Sure enough, after the medals were distributed to the soldiers, the morale of the entire army was greatly improved, and the enthusiasm and enthusiasm for training also increased a lot. After training, many soldiers would consciously increase their practice.
In fact, the generous support to the families of soldiers who died in battle and the disabled soldiers is not only to improve the morale of the soldiers and relieve their worries, but more importantly, to tie the interests of the entire army with Shang Yi, because now
The merchant army is an army based entirely on Shang Yi's personal foundation. Once Shang Yi is gone, all the treatment and welfare conditions enjoyed by soldiers will no longer exist. Therefore, if you want to protect your own interests,
First of all, Shang Yi's absolute leadership in the army must be maintained.
But this way, another problem also appeared in front of Shang Yi.
At the first meeting of all managers the next day, Sun Hejing, the head of the Finance Department, raised financial issues with Shang Yi. Of course, this does not mean that there is a financial crisis in Mulingguan. On the contrary, the silver in Guancheng is now
, the food reserves are still quite sufficient. But an obvious problem lies before us. Currently, Mulingguan does not have any reliable income. The financial situation is completely one-stop, and over time, it will inevitably be a waste of money.
Moreover, various construction projects at Muling Pass now require a large amount of money. In less than a month since Shang Yi went to Beijing, he spent more than 200,000 taels of silver and more than 20,000 stone meters. Most of them
Part of it is used to resettle residents, and a small part is used to complete the construction of Mulingguan. Although the plan to rebuild the city wall and expand has been shelved, the previously planned infrastructure construction of houses, roads, etc. will still continue.
It has been completed, and now all the projects are almost in progress. In addition, the establishment of various craft workshops also requires money.
At the same time, the merchant army will soon go south to quell the rebellion, which will also cost a lot of money and food. Jusun and Jing initially estimated that they will need about 150,000 to 200,000 taels of silver and 50,000 shi of food, because there is still a huge shortage of weapons in the army, so
The production scale of the matching blacksmith workshop and gunpowder workshop will also be expanded, but with it, the factory equipment, production raw materials, and workers' wages will all increase accordingly. Sun Hejing estimates that this cost will be at least ten to fifteen.
It’s about 10,000 taels of silver. And as the war progresses, it’s unknown how much new investment will be added.
After listening to Sun Hejing's report, Shang Yi also realized that Mulinguan's financial situation was not as easy as he imagined. Although he had snatched sky-high silver grain and grass from the Qing army, his own stall was also in a hurry.
Expansion. Moreover, using firearms to fight is also a costly matter. Modern wars are basically a struggle for financial resources. In fact, many countries in Europe did not lose the war, but were dragged down by the war.
But the problem is that Shang Yi doesn't have any way to increase his income now. From the time he joined the army until now, he has actually never had a way to make money. The main source of funds is through robbing, first robbing bandits and then the Qing army. But
Now that the Qing army has retreated, there are only some petty thieves in Shandong, and robbing them is just a drop in the bucket and has nothing to do with the overall situation.
It is not that Shang Yi has not thought about this problem, trying to find a way to find a way to make money for himself, and also considered other ways to travel across the capital, such as making money by producing glass, soap, toothbrushes and other advanced products. But in the end Shang Yi failed.
It is found that these methods are difficult to implement at least at the current stage. Not to mention whether we can produce these goods with our current technical level, but who will sell them to us, and how much output we need to sell to support our own expenses.
A glass cup selling for one thousand taels and a piece of soap selling for one hundred taels can only be the fantasy of modern people. In fact, if you can buy a glass cup for five taels of silver, everything will be fine, and this is only for wealthy families.
Only those who know how to buy, the poor will not care at all. To put it bluntly, China is still a society dominated by small farmer economy. Each family is a small production unit with extremely strong self-sufficient production capacity. The vast majority of
Farmers can't buy much during the year, so they make everything at home.
At this time, Sun Cheng, the head of the Farmland Department, said: "General, I wonder if we can tax military households, so that we can at least ensure a certain source of income?"
Shang Yi shook his head and said: "No, first of all, I promised the military households in the scriptures not to collect taxes in the first year, so I must not renege on my word. Secondly, I have just gone through the disaster and the military households don't have much savings, so I rashly
Taxation will only destabilize people's hearts. Thirdly, we now have a total population of less than 30,000 households. How much can we collect even if we tax? Therefore, taxation is absolutely unacceptable, and there is no need to discuss this point again.
"
In fact, it's not that Sun Cheng didn't know what Shang Yi said. It's just that he was originally a county magistrate. Once he encountered financial difficulties, the first thing he thought of was to increase taxes and distribute these old methods to the people. But Shang Yi was obviously not like this.
Make a party.
Seeing that everyone was a little downcast, Shang Yi said: "Everyone, there is no need to be so depressed. At least our finances are enough to last for half a year, and during this half year, maybe there will be other solutions?"
Then he asked Ye Yaoji again: "I remember that we have a lot of gold, silver, jade, pearls, and a lot of silks, satin clothes, and fur clothes in our warehouse."
Ye Yaoyao also nodded and said: "Yes, there are more than 1,680 taels of pearls in the warehouse now, as well as more than 23,700 pieces of silk and satin of various colors, and more than 4,200 satin and fur clothes.
Received more than 13,630 pieces of gold, silver and jade of various kinds."
Shang Yi smiled and said: "I think it is useless to keep these things, and they still take up space in the warehouse. Why not buy them all and exchange them for silver and grain, so that we can last for a while longer? I think these things
It’s worth one or two hundred thousand taels of silver if you don’t say much, right?”
Zhou Shiqi also nodded and said: "This is a solution, but Shandong has encountered a catastrophe and we lack sales. It will not be easy to sell all these things."
Shang Yi thought of the branch managers of the Lin family shop in Qingzhou Prefecture. It seemed that he could find a solution with them, and said: "Let me find a solution for this. It doesn't mean that I have to sell everything at once. I can sell it slowly."
Later, everyone else also raised some issues in their own department. Some things were solved at that time, and some still need further consideration and discussion. For example, Chen Yiwen, director of the Education Department, pointed out that according to Shang Yi’s teaching requirements, there is a lack of teachers to teach Western mathematics.
.
After the meeting, Shang Yi first ordered people to go to Qingzhou Prefecture to invite Lin Chen, the shopkeeper of the Lin family store branch, to come to Muling Pass. Then he asked people to invite Akonia and other four Catholic missionaries.
After arriving at Mulingguan, Shang Yiba gave this group of foreign monks a house to temporarily serve as a farewell church. The four foreign monks and the two fake foreign monks were also very satisfied because they all learned about Muling from Alinia.
Due to Guan's current situation, it was impossible to build a real church immediately. The foreign monks also started their missionary work based on the principle that if there were conditions, they would go there. If there were no conditions, they would create the conditions themselves.
Aconia had lived in Mulingguan for a while and still had a certain network of contacts. Moreover, he also kept in mind Tang Ruowang's teachings. Don't rush to expand the number of baptisters, but first try to develop free registered members to expand the influence of Catholicism. Besides, after the missionary activities were launched, they also had a certain effect. Every day, some people would come to the church to listen to a few foreign monks preaching Catholic doctrines.
Anyway, for the Chinese people, it is always right to burn incense when visiting a temple. No matter whether it is a Chinese Buddha or a foreign Bodhisattva, it is not strange for many people to pay homage to it, and it is not strange for the gods either. In fact, most Chinese people do not know , the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that I worshiped in the past were all foreign gods. Therefore, there were still people who burned incense and kowtowed to God’s pictures. Akonia understood this very well. This was a religious habit of the Chinese people, and he did not stop it. On the contrary, I am very happy that it proves that some Chinese people have begun to accept Catholicism.
Moreover, when Shang Yi convened the ceremony, several missionaries were very proud to occupy a place on the viewing platform, which showed that Shang Yi attached great importance to Catholicism. Therefore, after hearing Shang Yi's call, several missionaries He immediately rushed to the general's mansion.
It turned out that Shang Yi was going to work for the foreign monks. Basically, the Jesuit missionaries who came to China had special skills, and many of them were comprehensive talents. For example, Akonia was good at medicine and painting, and he also had a certain knowledge of mathematics. level.
Among the three missionaries who came to Mulinguan with him this time, Fu Fanji was good at mining and metallurgy. He was originally born in Portugal to a miner's family. His father was a small Portuguese mine owner, and Fu Fanji himself He has also worked in the mines for five or six years and has relatively rich practical experience in mining. He also has in-depth research on Agricola's "Encyclopedia of Mining and Metallurgy".
Yang Manuo is good at machinery manufacturing. This foreign monk is a watchmaker and has worked in a forging factory. Not only can he make clocks, but he also has some research on European lathe machinery. Of course, these two people are Tang Ruowang. Shang Yi requested and specially selected professionals. Guo Najie is similar to Akonia. He is a comprehensive talent and knows a little bit about medicine, mathematics, physics and astronomy.
Shang Yi's assignment is that Akonya and Guo Najue work in hospitals and schools, mainly responsible for treating residents in Guancheng and teaching students European scientific and technological knowledge. Although they only teach mathematics and geometry for the time being, According to Shang Yi's idea, courses in physics, astronomy, medicine, etc. will be gradually added in the future. However, this knowledge has only begun to rise in Europe in the past hundred years and is still very immature. Therefore, Shang Yi asked foreign monks to figure it out first. Let’s start with a basic syllabus and then gradually add more subjects.