In mid-March of the first year of Tianqi, Xu Guangqi and Sun Chuanting first conducted a thorough verification of the soldiers.

All the soldiers who were vacant, futile, and occupied were all cut off. However, no responsibility was pursued. If this was pursued, the capital would be in chaos.

By the late Ming Dynasty, corruption had become a very common phenomenon. Corruption was no longer called corruption. In history, Wei Zhongxian was jailed by playing the anti-corruption card. The Donglin Party said that you had been too defensive.

The reason why the Beijing camp is unusable is naturally that the military officers and civil servants are corruption, which is a bit too wide. Therefore, this rectification, that is, the verification of soldiers, did not investigate the nobles and civil servants.

After some rectification, the Beijing camp with more than 300,000 people turned into 220,000, many of which were the elderly, weak, sick and disabled. After another verification, only 50,000 people could fight. The remaining 170,000 people did not meet the physical fitness standards.

Then Zhu Youxiao issued an imperial edict, and the Beijing camp reclaimed military camp outside the capital. Each household gave 50 acres of land and a cattle.

As soon as this imperial edict was announced, the soldiers in the Beijing camp were greatly excited.

That's fifty acres of land! And if it's irrigated land, it's definitely easy to produce 2 shi of wheat per mu, and you won't have to worry about food and clothing in the past year.

The 170,000 Beijing soldiers who were separated were then nearly 160,000 willing to participate in the military farming. Each household gave 50 mu of land, which was equivalent to 8 million mu of wasteland.

However, in the north at this time, wasteland was everywhere.

It is not that the people in the north do not know how to repair water conservancy, but no one organized them to repair water conservancy. In the past, when they paid their talents or directly paid grain, the local government's warehouses were too much food and even deteriorated. In this way, they could take out enough grain to organize the people to repair water conservancy. In addition, the previous corvee service was necessary. Now, corvee service has become just enough to pay money. The concealment of the local population and the emergence of inflation, the government's ability to build a corvee service has dropped sharply.

Without the government organizing the people to repair water conservancy, the land will often become deserted in one year, and in two years, the people will migrate to other places, and in three years, the land will be deserted and the people will be exposed.

In the entire Hebei region, there are more than 30 million mu of barren land.

Zhu Youxiao issued an order to reclaim military camps, and immediately received support from the military officer group. If these lands were reclaimed, they would be a big piece of fat! In the future, they could encroach on the military camps and turn the military camps into their private land.

But what these military officers didn't know was that Zhu Youxiao was also staring at the land of these military camps. Before opening the military camp, Zhu Youxiao naturally thought of these military officers, and the nobles wanted to divide the land. Zhu Youxiao expressed his calmness in this regard. Then he would train the army. Whoever dared to jump in front of him was purely seeking death, which was just a reason to kill Zhu Youxiao.

The cost of military garrison is low, or it does not require Zhu Youxiao to spend too much money from the treasury. The soldiers in the Beijing camp have military pay, so they are free laborers, unlike those refugees who have to pay the royal food when reclaiming land.

Giving a plowing ox is an interest-free loan from the Royal Bank of the Ming Dynasty.

With the support of the emperor's orders, nobles, military officers, and loans from the Royal Bank of the Ming Dynasty, the military camp started very smoothly. More than 100,000 soldiers from the Jingying camp left the city, picked up tools to start repairing water conservancy and reclaiming land. Once the eight million mu of land in the Jingying camp was reclaimed, even if one acre of land produces 1 shi of grain, it would bring the court 1.6 million stone of grain income every year.

The military camp was led by Xu Guangqi and the Royal Agricultural Company cooperated. A large amount of wasteland was enclosed, and the river was dredged, ponds, slopes, and canals were built. After these facilities were repaired, the irrigated land was released. Some land could even be turned into paddy fields to plant rice.

Rice can also be grown in the north, but paddy fields are not that common, so the scale is far less than that in the south, but it does not mean that they cannot be grown.

The wheat yield in irrigated land can generally reach about 2 shi, and finally ground into flour, and more than 1 shi. The wheat yield in dry land really depends on the weather for food. When encountering drought or something, it is very normal to produce dozens of kilograms of wheat per mu. This is the essential difference between water conservancy and no water conservancy.

With water conservancy facilities, land can ensure stable yields from drought and flood, and the yield is guaranteed. Even if some land cannot guarantee stable yields from drought and flood, at least it has a much stronger ability to resist disasters. If it is combined with the planting of sweet potatoes, it is basically impossible to have famine.

The promotion of sweet potatoes is naturally also in the reclaiming of wastelands. It is spring at this time. Many of the land that is being reclaimed have been inserted into the ground after turning the soil with oxen twice.

Many farmers have never seen this thing and feel it is very novel. The sweet potatoes you planted only need to be watered at the beginning. After the sweet potato vines take root and grow, they basically don’t need to worry about them, and they are extremely drought-resistant. If they are really drought, just put water in once or twice.

The military camps in Jingying and the emperor's reclamation area of ​​the Royal Agricultural Company will total 13 million mu, which can increase 13 million stones of grain each year. The land taxes and taxes of the Ming Dynasty were only 19 million stones at this time.

As Cao Jinyu's grain store expanded, his business continued to increase.

Those refugees, tenants, and soldiers in the Jingying camp who participated in the reclaiming of wastelands were all supplied by the Jimin Grain Bank. At this time, Zhu Youzhao began to train the Jingying camp, and the food requirements of the Jingying soldiers also became supplied by the Jimin Grain Bank. The official orders increased accordingly, and soon exceeded four million stones of grain.

On this day, Cao Jinyu came to the Forbidden City to meet the emperor, and the two began to secretly discuss more profitable grain retail.

"Emperor, there are 550,000 households and 2.19 million people in the capital alone, and the annual grain needs is at least 5 million stones. If we can squeeze out other grain banks, we will have a profit of at least one million taels of silver every year. There are also northern towns such as Tianjin, Taiyuan, Jinan, Kaifeng, and Xi'an, with a combined population of more than ten million. If we can monopolize the grain supply of these towns, the money we can earn every year will definitely go to the sea." Cao Jinyu said to Zhu Youxiao with some excitement.

Zhu Youxiao's eyes shining when he heard this, but Zhu Youxiao was not desperate if he had a fever. He thought about it carefully and asked, "Can you guarantee that you can keep up with the transportation and processing of grain?"

"This, I'm just starting to do it." Cao Jinyu was a little embarrassed, and Zhu Youxiao asked, "Then what are your plans?"

"Weichen plans to use hydraulic power to process grain to reduce labor costs. In terms of transportation, water transportation is mainly used, while in land transportation, four-wheeled ox carts are used." Cao Jinyu replied.

Zhu Youxiao has been traveling here for half a year and has a certain understanding of the transportation tools during this period. In this era, China still mainly uses water shipping, after all, the shipping cost is low enough. For land transportation, horse-drawn carriages are basically two-wheeled cars, while ox carriages are four-wheeled cars.

This kind of four-wheeled ox cart also has steering devices, but it belongs to the "semi-finished" level. Because the cattle speed is slow, all these semi-finished steering devices are enough. The advantage of a ox cart is that its pulling force is far better than a carriage.

China does not have four-wheeled carriages, which is obviously not because the technology is not enough, but because the four-wheeled carriages are not competitive enough. After all, Asian horses are small in size, unlike those heavy horses in Europe that are suitable for pulling carriages. Moreover, European water transportation is not as developed as China, so European four-wheeled carriages have room for development and technology can continue to improve.

Four-wheeled carriages have no competitive advantages in China, so they have lost their momentum to develop.

In order to monopolize the northern commercial grain market, Zhu Youxiao and Cao Jinyu soon arrived at the Royal Military Factory of the Ming Dynasty.

Before the fall of Chenyang, Zhu Youxiao transferred more than 3,000 craftsmen from Chenyang, making the scale of craftsmen in the Royal Military Factory very large and there is no shortage of manpower. A large number of craftsmen began to transfer to civilians and produce various agricultural tools and other things.

Then Zhu Youxiao established a hydraulic machinery research and development department and a horse-drawn carriage research and development department in the military factory. Hydraulic machinery can reduce grain processing costs and also reduce military equipment production costs, which must be developed.

The carriage is relatively simple, while the four-wheeled carriage uses a relatively simple steering device, and uses a bearing shaft to increase stability and a spring to reduce bumps.

The transportation cost of horse-drawn carriages is still higher than that of ox carriages. The advantage is that they are faster and more suitable for military use. The improved four-wheeled carriages will improve efficiency and can also reduce some costs.

The advancement of technology allows capital to further monopolize the market.

Zhu Youxiao solved the technical problems in the operation of commercial grains, and the next step was how to squeeze other grain banks out of the market.

PS: The cold is worsening, it’s so uncomfortable!
Chapter completed!