open sea

Chapter 632
In May, there are often magnificent scenes of cavalry running along the Wei River from Sanwei to Dagukou in Tianjin.

The cavalry team ranged from a hundred to as many as three hundred, and the fully armed riders with helmets and armor each led a prepared horse and galloped along the banks of the Wei River from east to west, carrying water and food for three days.

Sometimes they rush forward densely, sometimes they march in circles, resting and marching regardless of day and night, sometimes at noon and the sun is just right, they tie their horses to rest along the roadside along the official road; Pass.

Sometimes not only the cavalry, but also the infantry and artillery will join the marching training, so that the banks of the Wei River will be full of iron horses and darts in half a month, and the people in the surrounding villages dare not go far, for fear of colliding with the army and causing trouble for themselves. .

Chen Mu also led the team to run a few times, but he never went west. On this 230-mile round-trip official road, every time he led the team to travel, he only went east from the military mansion and not west.

The cavalry were more willing to follow him, because in the training syllabus, the march from the general's mansion to the east to Dagukou Baihusuo was called marching, and the longer road from the army's mansion to the west to Tianjinwei was called a rush.

Only the few generals who made the training outline knew that in fact, there was no distinction between marching and running in the original training, but when their commander wanted to strengthen his riding and marching abilities, there was a distinction between difficulty and difficulty.

In the west, Hei Yunlong and Du Tong lead the team in rotation. The cavalry should travel a hundred miles a day, the infantry should travel [-] miles a day, and the infantry cavalry should travel [-] miles a day.

The route to the east is led by Chen Mu and Juniper in rotation. The cavalry travels 25 miles a day, the infantry rides [-] miles a day, and the infantry rides [-] miles a day.

There is still a lot of room for improvement in the speed of the east and west roads. There is no baggage, small troops marching, and the advantage of official roads. The infantry marching quickly can reach the speed required by the cavalry.

But they are not for training endurance or the ability to march quickly, but for exercising the most basic marching such as changing battle formations during marching, not falling behind in long-distance marches, and getting soldiers used to such marching conditions—this kind of marching condition is rare in a war. It may be slower than that, but the physical effort is greater, and the full march is far more painful.

Chen Mu's participation in the marching training is asking for trouble, but he can't help it. He has been loose for a few months, and he has gained a lot of weight. After riding a [-]-mile horse, he would feel like vomiting. He dare not lead the boat in such a physical state. The team marched east.

What's more, he led the team to Dagukou for other purposes. The fleets of the northern and southern provinces were temporarily recruited for the first phase of recruiting exercises. Near Nanyang, the first trip to Beijing this year, made him often wait and see on the coast.

Beiyang and Dongyang have only four warships so far, and they are still the emperor's warships that are used to travel around the world. The three-masted big blessing ships used as grain ships, horse ships, and military ships were sent by Nanzhili. ships, except for the lack of warships.

Xiangshan and Nanyang sent a letter earlier that a batch of ocean-going warships will be delivered to Dongyang this year, and there will be more firearms and armor for Beiyang.

He knew that the warships belonging to the Beiyang Military Mansion would be delivered together with the rice grains and gold and silver that Nanyang sent to Tianjin this year, and he even knew that everything he was looking forward to would be delivered within one month.

But knowing this doesn't prevent him from feeling like he's waiting for the precious courier during this period of time.

Therefore, in recent days, every evening, he stands in the newly renovated Dagukou Cannon Temple and looks out over the sea. Sometimes he watches the assembled fleet sail towards Leiden or Jinzhouwei, and sometimes he watches the ocean-going fleet return to the port. Sometimes you can see merchant fleets traveling to and from Shandong, Liaodong and even North Korea.

More often, there is only the blue sea and blue sky that makes people extremely lonely.

Today is no exception. There are 500 troops following Chen Mu's march eastward to Dagukou, one hundred households of cavalry and one hundred households of artillery, two other hundred households of infantry in the first phase and one hundred households of infantry in the second phase. It has only been more than a month of training, and there are not only slow-moving mules, horses and artillery teams on the march, but also to take care of the recruits.

When they arrived at the temporary camp at Dagukou, the veterans of the first batch were all very energetic, and they had completed camping early and repaired the camp under the leadership of the officers of each team.

Towards evening, when the smoke was rising from the military village, several horsemen slowly reined in their horses from outside the gate, Zhao Shizhen walked through the camp to look for Chen Mu on the Cannon Temple, climbed to the tower, and saw Chen Mu staring at something with his face facing the sea, He lightly coughed to remind him before saying, "Marshal, everything is done."

He went to earn money for the Beiyang Military Mansion.

"Chang Ji is back, how about it." Chen Mu turned his head, patted the corridor railing, and asked: "Can you use more silver on the account of the military mansion?"

"Originally, there were 4000 taels of silver available on the books. This time, the Xuanfu's official market capital is insufficient, and the imperial court has almost stopped. It didn't go well, and the military government borrowed 4000 taels."

Since the opening of the mutual market, there will be an official market first, and then a private market after the official market. The imperial court stipulates that the annual market capital of the official markets on each border should not be less than 20 taels, which is indispensable for purchasing the goods needed for the mutual market. In previous years, it was not enough. Borrowing guest's salary, or paying horses and silver to the Ministry of War, but this year because of Zhang Juzheng's father's illness, the atmosphere in the court is weird, the officials of all ministries do not speak, and the arguing among the subordinates is even more serious, especially when it comes to money.

They blame each other very much.

This year, all the commanding envoys sent by the Xuanfu to purchase goods came to Shuntian Mansion. The market capital was not enough, and it happened that the Beiyang Military Mansion was still holding a batch of goods, so Zhao Shizhen was asked to talk.

"When the mutual market is over, buy war horses at 12% of the market price. Roughly, you can get more than [-] horses based on the value of [-] taels of high-quality gelding at [-] taels, and then [-]%. Get on your horse."

Zhao Shizhen gave the notebook to Chen Mu as he spoke, and said: "In addition, they also want to buy goods. The price of satin for the official market is two or two pieces, and there are 3000 pieces sold in the warehouse; The quilt factory sold [-] pieces of cotton cloth that could not be used up; there were also candies, cloth pots, and needles, threads, combs, grates, etc. sold to the civilian market, and the book could be [-] taels more than before. , and earned more than [-] war horses."

"However, we can't see the money, and we spent another 3 taels to send merchants to enter the market with the purchase command. Kuaima has already sent a letter to Altan Khan's ministries to purchase wool. More than seven thousand taels."

Chen Mu finally looked away from the sea, blinked and said: "It's useless to keep the money, 3 taels of silver, if you can get it, Xuanfu Woolen Mill will spend some money, how much wool can you collect?"

"This, this student still can't figure it out."

Zhao Shizhen chuckled and explained: "Cashmere wool has different colors and prices. If the market price of ordinary wool is the lowest, you can collect 60 catties; if the price is the highest, you can only collect more than [-] catties."

"According to the commander-in-chief's request, all kinds of wool and cashmere on the grassland are collected. The students estimate that the price is around 20 catties to 40 catties. But this is the best situation. The time is too short. Zhangjiakou will open on June [-]th. We will have to wait until next year to harvest the fluff, but the commander-in-chief will go to the East this year. And if the Nanyangjing transport ship does not come, the military government's finances will be tight."

"enough."

"This year is enough. I didn't expect the wool to make money. There are many ways to make money. As long as there is this amount of woolen products, it can shock them. You don't need to let English sheep eat people, and you don't need to enclose land. Xuanfu promotes it as a wool spinning base, which serves multiple purposes.”

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)