Chapter 322: Official Skin

"Brother-in-law..." Zhou Tiancai was sitting in the main hall of the Qiu family. When he saw Qiu Jiashan coming home, he ran to the second door to greet him.

"You kid!" Qiu Jiashan punched Zhou Tiancai lightly. Before he could reach the main hall, he took out a small notebook from his arms and threw it to him, "You have to think about it. This matter is related to the rest of your life. If the King of Han is defeated, the Qing court can kill you with this book." Qiu Jiashan suddenly lowered his voice. The power of the environment is really strong. It has only been a few months, and the "imperial court" has become the "Qing court" in Qiu Jiashan's mouth.

"What else is there to think about. My family, brother-in-law, you know it? There are only four people in the family. I want to find another burden, but I can't."

The Zhou family moved to Wuchang in the previous generation. The old couple died of illness many years ago, leaving only a boy and a girl, a sister and a brother. Zhou Tiancai used to be very good to Qiu Jiashan, and now they are not far apart. After the Qiu family expelled Qiu Jiashan from their home, they really stopped associating with him. They were all on the same street, but they didn't even say hello when they met. In Zhou Tiancai's words, it was too inhumane.

"Just think about it yourself. I won't advise you on this matter. I think it's hard to say whether the King of Han and the Fu Han Army can be pushed to Beijing. But it would be extremely difficult for the Qing court to destroy the King of Han."

"Did you see the armed police outside? Did you see the soldiers patrolling and standing guard on the city walls? Everyone is in iron armor! And there are cannons on the city walls..."

Zhou Tiancai slapped his thigh, "That's the truth. Just based on this, the King of Han has at least a few decades of royal orders."

Just after establishing relations with the old nest in southwestern Henan, less than a month later, the Fu Han Army changed its uniforms. The main battalions were all in iron armor and breastplates [muskets], and the non-main battalions were all in breastplates or rattan armor.

40,000 to 50,000 people all changed their uniforms, and even the logistics troops changed to rattan armor and rattan armor. What a huge momentum? The news spread all over Hubei, blinding many people's eyes! ? And how many nights did people like Qiu Jiashan, who had a connection with the Fu Han Army, get so excited that they couldn't sleep?

Many rural people saw with their own eyes after entering the city that the iron armor radiated a cold light in the sun. Even many rural people came to see it specifically, which was much more impressive than the uniforms of the Qing Dynasty.

The morale of the soldiers and civilians who joined the Fu Han Army in Wuchang City was like boiling water, bubbling up. The fact that it was made of steel is beyond doubt.

The King of Han and Duke Lu also specifically ordered that all soldiers should wear armor this summer. Even those who stood guard on the top of the city and patrolled in the city would rather shorten their duty time, let them change shifts frequently, take more rest, and wear armor when going out. This can greatly boost the morale of the soldiers and civilians, unite the people's hearts, and make the people below believe in the Fu Han Army.

Then there are the cannons from various places. Wuchang is the center of Hubei Province, and following the armored vehicles, there are cannons. The muzzles are thicker than those of the cannons of Duke Lu's army. It is said that there are 12-jin cannons and even larger 16-jin cannons. And Lushan has even thicker 20-jin cannons! Just thinking about it makes Qiu Jiashan excited.

One by one, the cannons turned east from Wuchang, and under the escort of the warships of the Navy Camp, they either went west to Jingzhou or went east along the river. Just like the previous armored vehicles, they were displayed for the people and soldiers to see. They were transported to Jiujiang, Anqing, and Nanjing by ships.

Yes, there are still all kinds of rumors among the people, but no matter what you say, no matter how much you talk, no matter how many rumors you make, you can't say that there are no real armored cannons, right? The eyes of the common people are not blind. No matter how little they know, they will not take the real things they see as fake. Even the dumbest people know that a cannon with a thick muzzle is stronger than a cannon with a thin muzzle, and a soldier wearing a majestic iron armor is stronger than a green camp wearing a uniform. Moreover, there are also the secret camp and the government to add fuel to the fire. At least the officials of the Fu Han Army are no longer nervous and think that they are in danger of losing their jobs. Instead, people's hearts are in full swing!

Qiu Jiashan and Zhou Tiancai in this house are the ones who have been conquered by iron armor and cannons. They both firmly believe in one fact-the Fu Han Army's nest in southwest Henan is not simple. What is hidden there is not the Fu Han Army's arsenal. These swords, iron armor and cannons cannot all be old collections. Just like the Fu Han Army that seized Jiangnan suddenly burst out hundreds of cannons, the Fu Han Army must have mastered a method of rapid production of ironware, and this method was built in southwest Henan, where there is coal and iron! It can continuously produce iron armor cannons and various types of ironware.

Now, this kind of "insightful" cognition has become a fact recognized by many people.

Huangzhou Prefecture, which is close to Wuchang and Hanyang, has recently been rumored to have asked the remaining clerks in the government offices to serve as directors of departments and bureaus when the Fu Han Army entered Huangzhou. However, those people refused to obey, and the Fu Han Army did not force them. They just promoted those who were willing to do it or obeyed orders. As a result, these people did not expect that the Fu Han Army was not a grasshopper after autumn, but a tiger that came down from the mountain. It swept across Hubei in two months and is now in full swing. The Qing Tianbing, who was rumored to have beaten the main force of the Fu Han Army and had to withdraw from Jiangnan, has been fighting against the Fu Han Army's remaining detachments in Nanjing, Zhenjiang, and Yangzhou for more than a few months, and they have not seen any gains. Now some clerks are drooling over the positions of departments and bureaus, but great opportunities are always missed, so how can they turn back?

Some people are still willing to come in, because who among these yamen runners and clerks doesn’t have a few enemies? In the past, when they were powerful, their enemies naturally tolerated it. Now that they are no longer doing their jobs, they are also ordinary people. Isn’t it time to take revenge and grievances? These people have learned a lesson. No matter what, they would rather hold their noses and bow and scrape under their former subordinates, and put on an official uniform first. This matter has been published in the "Wuhan Daily".

Qiu Jiashan felt that he couldn't really believe this, but it reflected a trend. The confidence of the Fu Han Army in the Hubei market has increased a lot.

Since Chen Ming opened up the connection between Hubei and southwest Henan, the price of ironware in the whole Hubei has been plummeting. The pig iron and various ironware shipped from southwest Henan, such as iron pots, iron shovels, kitchen knives, axes, scissors, etc., washed away the iron prices in the whole Hubei with an absolute dumping attitude.

Before, an iron pot in Hubei cost hundreds of coins, and it was also because the militia training in various places exacerbated the price increase of iron materials. Now it has fallen directly to six or seven copper coins. When the King of Han ascended the throne, the money was naturally new. Now only gold and silver coins were minted, and the conversion was one gold and ten silver coins. Three silver dollars were equivalent to two taels of silver, but in the actual market, one silver dollar was equivalent to at least eight coins of silver. The silver dollar was embossed with patterns, beautiful and exquisite, and of high quality. The market price exceeded the official actual price by a lot.

Ten silver corners were worth one silver dollar. During the Qianlong period, silver corners specifically referred to broken silver, or small silver blocks specially made by wealthy families for rewarding people, while the silver corners launched by the Fu Han Army were regular silver subsidiary coins.

Ten copper coins were worth one silver corner, which was cast with a combination of copper, lead and tin, smaller than silver dollars, and not in large quantities.

The most common things seen in the market in Wuchang now are silver dollars and silver corners. With high quality, the reputation is naturally high. Once a large number of them were circulated in the market, they immediately caused a craze and were recognized. The next important task of the Wuhan Police Department is to send people to maintain order and security protection at the Wuhan Branch of the Bank of China. Because every day people took silver to exchange for silver dollars.

A large amount of silver was transported from Wuhan to Xiangyang via the Han River, and then transported to the old base by boat. A large number of silver dollars were also transported to Wuchang in this way. Ironware was also transferred from Wuchang to Jiujiang, Anqing, and Nanjing. Recently, there was a rumor that the government no longer planned to manufacture ironware such as iron pots, sickles, scissors, etc. These businesses will be handed over to private merchants, including future military uniforms, military shoes, military rations - not just pieces, but also various types of bacon, oatmeal, instant soup, tea, sugar, wine, including toilet paper, kettles, lunch boxes, cigarettes, etc., military tents, quilts, and even some weapons manufacturing - it is said that the barrels were also handed over. Bayonet production licenses, springs, etc.

Since Chen Ming opened up the connection between Hubei and southwestern Henan, four-wheeled carriages inevitably appeared in Wuchang. Many people know the use of springs, and then they know that this thing is also used in muskets.

Anyway, the Fu Han Army is now fully supporting the industrial and commercial class in the country. For this reason, even the hydraulic forging hammer was released. This thing may be of some use to the Qing Dynasty, but the most basic elements of the Fu Han Army's iron armored guns and cannons production are still the huge production of steel raw materials and the fast and simple iron mold casting.

Food, clothing, housing and transportation, these are the most important aspects of people. Just like the poem says, since ancient times, the seven things to open the door are firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea.

Hubei is not short of food, and it will not be short of salt in the short term. Soy sauce, vinegar and tea can be produced by itself. As for oil, haha, that is something that rich people consider. And firewood is the honeycomb coal that the Fu Han Army vigorously promotes.

In the past year or so in southwest Henan, honeycomb coal has made great progress. In addition to the countryside, honeycomb coal has occupied a considerable market in cities, and because the price of coal is really cheap, many wealthy families have also changed from burning firewood to burning coal. Just like Beijing, coal shops soon emerged between towns in southwest Henan. Now this trend is going to surge towards Huguang.

Previously, the General's Mansion had a small jurisdiction, and even the General's Mansion itself used powerful means to control the business within the territory in order to control the market price from getting out of control. In just over a year, whether it was Ruzhou or Nanyang, the depression of the market was much lower than that of the Qing Dynasty. But now is a different time, with the support of most of Hubei, Chen Ming felt that he could start to promote industry and commerce.

From the start of the army to May and June of this year, the Fu Han Army had been making a fuss for two years. After the initial passion and caution retreated, and the initial blindness disappeared, this time back to Lushan - the court, is it very funny? The biggest pressure Chen Ming suffered in the court was the policies he formulated at the beginning.

Now many important people clearly realize that it was the policies that Chen Ming formulated at the beginning that made them feel very happy and refreshed that made the Fu Han Military Government and the gentry and landlord class face each other from a distance and could not get together.

Their previous positions and current positions have changed a lot. Before, they were rebels, and now they are in power. Fortunately, Chen Hui still supports him. But it is hard to say whether this support was due to Chen Hui's feeling of his persistence. So Chen Ming had to promote the industrial and commercial class immediately.

Anyway, in other matters, Chen Ming retreated a lot, such as the rank of "Jinshi" in the first imperial examination of Fu Han Army. It was said before that it should learn from the Tang and Song dynasties, and Jinshi should start from a small official, but now it has to be placed in a relatively high position.

It is not necessary to be a fifth-rank county magistrate at the beginning, but it must be a sixth or seventh-rank county magistrate.

...

The Houfu compound in the east of Lushan City and the two houses next to it have now become Chen Ming's Lugong Mansion.

As for what the Hou family is doing now? No one can tell. It is only said that they fled to Ruzhou at the beginning, and then there was no news.

Chen Ming was unwilling to build a mansion with great fanfare, and Chen Hui was also firm on this point. Although one of the two people became the King of Han and the other became the Duke of Lu, the former's general's mansion, except for changing a sign, just renovated the lobby according to the specifications of the former Ming prince. Of course, it was also a severely reduced specification. After all, the general's mansion was the foundation of a county government. If it was really renovated according to the specifications of the prince's hall, haha! The latter's Hou Mansion courtyard, except for changing a sign, just opened up the left and right courtyards, and nothing else was built. This is not to show anything, but because Chen Ming has too many women.

Chen Hui felt that building a palace on a large scale would have a bad influence. Although doing so would damage his prestige and be scolded by some people as a grass-roots team and a monkey in a crown, it is better than bringing a series of "extravagant winds" of large-scale construction, right? Chen Ming also thought so. It is better for the poor to take it easy when they become rich. And he firmly believed that in two years at most, they would not live here anymore. Chen Ming said this in front of Chen Hui with great confidence.

So the father and son of the Chen family were called princes. In addition to the change of clothing and titles, they made several nine-tassel nine-chapter and eight-tassel seven-chapter crowns and robes, as well as a bunch of other daily clothes and auspicious clothes. There were really not many other changes.

Walking into the backyard with big strides, I saw two-and-a-half-year-old Chen Ding playing happily on the slide under a big pomegranate tree. His clothes were all covered with dust. Seeing his father coming over, Chen Ding smiled brightly at Chen Ming, slid down from the slide, and then rushed towards him. Two maids trotted beside him.

"Come on, son. Let's go into the house to cool off."

Chen Ming picked up his son and strode to the main hall of the backyard. Li Xiaomei, who was sitting inside, had already stood up to greet him.

There was a four-legged stove in the middle of the room, which was filled with ice cubes. There was fine mist on the outer wall of the copper stove, and small water droplets were dripping from time to time.

There was also an ice basin in the northeast and northwest corners of the room, and a maid was shaking the fan. Well, a pure human-powered fan. Chen Ming didn't know if there was such a thing in China at this time, anyway, he was talking nonsense. The gentle breeze blew over the ice cubes, and the wind became cool.

Chen Ming's clothes were soaked with sweat, and stained by the mud on Chen Ding's body. Li Xiaomei stopped three steps inside the door, asked Chen Ming, and then asked the father and son to change without saying anything.

When Chen Ming finished washing and came out in a single dress made of cool summer silk, he saw a bowl of fruit yogurt on the coffee table. The outer edge of the small silver bowl was still hanging with frozen mist. Yogurt with fruit decoration is refreshing to look at.

The temperature in the house was much cooler than outside. Little Chen Ding watched his father pick up the silver bowl and finish the food, his mouth watering. But a child cannot be restrained. Moreover, compared with the children he saw in the military village today, Chen Ming touched his son's head and thought that this kid was really too happy...