A small soldier of the frontier army in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 168 Silver Refining Income and Expenditure

Not long after, the densely packed mountains and forests appeared in front of us. At a crossroad into the mountain, there were soldiers from the Second Armored Corps of the Fifth Division and B Corps guarding them. Beside the crossroads, there were rows of simple barracks for these guards. The sergeants at the intersection lived.

Go straight from this path to the silver mine in Shangjinggou.

Seeing the sergeants of Team A of Group E giggling and returning with a large amount of prey, among which were big-headed wild boars, the sergeants of Team B and A’s stared wide-eyed: "Good guy, such a big-headed wild boar can eat meat well tonight." gone."

They shouted loudly: "Brothers, you are still happy, hunting every day, how carefree. It's not like us, sitting here all day, you are almost sick from boredom."

The sergeant of the First Division of the E Corps smiled and said: "I said brother, you are so good-looking when you get a bargain, you are here to relax every day, it is not like us, climbing mountains and forests all day, you are so tired."

They laughed and entered the mountain road, traversing mountains and ridges on the rugged path. The mountain road is long and rugged, and the wilderness path is rough. After walking for about half an hour, their eyes lit up. There is a small flat land below, and a river winds northward. and go.On the bank of the river, there is a large area of ​​barracks and dwellings, just like a village.Hundreds of miners and their families live and mine here, as well as more than 300 sergeants from the Wu Zong who guard it, turning the desolate Shangjinggou into a lively place.

The closer the barracks were, the more noisy the crowds became. Seeing the sergeants of the E Corps A came back carrying a large number of prey, the miners' families and children who were busy outside the barracks greeted them happily, especially those children. Huan shouted: "Great, there is meat to eat, there is meat to eat."

They surrounded the sergeants of Team A, and Zhong Tiaoyang came out of the barracks after hearing this. He was also quite happy when he saw the harvest of his subordinates: "Great, I will kill these prey tonight, and make up for the brothers." As soon as you replenish your body, those miner brothers can also have a good time."

He stretched his waist a long way. It has been a few months since he blinked in the Jinggou here. At the beginning of the year, it was still deserted. In order to build this silver mine, he and the old craftsman Wu Shihuan had to pay unimaginable hardships. labor.However, my cousin entrusted himself with the heavy responsibility of guarding the silver mine, no matter how difficult it was, Zhong Tiaoyang would persevere.

After walking on the track, everything in the silver mine is fine, and the supplies are also sufficient. The miners in the upper ditch eat the best food. Just eat the daily white flour steamed buns freely, but the supply of meat can’t keep up. The miners start mining Hard work, no meat, no physical strength.

Zhong Tiaoyang saw that his sergeants were also idle, so he asked them to hunt around. Sure enough, the situation of no meat was quickly improved.

Not knowing how long he would be guarding the silver mine, Zhong Tiaoyang sighed, walked out of the barracks, and walked around casually.

From Shangjinggou to the north for dozens of miles, along the rugged valley, the river will flow to Luanzhuang. If you look around, you will see the flat river between the two mountains. In the place of Xiajinggou in later generations, there is also a small group of soldiers there. Guard the intersection. In addition, most of the soldiers of President Wu lived not far from the miners' barracks.

Zhong Tiaoyang walked through the shallow river and reached the west side of the river. There is a large silver furnace mine here, with noisy people and raging fires. Not far from the silver furnace, there are small black hills, which are Silver slag left over from silver smelting.

After only a few months of mining, the mountains on the west bank of the river are covered with wells of various sizes, each with different depths.The veins of the silver mine are crooked, so the tunnels in the mine are also high and low. If you dig for many years, it is very likely that these places will be dug into a big hole.

There are many divisions of labor in silver smelting. After the strong miners mined the ore, they first pounded it very fine with a pestle, and then put it into a large bucket and stirred it with water hundreds of times to select the essence of the ore.This process, because it does not require any technical content, is generally used by the male and female family members of the miners.Then put it into a silver furnace for smelting, and use the ash blowing method to remove the pure silver. This process requires those experienced mining technicians.

In the silver mine at Shangjinggou, about eight stones of ore can yield seven taels of silver. It is not so easy to get [-] to [-] taels of silver a year.

Seeing Zhong Tiaoyang coming over, some miners and miners who were busy saluted him respectfully. It was said that Zhong Tiaoyang was the cousin of Mr. Li, but he had no pretensions. He was kind and never beat or scolded. Silver mines often have their sergeants participate in the work, which is really rare.

When everyone comes here, they can eat enough every day. As long as they stay here for five years, those who are willing to leave will be paid a considerable amount of wages. It is worth the effort.

Zhong Tiaoyang saw the old craftsman Wu Shihuan directing non-stop. After several months of hard work, his hair became more gray, but he was still full of energy and energy. Seeing Zhong Tiaoyang, he hurried over, and the two chatted. After a few words, Wu Shihuan was still satisfied with the achievements of the past few months. He said: "Master Zhong, the Shangjinggou Silver Mine has been opened for three months and has already obtained 650 taels of net silver. Given time, the silver mine will be obtained every month." There can be more, estimated to be up to 500 taels..."

Zhong Tiaoyang nodded, thinking to himself: "I got three thousand six hundred and fifty five taels of silver in March, and I don't know if my cousin is satisfied."

……

At the end of March in the tenth year of Chongzhen, Wang Dou was carefully calculating his inventory in the integrity mansion in Baoanzhou City.

He looked at the paperwork and calculated the consumption of his family, his brows were wrinkled, the situation was not optimistic.

In July of last year, after Wang Dou captured the proceeds of the Qing soldiers, he had a total of more than 350 shi of grain and rice, more than 1 taels of silver, and more than [-] taels of gold in Shunxiangbao. The price of gold is relatively expensive, and it can be converted to more than [-] taels of silver, so Wang Dou has about [-] taels of silver in his hands.

In addition, in Shunxiangbao, Wang Dou has 530 seven cattle.Zhoucheng originally had 380 six cattle. After Wang Dou came from Acropolis and Lucheng for 310 cattle, there were already 690 cattle in Zhoucheng.In addition, Wang Dou also has more than 1000 pigs and sheep and more than 500 mules and horses in Shunxiangbao.

Wang Dou's principle is to keep the grain and rice in the warehouse as much as possible, and buy as much as possible with silver. The fields in Shunxiangbao have not produced much, and most of the soldiers and civilians need Wang Dou to support, especially those with nearly two thousand troops of the same color. A young man eats a lot.In fact, the soldiers and civilians in Shunxiang Fort now look forward to organizing them to work in the fort. Generally, when they are not working, Wang Dou lets these military households eat themselves, or rations some rice porridge in small quantities. Rice is only eaten when working together. They are fed with steamed buns and often meat.

But there are so many things, one thousand shi of rice grain and one hundred pigs and sheep are still used for Wang Dou in a month.In the past few months, Wang Dou had used money to buy rice from various rice shops in the state city. By the end of March, most of the money in Wang Dou's hands was gone, and there were not many pigs and sheep left.

Also, in the second half of this year, Baoan Prefecture will need to collect taxes and grains. Wang Dou and Zhizhou Li Zhenzhen will be exempted from the collection of taxes and grains for the soldiers and civilians of Baoan Prefecture this year. All the burdens will be on Wang Dou's thick shoulders.The military and civilian households in Baoan Prefecture have a total of more than 4000 taels of grain. The Ming Dynasty collects color silver, and one stone of grain and rice is converted into eight qian of silver. If the silver is converted into silver, it is more than 3000 taels of silver. In the twelfth lunar month of last year, Baoan Prefecture distributed additional tax silver. 270 Forty-two, Wang Dou must bear the burden.

Wang Dou also promised to give Zhizhou Li Zhenyu 500 taels of silver as an envy, and the second half of the year, the state city, Wubao and Zhangjiabao sergeant's food and salary.The most important thing is to build a water truck for irrigation of wells right now, and it is estimated that the thousand cattle that I bought from Lai Mancheng will arrive soon, and I will pay 5000 taels of silver immediately...

Wang Dou shook his head, guarding the land of a state, outsiders looking at the scenery, in fact, the pressure is not small.

Then Wang Dou looked at the silver mine documents submitted by Zhong Tiaoyang, and he nodded in satisfaction. He got three thousand six hundred and fifty five taels of silver in three months, with an average income of 650 two hundred taels a month. More than 1000 taels of silver came into the account, which is not bad, and I finally have a stable income.

After looking at the bandit suppression documents from these times, Wang Dou is even more satisfied. From the 300th of this month, Wen Fangliang and Gao Shiyin led the army to Weizhou and other places to suppress bandits, and they have wiped out many bandit villages , After the confiscations were brought back one after another, more than 1000 taels of silver were obtained, and more than [-] shi, rice and grain were obtained. This kind of income can be obtained in less than a month. It seems that suppressing bandits is a good job.

Counting the income of nearly ten thousand taels of silver, this is a huge sum in the eyes of outsiders, but soon it will cost more than half of it, and I am still stretched.

Wang Dou stood up abruptly and continued to suppress the bandits, showing no mercy to those bandits who harmed the common people!

……

At the beginning of April in the tenth year of Chongzhen, Wen Fangliang and Gao Shiyin led the army back to Baoanzhou, while Han Chao, Han Zhong, and Sun Sanjie, under the order of Wang Dou, led nearly a thousand soldiers from A, B, and Ding to rush towards Weizhou like tigers. And other places, continue to carry out the great cause of bandit suppression.

At the same time, Wang Dou also organized the soldiers and civilians in Bao'an Prefecture to fight and irrigate wells.

(End of this chapter)