Chapter 101: Sharp contrast, prosperous

In mid-September, the Ming Dynasty court highly praised the grain storage results of Wuzhai Fort, and gave them the honorary awards. It also spread the world through the developed Ming Dynasty's residence system. For a time, the reputation of Wuzhai Fort became even greater.

Since the current Wuzhai Fortress has expanded its troops, Huang Laifu called it Laifu Camp. Soon after, the Ministry of War drew some weapons and equipment to Wuzhai Fortress, including 200 pairs of iron armor, a thousand large bows, 200,000 large arrows, a number of long spears, waist knives, 200 pairs of rattan cards, 200 pairs of saddle guards, and 3,000 sets of military uniforms.

Correspondingly, Huang Laifu also paid a sum of money when he received the equipment. In addition, a few days ago, Zhang Wenbao, who was in charge of grain in Shanxi, also came to Wuzhaibao and escorted the tax silver with a smile.

Huang Laifu kept his word and did not make any excuses to keep the tax-deserving silver. When the tax-department bank was transported to the Beijing Ministry of Revenue, Wang Lin, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, expressed his appreciation for Wuzhaibao's timely tax payments and not arrears. He privately sighed that if all the officials of the Ming Dynasty were like Huang Laifu, why worry about the exhaustion of the Ministry of Revenue warehouses?

The current Wuzhai Fort is rich and rich, rich and powerful, and the military households are well treated and have a high momentum. It is a world of difference compared to the poor places before. There are also recognition and commendations from the court officials and Emperor Wanli, which is well-known and has a strong attraction to many people in the surrounding areas, especially some soldiers in the border towns. Many military households who had escaped from Wuzhai Fort have had a strong desire to return.

Shanxi Town, Ningwu Pass.

Ningwu Pass is the location of the general garrison in Shanxi Town. It is 7 miles away from north to south and long from east to west. The city is like a phoenix, and it is known as the Phoenix City. The enemy towers are scattered around the pass, and the city guards are strong. However, although it is a town, the city walls are still rammed with loess. In history, Ningwu Pass brick city did not start to be built until the 34th year of Wanli.

The Huihe River is under Ningwu Pass. In previous years, when the Huihe River was broken, nomadic cavalry from the grasslands in the northern desert would march south along the river valley and go straight to the pass, becoming the most frequent wars in the Three Passes.

However, since the Longqing peace talks, the large-scale invasion of the Mongols has basically stopped over the past century. In short, Ningwuguan has been peaceful for more than ten years. There have been no wars in the border areas for many years, which has made the military and civilians inside and outside the city a little lazy.

Unlike the majestic appearance, when you walk into Ningwu Pass, you will see the streets dirty and dirty, and the road surface is bumpy. There are soldiers wearing shabby clothes and armor everywhere, and there are many luxuriously dressed merchants and officers in the middle, which looks so dazzling.

At the corners of the streets, there are many hungry beggars. Most of the hungry beggars come from surrounding guards, as well as Ninghua, Jingle and other places farther away. They sit on the side of the road, stretch out their hands from time to time, and beg for everyone. Especially in front of the steaming bun stalls and noodle stalls, there are always many beggars gathered. When the stall owners don’t pay attention, the beggars will run away after a few buns, making it impossible to catch up with the stall owners, so they can only ask Junye for help. Of course, this benefit is inevitable.

However, what made the vendors a little relieved was that in the past few months, there were fewer hungry beggars in the town. I heard that most of them went to Shenchi Castle and Wuzhai Castle. Especially Wuzhai Castle, I heard that the place was becoming more and more prosperous and needed more labor, so everyone went there. That place was so good? All the news made the vendors tempted.

As a town, nearly 10,000 officers and soldiers were stationed inside and outside Ningwu Pass. Among these officers and soldiers, except for some of the military outdoors, most of them were battalions who received salary. The city with monthly salary of one or ten thousand people also attracted many merchants to operate here, especially on the Seven Hundred Houses Street near the General's Mansion and the Supervisor's Mansion, there are shops scattered and everything they sell.

On this street, cotton from Hebei and Henan, salt from Huaibei and Shandong, raw lacquer cloth from tea tung oil from Jiangnan, and coal and iron transported from Datong Town and other places in Huihe River all gathered in Ningwu Pass. However, during this period, fewer and fewer ships transported coal and iron from Huihe River. Now, there are more and more Ningwu Pass, which use coal and iron from Shenchi Castle. After all, Shenchi Castle is closer to this place and the price is cheaper.

The biggest example is the grain, rice and oil transported from Wuzhai Fort. Nearly 10,000 officers and soldiers were stationed inside and outside Ningwu Pass. Most of them were not military households. After receiving the salary, they had to buy food. The army of 10,000 people needed a lot of food and grass, which attracted many rice merchants to operate in the pass.

After the autumn, the chariots and horses transporting grain came from Wuzhai Fort. Not only that, in addition to grain and rice, Wuzhai Fort also has many commodities sold in the town, such as various dried tofu, salt eggs, dried fish, ham and other non-staple foods. There are also various wool textiles, whether it is expensive cashmere products or relatively low-priced wool products, which are sold in Ningwu Pass, greatly squeezing the goods market from all over the country. If this phenomenon is in later generations, many people will have a word: dumping.

This phenomenon surprised the soldiers in the pass. You said that the Wuzhai Fort was just a small military fort, where did it come from so much grain and rice? There were so many commodities? And these things could not even be made of their own Ningwu Pass. When everyone talked about it, their tone was a hint of sourness, just like a provincial capital, and a psychological difference of being compared by a county town. After all, in the minds of many people, Ningwu Pass is also a town city, while Wuzhai Fort is just a city, although it has become a city now. Now the gap is reversed, which naturally makes many people feel uncomfortable.

However, this has also attracted many people from Ningwu Pass to pay attention to Wuzhai Fort. Those who know Wuzhai Fort have a little yearning in their hearts, and those military households who have escaped from Wuzhai Fort have even mixed feelings.

On the west gate tower of Ningwu Pass, Qi Daniu leaned against the wall, hugged his spear, looked at the crowds coming and going outside the city gate, and the dilapidated streets in the distance, thinking about his own thoughts.

A few days ago, a friend of his at Wuzhaibao came here again. When talking about his treatment at Wuzhaibao, he couldn't hide his pride in his words. This letter was written by Qi Daniu and asked a letter from the street to read it to him. The letter was explained in the letter that the friend wrote it himself. Qi Daniu didn't know when this friend could still read and write?

But this doesn't matter. The most important thing is that the current Wuzhai Fort has made Qi Daniu very moved. After all these times, Qi Daniu has heard a lot about Wuzhai Fort. I heard that it has changed a lot now. It is no longer the poor and broken small military fort before, and now it has been promoted to the Acropolis, which is in Ningwu Town. Many people have gone there to make a living.

This made Qi Daniu feel a little regretful. It seemed that it was not a wise choice to come to this town. However, I remember that when I was transferred to the town, there were countless soldiers among the Five Village Fort soldiers who were envious. Not to mention the salary, I could also practice it carefully and show off my martial arts. After I arrived in the town, I proudly sent a message back to show off, but I didn’t know that it was different from the past now.

After arriving in Zhencheng, I realized that this place is not much better than Wuzhai Fort. In addition to the model soldiers and servants led by the general, the lives of ordinary soldiers are also difficult. One or two ounces of money per month is a few dollars, and the maximum amount of money you get is. Moreover, the dusk energy in the town is also extremely heavy. Because there has been no war for many years, the practice of daily life is very relaxed. He has good shooting skills and has no use.

This made Qi Daniu very dismayed. He listened to the friend in the letter's letter's advice to Qi Daniu to go back and listened to the good treatment of the Wuzhai Fort army mentioned in his letter. Moreover, he fought against horse thieves in Shenchi Fort this time. After beheading the first level, he rewarded 40 taels of silver. All he got were enough to beat, and he did not deduct any of them. Hearing this, Qi Daniu couldn't help but envy him for a long time. How long does it take to earn the 40 taels of silver in Ningwu Town?

Although Qi Daniu was a little confused about why the young master Huang from Wuzhai Fort changed so much. Qi Daniu had been in Wuzhai Fort for many years and would not have misunderstood what Huang Laifu was. But this is not important. Since Wuzhai Fort has become so good, he has done nothing in the town, so why not find a chance to go back.

Slowly, Qi Daniu made up his mind.

Wuzhai Fort.

It was soon October and the weather slowly became colder.

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

In the Wuzhaibao orchard, there are thousands of acres of orchards, and many apples, grapes, pears, cherries and other things are planted. After autumn, hundreds of thousands of kilograms of various fruits were harvested one after another, and tens of thousands of taels of silver were sold. For a time, all kinds of fruits from Wuzhaibao were sold all over the country.

There are also various vegetable fields in Wuzhaibao. After October, the vegetable fields were cleaned one after another, because many of these vegetables were frost-free. In addition to some of the harvested vegetables, many large vegetable cellars have been dug in various places in Wuzhaibao. The floor of the vegetable cellar is covered with stove ash, and a cotton curtain is added to the mouth of the cellar to store cabbage, cabbage, radish, etc., and can be stored until next spring.

In addition, Wuzhaibao and Bajiaobao also planted large areas of rapeseed, soybeans, flax and beets, and these crops have now begun to be harvested on a large scale. In addition to the stems and leaves of these crops, these crops can also be used as animal feed, and can also be used to squeeze oil and make white sugar on a large scale.

For a time, various oil pressing workshops in Wuzhaibao started construction again. After the oil was squeezed out, they were specially used to make various oil feeds from Wuzhaibao. After the oil was released, workers collected one and transported it to the warehouse for storage. The shareholders of Dawuzhaibao workshop were either provided for the military and civilians in Wuzhaibao to eat, or transported it to various places for sale. Every day, people came and went, and there were endless carriages and horses to transport oil, forming a busy scene.

This year, Wuzhaibao harvested a lot of beets. Beets were an important crop for sugar making in later generations. However, in the Ming Dynasty, the beets produced were not the kind of high-sugar breeding in later generations. Now, in the Ming Dynasty, few people use beets to make sugar. In fact, it was not until 1786 that the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Germany cultivated beet varieties with large 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, the beets produced nowadays are mainly used as animal feed because they are good juicy feed. Even if the beets are not the high-quality sugar beets of later generations, after repeated cultivation, one day, good varieties will be cultivated.

Of course, after the beet is harvested, the relevant sugar-making workshops still have to be launched. Huang Laifu repeatedly searched his notebook and found some methods and processes for making beets. Although the sugar produced is not as good as the high-yield and high-quality beets in later generations, more or less, some white sugar can be made. In the current Ming Dynasty, white sugar is a white silver.

In autumn, pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks and fish from major livestock farms and ranches in Wuzhaibao were slaughtered out of the ponds. Wuzhaibao was raising freely and raised in a large number of veterinary doctors to provide double-layer insurance for the survival of pigs and sheep in various livestock farms. By the end of the year, the survival rate of animals in Wuzhaibao's major livestock farms was more than 90%.

In addition, the goat farming industry in Kelanzhou is developing rapidly, which has also provided sufficient raw materials for a large number of non-staple food processing plants in Wuzhaibao and Wuzhaibao Wool Spinning Factory.

Since the beginning of autumn, a large number of Wuzhaibao non-staple foods such as ham, dried fish, tofu skin, dried tofu, bean paste, etc. There are also a large number of cashmere wool textiles produced and sold to all parts of the country.

At present, there are many commercial towns in the Ming Dynasty, especially in Taiyuan, Beijing and other places. There is a huge demand for meat. According to incomplete estimates, Taiyuan alone requires thousands of pigs, cattle and mutton every day, not to mention that in Beijing, each head requires thousands of pigs, beef and mutton, and the market is huge. Besides, the quality of the things produced in Wuzhaibao is good. After praise, the emperor specially puts many items into tributes, just like the emperor personally advertises, which has a great sensation effect, so there is no need to worry about the lack of a market.

For cashmere products produced in Wuzhaibao, the various cashmere products that are exquisitely made, soft and warm have become symbols of their status. Many high-ranking officials and wealthy people are flocking to them. Even the wealthy officials and families in the capital use cashmere products from Wuzhaibao. As the weather is cold, sales are becoming more and more popular.

The supply of various products is in short supply, so it is certain that if the Wuzhaibao factory workshops are expanded, they will need more manpower. Compared with last year, this year's Wuzhaibao has become even more famous. Now it is not just officials, but many people from military forts in nearby prefectures and counties know that they can work and live a life when they go there.

Wuzhai Fort is increasingly attracting labor from other places. Now, for military forts near Wuzhai Fort, working at Wuzhai Fort has become a new and fashionable concept. Especially after the slack farming period, people even went to Wuzhai Fort to look for opportunities.

In addition, some coal mines and iron ore in Shenchi Castle have also begun to benefit Huang Laifu. In the eyes of outsiders, others are jealous of Huang Laifu for his money and money, and are also amazed in their hearts the rapid development of Wuzhai Castle.

Now Huang Laifu, in addition to being the title of "God of Grain", also began to be the title of "God of Wealth"!
Chapter completed!