Chapter 1228: A man should be looked at with new eyes after three days of absence!
After spending the first night in Lin'an, Ye Mingsheng started his work from the next day. He first reviewed the troops of the First Army and the Fourth Army, witnessed the heroic demeanor of the Fengwu Army soldiers, and inspected the Fengwu Army's barracks. Finally, Ye Mingsheng attended the welcoming banquet held for him by Zhu Chen in the evening as agreed.

Originally in Zhu Chen's plan, the welcoming banquet was a more traditional Great Zhou banquet, with only some high-ranking military and political officials from Jiangnan attending the banquet. Everyone sat together, and there were some singing and dancing performances at the banquet.

However, under the instruction of Ye Mingsheng, Zhu Chen also designed a buffet dinner and, for the first time, invited some wealthy businessmen from Jiangnan to participate in the banquet.

Some wealthy people in the south of the Yangtze River, led by Hu Wenjie, Cao Genwei, and Fu Yixiang, were also very surprised by this. In the history of the Great Zhou Dynasty, although merchants possessed huge wealth, their social status was very low. They were even considered fat sheep and were often treated like fish on the chopping board by others!

Therefore, not only the merchants in Jiangnan, but also the merchants in the entire Da Zhou, the first thing they want to do after they become rich is to improve their social status and increase their political influence in order to protect their wealth.

But unfortunately, under the feudal system of the Great Zhou Dynasty, feudal ideas were deeply rooted, so it was difficult for the efforts of businessmen to change much.

Therefore, when Ye Mingsheng was willing to invite them to the welcoming party, they were all very happy, and each of them dressed up and attended with honor.

At the banquet, Ye Mingsheng reiterated his ideas, which were to rectify the administration of officials, encourage industry and commerce to develop overseas trade, and improve workers' wages and benefits. When Hu Wenjie, Cao Genwei and others heard the first two items mentioned by Ye Mingsheng, they all smiled.

However, when they heard that Ye Mingsheng wanted to increase workers’ wages and strengthen supervision over industries related to people’s livelihood, the smiles on their faces immediately disappeared······················

Ye Mingsheng noticed all the changes in the expressions of these wealthy businessmen from Jiangnan, and he had already made a plan for this. When the banquet was interrupted, these wealthy businessmen from Jiangnan were allowed to toast Ye Mingsheng together.

After drinking, Ye Mingsheng expressed his appreciation for the wealthy businessmen in Jiangnan who donated silver to the court and purchased bonds of the Dadongsheng Company. Ye Mingsheng also encouraged them to invest the money they earned from overseas in the central and northern parts of Da Zhou.

Although the entire banquet experienced some unpleasant episodes, such as Han Fei, the assistant censor of the Censorate, insulting Yi Xiang after getting drunk at the banquet, the matter was properly resolved after Song Haibo intervened, so overall the atmosphere of the banquet was quite warm!

After the banquet, because Ye Mingsheng didn't drink too much, he didn't rest either. He took this opportunity to meet Ma Zhongjun and Zhang Meng. Ye Mingsheng's summons was also expected by these two most important generals of the Fengwu Army in Jiangnan after He Jingyun left.

Ye Mingsheng met the two men separately. The first one he met was Ma Zhongjun. In front of Ye Mingsheng, Ma Zhongjun began to describe his duties, telling about his experiences in fighting in the south and his feelings after coming to Jiangnan. In addition, he also agreed very much with Ye Mingsheng's idea of ​​vigorously developing the Great Zhou navy.

What Ma Zhongjun said was quite standard and there was nothing special about it, so Ye Mingsheng first expressed his admiration for Ma Zhongjun's bravery in leading the First Division in the southward campaign. Ma Zhongjun was very grateful for this and expressed his desire to always be the Marshal's most loyal guard!
The conversation with Ma Zhongjun was so dull, which made Ye Mingsheng a little disappointed. With such disappointment, Ye Mingsheng met with Zhang Meng, the commander of the Fourth Army. Ye Mingsheng hoped that Zhang Meng could bring him some surprises!
However, when Zhang Meng first met Ye Mingsheng, he, like Ma Zhongjun, first expressed his merits and then expressed his loyalty. However, unlike Ma Zhongjun who wanted to be Ye Mingsheng's most loyal guard, Zhang Meng wanted to be Ye Mingsheng's groom, holding the horse and stirrups for Ye Mingsheng.

Just when Ye Mingsheng was about to end his conversation with Zhang Meng in disappointment, the surprise that Ye Mingsheng had been expecting finally appeared. Zhang Meng expressed his hope that Ye Mingsheng would allow him to lead the Fourth Army to attack Baiyue, Yunqian and other places!

Ye Mingsheng was very interested when he heard Zhang Meng mention "Baiyue", so Ye Mingsheng asked Zhang Meng to tell him about his plan in detail, and Zhang Meng began to talk. He believed that if they wanted to realize Ye Mingsheng's strategy of Da Zhou going out to sea, they must first control Nanyang to ensure that the native tribes and pirates there would not become obstacles for Da Zhou merchant ships to go out to sea.
If he wants to control Nanyang, he must first capture Baiyue, Yunqian. Only by capturing Baiyue, Yunqian and controlling Nanyang can the plan be finally realized. So he hopes that he can be the vanguard and pioneer scout of Ye Mingsheng's strategy with the Fourth Army!
In addition to these strategic ideas, Zhang Meng also has his own ideas on specific tactics. He believes that there are many mountains in places like Baiyue and Yunqian, but if the Fengwu Army launches a conquest like a strong dragon, it will arouse the hatred of the local ethnic groups!
By then, the Fengwu Army will encounter stubborn resistance, and even if it can eventually take these places, it will pay a huge price!
Therefore, Zhang Meng's idea is to use the internal conflicts among the local Tu people as a starting point, exacerbate their internal conflicts so that they cannot unite, and then use one group to fight another, and finally achieve the goal of completely taking over Baiyue and Yunqian.
Based on this idea, Zhang Meng also introduced the conflicts between the chieftains of Baiyue and Yunqian to Ye Mingsheng. Seeing Zhang Meng knowing everything about it, although Ye Mingsheng appeared calm on the surface, he was very surprised deep down in his heart, and even felt a little unbelievable!

Zhang Meng was the soldier who had followed him all the way from Liaoyang, so Ye Mingsheng had some understanding of Zhang Meng. In the past, Ye Mingsheng's impression of Zhang Meng was that although he had not read many military books, he was as his name suggested, brave in battle, daring to fight and charge, and he was relatively smart and had a unique cunning!

However, he had never had such a clear analysis and formulation from strategy to tactics. In the past of Fengwu Army, only Gu Sansi and He Jingyun had such a clear mind, and even Yuan Song lacked that!
So when such a statement came out of Zhang Meng's mouth, Ye Mingsheng also had a feeling that one should look at someone with new eyes after three days of absence!
The most important thing is that Zhang Meng’s idea coincides with Ye Mingsheng’s. As early as half a year ago, Ye Mingsheng had approved a special fund of 100,000 taels of silver and handed it to the Coordination Office to let them do intelligence work in Baiyue, Yunqian...
(Brothers, the data is very realistic. When I advance the main story, the number of readers is only 150 in 220 hours, and when I write about power struggles and palace fighting, the number of readers is . However, I will still focus on the main story, and then try to insert some content that everyone likes to read in the middle. Thank you for your support!)
(End of this chapter)