Go back to the Ming Dynasty to be a thousand households

Chapter 145 Sharp Contrast and Prosperity
In mid-September, the court of the Ming Dynasty gave great rewards to Wuzhai Fort's grain storage performance, giving them excellent grades in the examination and evaluation, and also made the world famous through Daming's well-developed residence reporting system.

Since the current Wuzhai Fort has expanded to one battalion, Huang Laifu called it the Laifu Camp.Soon after, the Ministry of War gave Wuzhaibao some weapons and equipment, including 20 sets of armor, [-] bows, [-] arrows, several spears, waist knives and rattan cards, [-] sets of saddle sticks, and [-] sets of military uniforms.

Correspondingly, when Huang Laifu received the equipment, he also paid a sum of money.In addition, a few days ago, Zhang Wenbao, who was in charge of food in the Shanxi household department, also came to Wuzhai Fort and escorted away 10 taels of tax money with a smile on his face.

Huang Laifu kept his word and didn't find any excuses to keep the tax money in arrears.When the tax money was delivered to the household department in the capital, Wang Lin, Minister of the household department, expressed his appreciation for Wuzhaibao's timely tax payment and non-payment.He privately sighed, if the officials of the Ming Dynasty were like Huang Laifu, then why worry about the depletion of the household treasury?

The current Wuzhai Fort has money and food, rich and powerful, and the military households are well treated and high-spirited. Compared with the poor land of the past, it is a world of difference.There were also affirmative awards from court ministers and Emperor Wanli, and the reputation spread far and wide. It had a strong attraction to many people in the surrounding areas, especially some soldiers in border towns. Many military households who had escaped from Wuzhai Fort They all had a strong idea of ​​returning.

Shanxi Town, Ningwu Pass.

Ningwuguan is the seat of Shanxi Town's garrison general. Zhou Qili is narrow from north to south and long from east to west. The city is like the body of a phoenix, and has always been known as Phoenix City.Forts around the pass are dotted with enemy buildings, and the city is well guarded.However, even though it was a town, the city walls at this time were still rammed with loess. In history, the brick city of Ningwuguan did not start to be built until the 34th year of Wanli.

The Ningwu Pass is the Huihe River. In previous years, when the Huihe River stopped flowing, the nomadic cavalry from the Mobei Grassland would march south along the river valley and reach the pass, becoming the most frequent battle pass in the history of the three passes.

However, since the Longqing peace talks, the large-scale invasion of the Mongols has basically stopped in the past century. Counting, Ningwu Pass has been at peace for more than ten years.There has been no war on the border for many years, making the soldiers and civilians inside and outside the city a little lazy.

Different from the majesty on the outside, when you walk into Ningwu Pass, you can only see the streets are dirty and the road is full of potholes.Soldiers in shabby uniforms wandered around everywhere, and there were many big merchants and officers in luxurious clothes in the middle, which looked so dazzling.

On the corners of every street, there are many hungry people and beggars. Most of the hungry people come from the surrounding guards, as well as Ninghua, Jingle and other places farther away.They sat slumped on the side of the road, stretching out their hands from time to time, begging from everyone.Especially in front of those steaming steamed bun stalls and noodle stalls, there are always many beggars gathered around. If the stall owner is not paying attention, the beggars will grab a few buns and run away. Naturally, this benefit fee is indispensable.

However, the small vendors are relieved that in the past few months, the number of hungry and beggars in the town has decreased a lot. I heard that most of them have gone to Shenchi Fort or Wuzhai Fort.Especially Wuzhai Fort, I heard that the place is getting more and more prosperous, and more labor is needed, so everyone goes there.Is that place really that good?All kinds of news made all the vendors feel excited.

As a town, there are nearly ten thousand officers and soldiers stationed inside and outside Ningwuguan. Among these officers and soldiers, except for some soldiers, most of them are battalion soldiers who are paid. The monthly salary is one tael. The big city of [-] people also attracts many merchants. They operate here, especially on the Qibaihu Street near the residence of the general soldier and the residence of the supervising army, there are shops dotted all over, selling everything.

On this street, cotton from Hebei and Henan, salt from Huaibei and Shandong, tea and tung oil raw lacquer cloth from Jiangnan, and coal and iron continuously transported from Datong Town and other places in Huihe River under Huagai Mountain all converged on Ningwuguan. .However, during this period of time, fewer and fewer ships brought coal and iron from the Huihe River, and more and more ships at Ningwu Pass now use coal and iron from Shenchi Fort.After all, Shenchi Fort is closer to here, so the price is cheaper.

The biggest thing is the grain, rice and oil brought from Wuzhai Fort. There are nearly ten thousand officers and soldiers stationed inside and outside Ningwu Pass. Most of them are not military households. After receiving their salary, they have to buy food.An army of [-] people needs a lot of food and grass, which attracts many rice merchants to operate in the pass.

After entering autumn, the horses and chariots transporting grain came continuously from Wuzhai Fort.Not only that, besides grain and rice, Wuzhai Fort also sells many commodities in the town, such as various dried beans, salted eggs, dried fish, ham and other non-staple foods.There are also all kinds of woolen products, whether it is expensive cashmere products or relatively low-priced woolen products, which are sold in Ningwu Pass, which greatly squeezes the market for goods from all over the place.If this phenomenon is placed in future generations, a word will appear in many people's minds: dumping.

This phenomenon surprised the soldiers in the pass. You said that Wuzhai Fort was just a small military fort. Where did so much grain come from?There are so many products?And these things, even his own Ningwuguan couldn't make them.When everyone was talking, there was a hint of sourness in their tone, just like a provincial capital, being compared with a county town's psychological gap.After all, in many people's minds, Ningwuguan is still a town, and Wuzhaibao is just a fortress, although it has now become an acropolis.Now that the gap is reversed, it naturally makes many people feel uncomfortable.

However, this also attracted the attention of many people in Ningwu Pass to Wuzhai Fort.How many people who know Wuzhai Fort have some longing in their hearts, and those military households who originally escaped from Wuzhai Fort have mixed feelings in their hearts.

On the west gate tower of Ningwuguan, Qi Daniu was leaning against the wall, holding his spear, looking at the crowds outside the city gate and the dilapidated streets in the distance, thinking about his own thoughts blankly.

A few days ago, a good friend of his in Wuzhai Fort came over again, talking about his current treatment in Wuzhai Fort, he couldn't hide his pride in his words.Qi Daniu asked a street letter gentleman to read this letter to him.The letter stated that this friend wrote the letter himself, and Qi Daniu wondered when this friend would be able to read and write?

But it doesn't matter, the most important thing is the current Wuzhai Fort, which makes Qi Daniu very excited. In these days, Qi Daniu has heard a lot about Wuzhai Fort. I heard that it has changed a lot now. Then there was the dilapidated small military fortress before, and now it has been promoted to an acropolis, that is, in Ningwu Town, where many people have already gone to make a living.

This made Qi Daniu somewhat regretful. It seemed that it was not a wise choice to come to this town by himself.But I remember that when I was transferred to the town, among the Wuzhaibao sergeants, there were countless people who admired them, not to mention the high salary, but they could practice hard and show off their martial arts.At that time, after I arrived in Zhencheng, I proudly sent a letter back to show off, but I don't know that today is different from the past.

After arriving in the town, I realized that this place is not much better than Wuzhai Fort. Except for the pacesetters and family servants who are directly led by the commander in chief, the life of ordinary soldiers is also hard. The monthly payment of one or two bucks is deducted seven times and eight times. , how much money at most.Moreover, there is a lot of stagnation in the town. Since there has been no war for many years, the usual practice is very slack, and his good marksmanship is useless.

This made Qi Daniu very frustrated. He listened to his friend in the letter urging Qi Daniu to go back, and then heard what he said in the letter about the good treatment of the Wuzhaibao army. The reward is 40 taels of silver, and those who get it are full of money, without any deduction.Hearing this, Qi Daniu couldn't help being envious for a long time. 40 taels of silver, how long will it take me to earn it in Ningwu Town?
Although Qi Daniu didn't understand why that Young Master Huang of Wuzhai Fort changed so much, Qi Daniu would not fail to understand Huang Laifu's virtues in those years when he had been in Wuzhai Fort for many years.But this is not important, since Wuzhai Fort has become so good, and I have nothing to do in the town, it is better to find a chance to go back and forget it.

Slowly, Qi Daniu made up his mind.

※※※

Wuzhai Fort.

Time quickly entered October, and the weather gradually cooled down.

After the grain harvest in Wuzhai Fort some time ago, successively, various livestock farms, vegetable gardens and orchards in Wuzhai Fort also began to harvest one after another.

In the large orchard of Wuzhaibao, the orchard has several thousand acres, and many apples, grapes, pears and cherries are planted in it. After autumn, hundreds of thousands of catties of various fruits are harvested one after another, worth tens of thousands of taels of silver.For a time, all kinds of fruits from Wuzhai Fort were exported to all over the world.

There are also various vegetable fields in Wuzhaibao. After entering October, the vegetable fields have also been cleaned up one after another, because many of these vegetable fields are not beaten by frost.Among the harvested vegetables, except for some edible ones, many large vegetable cellars have been dug in various parts of Wuzhaibao.The floor of the vegetable cellar is covered with furnace ash, and the mouth of the cellar is covered with cotton curtains, which are used to store cabbage, cabbage, radish, etc., and can be stored until next spring.

In addition, in Wuzhaibao and Bajiaobao, large tracts of rapeseed, soybeans, flax, and sugar beet were planted, and these crops have now begun to be harvested on a large scale.In addition to the stems and leaves of these crops can be used as feed for livestock, they can also be used to extract oil and make white sugar on a large scale.

All of a sudden, the various oil-pressing workshops in Wuzhai Fort started to work again, and after the oil was squeezed out, it was specially used to make various oils for Wuzhai Fort.After the oil is produced, the workers collect it in one place, transport it to the warehouse for storage, and then the shareholders of the Dawuzhaibao workshop either provide food for the soldiers and civilians in Wuzhaibao, or transport it to various places for sale. People come and go every day At that time, there was an endless stream of vehicles and horses transporting oil, forming a busy scene.

This year, Wuzhaibao harvested a lot of sugar beets. Beets are an important crop for sugar production in later generations. However, in the current Ming Dynasty, the beets produced are not the high-sugar varieties of later generations.Now in Ming Dynasty, very few people use beets to make sugar.In fact, it was in later generations that it was not until 1786 that the German Prussian Academy of Sciences cultivated beet varieties with hypertrophic roots and high sugar content in the roots in the suburbs of Berlin. In 1802, the world's first beet sugar factory was established in Germany.

For Huang Laifu now, the sugar beet produced now is mainly used as livestock feed, because it is a good juicy feed.Even if the current beets are not the high-quality sugar beets of later generations, after repeated cultivation, there will be a day when good seeds will be cultivated.

Of course, after the beets are harvested, the related sugar workshops still have to be launched. Huang Laifu repeatedly searched his notebooks and found out some techniques and procedures for making sugar from beets. More or less, some white granulated sugar can always be made, and in the present Ming Dynasty, white sugar is worth a lot of money.

And in the autumn, the pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks and fish from the major livestock farms and pastures in Wuzhaibao are put out of the pen and ponds one after another. The survival of the sheep is covered by double-layer insurance. By the end of the year, the survival rate of the livestock in the major livestock farms in Wuzhaibao is above [-]%.

In addition, the goat breeding industry in Kelan Prefecture is developing rapidly, which also provides sufficient raw materials for a large number of non-staple food processing factories and Wuzhaibao wool spinning factories in Wuzhaibao.

Since autumn, there have been a lot of Wuzhaibao non-staple foods such as ham, dried fish, tofu skin, dried tofu, and bean paste.There are also a large number of cashmere woolen products produced and exported to various places.

Right now in Daming, there are a lot of commercial towns, especially Taiyuan, Beijing and other places, which have a huge demand for meat. According to incomplete estimates, Taiyuan alone needs meat from thousands of pigs, cattle and sheep every day, not to mention the meat in Beijing. , Each head needs thousands of pigs, beef and mutton, and the market is huge.Besides, the products produced in Wuzhai Fort are of good quality, and the emperor even specially praised them and included many items as tributes, just like the emperor himself advertised, the sensational effect was huge, so there was no need to worry about no market.

As for the cashmere products produced in Wuzhaibao, those exquisitely crafted, soft and warm cashmere products have become a status symbol. , and is also proud of using cashmere products from Wuzhai Fort. As the weather gets colder, sales are getting hotter.

The supply of various products is in short supply, and it is certain that the factories and workshops in Wuzhaibao will need more manpower if they want to expand their scale.Compared with last year, this year's Wuzhai Fort is even more famous. Now it is not only the officials, but also the people in the military forts in the nearby counties. Many people know the reputation of Wuzhai Fort, and know that they can work there .

Wuzhai Fort is attracting more and more workers from other places. Now, for military forts in prefectures and counties near Wuzhai Fort, working in Wuzhai Fort has become a new and fashionable concept.Especially after the slack season, crowds of people went to Wuzhai Fort to look for opportunities.

In addition, some coal mines and iron mines in Shenchibao also began to generate benefits for Huang Laifu.In the eyes of outsiders, while others are jealous and envious of Huang Laifu's wealth, they are also marveling at the rapid development of Wuzhaibao in their hearts.

The current Huang Laifu, in addition to having the title of "God of Grain", also vaguely began to have the title of "God of Wealth"!

(End of this chapter)