open sea

Chapter 1267 Difficulties
Qi Jiguang soon met the owner of the caravan, Shen Sankui.

Not even the owner, to be precise, Shen Sankui is the manager of this caravan.

"Yes, the grass people are Jia people from Puzhou, Pingyang Prefecture, Shanyou, and they have been doing business in the border market since the imperial court opened the border market. , it is because the elders in the family have always been with the third lady, and they sent cavalry to send us off for fear that we would go far away and be in danger."

Qi Jiguang didn't ask again who was the elder in Shen Sankui's family who had a close relationship with San Niangzi, he had already guessed it.

The Shanxi merchants in this era are different from the eight imperial merchants in the Qing Dynasty. Those merchants are still just small people. At this time, Puzhou salt merchants are the top merchants in the world.

They get rich by monopoly and politics.

There is a businessman named Zhang Yunling in Puzhou, Pingyang Prefecture. His ancestors moved here from Yanchi in Jiezhou in the Yuan Dynasty. , passed the Jinshi examination, and just entered the cabinet counselor and maintenance department under the recommendation of Zhang Juzheng this year.

There is also a businessman in Puzhou named Wang Yao, who was a big salt merchant in Huaihe River and Huaihe River. He had three sons and five daughters. The second daughter married Zhang Yunling and was Zhang Siwei's mother. The second son, Wang Chonggu, was an official worshiper of Xuan, Da, and Shanxi military affairs, the governors of the three sides.

Zhang and Wang's families controlled Hedong Salt, Changlu Salt, and Lianghuai Salt and made great profits.

Zhang Siwei's daughter married Ma Dun, son of cabinet minister Ma Ziqiang, and Ma Zixiu, Ma Ziqiang's younger brother, was a wealthy businessman in Shaanxi; Mu Suo set a precedent, and now he sends offerings to the emperor every year...Shen Sankui, this is Shen.

"Caomin transported 180 truckloads of grain, salaries and military supplies to Guihua for the imperial court, so they obtained a business quotation and survey agreement. The goods authorized to sell include Huguang tea bricks, Fujian rock sugar, Hexingsheng Lusong smoke, Shanyou Wutai Mountain wooden bowls, Shaanxi cotton cloth and Xuanfu cowhide boots. Can the handsome man want to check?"

Qi Jiguang smiled and shook his head and waved his hands, and said: "Shopkeeper Shen, please tell me more about the recent orders in the customs. I have been out for more than a year, and I don't know too many things. I see that many people in the caravan are carrying all kinds of firearms. what's going on?"

Such things as inspecting goods are not what the Zhejiang army should do, but they often do it in Fujian. At that time, all the inspections were overseas official ships, and merchant ships were not allowed to go out. If they met at sea, they would be attacked as Japanese pirates; official ships It is not easy to interrogate, so Qi Jiguang and his subordinates summed up a set of effective methods, that is, he will drag the captain or officials, and the subordinates will get on the ship to find an excuse to search for goods.

If there is no problem with the goods on the ship, even if he is discovered, Qi Jiguang only needs to scold his subordinates in front of others and give the boss a few whips; Everyone knew what was going on, but Qi Jiguang didn't say anything, and neither did others, and everyone knew it.

Sometimes there is nothing you can do if you need to be angry, and the most important thing is to get things done.

It's the same now, Chen Dacheng's two hundred households are already inspecting the goods, but as long as Qi Jiguang doesn't say anything, everyone will treat it as if it didn't happen.

As long as they want to see if any iron objects are carried out, they still have to fight outside the Great Wall. It is not a good thing for the enemy to get more iron objects.

The only thing that makes Qi Jiguang a little uncertain is the force of the caravan guards, which is a bit too strong.

San Niangzi sent [-] armored cavalry guards to the Shen's caravan, which is understandable. The Kingdom of Jin does not have a sound legal and bureaucratic system. Even if San Niangzi sends [-] cavalry or [-] cavalry to accompany her, it is only a matter of San Niangzi's words. That only has something to do with San Niangzi's preferences, it doesn't need to be reasonable.

But in addition to the Mongolian armored cavalry caravan, there are dozens of Beiyang troops and hundreds of frontier troops, and under the premise of such a strong force, more than 300 caravan members are armed, especially hundreds of various firearms... With such force, do you still need to do business?

If it is for business, a caravan of this size only needs one or two hundred people driving carts and camels. Others are not necessary at all. Anyway, they are already escorted by Mongolian armored cavalry.

"The commander is talking about those firearms?"

Shen Sankui smiled flatteringly and said: "They were all bought in Jining. The imperial court has a system, and the caravans are given tickets according to their size. The Caomin's caravan has 36 tickets in Beiyang. Because the imperial court temporarily asked me to wait to go out to explore the mines, this Only opened seventy more."

"Looking for mines?"

Qi Jiguang regained his energy. He didn't expect that the letter he sent back to the court in the north would be implemented by the emperor so quickly. He quickly asked, "Are there any mines outside the Great Wall?"

"Marshal Qi is asking the right person. Our Shen family used to do business in coal mines. Now the coal in China is monopolized by His Majesty. The cost of selling coal for us is also high. But we relax a little bit outside the Great Wall, and the earliest prospecting and construction of mines The field can mine for ten years, and I don’t know what will happen in the future, but let’s talk about it first.”

Shen Sankui said it very easily, and said: "Yes, the other grassroots don't know, but there are many coal mines, the best ones are Guihua City and the coal mines in the west of Dongsheng and now in Ordos, all of which are easy to mine... But It has been sent to Datong by San Niangzi for registration."

"The conditions given by the imperial court to the Kingdom of Jin are much better than those of us merchants. They don't mine for ten years, but enjoy the benefits forever. [-]% of the profits go to the miners, [-]% go to King Shunyi, and [-]% go to the court."

You don't need to ask Qi Jiguang to think that this plan must have been thought of by the cabinet ministers. If it is true that Shen Sankui said that there are many mines in the Kingdom of Jin and they will not be mined, then the imperial court can use this method to further control the Kingdom of Jin after recruiting merchants to mine them.

To be precise, it’s not that they don’t know how to mine, but they don’t mine. Although they lack iron and craftsmen, they are not completely absent like other Mongolian tribes. They are just lacking, and they are not decisive factors. .

In the past, the border gates were not opened, and there were no objective conditions for mining. Now, a large number of merchants from the Ming Dynasty have poured into the Kingdom of Jin, and all the conditions are met. However, the imperial court intends to do this and let the King of Shunyi sit on the ground and share the money. Is there any reason to be unhappy? of it?

Qi Jiguang asked: "Do you think this can be done?"

Originally, he wrote the report with the mentality of completing a political task, but now seeing the matter being implemented step by step by the emperor, he felt a little worried in his heart, worrying about what to do if the matter could not be accomplished.

Shen Sankui's answer was not optimistic, he said: "The commander-in-chief asked the question, and Cao Min told the truth. I don't know what will happen in the future, but the current situation, I think it's not enough."

"The interest in mines in the Kingdom of Jin can make some money. There are few people outside the Great Wall. The locals may not be able to recruit enough miners. The wages are high if workers move from the interior. There are no more places in the country that need coal, but a large amount of coal is transported in. Maybe it will be returned. It will make it more difficult to lower domestic coal prices."

"It's even more difficult to tell if it's farther than the Kingdom of Jin. To be honest, the Caomin went out this time to explore a few mines for the imperial court. When they came back, they sold them to others for mining. It has nothing to do with the Caomin whether they make money or lose money."

"It's colder in the north, there are fewer people, and it's harder to recruit workers. It's freezing for four or five months a year, and you can only work for seven months. Not to mention, how much coal can be transported back by camel caravans in a year? It's not easy."

Qi Jiguang nodded slowly. In his opinion, there is no demand, difficult to recruit, high cost, and difficult to transport. This is actually a problem.

Repair the railway, everything can be solved after the railway is repaired.

(End of this chapter)