Chapter 100: Shocked again

September 1591 AD.

In early autumn, the weather was a little chilly. The white rose trees and bell trees on both sides of the road had begun to shed their leaves, but the weather was very clear and cloudless, so clear that it made people feel refreshed and beautiful.

Looking down from the air, the roads heading in different directions were full of ants-like cars and horses. After the harvest, Wuzhaibao was filled with rice merchants. At present, Wuzhaibao Dadong Street is worthy of its reputation as a grain and rice trading center in northwest Shanxi, and its reputation is becoming more and more famous. It has not only spread throughout Shanxi Province, but also spread to other provinces from afar. There is no way, Wuzhaibao's harvest for two consecutive years is too conspicuous.

After September, every day, a large amount of grain and rice were transported from various rice shops on Dadong Street of Wuzhaibao. These chariots and horses carrying rice, flour, grain and oil were endless. They passed through the four gates of Wuzhaibao, either to Panguan, Hequ, Baode, to Kelanzhou, Shenchi, Ningwu, and even further away, they even went to Datong Town, Yansui Town and other places.

The prosperity of grain and rice trading and the gathering of merchants have made Wuzhai Fort, a new place, prosperous market, surpassed Kelanzhou, Baodezhou, Ningwuguan and other places, and are faintly known as "Little Taiyuan". After the expansion of Wuzhai Fort on the lunar calendar, Wuzhai Fort can accommodate more people, and the tidyness of the fort and the high-spirited style of the military households also make everyone who comes to Wuzhai Fort feel a different feeling from other military forts.

In early September, after the efforts of Zhongtun Dingmen and the auxiliary use of several new Wuzhaibao horse-push harvesters, the autumn grains in each farm in Wuzhaibao had been collected and continued to be transported into the granaries in Wuzhaibao to stock up.

The celebration banquet for the great harvest has been completed early, and a large number of outstanding garrisons have been commended again, which has also made the garrisons of various farms more and more cohesive, and their respect for Huang Laifu is becoming more and more serious.

Among the 900,000 stone of grain received this year, Huang Laifu's plan is that at present, the military households in Wuzhai Fort have added 30 farms, major livestock farms, and various orchards and vegetable gardens, there are nearly 10,000 people. Most of these people have family members. In addition, there is a battalion of nearly 3,000 soldiers, and most of these people also have military families.

Nearly 10,000 households have a garrison. According to the five dou of grain per person per month, the basic demand for a year is 60,000 stones of grain. There are also 3,000 soldiers, one tael of silver or one stone of grain per month, and nearly 40,000 stones of grain per year are needed.

So Huang Laifu decided to keep 200,000 shi of grain this year because in his granary, there were still tens of thousands of stones left last year that had not been eaten up. In this way, 700,000 shi of grain could be sold. According to the agreement between Huang Laifu and Qu Yuanrui and other merchants, Huang Laifu sold these surplus grains to them at a price of 6 cents per stone of grain and received 420,000 taels of silver.

For Qu Yuanrui now, he was full of energy. Because he invested in Huang Laifu in time, he had become the largest grain merchant in Wuzhaibao. He could count among these big grain merchants in the north of the Ming Dynasty. No wonder his voice is getting louder and louder in his family. Even when he went out to meet those big merchants, he would greet him respectfully and call him: "Guo Dashangma."

However, there is too much grain and rice produced in Wuzhaibao this year, and Qu Yuanrui alone cannot eat it, so this requires extensive cooperation with the Shanxi merchants to jointly sell grain and rice to various places.

In addition, shortly after the autumn harvest of Wuzhaibao, various vegetable gardens, orchards, and major livestock farms of Wuzhaibao continued to produce. In addition, the products produced by major factories and workshops inside and outside Wuzhaibao, the grain and rice items produced by Huang Laifu alone can support tens of thousands of officers and soldiers in Shanxi Town. This is not enough to account for Huang Laifu's business operations in Bajiao Fort and Shenchi Fort.

In the capital, in Wenyuan Pavilion.

Looking at the report in his hand, the cabinet minister Shen Shixing, the Minister of Revenue Wang Lin, the Minister of War Shi Xing, the Minister of Rites Xu Guo and other cabinet ministers were all speechless.

After a long time, Wang Lin, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, sighed with satisfaction: "Tell me, how did Huang Laifu do this? Last year, his Wuzhai Fort produced 430,000 stones of grain. I was shocked. I haven't arrived... This year, it actually produced 900,000 stones of grain... This is where did I start..."

But when he said this, the smile on his face was extremely bright, as if he was laughing out from his ass. He obviously thought that the tax silver of 100,000 taels of land in the Wuzhai Fort agreed last year by the cabinet, it seemed that there was no problem.

One hundred thousand taels of silver, this is not a small amount. How many things can be done when it comes to the Taicang warehouse? For Wang Lin, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, his desire for money has reached an amazing level.

There are many places in the Ming Dynasty that need money.

It seems that except for Wuzhai Fort, this world of Ming Dynasty is always full of misfortunes, either drought or flood, and it will not stop after a while.

Not to mention the droughts in the north for years, in June, floods occurred in the three prefectures of Su, Song and Chang in the south, drowned and injured countless farmers and animals. These three places were originally rich places, and now they could not collect taxes, but also needed to allocate funds to provide disaster relief. It was finally easy for the Ministry of Revenue to clean the warehouse and squeeze out a little silver.

In late August, there was another flood in Sizhou, which flooded the office three feet, drowned countless residents, and soaked into the ancestral tombs, and the river broke into Shanyang. In Jiangdu, Shao Bo was buried under the lake, and all the fields were damaged.

There are also considerable losses here and a large amount of disaster relief money is needed, but how much money does the Ministry of Revenue have? Sometimes, Wang Lin always feels that he is a Minister of Revenue and is tired of doing it.

Finally, among the memorials that reported the deeds, I finally saw a memorial that made him happy. Wang Lin planned to issue a document to ask Zhang Wenbao, the grain manager of Shanxi Ministry of Revenue, to go to Wuzhaibao, and quickly transported 100,000 taels of taxes to the Ministry of Revenue to relieve his hunger for money.

Shi Xing, Minister of War, smiled at Shen Shixing and said, "Gei Master, it seems that this cabinet will be rewarded with Huang Laifu, the commander of the Five Village Guards, is indispensable. If this continues, Huang Laifu's achievements are limitless."

After receiving the news that Wuzhai Fort was another bumper harvest, Shi Xing was in a good mood. As his subordinate, Huang Laifu was rewarded, and of course there was light on his face. With Shi Xing's old age and sting, he could certainly see Huang Laifu's future achievements. Shi Xing had made up his mind to hold Huang Laifu, the rising star of political achievements, in order to enhance his influence.

Shen Shixing smiled and said, "There is a blessing for the Ming Dynasty. The Huang commander of the Five Village Fortresses has made significant farming this year, so he naturally needs to be rewarded. The emperor must have the same meaning."

In the Ming Dynasty Palace.

"Talent, talent!"

Emperor Wanli threw the memorials from the cabinet, the secret memorials from Ma Jiuying, the secret memorials from the Wuzhai Fort, and the secret memorials from Yang Dawei, the Jinyiwei of Wuzhai Fort, and the secret memorials from Yang Dawei, etc. on the imperial desk. He stood up excitedly, sighed at the sky and walked happily in the cabinet, feeling extremely happy and beautiful. He had read these memorials several times, and every time he read them, he laughed loudly.

Next to him was Concubine Zheng, whom he loved, and she was very happy to see Emperor Wanli. At the same time, she became interested in the young commander of Wuzhai Fort. For Concubine Zheng, as long as she was an official and minister who could make Emperor Wanli happy, she would pay attention to it.

Wuzhai Fort has a bumper harvest, producing an astonishing 900,000 stones of grain. In addition, there are various industrial workshops in Wuzhai Fort, which will make great profits. In addition to improving the appearance of Wuzhai Fort and its surrounding areas, these harvests can also be paid generous taxes from the Ministry of Revenue and bring generous profits to Emperor Wanli himself. How can this not make Emperor Wanli excited? The current Ming Dynasty, not to mention the national treasury, even in the imperial treasury, is extremely short of money.

Just yesterday, Emperor Wanli was still full of fatigue. Over the past few months, the Ming Dynasty has been full of bad news, which has numbed Emperor Wanli.

Not long ago, Su, Song, and Chang were flooded, and Sizhou flooded. Not to mention these bad news. In early September, military officers from the Beijing camp mutiny and gathered in Chang'an Gate and rushed straight to the cabinet. On the way, they met Zeng Tongheng, the Minister of Works, and surrounded him and beat him. It was not until Shi Xing, the Minister of War, arrived and he was sent to disband.

Although Xu Wenbi, the Duke of Dingguo who was in charge of the Hou Mansion, was robbed of his salary for half a year, and the gatekeeper was also questioned by the judicial officer. However, this incident still shocked Emperor Wanli. The military officers in the Beijing camp mutiny and rushed straight to the cabinet. This happened in the capital city, and they were in a trait of heart.

In fact, the reason for the mutiny of the military officers in the Jingying was very simple. The main reason was that Zeng Tongheng wrote a letter to Emperor Wanli, asking the emperor to clean up the craftsmen in the imperial palace. His younger brother, the censor Zeng Qianxiang, also submitted a memorial to Emperor Wanli, asking for redundant employees to be laid off funds. After hearing the rumors, the military officers in the Jingying mistakenly thought that Zeng Tongheng, the Minister of Works, wanted to reduce their salary and food, so the mutiny was caused.

Although everyone believed the rumors on the surface, Emperor Wanli knew that the reasons for all this were caused by financial tension in the Ming Dynasty. As early as June last year, Wang Lin, the Minister of Revenue, requested to lay off redundant personnel and save expenses, and ordered the official service of Jinyiwei with salary, translated the characters of Honglu Temple of the Ministry of Rites, general affairs, preface classes, kitchen servants of Guanglu Temple, craftsmen of various supervisory bureaus, etc. After the request was reported, it aroused strong reactions from all parties.

From the perspective of those redundant employees, if they are cut off, the family will be cut off from food and clothing, and their reaction will naturally be strong. However, from the perspective of Wang Lin, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, his request is not unreasonable. The country's finances are in a tight position and it needs to save money. Anyway, the focus of both sides is on the word "money". If there is a wide range of new sources of wealth, these problems can be properly solved.

Regarding finance, Emperor Wanli originally thought there was no more solution, but the news from Huang Laifu from Wuzhai Fort was like a clear spring, allowing Emperor Wanli to see another kind of hope.

He walked back and forth in the pavilion with a bright look, thinking to himself: "It seems that we should find an opportunity to give Huang Laifu more territory."

In fact, in the current Ming Dynasty, Huang Laifu was promoted quickly, and the court also broke some examples for him, such as the Shenchi Castle and the Bajiao Fort were handed over to Huang Laifu's management, which other officials could not enjoy. Now that Huang Laifu has such a great official career in this life, he will be promoted quickly in the future, and he may be more and more powerful.

However, Emperor Wanli did not take Huang Laifu's future power into consideration. In the Ming Dynasty, no one could escape the control of his palm. In fact, in the original history, Emperor Wanli could not attend court for decades, but the entire country was still hard-pressed in his hands. No one's move in the world could escape his eyes.
Chapter completed!