This winter, the entire Ming Dynasty was in full swing, especially the Chahar grassland and Korqin grassland to the north.

Jiannu had fled thousands of miles away, and the four realms of the southeast, west and northeast were gone, which could threaten the Ming Dynasty. While the whole country was celebrating, Emperor Yongsheng also began to build on the grasslands with drastic efforts.

Youzhou, Yunzhou, Shunzhou, Zhengzhou, Xinzhou, and even Liaodong have begun to promote heating on a large scale. Whether it is the leaders of the Mongolian and Yuan tribes, the soldiers of the Southwest Army and Huguang Army, they have gradually enjoyed the warmth of this cold winter.

Not only that, he also began to build weapons workshops on a large scale in Shunzhou City and Xinzhou City to manufacture various gunpowder weapons.

Originally, the Southwest Army, Huguang Army and Qin Army were not ready to equip gunpowder weapons on a large scale, because he felt that after he had to deal with Jiannu, he would rest and recuperate. These ordinary legions would be dismissed and returned to the fields, spread to the nine borders and guarded the border.

This will save most of the military expenditure. After all, these three large legions alone have 650,000 troops, and the annual military expenditure is not a little bit.

However, at this time, he had changed his mind and wanted to lead the army to recover Nuergandus and then march towards the Siberian Khanate. Naturally, these army could not be disarmed and returned to the fields.

You should know that the area of ​​the territory of the north of the Moon alone exceeded the sum of the original two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty. If the Siberian Khanate and other places were added, it would be about twice the area of ​​the original Ming Dynasty. If such a large territory was not sent to garrison, wouldn’t it become the fat in the eyes of the great powers?

Therefore, these ordinary legions not only cannot be disbanded, but also must be strengthened in equipment.

He was preparing to equip each legion with enough muskets, cannons and sky-bombing thunder. In this way, the great powers would not dare to make any ideas about these places for at least dozens or hundreds of years. After all, the European powers have only begun to load muskets and cannons at this moment. Moreover, their speed of installation is simply not comparable to that of the Ming Dynasty, and the number of troops is even less important.

As for the current development speed of the Ming Dynasty after dozens or hundreds of years, the great powers will definitely not be able to catch up with it. It would be good if the Ming Dynasty did not deal with them by then.

Of course, the expenses for maintaining so many troops are really huge. With 650,000 troops, the food and salary alone will be at least tens of millions of taels in a year. If Daming only occupied such a large territory without increasing the source of income, it would definitely be more than worth the loss.

This is probably the reason why emperors of the Ming Dynasty gradually gave up these border areas in the past, because basically no one cultivated these places. For the Ming Dynasty court, which mainly earns land tax revenue, it was a place where money was purely lost. For such a large place and such a large consumption, who could afford it?

However, it is different now, because with the development and promotion of steam engines, the Ming Dynasty has entered a stage of transformation from agriculture to industry, and the demand for all kinds of minerals at this stage is huge. Whether it is gold and silver for money, copper and iron for manufacturing various mechanical equipment, or even coal for fuel, the demand is not ordinary.

Just so happens that whether it is the south and north desert or the Siberian plain, the reserves of all kinds of minerals are quite abundant. As long as you develop vigorously, you will not have to worry about not being able to make money.

It is no exaggeration to say that coal mines alone can offset the expenses of hundreds of thousands of troops as long as they are vigorously developed.

Because trains need to burn coal, ships need to burn coal, various machine tools also need to burn coal, all kinds of civil machinery such as textile machines also need to burn coal, and trains and ships can make money by transporting goods, various machine tools can also make money through processing equipment, and various civil machinery can also make money through processing products. Once these develop, the demand for coal is massive, and the profits earned are also massive.

At this moment, the products of the Ming Dynasty have occupied the Eastern and Southern Ocean markets. If they continue to develop, it will not be impossible to occupy the Western and even the entire world market. The profit here will not be just tens of millions of taels, and it is only a matter of time to earn tens of millions of taels or even hundreds of millions of taels a year.

Therefore, as long as we rely on coal resources to smel up a large number of metals such as gold, silver, copper, iron, etc., to manufacture a large number of machinery and equipment, and to vigorously develop production and manufacturing, the Ming Dynasty can seize the opportunity of the entire world market.

In other words, as long as industry is developed, the Ming Dynasty will be rich and no matter how many troops it provides, it will be fine. In the stage when humans have not yet mined and smelted oil, coal is the lifeblood of industry.

Zhu Qizhu has actually realized this for a long time. He also attaches great importance to the exploration and mining of coal mines. Not to mention, his luck is a bit amazing, because the Ministry of Industry has discovered a large number of coal mines in the Chahar Grassland and the Korqin Grassland. Moreover, some coal mines are exaggerated open-pit coal mines, and they do not need to dig mining holes, and they can be mined directly by digging out the soil layer above.

For example, in the southeast corner of the Chahar Grassland, there is a huge open-pit coal mine called Yuanbaoshan in the middle of the city of Zhengzhou and Liaodong. The railway has also been built now, and the young and strong people of Tainingwei are also mining here.

Zhu Qizhe stood on Yuanbao Mountain and slowly glanced with a telescope, with a strange look on his face.

The efficiency of these people's coal mining seems to be too low. In order to facilitate mining, the Ministry of Industry has equipped the young and strong man in Tainingwei with many small carts, shovels and shovels. They are all in groups of five people, one person pushes the cart, two people dig in front with shovels, and two people follow behind and shovel on the cart.

I roughly estimated the red vacancy, and it would take at least half an hour to fill a cart. If I add the time to transport it back and forth, it would take about an hour for a truck of coal to consume.

In other words, even if each group of five people works ten hours a day, they can only dig out ten trucks of coal.

He estimated it and asked, "How many hundred kilograms of coal is this truck?"

Bi Maokang, who was standing beside him, said without hesitation: "Fill about 500 kilograms."

Zhu Qizhuo thought about it again, then asked, "How do you calculate the wages?"

Bi Maokang still said without hesitation: "A car counts them for one hundred ci, and each person has twenty ci."

In this way, it can be about twenty cents and one hundred kilograms, and ten thousand kilograms can only cost two taels of silver. The wages are not very high, but these young and strong people are very excited because they can earn about two hundred cents a day and five or six taels of silver a month.

However, this mining speed is still too slow.

Because the entire Taining Guard is only more than 10,000 young and strong, and only about half of it can come. After all, the others still have to graze, which means that they can dig up to five million kilograms of coal this day.

This quantity sounds a bit scary, but it is a bit less if it is calculated by ton. Five million pounds are only 2,500 tons. A boiler that heats about a thousand people will burn at least ten tons of coal a day, ten thousand people will cost 10 tons of coal, and ten thousand people will cost 10,000 tons, and one thousand tons of 100,000 people will cost 1,000 tons. In other words, even if everyone in Tainingwei has made every effort to mine, it can only supply the heating consumption of 250,000 people.

He prepared a army of 650,000 to expand the territory in the cold. Moreover, transporting these coal and food supplies would consume a lot of coal. Now there are more places to use coal, and coal mined from other coal mines has other uses. If heating is promoted, the amount of coal used by the private coal will be even more scary.

In other words, the coal consumption of the 650,000 troops can only be expected to be such a large coal mine. How can this output be enough?
Chapter completed!