After selling sixty artillery pieces, she should have been able to get 120,000 shi of food, but Mrs. Liu really didn't have that much and could only come up with 50,000 shi. Wan Lei had to keep an account for the other party and asked them to spend the rest within a month.
Wan Lei paid 70,000 shi to make up for it. In order to ensure that the other party would not use credit, Wan Lei also kept Liu Wan and others as collateral.
As for how Mrs. Liu got the 70,000 shi of grain, whether she stole it or robbed it, that is her own business. Wan Lei leased a seaport to her, which can be regarded as the most benevolent thing. She still had to give it to her before the year
Fifty thousand shi of grain was paid, which was used as rent and loan.
Leasing a seaport is also risky. After all, there is a navy in the territory, and you can't worry about it even when you sleep at night. However, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, because Mrs. Liu had a network in the Ming Dynasty, and she could sell the goods of Shuntian Mansion.
You can even transport some goods to the Japanese country opposite to sell them in exchange for real gold and silver.
If the trade route of Japan can really be opened, then Shuntian Prefecture will be developed, because Japan not only has many earthquakes and volcanoes, but also produces silver. As an island country, Japan is extremely short of domestic products, and most things have to be imported, among which the most popular
The items are silk, ceramics, tea leaves and copper coins.
Although Sunchon Mansion does not produce silk, ceramics, tea, but it does produce woolen cloth, glass, candles, ironware, and copper coins. Any kind of product is likely to be a hot seller. Wan Lei made up his mind to only accept money, and exchange the goods for the Japanese.
After producing most of the silver, they then instituted a silver standard and devalued all the copper coins in the hands of the Japanese country, thus destroying its economy.
In addition to Japan, North Korea is also a vast overseas market. Although North Korea does not have much real gold and silver, it has obtained many good things from the big brother of the Ming Dynasty through pilgrimage in the past few decades. In terms of foreign trade,
, Wan Lei is not as stupid as the Ming Dynasty, who favors favors over favors. All the products produced by Shuntian Mansion are clearly marked with prices and will never be given away for free.
Of course, the overseas market is far less vast than the market of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty had a population of more than 70 million, and it developed peacefully for more than thirty years. There were more people with money, so naturally they had to buy something good to eat and wear.
The handicraft industry in the Ming Dynasty was not very developed, and the goods produced were far from meeting consumer demand. The goods produced by Shuntian Mansion had long entered the market of the Ming Dynasty, but the Yellow River had recently flooded, and business travelers could not go north to purchase goods.
That's all.
If the maritime trade route is opened up, and the goods are resold along the coastal road to places such as Shandong, Zhili, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, etc., and then transported along the river to Huguang, Sichuan, then it will be a world-wide commerce, unlimited market, and broad business opportunities. And the maritime trade route is not just about selling goods.
, they also purchased grain and raised grain prices. At the same time, they also let privately minted copper coins pour into the Ming Dynasty like a tide, driving the overall currency inflation of the Ming Dynasty and making Hongwu Tongbao increasingly worthless.
After the grain delivery was completed, Mrs. Liu left dozens of people to search for a suitable port site in the Dagu area, while she herself left with the dozen or so ships equipped with artillery. Sixty artillery pieces were packed separately.
On these dozen ships, each ship has four cannons, which can be said to be a strong ship with powerful guns.
Don't underestimate these sixty artillery pieces. They are all one foot long and weigh one ton. If equipped with the Peking Army's new gunpowder, they can have a range of up to two miles and an effective range of six hundred meters. Even with traditional gunpowder
, the effective range is more than 400 meters, and the quality is absolutely guaranteed. After several test firings, none of the guns exploded. Naturally, Mrs. Liu was very satisfied and said she wanted to order dozens more.
The navy of the Ming Dynasty was generally not equipped with large cannons. What they had at most were some small artillery pieces. The most commonly used ones were fire blunderbuss. This kind of thing had a short range and a small amount of ammunition. It was different from the Shenwu cannon cast by the Peking Iron Works.
When compared, it's like the heavens and the earth. When Mrs. Liu goes out in a fortune ship equipped with Shenwu cannons, as long as she doesn't collide with other people's ships, she can usually be invincible.
Whether Mrs. Liu tortured the Ming Dynasty Navy or was beaten by the Ming Dynasty Navy, these are not things Wan Lei cares about. He only cares about the development of Shuntian Mansion and the livelihood of the people in Beiping City. After receiving 50,000 shi of grain
, he devoted himself to the mining of copper mines and the business of smelting copper and casting coins, and was extremely busy every day.
It was August, and Wan Lei was not the only one who was busy. The people in Beiping were also busy planting winter wheat. Since this season's wheat is related to next year's food and clothing problem, not only Tie Xuan paid attention to it, but all the administrative officials in the city went to the fields.
Go to the fields to inspect and popularize farming knowledge. After all, the days of food shortage are terrible.
It is said that Shuntian Prefecture has no less than 10 million acres of cultivated land, and each resident is allocated at least ten acres per person. However, most of it is deserted. Not only does it need to be plowed, but also irrigation facilities need to be re-digging. In short, within the city of Beiping
The "landowners" of all sizes were very busy. Fortunately, the government organized an ox team, with several oxen pulling large plows, to plow the fields in patches, which meant intensive production.
The new residents of Shuntian Prefecture are not eligible for land allocation. They can only rent other people's land or rent land reserved by the government. They only need to pay rent every year and do not need to pay taxes or perform labor services. This is a big problem for the residents.
It can be considered a benevolent government. Under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, they not only had to pay taxes, but also suffered from the oppression of corvee labor. Those days were really dark.
The common people are busy plowing and planting, and women such as Wiaoyu are also very busy. They are trial-producing pesticides to prevent pests and diseases according to Wan Lei's requirements. The main raw materials are naturally the remaining iron sulfate and copper sulfate from hydrometallurgical copper smelting. Among them,
We are also studying how to mix iron sulfate with other waste materials to make fertilizer and apply it to fields to promote crop growth.
In fact, iron sulfate is a widely used plant fertilizer that can enhance photosynthesis and improve the drought resistance of crops. This is even more necessary for the drought and water shortage environment of Shuntianfu.
Of course, the remaining raw material obtained from wet copper smelting is ferrous sulfate, which needs to be heated to convert into ferric sulfate. This process is not very difficult. Moreover, ferrous sulfate also has special uses, such as being used as a dye.
, it can be dyed bright green. In short, the waste materials used in copper treatment can be recycled and will never be wasted.
Unlike the female Taoists such as Wiaoyu who take care of flowers, plants and trees every day, Chicheng Chixin Xiaodao is engaged in the design of the clock with peace of mind. Since the success of the pendulum clock design, Wan Lei has long given them a task, which is to build a big clock and put it together.
It is installed on the Drum Tower in the center of Beiping City.
The design drawings of the big bell have long been produced, and the two lanes are mainly busy with the production of parts. Since iron is easy to rust, the parts used in the big bell are mainly made of red copper. The Drum Tower also needs to be appropriately rebuilt, and it will be more than 20 meters high.
The big clock tower will be completed by the year before and put into use next year.
Wan Lei has also planned to name the new bell tower the Century Clock, and from next year, the new calendar will be implemented and the solar calendar will be adopted. Next year will be the first year of the Era. In the next two or three years, it will be pushed down. It will no longer be based on the Ming Dynasty.
The era number and chronology shall prevail. Some official records and private contracts no longer use the backward era number and chronology. Only the lunar calendar is used to estimate solar terms.
"Brother, the Mid-Autumn Festival will be here in a few days. Should we prepare for a moon-viewing activity?" Zhao Xueer rarely saw Wan Lei at home, so she came over and asked immediately.
Wan Lei sorted out the pile of drawings and documents on the table and said without raising his head: "Go and discuss with Miss Zhang. It would be best to organize the idle people in Siyi Yuan and have a party. Oh,
By the way, we can also do some horse racing activities during the day to keep everyone entertained."
"These matters were originally the responsibility of the government, but now they are delegated to me." Zhao Xueer was a little unhappy. She liked to watch the excitement, but she didn't like to be a part of it. It was so tiring to do activities.
"Everyone is too busy right now. Go and discuss it with your sister Wei'er and Mrs. Tie. They are half of our sky in Beiping City. They are the best at this kind of thing." Wan Lei put a bunch of things together.
The drawings were put into the leather bag and hurried out.
The reason why Wan Lei is so anxious is because the first copper mine crusher is about to be put into use. This crusher is driven by water power or can be pulled by animal power. It can process more than ten tons of ore per day and is expected to obtain about two tons of concentrate.
, these two tons of concentrate can produce at least one ton of copper. This ton of copper can be made into about 300,000 copper coins, which is worth about 300 taels of silver.
Wan Lei became very motivated when he thought about being able to produce three hundred taels worth of copper in one day. Although various production costs and wages had to be eliminated, the net profit was still there, at least one hundred taels. He could earn one hundred taels a day.
Two, that's thirty thousand taels a month. From now on, the official salary of Shuntian Mansion will be secured, and military pay will no longer be so tight. After all, there will be copper coins to pay.
When Wan Lei rushed to the copper smelting factory in Beiping City, he found that Tie Xuan, who was rarely seen before, also appeared early. It seemed that this guy was also concerned about the copper casting industry. The copper smelting factory was different from the iron smelting factory because the copper
Copper is a precious metal, and copper coins are too important, so from copper mining to smelting, all workers are citizens. They receive high salaries, but they are subject to various production regulations. In short, they cannot take away a gram of copper, nor can they privately
Hide a piece of copper ore.
Moreover, Tie Xuan also appointed several commissioners to serve as inspectors in mines and copper smelting plants. How many carts of copper ore are produced every day, how much copper is refined, how much copper is used to make coins, how much is left, and how much copper coins are received. These must be strictly controlled.
There should never be any gaps in archiving and archiving.
Of course, this kind of management in the copper smelting factory is not the most strict, but the management of the Silver Mining Bureau is strict. The Silver Mining Bureau is responsible for melting and refining pure silver and casting it into silver coins that meet the specifications. The silver workers spend their time at work
Go in and change into work clothes, then come out and change into your own clothes when the work is done. In short, it is strictly forbidden to leave with even a gram of silver.
"Let's start work!" Wan Lei waved his hand, and the workers in the copper smelting plant began to work. The rolling sound from the crusher shook the ground, but in Wan Lei's view, this was really an inspiring sound.
Ah, once the copper smelting plant opened, Peiping would no longer be short of money.