my wonderful zoo

Chapter 236 Clean Up
Packs of gray wolves scurry back and forth in the eastern mountainous area of ​​Ye County. Their bodies as huge as calves do not dare to provoke the beasts hiding in the mountains.

Under the guidance of the gray wolf's keen sense of smell, all the mines hidden in the mountains were found one after another.

Large mines have thousands of people, while small ones only have a few people.

Most of the miners are "slaves" who were sold into slavery. They became slaves for various reasons. Most of them were sold because they could not pay off their debts.

In addition to using slaves, Chen Xun also found a lot of child labor in most of the mines.

The treatment of these miners is very poor. They are not clothed, and they work hard every day just for a full meal, but even this full meal is not something that can be obtained just by thinking.

The supervisors are all the lackeys of the mine owners. They can be said to be very inhumane. In their view, output is far more important than human life. In order to maintain a high-pressure situation, slave workers are often killed to scare the monkeys.

The scene was truly horrific.

In the public trials organized by the military government in the later period, few people above the level of supervisors survived. As for the mine owners, it can be said that they were completely punished.

The entire eastern mountainous area had been cleared, and it was already mid-September.

According to the usual practice in previous years, there is still more than a month until the first snowfall in winter on Jingdong East Road.

Chen Xun did not dare to stay, and immediately divided his army into three armies and sent them out.

Continue all the way to the northeast and visit Huang County and Penglai County, the capital of Dengzhou.

The second route goes east to attack Laiyang, Mouping and Wendeng counties.

The three routes had the largest number of troops and went south to attack Jiaoshui, Gaomi, Jiaoxi and Jimo counties.

If the progress on the Ganping side is slow, the three groups will continue to go south to attack Zhucheng and Ju County in Mizhou.

This time, Chen Xun did not follow the army, but returned to Yexian.

After successive battles, Chen Jiajun's middle and high-level officers have been trained. They can conquer several counties without Chen Xun himself.

"Our Xuzhou Group Army is making the fastest progress and should be able to complete all the occupation of Jingdong West Road and Jingdong East Road before the year." In the office, Jia Tao reported to Chen Xunhui.

"Well, where are the other two armies?" Chen Xun looked through the official documents and reports he had accumulated recently, distracted.

"The Hebei Group Army is progressing faster than the Kaifeng Group Army. It has completed the occupation of all Hebei East Road and most of the Hebei West Road prefectures and counties. However, due to lack of manpower, it has now stopped and is recruiting new soldiers and reorganizing and training."

"Where is Yue Fei?" Chen Xun was more concerned about this famous historical general.

"He has entered Hedong Road. With Zongze's cooperation, he plans to recruit various rebels on Hedong Road." Jia Tao replied.

Zongze had been reticent for some time. As the Chen Jiajun fought everywhere, he finally realized the strength of the Chen Jiajun. He finally understood that the Song Dynasty was over and promised to help the Chen Jiajun contact various rebels and strive to end the war in Hebei as soon as possible.

The rapid progress of Gan Ping and Sun Zheng is partly due to Zongze.

"The slowest one is Sun Zheng's Kaifeng Group Army. Last month they stormed Huayin Pass and lost a lot of men. Then they stopped here, waiting for material and weapons support from the rear to arrive."

"But he was not completely idle. He captured all the prefectures and counties in the three prefectures of Shaanzhou, Hezhongfu, and Jiezhou in the north of the Yellow River. He took a piece of territory from the Yongxing Military Road."

"Jiezhou? Is it the Jiezhou with the Jiezhou Salt Pond?" Chen Xun asked. "Yes, our Chen Jiajun has mastered the Yanchi of Xiezhou." Jia Tao replied.

"Let me take a look." Chen Xun asked Jia Tao to dig out a pile of reports about the Battle of Jiezhou and read them.

According to the description of Jiezhou Salt Pond in the report, Jiezhou Salt occupied an important position in the socio-economic and political life of the Song Dynasty.

At its peak, the financial profit of Yanchi even reached half of the world's tax revenue, and it was the most important source of economic income for the Song Dynasty.

In later generations, it also had another name called Yuncheng Salt Lake, which is one of the three largest sodium sulfate type inland salt lakes in the world.
"The output of salt solution is so high." Chen Xun looked surprised when he saw in the report that the annual output of salt solution could exceed 25 stones.

This output is already comparable to the combined output of the military government's many salt farms in Guangzhou.

"Yes, large granular salt solution is supplied to almost the entire northwest region. It is even sold on Hebei West Road." Jia Tao replied.

"It seems that we have mastered another super money-making machine." Although Sun Zheng's westward advance is slow, he did the right thing by choosing to capture Jie County first. With the understanding of salt, the Kaifeng Group Army basically does not need the military government to invest again. Money.

"The original salt solution is indeed profitable, but the production method of salt solution is different from that of sea salt. The five-step salt production method is already very advanced. We can only improve some working tools, but it is difficult to improve the salt production method. If the selling price is reduced like sea salt, Profits will drop sharply." Jia Tao reminded: "According to the salt policy of our military government, with the Jiezhou Salt Pond in our hands, profits will be much lower than before."

Chen Xun turned to the back of the report, and sure enough, there was Sun Zheng's consultation content, asking Chen Xun to determine the sales strategy of Jieyan.

There are generally two directions. One is to optimize the original sales method and maximize profits.The second is to sell it in accordance with the Haiyan salt policy to benefit the people.

Chen Xun thought about it for a moment and chose the latter.

Cheap salt prices will be conducive to the rule of the military government, which is very important for the military government that has isolated itself from the gentry class.

"It doesn't matter, there will be many places where we can make money. Salt is a necessity for people's production and life, so we still need to provide them with basic protection." Chen Xun replied.

"Okay, I will notify Sun Zheng as soon as possible."

Continue to read the reports on the table. If you have any questions, just ask Jia Tao directly. If he doesn't know, just recruit others.

There are snow pigeons for communication. Although the jurisdiction of the military government is large, the time limit for handling government affairs in various places is not long.

Picking up a report again, the main content of the report was briefly described at the beginning to give Chen Xun a direction, and the detailed report was followed by a large section.

The whole article is written in vernacular, concise and to the point, and seems to be very fast.

"Money shortage?" Chen Xun wondered. Is the military government short of money?It shouldn't be.

In Kaifeng, tens of millions of taels were harvested, which was enough for the military government to spend for several years.

As he continued reading, Chen Xun finally understood that the money shortage was not a lack of money, but a lack of small-denomination coins.

I don’t know since when, Chen Xun became accustomed to large-value transactions and rarely used small-value coins.Previously in Guangzhou, most of the transactions between Chenjiazhuang and maritime merchants, suppliers and distributors used silver taels. In addition, the trade volume was limited, and there was never a problem of money shortage.

The report describes that the money shortage is mainly caused by two reasons.

(End of this chapter)