Go back to the Ming Dynasty to be a thousand households

Chapter 144 Shocking Again

February 1591 AD.

In early autumn, the weather is slightly chilly. The poplar trees and bell trees on both sides of the road have begun to shed their leaves, but the weather is very clear and cloudless, which makes people feel refreshed.

Looking down from the sky, there are ants-like carriages and horses on the road going in different directions.After the bumper harvest, rice merchants gathered again in Wuzhai Fort.The current Wuzhaibao Dadong Street is even more worthy of its name as the grain and rice trading center in Northwest Shanxi, and the reputation of this grain and rice trading center is getting better and better, not only spreading throughout Shanxi Province, but also spreading far to other provinces go.There is no way, Wuzhaibao's two consecutive years of bumper harvests are too conspicuous.

After entering September, every day, a large amount of grain and rice were shipped out from the various rice shops in Dadong Street, Wuzhaibao.These chariots and horses carrying rice, flour, grain and oil passed the four gates of Wuzhai Fort in an endless stream, either to Pianguan, or to Hequ, Baode, or to Kelanzhou, or to Shenchi, and Ningwu.Farther away, they even went to Datong Town, Yansui Town and other places.

The prosperity of the grain and rice trade and the gathering of merchants have made Wuzhaibao, a new place, more prosperous than Kelan Prefecture, Baode Prefecture, Ningwuguan and other places. It is faintly called "Little Taiyuan".After the expansion of Wuzhai Fort at the beginning of the year, the Wuzhai Fort can accommodate more people, and the cleanliness of the fort and the high-spirited appearance of the military households also make everyone who comes to Wuzhai Fort feel different from other places. The feeling of the military fort is different.

At the beginning of September, through the efforts of all the villagers and the auxiliary use of several new Wuzhaibao horse-twisted harvesters, the autumn grains in the various farms in Wuzhaibao had already been harvested, and they continued to be transported to the Wuzhaibao. Stock up in granaries.

The big harvest celebration banquet has already been completed, and a large number of outstanding farmers have been rewarded again, which has also made the farmers of various farms more and more cohesive, and their respect for Huang Laifu is getting heavier and heavier.

Regarding the 90 stone grain received this year, Huang Laifu's calculation is that the military households in Wuzhaibao now have 30 farms, large livestock farms, and various orchards and vegetable gardens. There are nearly 3000 people.And more than half of these people have family members.In addition, there is a battalion of nearly [-] soldiers, and most of these people have military ties.

There are nearly [-] households in the village, and based on five buckets of grain per person per month, the basic annual demand is [-] shi grains.There are also [-] sergeants, one tael of silver or one stone of grain per month, and nearly [-] stones of grain per year.

So Huang Laifu decided to keep 20 shi of grain this year, because in his granary, there are still tens of thousands of shi of grain left over from last year.In this way, 70 stone grains can be sold.According to the agreement of Huang Laifu, Qu Yuanrui and other merchants, Huang Laifu sold the surplus grain to them at a price of 6 renminbi per stone, and got 42 taels of silver.

For Qu Yuanrui, he is full of spirits. Because of the timely success of his investment in Huang Laifu, he has become the largest grain merchant in Wuzhaibao.No wonder his voice is getting louder and louder in the family.Even when you go out and meet those big merchants, you have to greet him respectfully and call him: "The big shopkeeper."

However, this year Wuzhaibao produced too much grain and rice, and Qu Yuanrui couldn't eat it alone, so it required extensive cooperation between him and the Shanxi merchants to sell the grain and rice to various places.

In addition, shortly after the bumper harvest of grain in Wuzhai Fort, various vegetable gardens, orchards, and major livestock farms in Wuzhai Fort also continued to produce. The grain and rice items produced by Huang Laifu are more than enough to feed tens of thousands of officers and soldiers in Shanxi Town.This is not counting Huang Laifu's business operations in Bajiaobao and Shenchibao.

※※※

The capital, inside the Wenyuan Pavilion.

Looking at the report in their hands, the chief minister of the cabinet, Shen Shixing, Minister of the Household Department Wang Lin, Minister of the Ministry of War Shi Xing, Minister of the Ministry of Rites Xu Guo and other cabinet ministers were relatively speechless.

After a long time, Wang Lin, Minister of the Household Department, sighed with satisfaction: "Tell me, how did Huang Laifu do it? Last year, his Wuzhaibao produced 43 shi of grain. ...This year's grain production has reached 90 shi...This, this really makes me start..."

But what he said, the smile on his face was extremely brilliant, as if it was coming out of his asshole.He obviously thought about it. The 10 taels of tax money for the three places of Wuzhaibao agreed by the cabinet last year seems to be no problem.

10 taels of silver, this is not a small sum, how many things can be done when it is returned to the Tai warehouse?As for Wang Lin, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, his desire for money has reached an astonishing level.

There are many places in Ming Dynasty that need money.

And it seems that except for Wuzhai Fort, this great world is always full of misfortunes, whether it is drought or flood, it will not stop for a while.

Not to mention the years of drought in the north, in June, floods occurred in the three prefectures of Su, Song, and Chang in the south, drowning and injuring countless crops, people and animals.These three places were originally rich places, not to mention not being able to collect taxes at the moment, but also to allocate funds for disaster relief.With great difficulty, the household department cleaned the warehouse and squeezed out a little silver.

At the end of August, Sizhou was flooded again, submerging the government office three feet, drowning countless residents, and soaking the ancestral mausoleum, and the river destroyed the mountains and sun.Jiangdu and Shaobo were betting on the water of the lake, and the farmhouses were all soaked.

The loss here is not small, and a large amount of money is needed for disaster relief, but how much money does the household department have?Sometimes, Wang Lin always felt that he was tired of being the secretary of the Ministry of household affairs.

Finally, among the funeral memorials, he finally saw a memorial that made him beam with joy.Wang Lin planned to send a document as soon as possible, and asked Zhang Wenbao, the chief grain manager of the Shanxi household department, to go to Wuzhaibao, and quickly transported 10 taels of tax silver to the household department to satisfy his hunger and thirst for money.

Shi Xing, Shangshu of the Ministry of War, said with a smile to Shen Shixing: "Mr. Ge, it seems that this time the cabinet will award Huang Laifu, the Commander of Wuzhaiwei, an indispensable award. If this continues, Huang Laifu's achievements will be limitless."

After receiving the news that Wuzhaibao had another bumper harvest, Shi Xing was in a good mood. As his subordinate, Huang Laifu was rewarded, so of course his face was also bright.Given Shi Xing's old age, he certainly could see Huang Laifu's future achievements.Shi Xing has already made up his mind to hold Huang Laifu, a rising star of political achievements, in his hands to increase his influence.

Shen Shixing smiled and said, "It's a great honor for the Ming Dynasty to have good officials. The Commander Huang of Wuzhaibao has done a great job in farming this year. Naturally, he should be rewarded. The emperor must have the same meaning."

※※※

Inside the Daming Palace.

"Talent, talent!"

Emperor Wanli threw the cabinet's memorial papers, the secret papers of father-in-law Ma Jiuying of Wuzhaibao, and the secret papers of Yang Dawei, a thousand households of Jinyiwei of Wuzhaibao, etc. on the imperial case, and stood up excitedly, looking up at the sky. Tone, walking around happily in the pavilion, I feel very happy and beautiful.He has read these memorials several times, and every time he reads it, he laughs out loud.

Sitting next to him was his beloved Concubine Zheng. She was also very happy to see Emperor Wanli like this. At the same time, she also became interested in the young commander of Wuzhaibao.For Zheng Guifei, as long as she is an official and courtier who can make Emperor Wanli happy, she will pay attention to it.

Wuzhaibao has a bumper harvest again, with an astonishing grain output of 90 shi. In addition, there are various workshops in Wuzhaibao, which will make great profits again.These harvests can not only improve the appearance of Wuzhai Fort and its surrounding areas, but also pay generous taxes to the Ministry of Households, and bring huge profits to Emperor Wanli himself. How can this not make Emperor Wanli excited?The current Daming, not to mention the treasury, even the money in the palace, is extremely short of money.

Just yesterday, Emperor Wanli was still full of tiredness. In the past few months, the Ming Dynasty has been full of bad news, which has already made Emperor Wanli numb.

Not long ago, the floods in Su, Song, Chang and other places, as well as the floods in Sizhou, let's not talk about these bad news.At the beginning of September, the military officers of the Beijing camp mutinied and gathered in Chang'anmen, heading straight for the cabinet. On the way, they met Zeng Tongheng, Minister of the Ministry of Industry, and surrounded him and beat him.It wasn't until Shi Xing, Shangshu of the Ministry of War arrived after hearing the news, that he delivered an order to disband.

Although Xu Wenbi, the Duke of Dingguo who was in charge of the Houfu afterwards, was deprived of his salary for half a year, the gatekeeper was also interrogated by the Judiciary.But this incident still shocked Emperor Wanli. The military officer of the Beijing camp mutinied and went straight to the cabinet. This happened in the capital city. It was a heart attack.

In fact, the reason for the mutiny of military officials in the Beijing camp is also very simple. The main reason is that Zeng Tongheng wrote to Emperor Wanli, asking the emperor to clean up the craftsmen in the imperial city.After hearing the rumors, the military officers in the Beijing camp mistakenly believed that Zeng Tongheng, Minister of the Ministry of Industry, wanted to reduce their salaries, so they mutinied and made trouble.

Although everyone listened to rumors on the surface, Emperor Wanli knew that the reason for all this was the financial strain of the Ming Dynasty.As early as June last year, Wang Lin, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, asked to cut redundant staff to save money. He cut off the bureaucrats in leather clothes and guards with salaries, the translation students, general affairs, and preface classes of Honglu Temple in the Ministry of Rites, and the cooks in Guanglu Temple. The craftsmen and others of the supervisory bureaus aroused strong reactions from all parties after the petition was circulated.

From the perspective of those redundant staff, if they were laid off, the whole family would lose their food and clothing, so naturally they reacted strongly.However, from the perspective of Wang Lin, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, his petition is not unreasonable. The country's finances are tight, and it is necessary to save money.Anyway, the focus of both parties is on the word money. If there is a wide range of new financial resources, these problems can be properly resolved.

Regarding finances, Emperor Wanli originally thought that there was no other way, but the news from Huang Laifu of Wuzhaibao, such as a Wang Qingquan, gave Emperor Wanli another hope.

He wandered back and forth in the pavilion in high spirits for a while, thinking in his heart: "It seems that we should find a chance to give this Huang Laifu more territory."

In fact, in the current Ming Dynasty, Huang Laifu's promotion is considered fast, and the court has set up some examples for him, such as Shenchi Castle and Bajiao Castle handed over to Huang Laifu's management, which is not enjoyed by other officials.At present, Huang Laifu is so old and the official is so old, and if he will be promoted quickly in the future, he may become more and more powerful.

However, Emperor Wanli didn't care about Huang Laifu's possible increase in power in the future. In the Ming Dynasty, no one could escape his control.In fact, in the original history, Emperor Wanli could not go to court for decades, but the whole country was still laboriously controlled by him, and no one's every move in the world could escape his eyes.

His control over the country has really reached the point where he has become so proficient that he can turn silence into sound.

(End of this chapter)