Hongwu Survival Guide

Chapter 109
The lower reaches of the Yan River, this is the boundary of Fenghua Prefecture in Mingzhou Prefecture.

Before dawn, a flat-bottomed passenger boat with hundreds of materials kept docking by the river bank, putting down shopkeepers' stalls one by one.

Shijiu is one of the shopkeepers recently selected to walk the streets. He is 41 years old this year. He has passed the age of the most productive youth, but he still has a little foot strength.I thought it would be a hard job, but after learning about the remuneration of being a salesman, thousands of selected civilian husbands all kept silent to the people around them.

The fact is, as a peddler of this Mingzhou grocery chain company, he is given 3 liters of rice every day, which is 1 liter higher than the ration standard in Dinghai, and these three liters are distributed to individuals and withdrawn on a monthly basis, no longer that soldier The civilian husband can only let go of his belly to eat but cannot take it away.

Not only that, the peddler doesn't need to pay any capital, and he will be rewarded with an additional 10 Wen for every catty of hemp he collects.There are also seeds, with more rewards per catty, 100 Wen.

Shijiu is from Taizhou. He was involved in Fang Guozhen's command in his early years, but he has always been just an ordinary soldier.Fang Guozhen was defeated and was dragged to Fujian again. Liao Yongzhong drove the water to attack Fuzhou. He was the first to be driven to attack the water gate and break the city, but it was useless.

After more than ten years of bumps and turns, she is still alone.However, Shijiu was already very satisfied to be able to return to Zhedong with all his needs and needs.

He didn't think about it, but recently, it made him think about this hopeless day a little more.

If this peddler job can last forever, no, even if it lasts for a year, he thinks he can accumulate a fortune, or... when he is old, he can still find a wife and start a family, so that he will not die in the future There is no one who even remembers himself.

Therefore, Shi Jiu is very grateful to the young master of the Yinghai envoy, even more grateful to the young master of the Fang family who found him directly.

Working for Fang's family for so many years was wasted time, but he didn't get any benefits.

Came to a small village.

Shijiu put the stall on the grain drying field at the head of the village, ate some dry food in a hurry, drank a few sips of water, and then someone came over, cheered up, took out the rattle and shook it, and began to sell with a loud voice: "Machang Groceries, hemp—for—miscellaneous—goods——”

The first to approach was an old man who was carrying a hoe and was about to go to the field. He looked up and down the various things on Shijiu's booth. Mile?"

Shijiu patiently explained.

In the past few days, every time I went to a place, I had to explain something.

The peddlers' stalls walking around the streets actually accept everything, such as copper coins, grains, and even chickens, ducks, and goose eggs, but it is the first time to exchange hemp.

After listening to Shijiu, the old man also became interested: "Dinghai, there is a big commotion over there. I heard that something is coming... camp... camp..."

Shijiu continued: "Yinghai Envoy, don't hide it from my husband, I belong to the yamen of the Yinghai Division."

The old man was surprised: "The yamen... and you, a shopkeeper?"

Shi Jiu grinned: "It can be seen that the sea envoy is not an ordinary person, but an officer."

While talking here, a woman interrupted and asked, "Do you have a sewing needle?"

"Yes, yes, of course there are." Shi Jiu hurriedly took out a pack of steel needles from one of the stalls, and emphasized: "Only accept hemp, hemp silk, hemp thread, and old linen are all available, and the price is 50 yuan each." Jin, for this needle, one or two hemp needles, two sewing needles, one, two and three embroidery needles."

The woman couldn't figure out how much a needle was worth, but she took a large shoe needle and looked it up, subconsciously saying, "It's expensive."

Shi Jiu had a good temper and was also patient. He smiled and shook his head: "It's not expensive, it's a high-quality steel needle brought from Guangzhou, and it's durable."

Another shrewd little daughter-in-law interrupted and said, "How do you transport needles from thousands of miles away?"

Shi Jiudao: "Of course I can't ship it, but there are big merchants who can. This needle... has a big background. It was the sea merchant who prepared the goods from the south and planned to ship them to Japan thousands of miles away. The envoy of our camp intercepted it, but I don’t know, if it goes overseas, this needle can be exchanged for a lot of gold, and my big needle can only be collected for three pennies."

Shi Jiu talked about interesting things that the villagers had never heard of. Although it was the first time he had seen the harvesting of hemp, the villagers did not refuse. Soon someone took the hemp thread or the extra ramie seeds at home to exchange.

Shi Jiu first checked whether the hemp material was fresh, and confirmed that it was not soaked in water, and then took out the steelyard and started weighing the transaction.

After opening, there are more and more people. There are shelves and stalls with three floors at both ends, cheap jewelry, small kitchen utensils, sesame candies, etc., and there are people who exchange them. There is really no sesame at home, and they want to exchange food and eggs. Shijiu thought about it and accepted it.

After staying in this small village for nearly an hour, he changed everything he needed, asked for directions, and then Shi Jiu carried the burden and rushed to another nearby village.

until evening.

Shijiu carried the load back to the bank of the Yan River where he set off in the morning, and finally had time to take stock of today's harvest.

Because this is the first time someone has exchanged hemp material, even if it is spring, the stock of hemp material planted last year is not much. After running this day, the harvest is still very impressive, with a total of nearly 7 catty.

In addition, I was lucky enough to receive 6 taels of hemp.

Shi Jiu was both happy and worried about this.

The good news is that you can accumulate more than 100 rewards in one day, and if it is a month, you can get three consecutive credits!

Not to mention that there is a monthly quota of nine buckets of rice.

Shi Jiu had privately inquired about some small courtyards around Dinghai County, and if they were cheaper, they could be bought with just a dozen strings.That is to say, after working hard for one year, he will be able to settle down around Dinghai.

What is worrying is that Shi Jiu understands that such a good harvest can only happen once in a short period of time.

If they went to those villages with burdens tomorrow, they would definitely not have such a good harvest as today. After all, the stocks of hemp materials in the villagers' homes were also limited.If you want to harvest again, you have to wait until May and June, when the harvest of ramie starts in the new year.

Shijiu couldn't help thinking, hoping that Ying Haisi would allow them to run farther.

Mingzhou Mansion is gone, Shaoxing Mansion in the west, Taizhou Mansion in the south, and even no matter how far away, he is willing to go there. Even if the reward per catty is less, it is okay, as long as you don’t pinch this job

The flat-bottomed passenger boat that picked us up arrived a bit late today.

Shi Jiu carried the load on board the boat, reported the harvest with the steward, and couldn't help talking about his worries.Seeing him bring up the topic, several shopkeepers around came together, and everyone had similar opinions.The manager also speaks based on performance, and naturally hopes that this job will last, but he also confesses that it is not up to him to decide.

The boat went down the river and arrived at the pier outside Fenghua City downstream. It was already the end of the Xu Dynasty.

Night ban has been lifted.

It is impossible to enter the city, and everyone can only rush to the pre-established salesman's distribution point outside the city. Unexpectedly, it is very lively here.

The Yinghai Division sent an order to gather all the hemp materials accumulated in the past few days and send them to Dinghai overnight.

Dinghai.

This is the fifteenth of April.

Waking up in the morning, Zhu Yuan hurried to the outer courtyard after simply eating.

Liu Lian is already waiting.

Seeing the appearance of his own sea envoy, Liu Lian reported the amount of hemp that had been gathered in Dinghai overnight.

In less than ten days, under the strong execution force inspired by Zhu Yuan's urging, the 1000-person salesman team was all spilled out. However, it was only limited to the Mingzhou area for the time being, and it was considered an experiment.

The figure Liu Lian gave was 1.7 jin.

In addition, there are more than 1100 kilograms of seeds of hemp crops such as ramie and jute.

The preparations started ten days ago, and three days ago, the team of shopkeepers completed their purchases and spread out quickly. In a short period of time, 1.7 catties of hemp material came into the account, which was far beyond Zhu Yuan's expectations.

However, Liu Lian also passed on the news of the people below.

This time it was like... At least, in May and June, before the first batch of hemp crops were harvested by the folks this year, it was a one-shot deal, and if they went to the same place again, the harvest would not be too much.

Zhu Yuan was not disappointed.

Mingzhou ran past, then spread to the surrounding area.

As for the cost...

No time to care about this right now.

On April [-]th, when the news came from Xiangshan, Zhu Yuan understood more deeply that the biggest threshold restricting the improvement of fishery production this year was not fishing boats, but fishing nets.

It's hemp.

Now, the hemp material collected scattered from all over the place is already gathering in Dinghai, but it is no longer suitable for transporting to Xiangshan.

The fishing plan in southern Minnesota will end on April [-]th. Sending them there now will not help the matter, and it will only waste the manpower of a round trip.Therefore, the focus can only be on the next fishing in the Zhoushan area after Xiaoman.

What's more, although more than 1 catties of hemp materials have been quickly collected in just three days, in Zhu Yuan's view, it is still far from enough.

The durability of fishing nets in this era is beyond Zhu Yuan's imagination.Especially in the large-scale and high-intensity fishing under the collective organization, after a net is launched, various damages will appear in just a few days. Even if it is constantly repaired, it will definitely not take a season of fishing.

What's more, repairing is also time-consuming and delays production.

Therefore, it was an underestimate to think that raising 3 catties of hemp material would be enough for this year's summer flood season.

One hundred thousand catties is appropriate.

Still plans can't keep up with the changes.

Another change is that, referring to the fishing data in the south, as long as the supply of fishing nets is sufficient, this year's catch in just one summer will far exceed the target of 10 tons in Zhuyuan's plan.

After discussing with Liu Lian, he was asked to personally collect the hemp materials collected from various places and make them into fishing nets as soon as possible. Zhu Yuan's subsequent work in the morning was still related to this summer fishing season.

Lao Zhu finally sent another group of officials over.

In the first two months, Lao Zhu sent 21 Guozijian students headed by Zhou Yu to eastern Zhejiang to measure the local farmland with the cooperation of the local government.

The measurement work has recently been completed.

When the matter was over, there were 21 people in total. Lao Zhu didn't let them return to Jinling, but instead came to Yinghai Division to report.

Zhu Yuan met these people, had a brief chat in the morning, and quickly assigned them.

Half of them were sent directly to Xiangshan.

Although it is too late to support fishing nets and other tools to the south, there are still many things to do for fishing in the Xiangshan area.

Like collecting taxes.

Such as harvesting fish.

Zhu Yuan directly appointed the leading student, Zhou Chou, as the head of the eighth grade of the Yinghai Division, and rushed to Xiangshan to be responsible for two things, one was to collect fish tax, and the other was to purchase fish catches in the name of the government.

This is also inspired by the news from the day before yesterday.

Or change far more than planned.

There are more than 1600 fishing boats in the south, including more than 1300 private fishing boats. Even if they are small fishing boats that are far smaller than official boats, according to Li Gui's report, there must be [-] to [-] tons of fishing boats organized by the government recently. of.

Taking a compromise figure, 2.5 tons is actually 250 million catties.

This is already close to the total annual catch in the Zhoushan fishing ground area in recent years.

With so many fish catches, the merchants who gathered in the past to buy the fish catches and sell them to the surrounding areas couldn't eat them at all. Moreover, if the fish catches were not handled in time, the fish catches would spoil, which was something no one wanted to see.

Therefore, Zhu Yuan decided that Yinghai Division should take care of the situation.

There has always been a saying that 'cheap grain hurts farmers'. This 'cheap fish hurts fishing' is not uncommon in the past, but it is certainly far less serious than this year. If the authorities do not cover the bottom line, it will definitely severely discourage fishermen's enthusiasm for continued production.

The bottom price that Zhu Yuan offered was one tael of silver per load of fish, or 1000 Wen.

Have to say, on the high side.

However, anyway, it is directly beneficial to the bottom, and Zhu Yuan doesn't mind giving more benefits as much as he can.

What's more, there are 2.5 tans in the south this time, and then the north will start fishing. Adding up all of them, this season's summer flood season, harvesting 10 tans of fish from the private sector, only needs to spend 10 taels of silver.

Ying Haisi can afford this money.

Even, if it hadn’t been agreed with Lao Zhu in advance to supply military supplies, and these fish catches would be transported to the mainland for distribution by the Yinghai Division, although the purchase of fish catches cost a lot, Zhu Yuan was also confident that he would not only recover the cost, but also make more money. a sum.

In this day and age, material things are money.

Substances are really valuable.

Then there are taxes.

At first it was decided to directly collect rice grains, but in view of the current situation, it can only be changed to directly collect fish catches.

Moreover, the Yinghai Division is still responsible for the bottom line, and the fish does not need to be handled by the private sector. In terms of fishing tax here, the Yinghai Division will uniformly marinate and bake.

This is also to reduce the burden on the people.

Not to mention baking, folk marinated fish, just buying salt is a big expense. The people at the bottom do not even have the strength to buy official salt, so they often have to take risks, or buy private salt, or cook salt quietly.

This is not what officials want to see.

Ying Haisi has already obtained Lao Zhu's permission to draw salt directly from the major saltworks in Zhejiang and Zhejiang according to demand.

Zhu Yuan can actually imagine that as the various departments of the Ying Hai Division are involved in more and more various transactions, it is inevitable that someone will get involved in it.Just like the item of salt, he can conceive of a bunch of good ways to use the privilege of the Yinghai Division to resell the salt to make a fortune just by thinking about it.

However, as long as you can get things done right now, you don't have to worry too much about it.

Zhu Yuan has emphasized quite bluntly to the people below more than once, not to be greedy for these small profits, but to have greater political ambitions.However, Zhu Yuan would not be so naive as to think that everyone would obey, even seeing so many loopholes, it would be unreasonable not to dig into them.

Zhu Yuan only hoped that in the future, when someone lost his head because of this, he would not regret it.

What's more, Zhu Yuan didn't hide the related worries from Lao Zhu, which can be regarded as a kind of early dismissal.

No matter how much Zhu Yuan didn't think about money, he couldn't stop ordinary people from thinking too much about it. The causes he planted personally, and the fruits he would bear in the future had to be borne by himself.

(End of this chapter)