After Liu Pei arranged Liu Pijiang, he returned to the Ming Dynasty. His first order to return to the Ming Dynasty was to expand the army. However, his order was opposed by the State Council. The reason for opposition was very simple, which was the financial issue.

Fang Degang held a thick account book and pointed at the series of numbers above excitedly and told Liu Pei that expanding the army is absolutely not feasible! Because the number of expansion stipulated by Liu Pei is an extremely terrible number, that is, the regular army is 850,000! In other words, Liu Pei wants to add more than 200,000 new troops! This is an extremely huge burden for the finance department that has just improved for a few years.

Fang Degang told Liu Pei affirmatively that as long as his military expansion operation begins, his books will become negative in that year!

Liu Pei had just arrived at Fang De, who was panting, and said, "Don't be excited, if you have anything to talk about slowly."

Fang De had just heard Liu Pei's words and immediately threw the teacup he had just taken on the table and said, "Talk slowly? Do you know how hard it is to maintain my current situation? It's easy for you to want a million troops, but it's impossible!"

Liu Pei said: "I know this is difficult because our army is not like Li Zicheng's army. They just catch a person casually and give him a knife to be a soldier! But our soldiers are not good. Not to mention the cost of training, the cost of equipment alone is a lot of money!"

Fang De was so angry that he heard Liu Pei say this, he grabbed the teacup and took a sip and said, "Since you know why you need to expand so many people? We don't say that people eat horses, how long will we have to be busy with just a cannon for the army?"

Liu Pei said: "You don't have to worry about this. The artillery factory has been almost expanded. If you make full use of artillery, you can produce nearly a thousand artillery pieces this year. It will be enough for our army to use it. But now I am worried about whether the food reserves are enough?"

Fang Degang said: "The existing food reserves are enough for all of our rulers to eat for two years! There is no need to worry about this at all."

Liu Pei sighed and said, "I am not worried about this. What I am worried about is that after we sent troops, we do not have enough food to provide to the people in the occupied areas.

”

Fang Degang immediately widened his eyes and said, "Are you ready to send troops?"

Liu Pei shook his head and said, "It's not now. At least it's next year. I'm going to completely defeat all the enemies once I send troops! Including the Qing army, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others are my targets! When I want to unify the country, shorten the time of the war as much as possible! After all, the longer the war is delayed, the more people suffer, and the more the vitality of this country will be hurt!"

Fang Degang said carefully: "Cong Yu, I really don't understand the war. Do you already think it's time to unify the country? You have said before that you don't want to bear the name rebellion! And you are planning to use Li Zicheng's hand to overthrow the Ming Dynasty, why did you suddenly become radical?"

Liu Pei smiled and said, "It's not that I became radical, but that the time is almost done! Speaking of this, has Brother Gui Ren seen the fire in the woods?"

Fang Degang shook his head and said, "I have never seen this before. Is there any explanation?"

Liu Pei said seriously: "Now the Ming Dynasty is like the dry forest in winter. At first, a small flame appeared in the woods. When the first tree was lit, it was easily extinguished! But don't forget that there are several trees around this tree! The flames will jump from one tree to another, from one to two, then from two to four, from four to eight, and finally out of control."

Fang Degang said thoughtfully: "What do you mean by Daming is this dead wood?"

Liu Pei nodded and said, "That's right! This country can still maintain its problems when there were problems at the beginning. But as there were more and more problems, those who were willing to die for him died. When no one came to put out the fire, the fire would only burn bigger and smaller, and the faster it would soon be! Take Li Zicheng as an example. If it weren't for me, he would probably have been uncontrollable at this moment! Maybe he had already started to attack the capital!"

Fang Degang immediately understood and said, "Then according to your opinion, Li Zicheng can speed up after taking our things? But with his current strength, would he want to attack the capital?

Is it too much worse?”

Liu Pei smiled and said, "Believe it or not, if Li Zicheng really sets up his mind to attack the capital, it would be great if 30% of the cities could resist along the way! I'm afraid that most cities will surrender without fighting! The rumors about the Eighteen-child main artifact released by that bastard Song Xiance is really powerful!"

Fang Degang said disdainfully: "Some people believe such nonsense. It's so stupid for the world!"

Liu Pei said slowly: "It may not be that people in the world are too stupid. I'm afraid some people pretend to be confused when they understand! Forget it, let's not talk about this, but let's talk about food."

Fang Degang said: "I have a way to store a large amount of grain. In recent years, Nanyang has been harvesting year by year, and the granary is almost unable to pile up. It can allow the navy to transport a large amount of grain to Shandong to reserve. But if war starts, the loss of transportation from Shandong to various places will be too high!"

Liu Pei said: "I have a way to do this. Now we have controlled most of Henan, so I am planning to strengthen control there. By then, the grain reserves in Henan can save at least a few hundred miles and save a lot of food."

Fang Degang said: "So, are you planning to really control all the surrounding areas? In this way, the staff of the State Council will be tight again! Fortunately, I still have some reserves."

Liu Pei nodded and said, "That's right. Although these places are under our control, we are not in our hands in fact. They can only be regarded as a barrier outside Shandong. This time I will take them down completely and do everything according to Shandong's rules! And there are many bandits and horse bandits in those places, which just happen to be able to practice for the recruits!"

Fang Degang frowned and said, "If you occupy all these places, I'm afraid the court will have a serious reaction! Maybe the court will stay with you forever!"
Chapter completed!