It has been several days since Lu Fang arrived in Wenzhou. He also arrived by boat with him, including Shao Shuguang, general manager of Taiwan Bank, and his entourage, and his entourage.

These people came to Yongjia County, Wenzhou Prefecture, the place where King Lu was stationed, and the time point was actually very subtle: today was August 15, 1680. The news that the army on the east coast defeated the Qing army in Shaoxing Prefecture and captured the four counties was not long after, and the rule of the King Lu was in a state of dismay.

The reason was nothing. Before that, Zhang Huangyan, the first minister of the King of Lu, personally served as the commander of the three routes, and led tens of thousands of troops who had finally pieced together in the country to attack Shaoxing and Yanzhou. At that time, Zhang Huangyan's army used his life to defeat Zhuji County after a hard battle, and shocked Shaoxing. At the same time, he also took down the Yanzhou Prefecture, which was close to him, threatening the flanks of Hangzhou. That period was the highest period of time for the King of Lu's troops. Not only did the gentry in southern Zhejiang and western Zhejiang celebrate, but even the gentry in northern Zhejiang were a little ready to move and began to send people to secretly communicate with each other, as if leading the army of Lu's army to enter Hangzhou, destroy Huzhou, pacify Jiaxing, and occupy Songjiang. Compared with the "famous" yellow-clad thieves, they still prefer the King of Lu to rule. It has nothing to do with anything else, but only interests.

The successful battle of King Lu's army dazzled many people. Even Zhang Huangyan, who had always been relatively stable, gradually became optimistic after defeating the Qing army in the field outside Zhuji City. This can be seen from his series of memorials to King Lu at that time that he was excited in his heart.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. The Qing army transferred troops that could conquer warlike troops, and under the command of the old general of the army, they defeated the army of King Lu and recaptured Zhuji County. Then they chased the defeated troops and drove all the troops out of Lu, while occupying Pujiang County, Jinhua Prefecture. Yanzhou Prefecture, which had not been stationed for many troops, was completely destroyed by a Qing army partial division. At this point, the King Lu's army really lost a lot of rice. Not only did they lose a major border town, but they also lost more than 20,000 troops in vain. It was really a loss to my grandma's house.

As a result, the East Coast people organized more than 30,000 troops, and suddenly followed the Cao'e River, siege of the city in Sheng County, siege of Shangyu, and all the battles of Yuyao River were won. Then the generals rushed into the west of Cao'e River, captured countless people, and killed and wounded nearly 40,000 Qing troops. The results were extremely brilliant, which greatly shocked the rule of the King of Lu. Zhang Huangyan, the former three generals, even accused him of suing the crimes and asked the King of Lu to choose another capable person. Fortunately, although Zhu Yihai was in poor health, his head was still clear and he had not allowed him.

In other words, when Lu Fang, Shao Shuguang and others came to Yongjia Port this time, the Lu regime all had a complex mentality of envy, doubt, fear and enthusiasm for them. This mood was very complicated, mixed with the traditional scholars in the Lu regime's vague fear of the yellow-clad thieves, and also envy of their army's combat effectiveness. Of course, it also contained some people's eagerness to carry out military reforms with the help of the East Coast and improve the combat effectiveness of the troops. The latter was especially represented by Zhang Huangyan.

Therefore, you can see that in the residence provided by the King of Lu who was staying on the east coast, the young general of the King of Lu regime, the son of the late veteran Wang Chaoxian, and the general of Jinhua, Wang Jin, came to meet at the first time.

This martial artist is pretty real. After a while of leisure, he mentioned the request to deepen military reform and improve the combat effectiveness of the troops. This is actually one of the goals of the East Coast people coming here, that is, to help the army under the King of Lu improve their combat effectiveness and reduce the defense burden of the East Coast people.

Of course, the people of the East Coast urgently increased the combat effectiveness of the King of Lu's army, but this does not mean that they would provide services to the King of Lu for free. That is unrealistic, and the burden is too heavy, which is not a good choice. The ideal way is to reform their traditional, outdated and inefficient military institutions step by step through economic cooperation with Ningbo East Coast Ruling Region, with the help of the East Coast Republic, with the help of the Eastern Coast Republic, step by step reform their traditional, outdated and inefficient military institutions, cultivate, appoint qualified modern military talents, purchase modern weapons and equipment, etc.

It is obvious that in the modernization of the Lu King's army, the help of the East Coast Military Advisory Group, which had existed in Shunguo for a long time. They will rebuild the Lu King's military command system, reserve system, and logistics supply system. At the same time, they will use Yantai College and Hei Water Transportation College, two university governments in the Far East to help Lu King cultivate a series of relevant talents. Compared with these actions, adding some guns, armor and other military equipment is not the point, but I don't know how determined the Lu King's regime is to cooperate.

Of course, from the moment, both sides took the first steps very well. The Lu King regime may have been really hurt by the Qing army not once or twice, but many times, and the traditional conservative forces gradually declined, and the call for reform gradually increased. Therefore, the problem of military reform with the help of the East Coast should not be big, and the difference is only the depth.

"This is an excellent opportunity. Many people in the Lu court were angry at the weak combat power of the army, so they were positive about military reform. We must seize this opportunity." Although theoretically only responsible for economic affairs, Shao Shuguang still guided the military in front of most people, especially when the Taiwan Bank was recently approved to establish a small-scale army.

"Cultivating officers who have a good impression of us in the army of King Lu should be the primary goal. If possible, it is best to let these people climb up step by step and be able to lead the army. The interests here are undoubtedly very huge, and not for a moment, but for a long time." Shao Shuguang continued to talk loudly, only hearing him say: "We trained many officers for Shunguo back then, which enhanced our influence on this regime, but when we wanted to go further, Shunguo was very alert, and their emperor was even a cunning and sober guy who interrupted our plan. However, the regime of King Lu did not have the conditions like Shunguo. His regime had only two million people under his jurisdiction, and the military system was also very primitive, which was our opportunity to play. Envoy Lu, did you discuss how much money you would have to spend to achieve the initial modernization of the Lunguo army?"

"Well, the preliminary estimate is about 20.3 million yuan per year, and 510 years of continuous investment. After all, talent cultivation takes time, and system reconstruction and running-in require constant thoughts. So if you are more secure, you can see results in ten years, provided that the reform is not interrupted in the middle of the reform." Lu Fang stroked his beard and said.

"We can still wait for five to ten years. After the battle of Shaoxing Prefecture, the Qing court should not dare to find us in a short period of time, and should be able to win a certain amount of peace. But investing 20 to 3 million yuan in ten years is it a little more? How much tax is now in the Lu King regime? There are many mountains and few lands in western Zhejiang, and it has been barren since ancient times. Can it afford it? Although our Taiwan Bank has already made plans for trade aid, it is still hard to say whether it can really achieve the expected goals." Shao Shuguang said to himself hesitantly.

In his opinion, in addition to Jinhua and Quzhou, the small imperial court controlled by King Lu, a small mountain basin, has a considerable mountain basin. The plains are not large and there are mountains and steep mountains everywhere. It is conceivable how poor the economic foundation is. This seems to explain from one aspect why the combat effectiveness of the King Lu army is so poor that it cannot be afforded!

At present, the largest trade between the people of the Lu King Ruling Area and the East Coast is probably the trade of tea and medicinal materials, but it only looks more than 200,000 yuan a year, which is a bit useless. In addition, there are only small trades such as bamboo and lacquerware, which are also drunk. Even the Lu King Control Area imports a lot of goods from the East Coast every year and spends a lot of gold and silver. It really takes some effort to help them improve this situation.

"Captain Ma means to give them some military supplies, such as medicinal materials, butt stocks, spears, drums and other things, so that they can make some money. In addition, vigorously develop new trade! For example, porcelain and stone tools produced by Chuzhou Prefecture, various fruits and poultry produced by Taizhou Prefecture, bamboo tools and tea produced by Wenzhou Prefecture, tea oil and tea oil produced by Quzhou Prefecture, various medicinal materials produced by Jinhua Prefecture, mountain goods, etc., those that can be sold at a high price in Ningshao and Denglai will not be charged for the time being, and the import tariffs will be paid. Do your best to help them increase their trade

It is easy to get the money to pay for the military reform. Of course, the biggest thing is to support the future and maintain the new army. This is not a small amount. If you do not first develop productivity and increase the output in the jurisdiction, even if these new army are really established, the future will be worrying." Lu Fanglai had studied the products in the jurisdiction of King Lu before, which would be very clear. But to be honest, he was still a little pessimistic, because the five mountains and few lands under the jurisdiction of King Lu were many, and the household registration was not large. Whether there would be enough commodity output in the future is difficult to say.

Shao Shuguang nodded as soon as he heard this and agreed: "Okay, it's better to have specialties than not. Our Taiwan Bank will set up a local specialty store in the five prefectures and thirty counties in the land of Lu Wang in a while, and specialize in purchasing local specialties, and then transport them back to Ningbo for sale either by sea or by land. With the exemption of import tariffs, there should be a certain sales channel. Even our company can help Lu Wang introduce the goods to the Dutch, British, Korean and Japanese. Whether they buy or not depends on whether the Zhu family's ancestral tomb will be emitted..."

"Ahem... General Manager Shao, be careful! Be careful!" Hearing Shao Shuguang's happy comment on the "Old Zhu Family's Ancestral Tomb", Lu Fang hurriedly interrupted: "The Lu King Ruling Area may also lack some economic talents. Whether this needs to be cultivated must be formulated. Speaking of which, Fujian, ruled by the Zheng family next door, is also a lot of mountains and few lands, but the development of business is simply incomparable to southern Zhejiang. This is a problem of the leader's concept, and it is also a problem of old understanding and lack of talents. If you want to fully explore the potential of the two million people in the five prefectures and thirty counties of the Lu King Ruling Area, the cultivation of economic and political talents cannot be ignored, but this is probably not difficult."

"It doesn't matter. We start with the easy and then the difficult. Taking advantage of the huge external pressure of the Lu regime, we will command the King of Lu through the baton of commercial trade. In this way, the situation will definitely change slowly. What are you worried about? The King of Lu's army is so weak, and its population is only similar to our Ningshao ruling region now. In the future, we can still run out of our palms? This time, King of Lu and we are willing to fight and the other are willing to be beaten. I think Captain Ma is already determined. He wants to use this trick of killing two birds with one stone to completely tie the King of Lu, the small separatist regime, to our chariot, to make it a good idea.

The chess pieces in our hands are to deal with the various changes that may occur in the future. I am not worried about whether this plan will be successful in the end. I am just a little bit of doubt about how long the process will take, but now that is the case, we can only go all the way." Shao Shuguang stroked the Qingtian porcelain cup in front of him with both hands and said, "We Taiwan Bank are not worried. What are you afraid of? You must know that we have already taken the biggest risk. I guess that even if the trade with the Lu King Ruling Area is not going well in the future, Captain Ma will ask our company to take at least 300,000 yuan a year to support the Lu King Jun reform. I know him too much, alas."

When Shao Shuguang complained, Lu Fang and others smiled knowingly, thinking that this is likely to happen. However, Taiwan banks should not lose money. This trade is actually done, especially when the Lu King regime is relatively weak and needs to survive on the east coast, the political risks can almost be ignored.

In comparison, Taiwan Bank has been desperately trying to monopolize trade with the Zheng family in Fujian over the years, but has suffered repeated setbacks. To put it bluntly, there is great political uncertainty, and the Zheng family is unwilling to hand over all the goods to the Taiwan Bank agent. This is not only because they have their own trading team, but also because of their vigilance against the East Coast heat. This fully demonstrates that the Zheng family in Fujian has a relatively high independence in front of the East Coast people, which is something that the King of Lu regime will never do. It is too far from heaven and too close to the East Coast!
Chapter completed!