open sea

Chapter 1076 Tobacco Tycoon
Makino Youqianhu was standing in Long Beach, and the platform was crowded with people. In the distance, there were flag soldiers riding horses and holding up several red signs with the word "stop" in the posture of holding spears.

The two healthy horses on the rails snorted uneasily, turning their heads from time to time to see the stupid humans beside the carriage adding heavier loads to their buttocks.

Chen Mu's discovery came from the fact that his mind fell into a cycle of fixed thinking. He always believed that rails were similar to wooden rails, but that the passing condition was better than dirt roads, but he forgot to use iron wheels and rails. Much smaller on wooden tracks.

Besides Chen Mu on the rail platform, there were Zhao Shizhen, the first mechanical unit in the world who brought beef across the equator without spoiling, Yang Zhaolong, the magistrate of Muye County, and Li Yuxi, a subsidiary of Hexingsheng Company.

They are testing the ability of the twin horses to pull cargo on rails.

Yang Zhaolong now also has the appearance of a magistrate, wearing official uniforms all day long and shuttling among the various tribes around Muye.

His county office has been repaired a long time ago, but there are almost no aborigines living in the area around the county office except his subordinates, so they often ride horses and boats from one tribe to the next to "handle government affairs". Without the need for him as an explorer to handle government affairs, tribal chiefs can solve almost all problems of the aborigines.

He is probably the most diligent magistrate in North Asia but also the least serious about his work. The most important thing he handles is to help the chiefs fight for a little more equal return in the tobacco trade in the face of Ming merchant Li Yuxi.

Li Yuxi's company allowed all the tribes along the coast to grow tobacco more or less, while Yang Zhaolong, the magistrate of the county, held the pricing power of all the tobacco along the coast from Quebec to the Florida peninsula border under his jurisdiction.

The price of tobacco here is 32 tongbao per 88 catties, but the Japanese military government does not allow raw tobacco to go to sea, only the processed and baked cigarettes are allowed to go out of the customs. Twenty cigarettes are a pack. , One hundred catties of tobacco can make one thousand packs of cigarettes named 'Daming Muye', the cost is [-] Tongbao per pack, and the price is [-] Tongbao.

Needless to say, this was all Chen Mu's idea. He came up with both ideas and policies. In the whole of Asia, there was nothing he wanted to do but couldn't do.

He not only instructed Li Yuxi to set up a cured cigarette factory, but also regulated the price of cigarettes, and even formulated the tax standard for export cigarettes by the Oriental military government. Daming Muye cigarettes, which were priced at 88 Tongbao per pack, were not exported to the sea, and the imperial court levied a tax of 28 Tongbao.

When going to sea, a tax of 88 Tongbao is charged for each package.

For this item alone, since Muye established the county in July last year, Li Yuxi has shipped more than 36 packs of tobacco to the sea this year, and paid more than [-] million Tongbao in taxes to the Eastern Military Government, worth more than [-] taels of silver.

The greatest power in the hands of Yang Zhaolong, magistrate of Muye County, is that he can give the tobacco farmers under his rule in terms of tax standards—that is, the tribal chiefs and tribes along the coast can give some concessions in the price of tobacco purchases. Give it to the tribal chief you like as a reward.

Most of Muye County's dominion over this land comes from this.

Tobacco hardly requires land conditions, and it does not require any agricultural technology to take care of it. It is very trouble-free. It is normal to harvest one or two hundred catties of dry tobacco leaves per mu of land. Li Yuxi's 36 bales are not the entire tobacco production capacity of Muye County. , not even one tenth.

The production of the cigarette factory is not the reason for restricting his production. The real reason is that this is the first time that tobacco is being dumped to Europe. He feels uncertain about Chen Mu's price and does not know whether he can sell it.

This time Li Yuxi came to see Chen Muzheng for this matter. The ship he sent to Spain was sold out in less than two hours after it docked in Daming Port, Seville. He didn't even need his people to carry them. Those Spanish merchants in Daming Port under Li Dan's rule were extremely enthusiastic about all goods from Daming.

Li Yuxi said: "The goods are sold by box. The bow of Caomin's boat has never seen such a battle. No one even asked what was in the box. They only asked how much Tongbao was in a box. When they heard that a box only cost 15 yuan. Wantongbao later paid the money and took people to remove the goods from the ship...From the beginning to the end, they didn't open it."

"The bow said that even if they put stones in the box, they can sell them at this price."

Chen Mu looked at the workers not far away who were adding a second [-]-jin truck to the rear of the carriage, nodded slowly, nodded and said: "Your goods may be the cheapest Ming goods they have ever seen, after all, a box Silk and satin or porcelain are much cheaper than this, it seems that Dan’er did a good job with Tongbao, did they settle with Tongbao in the end, or did they use half a tael?”

"Tongbao, they gave me Tongbao, and I used Tongbao to exchange half taels to Governor Li, and Governor Li gave me two and a half taels, one for me and one for Daming Port to ship back to North Asia. "

The more mature the trade route is, the more money you can earn from taxation. Chen Mu nodded and asked, "How many packs of Muye Tobacco are there in a box? You've made a lot of money."

Li Yuxi knew that Chen Mu would ask him how much money he had earned. From his understanding, the official job of this Eastern Minister was not to open up the Great Eastern Ocean, but to earn money overseas for the imperial court.

Otherwise, what would he set up a company for?It is not to urge merchants to make profits overseas.

He cupped his hands and said: "Thanks to the commander in chief, I have indeed made a lot of money. A box of [-] packs, Governor Li charges [-] Tongbao in tax per box. Excluding the cost, one box earns nearly [-] Tongbao. A lucky boat Three hundred boxes, net profit of more than [-] taels excluding manpower."

"The condition of the ship to France is not good, because Marshal Chen is fighting there, not to mention we have a military ship, the royal family does not allow it to dock, and it has not returned after being transferred to the Netherlands; the [-] boxes to England are not as good as Spain. It sold quickly, but it was also sold out on the third day after docking.”

"In this way, Caomin's cigarette factory can be expanded and produced at full capacity. The budget is to employ 1 civilians for the Marshal's Dongyang Military Mansion. Next year, he plans to sail [-] ships with [-] boxes... This time, I come to see you. Shuai, I just want to ask what grassroots people can do for the military government."

Chen Mu squinted his eyes and smiled. Before going to sea for the first time, Li Yuxi often complained to others that the taxation of the Eastern Military Mansion was too dark.

Now that there is so much enthusiasm, Li Dan still collects a tax of [-] Tongbao for each bag, and he can still earn nearly [-] Tongbao.

It seems that such huge profits made Li Yuxi a little flustered.

"Don't be afraid, as long as you abide by the laws of the military government, the minimum wage standard for each worker and the minimum purchase price of tobacco, and don't do anything that harms the people, you will be a legal businessman of Ming Dynasty, and the Siyang military government will be your invincible solid backing .”

Chen Mu smiled and said: "But if you want to say that there is something you can do, there is indeed something you can do for me. See if there are any rails? The rails are of different lengths and straights. Each foot weighs 190 eight catties. The Muhe Railway has been built for nearly [-] miles, and it takes four rails to go back and forth for thousands of miles, so you do the math first."

As he spoke, he saw that Yang Zhaolong had come back from afar, so he left Li Yuxi behind and asked Yang Zhaolong, "How is it?"

"Brother-in-law, with two horses, a car with a load of 22 catties can cover the [-] miles of Long Beach in half an hour; pulling two cars with a load of [-] catties can also cover the distance in half an hour, but it is a bit tiring."

"The resistance is because the resistance is much smaller." Chen Mu nodded and said, "If thick steel springs are used as pull hooks between the cars, one can be pulled first, and the first one can be moved with little effort. The pulling force continues to pull the second car, which saves more effort."

"Change horses and continue to test three cars." After he finished speaking to Yang Zhaolong, he turned his head and continued to Li Yuxi: "The military mansion only has forty large furnaces by Lake Ontario, with an annual output of 720 jin of wrought iron. To maintain this This kind of output, the iron-smelting furnace needs to be dismantled or overhauled every 45 days; and this kind of production capacity is not enough to support the completion of the Muhe Railway within three years.”

"Can you solve the expansion of the iron factory and the repair of the old iron furnace?"

When Chen Mu said this, although he was smiling on his face, he was a little embarrassed in his heart.

Because he suddenly found out that the construction of this railway required labor and construction costs. He was using the customs tax paid by Li Yuxi, and now he planned to let Li Yuxi pay the cost of iron making. Basically, this railway was built by the tobacco tycoon.

What made him feel comfortable was that Li Yuxi's attitude was still very upright. He simply calculated the cost and found that Chen Mu didn't let him bear the 4000-plus-jin railroad track, but expanded the ironworks, repaired and Behind the iron furnace, he immediately clasped his fists and said, "Don't worry, Commander, I will do my best to undertake this matter together with Xingsheng's Quanzhou firm!"

(End of this chapter)