Chapter 175: Shanxi Merchants' Three-Pronged Plan: Mass Production for All "In order to deal with those greedy officials and the Donglin Party, we still need to be tolerant temporarily." Fan Yongdou expressed his thoughts and said grimly, "Of course, this is just a superficial coping method." "In secret, we just need to cause trouble for them and keep tripping them up." "Next, we will provide financial tributes to the officials and gentry in the court. No matter how high or low their positions are, we will not stop paying tribute every year. Instead, we will increase our investment to deceive them!" "At the same time, we can also compete with the wealthy merchants in the south and give them the illusion that we are just struggling to survive." "When it comes to the trade routes outside the northern border, how can these southerners compare with us?" "Ha ha……" He smiled sinisterly and said, "To deal with these guys, we don't need to do anything ourselves. We just need to secretly contact the Later Jin soldiers and the Mongolian Tartars and intercept and kill all the caravans of all sizes organized by the wealthy merchants in the south!" "We can even put the blame on the little thieves who are causing trouble in Jialu River outside the Great Wall!"
"Let these Southern Merchant Alliance fight to the death with those petty thieves who seem to have good fighting power and are so daring. We just need to drink tea and watch the show on the sidelines!" "Hehe! That little thief actually dared to rob the treasure ships of our wealthy merchant families. They are so bold to the extreme." "If we wipe them out right away, it will only benefit this petty thief." "How can we not make good use of them and make use of their remaining energy?" I have to say that this guy Fan Yongdou is worthy of being the evil genius who was personally designated by Fan Ming, the previous patriarch of the Fan family, to inherit the position of patriarch. He is simply insidious and cunning to the extreme! His few words sounded simple, but they covered everything, and he easily managed to defeat enemies from all sides. "Yes, yes! Master Fan, your method of killing three birds with one stone is great!" "Not bad! This way, we can still secretly monopolize the trade between several northern provinces and foreign countries, and even increase the trade volume!" "While we are making a fortune, we can also stay out of the trouble and quietly make those greedy court officials and the southern wealthy merchant alliances anxious and worried." "By the way, we can also give those daring little thieves something to do. We can't let them get away with it so easily!" "Killing them directly is not the best revenge for these petty thieves. Let them suffer slowly until they have a mental breakdown."... These cunning and ruthless guys strongly agreed with Fan Yongdou's plan of killing three birds with one stone, and they all spoke up. All the issues of this meeting were resolved through discussion, and the atmosphere on the scene suddenly changed from being extremely depressing to being quite relaxed. "Clap clap..." Fan Yongdou clapped his hands, and a team of beautiful maids came over with all kinds of exquisite wine and food, and began to prepare a very luxurious banquet. After a while, cups were clinked, songs and dances were performed... A round of debauchery and drinking then began in a lively manner... …… Li Dingguo didn't know that because of the contempt of the ten major Shanxi merchants, the misjudgment of the threat level of the Fuxing Army, and some random reasons, he and the Fuxing Army had once again escaped death. Three months had passed since he led the Fuxing Army soldiers out of the pass, fighting non-stop and desperately developing. Today is the night of the 30th, New Year's Eve.
Tomorrow is the new year's Spring Festival. At this time in the naval base, all the soldiers and civilians were decorating with lights and smiling happily, each of them was so excited that they couldn't stop grinning. There is no way. On this New Year’s Eve this year, the New Year’s goods distributed by the Logistics Department to all military and civilians are so abundant. Beef, mutton, fish, shrimp, rice, noodles, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea... nothing is missing! Even a pair of lanterns, a pair of couplets, and a new set of clothes were distributed to every household. It can be said that this New Year's Eve is definitely the most comfortable one for all the soldiers and civilians in their lives, no doubt about it! After three months of continuous fighting, the Fuxing Army completely wiped out all sixty-five small and medium-sized Tatar tribes in the 3,000-mile Jialu River section, and obtained countless spoils of war! The number of cattle, sheep and horses that were continuously pulled back to the base by the soldiers, one boat after another, exceeded three million! These countless livestock filled the area of 100 miles around the spiritual grassland where the navy base was located! After formulating his own large-scale planting plan, Li Dingguo asked Hongmei to dispatch a large number of logistics soldiers and all the people to reclaim hundreds of thousands of acres of land along the river banks by burning the land. They would wait until the snow melted in the spring to start large-scale planting of various crops. The climate of the Dongtao Plain is somewhat similar to that of most areas in the south, and it has always been known as the "Jiangnan outside the Great Wall". The environmental conditions for planting and breeding here are even better than in most areas of the Jiangnan region! Once this precious land falls into the hands of the hardworking Han people, the role it plays will be enormous. If it could be fully developed, it would be enough to meet the food supply of several northwestern provinces of the Ming Dynasty. Li Dingguo also valued this point, which is why he made up his mind and resolutely decided to lead everyone out of the country to develop. In the past month, he personally led the soldiers of the Royal Guard Battalion to repeatedly clean up the area within a radius of 300 miles around the naval base. After the soldiers drove away or killed all the monster tribes, they obtained a large amount of dried meat and fur reserves. Today, the Fuxing Army has grown to hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. Every person has a set of new clothes, leather shoes, and leather hats for the New Year, all of which are mass-produced by thousands of skillful craftsmen in the Craftsmen's Camp. After three months of concerted and unremitting efforts by everyone, it can be said that the 300-mile riverside area controlled by this naval base has become a veritable paradise outside the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty, both in terms of wealth and vitality! There is strength in numbers, and this is no joke. Especially under a very standardized collective management model, the existing hundreds of thousands of military and civilians have an effective management team to guide their development. Even two or three months is enough to bring about earth-shaking changes in a region. Especially since this force now has everything it needs and has vast amounts of material resources, the tremendous productivity it has unleashed is enough to make ordinary people dumbfounded. Li Dingguo, who came from the 21st century on Earth in the previous life, knew all this too well. As long as there is an able leadership team, everyone is united, there is a massive supply of material resources, and the whole nation works together in a planned and organized manner, the development of an area of just a few hundred miles can change dramatically every day. Even Hongmei, the enchanting genius, was shocked. She still finds it hard to believe the powerful productivity unleashed by hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. If she hadn't experienced it herself and seen it with her own eyes, she would have even suspected that she was dreaming! It is conceivable how great an impact the new planning and development model set by Li Dingguo had on the simple people of this era! (End of this chapter)