Chapter 297 Tenglongwei Engineering Team

The next morning, Zheng Xiao left Tenglongwei. He was the same when he came and when he left, and he only brought four followers with him.

After sending Zheng Xiao away, Yang Zhengshan did not make any unusual moves, and he was still busy dealing with the affairs of Tenglongwei every day.

About ten days later, Zheng Xiao sent a letter.

The matter of the Luo family becoming a salt merchant was settled. Luo Fu prepared 3,000 salt permits for the Luo family. Each salt permit was 300 kilograms, and 3,000 salt permits were 900,000 kilograms, all of which were salt permits for Jing'an Prefecture.

In short, the Luo family is now the salt merchant of Jing'an Prefecture, and the salt business of Jing'an Prefecture is exclusively owned by the Luo family.

After getting the salt permit, Luo Shang came to Tenglongwei again.

"Sir!"

In the tea room, Luo Shang saw Yang Zhengshan and bowed with a happy face.

He didn't expect that this matter could be done so easily.

Although it is only the salt business of Jing'an Prefecture, the profit is very considerable. The key is that their Luo family has entered the salt merchant industry this time, which has great significance for the future development of the Luo family.

Yang Zhengshan waved his hand nonchalantly and said, "Sit down and talk!"

The two sat down, and Luo Shang poured tea for Yang Zhengshan.

"Is Lord Zheng okay?" Yang Zhengshan asked.

Luo Shang went to Liao'an Prefecture to collect the salt permit. He not only met Zheng Xiao, but also Luo Fu.

"Lord Zheng is fine!" Luo Shang said, "But the Liao'an Li family seems a little dissatisfied!"

Yang Zhengshan smiled, "Of course they will be dissatisfied. These salt permits of yours are taken from their mouths. They should be happy."

The Liao'an Li family was originally the largest salt merchant in Liaoyuan. This time, they sold the salt permit of Jing'an Prefecture for Luo Fu's face.

Although Luo Shang also spent real money on these salt permits, the Liaoan Li family lost the salt business of Jing'an Prefecture after all, and they will lose more than 100,000 taels of silver every year in the future. It is reasonable for them to be dissatisfied.

"Hehe~~" Luo Shang smiled awkwardly. He said this not casually, but just wanted to remind Yang Zhengshan to pay attention to the Liaoan Li family, so as to prevent the Liaoan Li family from causing trouble for their Luo family.

Yang Zhengshan drank tea and said: "The salt field of Tenglongwei should be completed next month, and the first batch of salt should be in mid-June. Then you can just come and take the salt away!"

This time, because of the relationship between Zheng Xiao and Luo Fu, the Luo family became a salt merchant so smoothly, and at the same time, the restrictions on the Luo family will be smaller.

Although the salt permit is only 3,000, no one will come to supervise how much salt the Luo family sells.

As long as Jing'an Prefecture can take it, it doesn't matter how much salt they sell.

Moreover, it is much more convenient for Tenglongwei Salt Field to sell salt. Every year, it only needs to pay 1,000 taels of silver to Pikou Salt Field in Liaoan Prefecture, and Tenglongwei Salt Field can sell salt in the name of Pikou Salt Field.

This also means that not only the Luo family has robbed the interests of the Liaoan Li family, but the Tenglongwei Salt Field has also robbed the interests of the Pikou Salt Field.

If the salt sold in Jing'an Prefecture comes from Pikou Salt Field, the income of Pikou Salt Field must be far more than 1,000 taels of silver.

If it weren't for Luo Fu's suppression of the opinions of the Li family and Pikou Salt Field in order to win over Zheng Xiao, this matter would never be done so easily.

"Is the price of salt the same as in previous years!" Luo Shang asked.

The salt trade is monopolized, so the price of salt is naturally ridiculously high. Yang Zhengshan lamented that salt was expensive when he was still in the Yang family. He still remembers that the price of salt in Anning County was 30 wen per catty.

"Let's sell it at the price of previous years first, and when the output of the salt field increases, we will reduce the price as appropriate!" Yang Zhengshan said.

The output of the salt field will definitely not be too high at the beginning, but with the expansion and improvement of the salt field, the output will definitely increase in the future.

Yang Zhengshan is not a businessman after all, and he will not do such things for the sake of profit.

He hopes that Tenglongwei can increase its income through the salt field, and he also hopes that the Luo family can make money from the salt business, and he hopes that the people can eat cheap salt.

"Your profit should be five cents per catty of salt!" Yang Zhengshan directly set the profit of the Luo family.

Five cents per catty, if it is based on 900,000 catties, the profit is about four or five thousand taels of silver.

This profit can only be said to be a little profitable for the Luo family.

But how high is the actual cost of salt?

In addition to the cost of building the salt field, there is the labor cost. The cost of one catty of salt is estimated to be only two or three cents. If it is in accordance with Yang Zhengshan's requirements, the salt field will make the most money.

However, as mentioned earlier, Yang Zhengshan is not a profit-seeking businessman.

"When the output of the salt field increases, the price of salt will be reduced to about twelve or thirteen cents. The cheaper the salt price, the higher the sales volume will be, and your profit will be greater!"

"Well, I understand!" Luo Shang agreed without thinking.

This is not a bad thing for him. It doesn't matter if the profit of salt is low. At present, the Luo family has many profitable businesses and is not short of money.

He is willing to let the Luo family be salt merchants not just to make money. Salt merchants have the highest status among all merchants, because salt merchants often represent strong connections.

To put it simply, becoming a salt merchant can improve Luo Shang's social status, and the improvement of social status is more conducive to his other businesses.

So even if he can't make money from salt business, he is willing to become a salt merchant.

After the two discussed it, Luo Shang left Tenglongwei. He still has a lot of things to do next.

Yang Zhengshan continued to be busy handling official business in the government office.

After entering June, most of the things in Tenglongwei have been on the right track.

First of all, the construction of houses in each guard station and camp has been basically completed and has entered the final stage.

Twelve thousand houses may sound like a lot, but in reality it is not a lot to distribute to each thousand households in different villages.

It is relatively easy to build mud houses. A dozen laborers can build three mud houses in one day. A family with six houses and a yard can be built in three or four days.

Military households build houses together, men, women, old and young. Five military households work in groups and build houses for each other. It takes more than a month at most for everyone to live in the new house.

Of course, if you want to achieve this, you still need the organization and investment of the health institute.

If the military households were asked to organize themselves to build houses and simply help for two days, everyone would still be willing. However, if they spend a month to build houses, it would be difficult to do it.

With the completion of housing construction, the construction of various public facilities has also been put on the agenda.

According to Yang Zhengshan's idea, Tenglong Guard needs a major infrastructure construction.

The infrastructure includes the government offices, walls, roads, wells, and canals of each thousand residences and forts, including the repair of the Acropolis walls, the renovation of the streets in the city, the renovation of the houses in the city, etc.

Since it is a large-scale infrastructure construction, it naturally requires a lot of labor. First of all, the construction tasks of each thousand-household station and each village fort are organized by the chief officials of each place. The Wei Si Yamen will issue salaries and acceptance results according to the specific project volume.

Secondly, the construction tasks of the Acropolis and the construction of roads within the Tenglongwei area were directly responsible for the Weisi Yamen and established an engineering team.

For example, there are not many construction tasks in Qianhusuo and Tunpu. The government office of Qianhusuo only needs a dozen mud houses. The walls of Tunpu do not need to be too high. The roads are just leveled and more wells can be dug. A few mouthfuls, the slightly more troublesome thing is the water channel.

These tasks no longer need to be completed in a short period of time, and can be done slowly during leisure periods.

Therefore, Yang Zhengshan sent it to Qianhu Office, and Qianhu Office completed it on its own.

The tasks of the engineering team are all major projects. Inside the Acropolis, Yang Zhengshan formulated a new plan. Although it is not a reconstruction, there are many places that need to be renovated. Outside the Acropolis, the main focus is on road construction.

The area under the jurisdiction of Tenglongwei is about sixty miles from north to south and thirty miles from east to west. There are only two official roads in the area, one leading to Qinghua City, one to Jing'an City, and the road to Liao'an City in the south. It's not an official road, it's just a small road, barely passable by horses, not even carriages.

Yang Zhengshan wants to build roads, official roads need to be repaired, and ordinary roads also need to be repaired.

This is a relatively large project, and Yang Zhengshan estimates that it will take two to three years to complete.

After the construction of the house was completed, Yang Zhengshan ordered the Wei Si Yamen to form a construction team of a thousand people to enter the Acropolis to repair the city wall.

Yang Zhengshan intends to train this engineering team into professional engineering soldiers. Professionally, they must have carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, etc. Building houses, building roads and bridges are just their basic skills. When they become proficient in their work, Yang Zhengshan still needs They can make siege engines, build fortresses, and more.

Of course, since you are a soldier, you must also have certain combat capabilities and spend some time training.

They are not among the Tenglong guards, but they will have a stable monthly income.

On the sixth day of the sixth lunar month of the 30th year of Taiping, Tenglongwei's first engineering team was established.

Every worker in the engineering team is a laborer selected from the sanitation center below.

Their ages range from sixteen to twenty and thirty to forty.

The reason why Yang Zhengshan chose this person was deliberate.

First of all, they are between thirty and forty years old. Although they are considered strong at this age, they are already older and their potential is undoubtedly much smaller than that of young people.

The second one is between sixteen and twenty. These people who can be selected mean that there are two young men in the family. Without affecting the military household, about three hundred younger men are selected from them. juvenile.

Teenagers learn things faster. They are prepared for technical jobs, such as carpentry, blacksmith, etc.

After the engineering team was established, the first task was to repair the city wall.

With the arrival of these workers, the Acropolis also became lively.

After the engineering team was formed, the construction of the salt farm was almost completed, and the salt farm also began to recruit workers for drying salt.

At present, the salt farm does not employ too many people. About two hundred people are enough, because the salt farm is built in phases. The first phase is currently completed, with a total of twenty drying fields of 100 square meters.

In the future, the salt farm will continue to expand and workers for drying salt will continue to be recruited.

Like the workers in the engineering team, the workers in the salt field also receive a fixed monthly salary.

For the engineering team and the salt field, the military households of Tenglongwei burst out with great enthusiasm. The reason is very simple: they have a fixed monthly salary.

A stable income is definitely a great temptation for them.

Unfortunately, there are currently not many people recruited for the engineering team and salt works, only 1,200 people in total.

However, the officers and soldiers trained in the military camp must also receive military pay, sufficient military pay, and not only can they eat well, but they must also have meat every day.

Having meat to eat every day, how tempting is this to those military households who used to have enough to eat?

One can imagine.

As word spread about the training situation in the military camp, all the registered soldiers of Tenglong Guard now want to enter the military camp for training.

They are expecting and longing, and with expectations they are motivated.

Some soldiers on the register started training spontaneously before entering the barracks. They wanted to practice on their own first, so that they could perform better after entering the barracks, and perhaps get rewards from their superiors.

And this enthusiasm reached its peak after the first batch of soldiers completed basic training and returned home.

Basic training is still very novel to the soldiers of Tenglong Guard, and the reward and punishment system of the barracks is also worth talking about by the military households.

Since it is training, it is definitely necessary to have rewards and punishments. If you train well, you can eat more meat, and if you train poorly, you can only watch others eat meat.

How could Yang Zhengshan not use this simple and effective reward and punishment system.

After hearing about such a reward and punishment system, the soldiers who have not yet participated in the training became more active, and many soldiers took out their ancestors' kung fu to practice.

Tenglong Guard used to be the elite among the elite. I dare not say that every soldier is a warrior, but there must be a lot of warriors among them.

In the past, they could not even eat enough, so naturally they would not practice martial arts, but now that they can eat enough, they should pick up their ancestors' kung fu.

Yang Zhengshan was also happy to see this happen.

This change is undoubtedly a good thing for the entire Tenglong Guard.

Everyone is martial, this is what a guard should be like.