Nanming Engineer

Chapter 216
The secret agent team of the Kuizhou Army has slowly expanded to a scale of thousands of people, imitating a great underground organization of later generations, and infiltrating into every corner of this era. There are peddlers and pawns, people who slaughter dogs and pigs, and there are also people who are rich in money.

The loyalty of the spies is maintained by a considerable salary, and at the same time, it is also guaranteed by the hostages.Every team member who joins the spy team must first go through strict screening and inspection. Those who are not strong-willed and have no family members are absolutely not allowed. Only those who have a family and children can join the spy team; secondly, the whole family must be moved to Longevity City as hostages. , if once defected or surrendered to the enemy, the family will suffer first.This is also a system that has to be adopted. After all, in troubled times, people's hearts are not ancient, and only some extraordinary measures can guarantee the safety of the entire organization.

The spy's salary is very considerable, comparable to a county magistrate, and a team of thousands of people. Together, the monthly payment of the Kuizhou Army is an astronomical figure. It is not enough to rely on land rent and taxes, let alone Wang Huan The lion opened his mouth wide, and with a single mouth, he would be exempted from taxes for three years in the newly recovered land, and the finances were even more difficult to make ends meet. Without strong financial support, ordinary local governments could not support such a large amount of expenses.

Although the Shizhu Silver Mine has a lot of reserves and a large output, Ma Chongming, as the chief financial officer, still feels overwhelmed. This shrewd businessman can't wait to split a penny in half. In Huan's body, everything prospers and everyone loses. The Ma family's business has expanded to many industries, which implicitly means Kuizhou military state-owned commercial firm. Power, Ma Chongming doesn't care about it. He has become a human being and he understands the significance of Wang Huan's actions. This is to supervise himself and remind him not to try to manipulate the accounts. status, they must follow Wang Huan's rules.

However, Ma Chongming is still the person in charge of the Kuizhou army's finances, and he must say what he has to say. He cried poorly in front of Wang Huan more than once, spread out a book of accounts, and settled the accounts for Wang Huan with his fingers. Wang Huan also felt that he should start again. The source of money came, so the Shizhu Gold Mine came into being.

In the hinterland of the Three Gorges and the Shizhu Yangtze River Basin, just upstream of Xituo Town, Wang Huan discovered the gold sand veins when he went into the mountains for prospecting in Wanshou City. This was a very famous gold sand mine in later generations. It was mined with modern heavy machinery for more than ten years. The gold sand is on the river bank and is easy to mine. You only need to use some simple tools to screen and process it, and you can wash out the gold sand grains with high purity, and then smelt them to produce gold ingots.

The mining of this kind of gold placer mine is much easier than that of silver mines. The reason why Wang Huan has not started to build mines is of course not because he is reluctant, but because the output of silver mines is sufficient; It's important, after all, everyone can see it, and it's not easy to isolate it. If people copy it unprepared, the loss will be huge.

For this reason, Wang Huan once again asked Qin Liangyu for help, and the old lady sent her two nephews, Qin Yiming and Qin Gongming. The two of them brought more than 2000 recruits they had trained, and together with Ma Chongming's Minzhuang, they went to the Yangtze River A simple embankment was built with stones on the side, and there was an opening for water to flow through on the dam, enclosing the entire Golden Sand Beach. Then a stone wall was built on the dam, and an archery tower was built to build a rough defense. A water village was built on the riverside close to the dam, and troops were stationed there to protect the gold placer mine airtight and ensure safety to the greatest extent.

The output of the gold mine, coupled with the income from the original silver mine, finally made Ma Chongming stop shouting, and walked away with a smile on his hands holding the ledger.

The gold and silver ingots produced by Shizhu, according to the system set by Wang Huan, each piece is stamped with the Kuizhou mark, because it is full of color and basically free of alloy impurities, it is very popular in the market, and it is better than the official silver in the Daming official warehouse So much so that under the same conditions, merchants are willing to give priority to receiving gold and silver from Kuizhou when trading, and there is even a phenomenon that specifically buys stone pillar gold and silver ingots at a price higher than the weight of gold and silver ingots, and then smelts them doped with copper and iron to fake Ming Dynasty gold and silver ingots. Official gold and silver dealer.

As a result, Kuizhou’s reputation as the world’s best in gold and silver gradually spread across the country, and even in the northern Qing Dynasty territory, silver ingots bearing the Kuizhou official silver mark circulated, and their credibility was far higher than that of all kinds of gold and silver minted by the Ming and Qing courts. Currency, not to mention gold and silver ingots privately manufactured by some separatist regimes.

With the support of huge financial resources, and the spies of the former Jinyiwei system brought over by Jiang Li, the intelligence network of the Kuizhou Army spy team has become wider and wider. Take the current city of Chengdu as an example. Chen Xiang took away No. 20 people and went north to Hanzhong. There are still more than 100 people left in the city, plus the branch of Zhangjia Leather Goods in Jinguan City, Jiang Li has nearly 200 people at his disposal, which is more than enough for internal needs.

Jiang Li returned to the big car shop, which was a stronghold for them to settle down. Ever since Chen Xiang obtained information about Zeng Ying's dispatch of troops in Chongqing City as a waiter in the big car shop, he fell in love with this job. The big car shop is like the logistics company of later generations. The transportation of goods from north to south is inseparable from big cars. Firms and government officials can make friends with each other. There is a huge amount of information every day, and a lot of valuable information comes from the mouths of merchants intentionally or unintentionally. Based on this, together with spies from other industries, the intelligence of the Kuizhou Army can always keep up with the development of the situation, and it is no weaker than the Jinyiwei of the Ming court and the sticky pole of the Qing court.

This big car shop was bought by Chen Xiang from a broken owner. He plans to open a branch in Sichuan in the future, and it can be opened to other provinces in the future. As long as they open in advance, the name of the shop is "Bafang Big Car Shop". Of course, in order to deceive people, the owner of the shop is a person who has nothing to do with Kuizhou. The store is actually the liaison office of the Kuizhou Army.

There were still a few small leaders of the spy team left in the big car shop. Once Chen Xiang left, Jiang Li became the master in Chengdu. Internal tasks.

Jiang Li was a little excited. After hearing and seeing the thriving vigor and invincible military strength of the Kuizhou army, he had already deeply felt that this time he followed the right person, and Wang Huan will be rewarded for his meritorious service. , There is a strict system of punishment that must be punished, which also gave him the hope of seeking a higher position through military merit, so this time, he tried his best to show his skills and beautifully complete the important task left by Chen Xiang.

He is very confident, because during this period of time, he has fully understood the details of the Great Western Army in Chengdu, and even figured out the list of civil and military officials who stayed in the city. He has worked hard and held a hole card in his hand.

This hole card is a person.

Jiang Li ordered a few small bosses to guard the gate of the big car shop in the yard, and walked into the shop by himself, entered a back room, looked around cautiously, and after finding nothing unusual, he closed the door gently, and stepped down. The door latch was lifted, and the curtain in the inner room was lifted, and walked in.

The room is dimly lit, there are no windows, and it is dark in broad daylight. If it is not for a bean-like oil lamp lit on the table, it is almost impossible to see things clearly.

With this light, it can be seen that this room is very small, only a table and two stools, there is a teapot on the table, several porcelain cups, and nothing else. On one of the wooden stools, a person is already sitting The front was fidgeting with panic, and when he heard the sound of someone coming in, he jumped up like a frightened rabbit.

"Don't be alarmed, Dudu Zhang, it's me." Jiang Li stood firmly by the door without moving, and spoke first, because he saw that the person who arrived early had already drawn a knife from his waist as quickly as lightning and flint.

The man was obviously familiar with Jiang Li's voice, he was obviously relaxed when he heard the voice, he breathed a sigh of relief, retracted the knife awkwardly, and said: "Don't blame General Jiang, it's very important, it's better to be careful."

Then Jiang Li walked slowly to the table, patted the ashes on the sackcloth, sat down on another wooden stool, poured a cup of tea for the man with a smile, pushed it over and said, "It's okay, Dudu Zhang is careful, It should be, after all, what everyone does is to lose their heads."

The person he called Zhang Dudu had a pale and white face, pursed his lips and wanted to say something, but he seemed unable to speak, so he held back, grabbed the teacup resentfully, and drank the liquid in the cup, Then with a "snap", the porcelain cup was placed on the table.

Jiang Li sat still with confidence in his mind, took a panoramic view of Zhang Dudu's movements and turned a blind eye, just smiled and didn't speak.

Dudu Zhang lost his composure at first, put down his teacup and blurted out: "General Jiang, we have something to say first, before I promise you, you didn't hand over those letters to Butcher Zhang, did you?"

The corner of Jiang Li's mouth grinned, his smile deepened a bit, and he said, "Of course not. The Kuizhou Army keeps its word, and Wang Zongbing is unparalleled in integrity. We promised you, and we will naturally do it."

He pushed the oil lamp in the direction of Dudu Zhang, exposing Dudu Zhang's face more to the light of the light, and asked, "Where is Dudu Zhang? Have you thought about it?"

The oil lamp illuminated Zhang Dudu's face, revealing a face full of flesh and beards, full of violence. From the appearance, it can be seen that the owner of this face must be a murderous old soldier. , although his face was pale and haggard because of anxiety and timidity, people who knew him could recognize at a glance that this was Dudu Zhang, who conspired with Liu Jinzhong to surrender to the Qing court, Zhang Guangcai, the governor of the Baotao Battalion of the Suwei Army of the Western Army who conspired with Liu Jinzhong.

(End of this chapter)