Chapter 57 Everyone's trip to the Five Villages and Forts (1)

After hearing Huang Laifu's words, all the merchants felt relieved. Although Huang Laifu levies commercial tax, which made them feel a little painful, according to the current development trend of Wuzhaibao, if the commercial tax is 30, or 1.5%, their profits in the year are still very generous.

As for the management of merchants in Wuzhaibao and the collection of commercial taxes in the future, this is the matter of He Vice-Chunhu and others. However, Huang Laifu is going to talk about another thing now, which is the main thing he is recruiting merchants today.

He whispered a few words to He Vice Qianhu and others, saying, "My Wuzhai Fort is becoming more and more prosperous now, and it all depends on the credit of the shopkeepers. However, my Wuzhai Fort turned out to be just a small military fort, with streets and roads, and they cannot keep up with the needs of development. In order to further improve the situation of Wuzhai Fort, I decided to repair the streets and roads in Wuzhai Fort."

"However, the financial resources in the fort are difficult now and the funding gap is still large. Wuzhai Fort belongs to everyone, so I need the help of all the shopkeepers. For this reason, I will give you an initiative to use your hands of caring and helping to care about and support the development of Wuzhai Fort and donate money to the construction of Wuzhai Fort. We will give monuments to those who donate more than ten taels of money in person."

The main street in Wuzhai Fort is Dadong Street, which leads to Qianhuzhai and the official office. It is paved with bluestone. The others are dirt roads, even Niangniang Temple Street next to Dadong Street. Every rainy day or in the sky, these streets are covered with mud or dusty, which is really impossible to keep up with the development needs of Wuzhai Fort. To build roads, you have to use Huang Laifu's cement. After the road is repaired, you have to advertise your own cement. This is indeed a good thing to kill two birds with one stone.

The merchants below looked at each other, except Qu Yuanrui, all looked ugly. It turned out that today was the Qianhu who came to them, and the Qianhu who was calling them Qiufeng. He Vice Qianhu next to Huang Laifu. Jiang Baihu and others looked at each other with smiles on their faces. Qianhu who was the Qianhu who was the Qianhu who even gave the merchants to the Qiufeng was so magnificent.

Qu Yuanrui said first: "Building bridges and roads to benefit one's land is a reward for the present. It is a good thing for the future. Yuanrui is not talented. He is willing to reward the people and follow the advice of the people of Wuzhaibao to benefit the military and civilians."

Qu Yuanrui is now tied tightly with Huang Laifu, so he naturally spoke out with Huang Laifu. Besides, Wuzhai Fort has developed to this point. If the streets and roads are repaired, it will also be beneficial to the businessmen in Wuzhai Fort.

Huang Laifu said: "It is admirable that Manager Qu is kind and generous, devotes his efforts to bring kindness to his hometown." His eyes swept to other merchants and said: "Everyone. What do you mean?"

The shopkeeper Du Maozhen of Derun Buzhuang first responded to Qu Yuanrui. For him, he actively donated funds, which would leave a good impression in the hearts of the Qianhuo people. Second, changing the street appearance of Wuzhaibao is conducive to the future development of Wuzhaibao. After Wuzhaibao develops, his business will be better. He is a shrewd businessman, and he will still be able to make a decision.

Seeing this, other merchants also spoke out and were willing to donate generously. They actively participated in the construction of Wuzhaibao. Raising funds from merchants is a common phenomenon in the Ming Dynasty, and it is not just Wuzhaibao. The merchants below, although many families are strong, are unwilling to make Huang Laifu unhappy in this small matter. Besides, repairing the streets and roads in Wuzhaibao is also beneficial to the merchants. At that time, everyone was thinking about how much they wanted to pay.

Huang Laifu was very happy when he heard this, and said, "Okay. Dear local geniuses donated generously. This virtue of benefiting the fort and the people will be remembered forever by the military and civilians of Wuzhai Fort."

He pondered for a while and said, "I have been working diligently for the development of Wuzhai Fort and thought about it. As early as a few months ago, I had expected this day, so I created the Dawuzhai Fort Cement Factory and developed a cement object. This object is still a powerful tool for building bridges and roads. Compared with the big bluestone on the paving site, it is cheaper and more affordable. For the development of Wuzhai Fort, I decided to give up my love and sell it at a low price for the road repair of Wuzhai Fort."

According to the rural cement roads in later generations, the average construction fund per kilometer was about 250,000 yuan, which was about 400 taels of silver in Daming. However, in fact, even if cement roads were built, the standards were lower at this time. After all, there was no need to run through the large trucks in later generations, the average construction fund per kilometer was about 2 or 300 taels of silver per kilometer.

In Wuzhai Fort, all the streets and roads that need to be repaired need to be added in less than 2 kilometers. The materials, labor and repair costs are less than 1,000 taels of silver. It just so happened that in the past few months, my cement factory developed 2,000 tons of cement, which was just used. One ton of cement in later generations was about 300 to 400 yuan, so I didn’t need to spend more than one ton of cement. One ton of cement would be sold for five cents of silver.

After hearing Huang Laifu's words, the merchants below suddenly realized that the Qianhu people recruited them today mainly for the cement of their land. They also knew that Huang Lai built a cement factory in Fujian, but they didn't know the use of cement. So before, everyone just waited and watched, but no one bought it. Today they realized that this thing was originally used to build bridges and pave roads, but the effect was how it worked. After the street was repaired, it might not be another way of wealth.

Finally, everyone donated money. Qu Yuanrui donated 200 taels of silver, Du Maozhen, the shopkeeper of Derun Buzhuang, donated 50 taels of silver, and the others donated 50 taels to 100 taels respectively. Soon, more than 1,000 taels of funds were raised, which was enough to repair the road surface of Wuzhaibao Street.

In fact, when these merchants did not come, Huang Laifu had already agreed to establish a city management bureau with Deputy Qianhu and others to take charge of various construction of Wuzhai Fortland. The director was Deputy Qianhu and He Chaoxun.

At this time, a road construction committee was established on the spot in the lobby, which belongs to a branch under the Urban Management Bureau. It is currently supervised and managed by Yang Anzhang and Yang Baihu, and cooperated by Qu Yuanrui and other merchants. The committee first surveyed the streets of Wuzhai Fort in the past few days, then purchased raw materials and materials. After it was prepared, it began to repair the streets.

While Huang Laifu in Qianhu's house was discussing repairing the streets with various merchants, on the way outside Wuzhai Fort, Master Sun, the commander of Xiwei in Guilanzhou Town, looked at everything in front of him unbelievably with several servants.

Is this still the poor Wuzhai Fort in my mind?

Along the way, the wheat fields on the road were continuous, and the continuous wheat fields were surrounded by farms and manors. Like a bustling village and town, the men and women walked out of the farm, each wearing new clothes, with rosy faces and satisfied smiles, while some children were playing happily near the manor. These scenes. Compared to the refugees around Kelanzhou and the deadness, they were really like two worlds.

In fact, Master Sun saw many refugees from Kelanzhou. Everyone was helping the elderly and young, carrying their simple luggage, and was constantly heading towards Wuzhai Fort, with hope on their faces. It seemed that when they arrived in Wuzhai Fort, they could live a good life.

In the fields next to the farm, Master Sun saw the treacherous people chopping wheat straw and burning it back to the fields. The thick wheat straw shows the great harvests obtained in these fields. There are also the wells in the wheat fields. Especially by the Qinglian River, the large water trucks lined up with rounds of water, which shows that Wuzhai Fort is different from other places.

After several months of construction, the farms that Sun Shiye and others have seen have formed. They have formed places like small military forts, including walls, fort gates, mercerized ridges on the fort walls, and high-rise towers. When encountering any thief attacks, the supervisor will lead the Tundingmen to the fort walls at the fort gate. Don’t think that the bandits can attack these farms with more than a thousand people.

In each farm, there is now a Huang Laifu hand press well, which is definitely full of water. There is no problem. In each farm, they are still following Wuzhai Fort and building living facilities such as temples and stages in the farm for entertainment to the Tunding Ding and his family members in the fort. Although the buildings in these farms are relatively crude, compared with many folk forts and mountain villages, it is already very good.

Among the various farms in Wuzhai Fort, each farm generally has hundreds of garrisons, especially the first farm in Wuzhai Fort, which has five hundred garrisons. In addition to the military households in Wuzhai Fort, many of them are also civilians outside the fort and refugee residents.

Because these residents now have abundant monthly food, they are enough to support their families. These people brought their families to the farm together, making the population of each farm exceed one or two thousand. During the Ming Dynasty, this was enough to have a population size of each township.

Of course, now the original civil servants and their families have all the military household registration of Wuzhai Fort and enjoy all the treatment of Wuzhai Fort. From the desire of civil servants to the identity of military households, this psychological change is incredible in other prefectures and counties.

Farms with a population size in each township have now become the second choice of merchants in addition to Wuzhai Fort. Some merchants who can't compete for big merchants in Wuzhai Fort have also retreated to the second best and targeted the business land at these garrisons. Every few days, at the intersection outside the farm, markets spontaneously formed. On this day, they operated cotton, salt, cloth, coal, and tea with satisfaction.   The skinny and numb and despair expressions of the military households in the fort seen a few years ago were completely different from the skinny and numb and desperate expressions of life.   Shi Ye found that although his buildings in Kelan Prefecture were taller and wider than Wuzhai Fort, the spirit of such military households was not as good as at all.

After entering Dadong Street, Master Sun was even more stunned. He saw that the street was filled with grain shops and rice shops, and white rice and flour were filled with all the streets. In addition, the street was filled with cloth shops, tea shops, oil sugar shops, etc.

Various rice merchants came and went from shops, and some of the refugees carrying rice were panting and carrying heavy rice bags, following them, crowding the streets with people coming and going. There were also trucks of cars and horses, and after filling the grain, they went out of the fort, forming a strange and busy situation.
Chapter completed!