Fangla Uprising, he took advantage of the officers and soldiers to go to Zhejiang and Zhejiang to respond in Hanzhong.
Second, after Tong Guan's attack on the Liao Dynasty, the elite Western Army suffered heavy losses, which was a good time for rebellion.
Third, after the Jingkang Incident.
Zhu Guoxiang's reply was that it was too risky to respond to Fangla's uprising, and at least he would have to wait until Tong Guan invaded Liao.
Ju Ming basically agreed with his father's point of view, but felt that Fang La could also succeed.
The main force of Fangla's rebel army was wiped out within a year, simply because of a collision with the gun. At that time, the official army had gathered in Gyeonggi, and all kinds of logistical work had been done properly. Tong Guan was going to lead the army to conquer Liao. When he learned that Fangla
The only way to suppress an uprising is to suppress it.
The elites from all over the country, with all the troops and armor and sufficient logistics, even saved the time of gathering troops, and directly sent them to fight Fangla. How could they hold on?
To be honest, if Fang La had not rebelled, Tong Guan's attack on Liao would not have been so ugly. At least there would be no shortage of food, grass and ordnance, and morale would definitely be much higher.
By the time Tong Guan finished suppressing Fangla, regardless of victory or defeat, the Song Dynasty's finances collapsed because the southeastern region was riddled with holes.
At that time, Ju Ming took the opportunity to occupy Hanzhong and Sichuan, cutting off another source of revenue for the Song Dynasty. Even if the elite Western Army was still there, there was a serious lack of food and pay. If they were brought in to suppress Ju Ming, it would be easy for them to start complaining halfway.
After all, the battle is about logistics!
Just like Zongze in history, there was no possibility of "crossing the river" because he had no logistics to speak of.
"Zongze's Legacy" was compiled by a descendant of the Zong family, and a large amount of its content is inconsistent with official history, and is also inconsistent with the memorials of other civil servants at the time.
Why are there two million people in the capital gathered in the capital with martyrs from all over, and they can still have food and grass for half a year? This kind of record can only be half believed.
Zongze's anti-golden spirit cannot be questioned, and the three calls to cross the river are probably true. He must be a national hero.
But Zongze's descendants said that the food and grass could last for half a year, which is pure nonsense.
There was a great famine in Gyeonggi Province the year before, the Cao River was blocked again, and countless rebels came who were waiting for food. No matter how powerful Zongze was, he couldn't produce food.
In order to cover up the lie, the descendants of the Zong family also said that Zongze was ordered to dredge the Cao River and it was completed in seven days. However, the real situation was that Zongze did not receive this order at all, and before Zongze went to Tokyo, the people left behind in Tokyo at the time were already dredging the Cao River.
It would not be of much use to dredge it up. The grain transported to Tokyo could only barely alleviate the famine.
Because the Jin soldiers were raging across the prefectures and counties, the water transportation system had collapsed. The ability to transport several waves of grain was at its limit, and subsequent grain transportation activities came to a complete standstill.
Zongze's biggest problem at that time was not to eliminate the Jin soldiers, but how to obtain food for disaster relief so that the huge rebel army could have enough to eat.
The actual situation is: "There was a great famine in Bianliang. A meter of rice cost 300 yuan, and a mouse cost hundreds of yuan. People ate algae and locust leaves. They died and there were no bones left."
Even if Zhao Gou had the guts to run back to defend Tokyo, he would still have to starve with Zong Ze.
The Jin soldiers also knew what was going on in Tokyo. During the Jingkang period, they had already plundered money. There was no money and no food there, so why did they go there? From the beginning to the end, the Jin soldiers did not attack Tokyo again, but went around to attack the city and seize territory.
The great thing about Zongze is that he dares to do things and is willing to be the mainstay.
Moreover, his skill in controlling people was able to pacify countless hungry rebels, and millions of starving soldiers and civilians did not cause a big mess.
However, it is difficult for a clever woman to make a meal without rice. Without food, there is no food.
Half a year before Zongze's death, Zhao Gou ordered the restoration of water transportation many times. It was not restored until Zongze's death, and the officials responsible for supervising the transportation of grain were punished. (The Cao River needs to be dredged by civilians every year, and many sections of the river were silted up at that time.
Seriously, the imperial court is no longer able to recruit civilian husbands.)
His successor Du Chong was unable to calm the situation at all, because "people were eating each other" inside and outside Tokyo, so he simply abandoned the mess and ran away with his troops.
Ju Ming considered the pros and cons and decided to accept the Zhang family's marriage proposal.
One is to get some dowry money, and the other is to see the Zhang family's subsequent influence.
This approach is quite shameless!
After picking up a pen and writing a reply, Ju Ming asked Bai Sheng to send it over.
He rode out of the city and took a boat to the iron smelting yard.
The hydraulic forging hammer has been built, and in order to stabilize the water flow, a reservoir has also been built. A hydraulic barrel cart is used to pump water into the reservoir. During dry periods, manpower can also be used to step on the barrel cart - there were already windmills in the Southern Song Dynasty, but I don't know if there were any in the Northern Song Dynasty.
The reservoir is equipped with a gate, which can regulate the size of the water flow and thereby control the speed of the forging hammer.
The water turbine can drive four forging hammers at the same time, allowing four blacksmiths to work at the same time.
At this time, the craftsmen are obviously not yet proficient, and they are a little busy in forging. They will probably be able to fully master it in two days.
"How about the hydraulic forging hammer?" Ju Ming asked.
Tu Shen smiled and said: "Save effort."
If a larger and higher reservoir is built, the efficiency of driving more forging hammers at the same time will be greatly improved.
There are currently four forging hammers, two of which are forging and pouring steel, and two of which are forging and refining steel.
Ju Ming was already writing to the emperor, saying that he could forge weapons here and requesting the imperial court to allocate funds to forge hundreds of steel swords.
This thing is valuable. As long as the court is willing to buy it, Ju Ming is willing to sell it. The iron smelting yard and the forging shop must be allowed to make profits. Even if hundreds of hundred-smelted steel knives are forged, it will not increase the combat effectiveness of the army. Because of this
High-end weapons must be issued to generals.
Armor can also be made, it depends on whether the court will give you money.
If the imperial court did not allocate funds, Ju Ming would have no choice but to use Jinzhou's finances to build the armor and deposit it directly into the Jinzhou Arms Storehouse.
After looking at the water-powered forging hammer for a while, Zhu Ming went to look at the fire gun.
There were only two craftsmen at work, and Ju Ming made the musket directly.
Don't think that the bird gun is lagging behind. Its structure is relatively complex, and it was considered a precision firearm in the mid-Ming Dynasty.
With the current smelting and forging process, two tubes must be drilled out of wrought iron and tightly packed together. The hole is very small at the beginning and requires a fine steel drill bit to drill all the way in. It would take a month to drill the barrel of a blunderbuss.
The Ming Dynasty's "Military Bei Zhi" complained about the ineffectiveness of the blunderbuss used by officers and soldiers, and also gave specific reasons.
That is, in order to catch up with the progress, officials and craftsmen, in order to save trouble, directly forged iron pipes without drilling them at all. This resulted in gun barrels of different thicknesses and hole sizes. Some could hold three or four bullets, and some could hold even one bullet.
It can't be stuffed in. In addition, there are various problems. Anyway, it explodes as soon as it is fired.
After the trial production of the gun is completed, Ju Ming will continue to build it.
Only four craftsmen are assigned to make the barrel, and one craftsman is assigned to make other parts. Each craftsman makes one gun in 40 days, and can make 36 firecrackers in a year.
In the first year, they were trained in gun-making skills. From the second year on, each person was assigned two apprentices.
At the beginning of the rebellion, there were not many cannons, and the officers and soldiers they faced were not strong. They were just used to win by surprise.
…
Zhang Gen received Ju Ming's reply and smiled and handed it to his wife to read: "Send someone back to Dexing to arrange for my daughter's dowry."
"Maybe we can get married by the end of the year." Huang said happily.
The couple was very satisfied with the marriage and had no idea that they were about to be cheated.
A few days later, Ju Ming arranged for a matchmaker to propose marriage, brought two geese as gifts, and asked for the woman's birthday and horoscope.
"Da Lang, please put it away." Mr. Huang even changed his title.
Zhu Ming took the horoscope paper with both hands: "Thank you, madam."
The woman could not see guests at this time, so Zhang Jinping hid in the back room and took a peek with his maid.
After getting down to business, Zhang Gen invited Zhu Ming to have tea and asked, "I've been in Jinzhou for half a month and I really can't find anything to do. Can Dalang give me some errands?"
Ju Ming asked: "Sir, do you want to train sergeants?"
Zhang Gen nodded and said: "As the deputy regimental training envoy, I do have the responsibility to train sergeants."
Ju Ming said: "There is no horse army in Jinzhou, and the infantry is used as a servant. Before I came, there were not enough sergeants, and my predecessor had a lot of empty pay. I have not restored these for the time being, and the military pay has been diverted to other uses without any corruption."
"I don't doubt that Dalang was paid on an empty basis," Zhang Gen said.
Ju Ming made his attitude clear: "The state government does not have enough money and food, so it is impossible to fully train the Xiang army."
Zhang Gen said: "Thirty people are enough, and we will give you full wages and food."
"Okay." Zhu Ming promised to provide enough food and salary for thirty people, recruit young and strong Xiang troops and let Zhang Gen train them.
This old man is really restless. Historically, he was demoted to deputy regimental envoy and was promoted again by exterminating bandits. Huaixi giant bandits have been raging for two years, and the court sent many officials but they couldn't get rid of it. Zhang Gen led a group of villagers
The soldiers ran to destroy them.
Zhang Gen added: "The weapons in the armament storehouse seem to be unusable."
Ju Ming said: "There is a shortage of craftsmen in Jinzhou Zuoyuan, and I am too lazy to recruit more. I have an iron smelting yard in the mountains north of the city. I can make some ordnance, and the state government will pay for it."
"Then let's build thirty armors first." Zhang Gen said happily.
Ju Ming immediately agreed, treating it as if it was for himself and using public funds to reimburse him.
After returning with the woman's birthday and horoscope, Zhu Ming planned to explain the matter of getting a wife to Zheng Yuanyi.
As soon as I returned to the state government office, I received a notice that two young men named Wei had arrived in Xiangzhou.
These are the two grandsons sent by Wei Tai. They were supposed to come after the state examination last year. At that time, there were floods, refugees and bandits appeared, and they were entangled in trivial matters, which has been delayed until now.
"Wei Yingwu (Wei Yingshi) pays homage to the prefect!" The two brothers bowed to each other.
Ju Ming happily held hands and said, "Sit down quickly and talk. When we were buying grain last year, it was thanks to Wei's generous help."
Wei Yingwu said: "My ancestors heard that the prefect has learned a lot, and he hopes that my two brothers can study under the prefect."
"I am not very talented and have little knowledge. I really don't dare to take this position. Let's discuss knowledge with each other." Zhu Ming planned to bring the two brothers here to see if he could brainwash them. If successful, it would also be a help to attack Xiangyang in the future.