Now that Yang Peng has recruited 10,000 new soldiers, he spends more than 50,000 taels of silver on these recruits every month, and there is a surplus of about 100,000 taels per month on his books. When the time comes, he will have to think of nothing. Of course, wait a while
Ten thousand new soldiers have rifles. After the rifle workshop no longer makes new guns, the material cost for making new guns will be reduced by 4,000 taels per month. By then, the monthly deficit will be reduced to 6,000 taels. In addition to the two years of new land reclaimed
Later, the land rent will be paid, and the income will be 32,000 taels a year, and the monthly income will be 2,600 taels. At that time, the monthly deficit will be reduced to more than 3,000 taels.
Yang Peng has more than 1.2 million taels in savings. Yang Peng can withstand a deficit of this size for several years. There is also gold that Yang Peng has not touched. Now he has nearly more than 1 million taels. But no matter what, Yang Peng
There was a deficit in Peng's accounts, which reminded Yang Peng to develop new financial resources. Yang Peng first thought of expanding the output of the current industry. Among the soap, glass wineware and salt industries that are now profitable for Yang Peng, they have the most potential.
The best thing is soap. It has been almost three years since soap was launched on the market, and the demand is getting stronger and stronger. Word of mouth spreads, more and more people know the benefits of soap, and more and more people want to buy soap from all over the country.
The 500,000 pieces of soap Xu Mince sells to Jiangnan every month is said to be sold out in the same month. The 100,000 pieces of soap Cui Wending sells to the capital every month are also sold out in the same month. He has never accumulated any.
The selling price of a piece of soap has risen to 30 yuan. The 100,000 pieces sold by Yang Peng in a store in Cangzhou were sold out as soon as it came on the market. The cheap soap was peddled by some vendors to the prefectures and counties near Cangzhou and resold at a high price of 30 yuan.
Because the selling price was too low, merchants bought in large quantities, and the people in Cangzhou were unable to buy soap. Yang Peng understood the sales situation of soap and knew that the soap industry still had great potential. He decided to double the soap industry.
Produce an additional 700,000 yuan per month.
Five thousand yuan per box is to increase the production capacity by 140 boxes. Not only that, Yang Peng also wants to increase the price to sell soap to those who need it most. On December 25, Yang Peng visited Huang Guang
, found Huang Guang and his brother-in-law Cui Changwu, and discussed with them the expansion of soap sales.
"Master Huang has become more energetic after not seeing you for two months!" Huang Guang smiled and spat: "Yang Peng, you are getting better and better at talking. But just being able to talk is useless. I almost got unlucky because of you! The last one
When you and Luo Zhen were fighting, Luo Zhen sent people to surround my house and almost broke into my house to cause trouble!"
Yang Peng cupped his hands and said, "I have frightened the Lord. Yang Peng felt guilty!" Huang Guang snorted, knocked on the coffee table and said, "Why, do you have anything to do with me?" Yang Peng cupped his hands and said, "I don't go to the Three Treasures Hall for anything.
, I'm here to discuss with Mr. Huang about expanding soap sales." When Huang Guang heard the words "expand soap sales," his eyes lit up, and his face became happy. But Huang Guang is a very well-mannered person, and his face
Huang Guang's happy expression just flashed by. Huang Guang tapped the coffee table with his fingers, and the old god said on the ground: "What kind of expansion method?"
Yang Peng said: "I plan to sell an additional 200,000 pieces of soap to Mr. Huang every month." Huang Guang's pupils dilated with excitement when he heard the word 200,000 yuan. He currently sells 100,000 pieces of soap every month.
He already has a profit of more than 1,000 taels per month. If he adds 200,000 yuan every month, doesn’t that mean he will gain more than 2,000 taels of profit? What day is it today? Why did Yang Peng come to give him such a good gift?
information?
Huang Guang didn't believe that Li Zhi would take the initiative to bring him such a good thing. He glanced at his son, thought for a moment and said, "How can I sell these two hundred thousand yuan?" Yang Peng smiled and said, "In addition, I originally gave him
Of your 100,000 yuan, all these 300,000 yuan will be delivered at the price of 23 yuan!" It turns out that Yang Peng wants to increase the price, no wonder he comes to the door in person. Although soap selling for 30 yuan is almost the limit, it is much more expensive.
Ordinary people would not buy it, and the price of Huang Guang's household could not go up any more. But Huang Guang made some calculations and realized that with 300,000 yuan, even if Yang Peng increased the price, his total profit would increase a lot, and he was very happy.
Although he was happy in his heart, he pretended to be angry. He slapped the table and said loudly: "Yang Peng, you are raising the price on the ground!" Yang Peng said with a smile: "Nowadays, the supply of soap exceeds the demand. Cangzhou City really wants it.
People who don't buy soap can't buy it. I'm going to raise the price across the board and sell soap to those who need it most. The soap I sell to Xu Mince will go up to 23 yuan, and the soap I sell in the Tianjing New City shop will go up to 23 yuan.
Fifteen articles."
Huang Guang snorted and said nothing. Yang Peng said with a smile: "Sir, let's do the math. You sold it at thirty cents per dollar in Bianjing City. The original profit from the sale of one hundred thousand dollars was one thousand two hundred taels. Now it has been expanded to thirty cents.
Ten thousand yuan, even if I increase the purchase price, you can still make 2,110 taels, which is a lot more profit than before!"
When Huang Guang heard Yang Peng's words, he stroked his beard and said nothing. Yang Peng looked at Cui Changwu and said, "What do you think, little brother?" Cui Changwu smiled and looked at Huang Guang. Yang Peng closed his eyes and thought for a while, and said:
"Yang Peng, we can't sell as much as 300,000 yuan in the capital. I will definitely have to go to other big cities in Gyeonggi to open new stores. It will be very troublesome! You can't raise the price so much all at once, make it cheaper!"
Yang Peng smiled and said: "What's the trouble in opening a few more stores? It's just a matter of sending people to rent a few shops. Now the reputation of soap has spread to various states and counties, and the soap can be sold as soon as it arrives. To be honest,
Sir, I am very short of money now, and I am waiting for the price of soap to increase to make up for the financial gap. If you are unwilling to increase the price, I will sell it to you at the original price of 100,000 yuan. The extra 200,000 yuan, I will sell to others!"
After a pause, Yang Peng said: "There are many people waiting to buy soap worth twenty-three cents."
When Huang Guang heard this, he quickly said: "Don't give it to others, don't give it to others! I will definitely want it!" After a pause, Huang Guang said: "The price cannot be less at all?" Yang Peng shook his head. Huang Guangyi
He patted the coffee table and said, "That's it! Then I'll take your 23 yuan and 300,000 yuan! Changwu, let's not celebrate the New Year this month and go to various states to open stores."
The new production capacity of 200,000 pieces of soap was given to Huang Guang, and the remaining 500,000 pieces of soap were given to Xu Mince by Li Zhi. Xu Mince now follows Xu Nan in the capital, leaving only five shopkeepers and dozens of helpers in Cangzhou.
Business. Yang Peng wrote a letter to Xu Mince, saying that he would sell him another 500,000 pieces of soap, but the price would be raised to 23 cents a piece.
Xu Mince transported the soap to Suzhou via water transport, and then sold it in Hangzhou. Although the price was 30 cents a piece, selling it through the Grand Canal required freight for the canal workers. After taking into account the freight and labor, his original soap only cost 10 cents.
The total profit is 5,000 taels a month. The selling price of a piece of soap, which is 30 taels, cannot be increased any more. If it goes up again, it will be difficult to sell. Li Zhi has raised the price, and Xu Mince’s profit from each piece of soap is only
More than five cents. Although Li Zhi doubled the soap he gave him, his total profit only increased by a few hundred taels.
However, Xu Nan is no longer the governor and can no longer protect Yang Peng. After all, soap is an easy-to-sell product at the current price. Yang Peng still does business for Xu Mince, which is considered to be righteous. Xu Mince is a cheerful person and accepts
He didn't say anything when he received the letter, but quickly sent back a letter saying that he agreed with Yang Peng's suggestion. In this way, Yang Peng solved the problem of selling new soap production capacity. After planning to double production capacity and increase prices, Yang Peng planned a month
From the sale of 1.4 million bars of soap, the profit is expected to increase from 8,200 taels to 23,000 taels. As long as the goods can be delivered smoothly, Yang Peng will no longer have a deficit in his books.
Yang Peng began to recruit two hundred new workers to expand the production capacity of the soap factory. Yang Peng decided to build a pig farm outside Tianjing New City. Originally, there were many wealthy households in Tianjing City and Cangzhou, and the demand for meat was huge. There were a large number of farmers near Cangzhou raising pigs.
Pigs and sheep are supplied to these wealthy households, and the price of pork and mutton is relatively stable. Although Tianjing New City used to consume more than 5,000 kilograms of meat every day, compared to the large number of powerful people in Cangzhou, this consumption is not too much.
If the pigs near Tianjing New City are sold out, the pig dealers will definitely transport the pigs near Cangzhou City. Tianjing New City is only more than a hundred miles away from Cangzhou and Yingzhou City. Hiring a carriage to transport four pigs to Tianjing New City
The cost is only one or two hundred Wen. If the price of meat in Tianjing New City is higher than that of the city owner, the pig dealer can transport pigs from nearby Cangzhou to Tianjing New City in two days to make money.
Therefore, before the Khitans entered the customs and plundered the country in the first year of Xianping, the price of meat in Tianjing New City was very stable, always in the range of more than fifty liters per catty. Yang Peng supplied each worker or soldier with six taels of meat per day.
It only cost five or six coins a month. But after the military disaster in the first year of Xianping, the situation changed. After the Khitan broke through the border, they plundered all the pigs and sheep from the villages near Cangzhou and transported them all back to Yingzhou.
went.
Under this situation, the supply of grain and meat in Cangzhou was insufficient. The price of meat has skyrocketed along with the price of rice. In the past few months, it has risen to more than 100 cents per catty, making many wealthy households unable to afford meat.
In order to control expenditures, Yang Peng also changed the three meals of meat for workers and soldiers to one meal of meat. Only when the price of meat dropped, Yang Peng would resume serving meat for three meals. However, after defeating the Khitan soldiers, they defended the ditch.
, but the fact that they could not afford meat made Yang Peng very unhappy. Now Tianjing New City has 100,000 farmers cultivating land, which can produce about 9 million shi of grain per year. This food is enough to feed 300,000 people. Tianjing New City has a lot of food
He will soon be self-sufficient. Yang Peng decided to build another pig farm so that he can be self-sufficient in meat.
If you can provide your own meat, you will not be affected by the natural disasters in the first year of Xianping, and Tianjing New City will not be unable to eat meat because of disasters elsewhere. Yang Peng asked the masons who had repaired the farmers' houses to choose a piece of land outside the south wall of the city.
Started to build a large pig farm. After recruiting new soap workers and 10,000 soldiers, Yang Peng had 11,500 people who had to eat meat every day. These people consumed more than 4,000 kilograms of meat every day.
Assuming that a pig weighs 200 kilograms, is slaughtered six months a year, and has a meat production rate of 70%, the pig farm in Tianjing New City needs to raise 17,000 pigs.
However, Yang Peng was more ambitious. He expected that his business would expand in the future, so he estimated an advance amount and finally decided to raise 30,000 pigs. This was a big project, with five pigs per pen and six pig pens.
Calculating one pigsty, one thousand pigsty would need to be built. If one pigherder feeds two hundred pigs, Yang Peng would need to hire one hundred and fifty pigherders. The pigherders hired must be seasoned and kind, and Yang Peng also gave
For two or two months, you get meat for three meals.
Although the wages paid by Yang Peng are high, due to centralized breeding, many tasks can be centralized to form economies of scale, and the final labor costs are similar to those of free-range farmers at home. There is no feed in this era, and native pigs have to be fed bran, rice bran and
Pig grass, occasionally fed with broken rice. Pig grass is purslane, shepherd's purse, seven vegetables and other wild grasses. Farmers and even children can be hired to pick in the wild during the off-farm period, increasing farmers' income, or allowing children to earn some pocket money.
The construction of the pig pen started on December 6, and it is estimated that it will be completed before the Chinese New Year. Yang Peng also asked a hundred soldiers and officials to go out to buy piglets, and first purchased a batch of 1,700 piglets.
After raising them, 1,700 piglets will be added every month. In this way, after a year and a half, each batch of piglets will gradually grow up and be put out in batches. After asking the officials to buy piglets, Yang Peng returned to the weapons workshop
Here, the trial production of granular black powder began.
The gunpowder used in modern rifle bullets is all granular gunpowder. Granular gunpowder can give the bullet a higher muzzle velocity after exiting the chamber under the same chamber pressure. Flintlock rifles using granular black powder will be greatly improved in power.
.In order to fight against the Khitan army with multiple layers of armor, it is important to increase the power of the flintlock rifle.
Not only that, granular gunpowder burns more fully because of the larger air strike between gunpowder particles. Granular gunpowder leaves less residue after burning, which is helpful for riflemen to clean the gun bore. Cleaning the gun bore becomes easier, and the firing speed of the gun increases.
can be improved. Yang Peng took ten pieces of black gunpowder for rifles, put the gunpowder on a wooden grinding plate and rolled it repeatedly until the black gunpowder was rolled into white gray. Then Yang Peng took some buckwheat noodles mixed with water, and put it on the
Add some water to the synthetic buckwheat noodles and make it thinner. Then pour all the buckwheat noodles on top of ten parts of crushed black gunpowder. Mix the black gunpowder and buckwheat noodles into one, turning it into a white-gray mass.
of groups.
Then Yang Peng asked the blacksmith to make a porous iron plate, use the holes on the iron plate to scrape the gunpowder dough, scrape off the gunpowder particles one by one, and put them into a basin. Then he used the sieve made in advance to sift out the particles of different sizes.
, leaving only particles of uniform size. After screening, half of the particles were different in size and needed to be kneaded again and then scraped into particles. The remaining half of the gunpowder particles were about the same size. Yang Peng divided these particles into five parts and placed them on the
After drying in the sun, a kind of granular gunpowder is obtained.
Yang Peng didn't know what size of gunpowder particles was best for his Mini rifle. So he made ten kinds of black powder particles of different particle sizes, making five copies of each, and then took them to the shooting range one by one.
Test. After drying the black powder, Yang Peng used different granular gunpowders to shoot targets.
Most granular gunpowders have average effects, and some are too large and even inferior to powdered gunpowder. However, there are several small-grained gunpowders that perform well and penetrated two layers of Khitan armor at a height of 90 meters. Especially one of them
, penetrated two layers of Khitan armor 100 meters away. Yang Peng returned to the musket workshop, used the best-performing granular gunpowder as a template, fine-tuned the particle size around the size of the template, and finally made ten sizes.
Use slightly different black powder particles and do the target shooting test again.
The results of this test surprised Yang Peng: the best granular black powder penetrated two layers of Khitan Army armor at a distance of 120 meters, and also penetrated three layers of Khitan Army armor at a distance of 80 meters.
The performance of this new type of granular gunpowder meant that Yang Peng could launch a fire attack on the Khitan cavalry before the most elite Khitan army could shoot their arrows. Yang Peng immediately asked the gunsmiths who prepared customized gunpowder to produce this granular gunpowder in the future.
Seeing the performance of the new gunpowder, Zhang Xiang and several other senior officers were very excited. "Brother! Where did you get so many new ideas? That's amazing!" Duan Zhixian said: "The city lord is constantly inventing new things, which is admirable!
"Cheng Shijie excitedly grabbed the gunpowder and looked left and right, and said: "The Lord of the City is so powerful. Now I am not afraid of the Khitan cavalry breaking out."
Nowadays, the citizens of Tianjing New City are relatively wealthy, with a high monthly income and a balance in addition to food, clothing, housing and transportation. However, the entertainment facilities in Tianjing New City are still relatively backward, and there are no places to go except for a few restaurants and teahouses. Reference
In connection with the construction of other cities in the Song Dynasty, Yang Peng decided to build a temple in Fanjiazhuang so that citizens could have a place to burn incense and worship gods.
The temple was named Shangqingguan, and it was chosen to worship Taoist gods. The temple was built in the east of the city. Although many villas were built in the north of the city, there was still a lot of open space in the east, west and south of the city, enough to build a temple. Shangqingguan planned to build three major halls.
The first level is called Ling Palace, which is dedicated to the door god who guards the mountain gate. The second level is called Taiqing Palace, which is dedicated to Taishang Laojun. The third level is called Sanhuang Palace, which is dedicated to the statues of Fuxi, Shennong and Xuanyuan.
There is a stage in the square outside the temple. In the middle of every month, operas are performed on the stage for three days for the people to watch. With the temple where you can burn incense and watch the opera at the temple fair, I believe the people in Tianjing New City will live a more fulfilling life. Build a temple
The work of Tianjing New City was handed over to a thousand masons who had completed the construction of the military camp. It was planned to be repaired in two months. The military camp was completely repaired in mid-January of the second year of Xianping, and the thousand masons and carpenters were fine. Now Tianjing New City is expanding rapidly.
Yang Peng did not intend to let this group of craftsmen go back, and directly asked them to build Shangqing Temple in the city. After building Shangqing Temple, they would continue to build villas. In short, there was always something for them to do in Tianjing New City.
On January 16, the second year of Xianping, a new batch of 10,000 soldiers from Tianjing New City entered the camp. With these 10,000 soldiers, Yang Peng's military strength expanded to 28,000, and his strength increased.
Yang Peng organized these 28,000 people into six regiments. Yang Peng named the two new regiments the Dang Kou Regiment and the Trap Regiment. Yang Peng appointed Cheng Shijie as the leader of the Dang Kou Regiment and Zhan Jin as the leader of the Trap Regiment.
Regiment commander. At the same time, Zhang Xiang no longer served as the leader of the Selection Regiment and only served as the division commander of the Huben Division. He appointed Liu Zhiliang as the leader of the Selection Regiment and Duan Zhixian as the leader of the Polu Regiment.
The soldiers of the Huben Division have high monthly wages and high training intensity. The soldiers train outside Tianjing New City every day, practice marching, practice fighting, practice target shooting, and practice formation, so that their combat effectiveness improves every minute and every second. Every day there are
With meat to eat and an enviable three to two months of money, the soldiers of the Huben Division had high morale and trained without any complaints.
January 26th is the fifteenth day for new recruits to enter the camp. These fifteen days of training are very hard, even harder than the busy farming season at home. Every day at dawn, they are awakened by the assembly call and called by the veteran squad leader.
They were brought to the school grounds and lined up, and one stop lasted half a day. After lunch, they practiced target shooting in the afternoon. Each person fired ten rounds of bullets, and then practiced field marching, which lasted thirty miles.
But Lei San had a fulfilling life, and even found it exciting. Because there was competition everywhere in this military camp, and everyone was striving to be first. Take target shooting as an example, there were competitions between each recruit camp to determine which battalion's recruits were better at target shooting.
The target rate is high. If your battalion performs well and ranks in the top two among the eight recruit battalions, you will be rewarded. The meat food of all the soldiers in the battalion will increase by one or two in the evening and at noon the next day. On the contrary, the worst
Two battalions will lose one or two pieces of meat. The same is true for field training. Each battalion competes with each other with full energy. If which battalion goes faster and the first two reach the destination, each soldier will have two meals in the evening and at noon the next day.
Add one or two pieces of meat. If they are the last two to reach the destination, add one or two pieces of meat.
Isn't being a soldier just for drinking and eating meat? The battalion commanders of each battalion were stimulated by this incentive measure. They spurred the recruits like chicken blood every day for fear of falling behind. This is a competition between teams, and
There is also competition among individual sergeants. The squad leader said that individual soldiers will review the training results every half month: the best-performing soldier in each squad can wear a red ribbon on the right arm of his uniform, proving that this soldier is a first-class soldier. A first-class soldier
In the next half month, increase the amount of meat and vegetables by one ounce and stand at the front of the class when standing in line.
Today is the first individual training summary day for Lei San's squad. In the past fifteen days, Lei San has performed very well, and he can get more than nine points in the formation practice every day - the squad leader who stands in formation every day scores the soldiers.
From zero to ten points. Lei San was able to score nine or more points in fifteen days, which is considered to be an excellent performance. Only three of the seven recruits in a class could do this.
And Lei San is also very good at target shooting. After fifteen days of shooting, Lei San can already hit the target six times out of ten at a distance of 70 paces. There are only three people in the same class who can achieve this result.
The key is that there are only two people in Lei San's class who can perform well in standing queue and shooting at the same time. Besides Lei San, there is a recruit named Boss Qin. Lei San scored 213 points in fourteen days.
, and Boss Qin scored 211 points, biting Lei San.
Today is the last day of the fifteen-day personal summary. Today's noon target practice is the final battle between Lei San and Qin Boss. Lei San stood on the shooting range, took a breath, and raised the hand that he was already very familiar with.
Mini rifle. Bite open one end of the powder bag, open the fire door, pour the primer, clean the barrel, tear the other end of the powder bag, pour granular gunpowder into the gun chamber, press the gunpowder, load the bullet, press the bullet, Lei San completed it skillfully
He made preparations and aimed at the human-shaped wooden target seventy steps away.
There was a gunshot, smoke came out, and Lei San fired the bullet. After clearing the chamber and loading, Lei San steadily fired the second, third, and fourth rounds... A total of ten bullets were fired. Finished
After ten rounds of bullets, all the target shooters put down their rifles, and the squad leader walked to the target a hundred meters away to watch the results.
"Lei San, eight shots hit the target!" Lei San heard the squad leader's call and waved his fist excitedly. Eight shots hit the target. This is already Lei San's best result. Lei San believes that he can rely on this result to beat the enemy.
Boss Qin looked at him. Sure enough, the squad leader saw Boss Qin's target and shouted: "Boss Qin, six shots are on target!"
Hearing the squad leader's call, Lei San laughed happily. He hit the target twice more than Boss Qin. Lei San knew he had won. Except for the resentful Boss Qin, five comrades in his class all gathered around Lei San. "
Lei San wins!" "Well done Lei San!" "Lei San has been a first-class soldier for the past half month!" The squad leader came over, patted Lei San's shoulder with a smile, and pinned a red ribbon to Lei San's right hand.
"Well done Lei San, you will be the first-class soldier of our class in the next half month!"
Lei San has always been despised by his father and brother at home, and was always bullied in the village. This is the first time in his life that he has been so valued and praised by others! He looked at his fellow comrades surrounding him,
Grinning a simple smile and putting on the red ribbon, Lei San found that he was the center of attention no matter where he went. When eating in the cafeteria, other soldiers looked at Lei San's right arm from time to time, with a look in their eyes.
There was a hint of envy. Even the cook in the cafeteria was a little polite when he saw Lei San's red ribbon.
"First class soldier, add one or two pieces of meat and one or two vegetables! It's ready!" Lei San looked at the large pieces of pork belly in the bowl and grinned again.
If you want to know what happens next, let’s look at the breakdown in the next chapter.