Chapter 348: Money, Food, and Troops

Yang Zhengshan asked Zhou Ren again: "How much grain do we have now?"

"Your Excellency, the yamen's 16 granaries are full, with 160,000 dan of grain in stock. In addition, the warehouse of the money and grain department has 8,000 dan of grain and 30,000 dan of horse feed!" Zhou Ren replied.

As a military organization, food storage is a must. In recent years, we have spent as much money as we can, but we have saved as much food as we can.

As the saying goes, if you have food in your hands, you will not be worried.

"Where is the cash?" Yang Zhengshan continued to ask.

"Cash!" Zhou Ren thought for a while and said: "The silver vault has 50,000 taels of cash, the money and grain department has more than 30,000 taels of cash, and the engineering department has just allocated 30,000 taels of cash two days ago!"

"There should be 100,000 taels of cash at the dock!"

The management of silver and money in Tenglongwei is more complicated, because there are many places to spend money, and each department has its own small treasury.

However, the largest silver vault is not the silver vault in the yamen, but the silver vault of the navy.

Because the navy's silver treasury includes the payment for merchant ships and taxes on other fleets.

All in all, Tenglongwei can now mobilize more than 200,000 taels of silver.

This number sounds like a lot, but it is not much.

Don't forget that the payment for a trade of the Tenglongwei fleet is 70,000 to 80,000 taels of silver, and the dock only reserves 100,000 taels of silver, which is not much.

In recent years, the fiscal revenue of Tenglongwei has been very high. Last year, the total fiscal revenue of Tenglongwei reached 780,000 taels of silver, and the expenditure was 760,000 taels of silver, barely leaving a surplus of 20,000 taels.

High income, high expenditure.

Apart from other things, the salary expenditure of the soldiers is not a small amount.

The personal guard camp, the five military camps and the navy are all considered camp soldiers, and they are paid full salary.

An ordinary soldier has an annual salary of 24 taels, or 2 taels per month.

The guard camp has 200 people, the five military camps have been expanded to 6,000 people, and the navy has 5,600 soldiers, which means 11,800 people, and the annual salary is about 280,000.

In addition, the soldiers in the camp also need to be paid for training, the women's training camp also has salaries, the engineers of the engineering team also have salaries, the workers in the salt field, the boatmen of the merchant ships, etc. all have monthly wages.

There are also officials in the government office, who also need to be paid.

If you calculate carefully, the annual salary of Tenglong Guard is close to 450,000 taels of silver.

And this does not include the food and salary of ordinary soldiers. You must know that even if ordinary soldiers do not train or go on missions, they still have to pay half of the food and salary.

Food and salary are food, so silver is not counted.

Yang Zhengshan roughly calculated that the annual expenditure of Tenglong Guard is about 800,000 taels.

It is impossible for other people to support such a large expenditure.

Of course, other guards will not have such a large expenditure.

Let alone the garrison, it is estimated that the expenditure of a provincial garrison is not as high as that of Tenglong Guard.

The garrison will not raise soldiers, nor will it raise the navy as garrison soldiers.

Well, treating the navy as garrison soldiers is a special case of Tenglong Guard. Generally speaking, other garrisons will not pay sailors according to the treatment of garrison soldiers. They will pay sailors according to the treatment of garrison soldiers. They will pay them food and wages according to the treatment of garrison soldiers. They will pay them full food and wages when they go to sea, and half food and wages when they do not go to sea.

However, regardless of whether Tenglong Guard’s expenditure is high or not, the current financial situation of Tenglong Guard is still very good.

There is money and food, complete weapons and armor, and a large number of supplies, enough to fight a big war.

Yang Zhengshan glanced at Xie Yuan, "The expansion plan of the city will be temporarily stopped, and all the silver and money will be returned to the yamen silver vault. We may not have any income for a long time in the future, so we have to spend frugally!"

When the war started, all industries withered.

Tenglong Guard spent money a little lavishly before, and now they have to learn to tighten their belts to live.

"I understand!" Xie Yuan had no objection.

Yang Zhengshan stood up and his expression became serious. "From now on, Tenglong Guard will enter combat status, and the personal guard camp and the five military camps will be ready to fight at any time!"

"Each thousand households will draw all soldiers, and the thousand households will lead the soldiers to join the city, and the deputy thousand households will organize the remaining soldiers to guard the guard post!"

At this time, the benefits of Tenglong Guard's training can be reflected.

Tenglong Guard not only trains regular soldiers, but also trains surplus soldiers.

At this time, even if Tenglong Guard draws all regular soldiers away, each hundred households and garrison still has trained surplus soldiers, so there will not be no defense force.

After all the soldiers are drawn, the strength of Yang Zhengshan's troops can instantly expand to 16,000, and this does not include the navy.

"Yes!" Everyone responded in unison.

With Yang Zhengshan's order, the war machine of Tenglong Guard finally started to operate.

Tenglong Guard is a military organization, a war machine that Yang Zhengshan spent five years to build.

Everything Yang Zhengshan did could be said to be in the service of war.

How terrible the Tenglong Guards were, no one had a clear idea of ​​it at this time.

But if you think about how much silver the Tenglong Guards had spent in the past five years, you should understand how terrible the Tenglong Guards were.

I dare not say how much more, but there were still three million taels of silver.

In addition to silver, the Tenglong Guards also had spiritual spring water provided by Yang Zhengshan.

…

Nanling Tun.

Two riders rushed into the Tunzhuang in a hurry.

“Where is the flag officer Zhang Hu?”

One person shouted loudly.

In the classroom in the center of the Tunzhuang, Zhang Hu heard the sound and hurried out. He looked at the person who came, was slightly stunned, and then smiled and said, “Why did you two brothers come to me?”

They are all from the same centurion. Although they live in the centurion station and Nanlingtun respectively, they are only three miles apart, so everyone is very familiar with each other.

However, the two familiar people did not joke with Zhang Hu at this time. Instead, they took out a document and said, "Military order, order the general flag officer Zhang Hu to summon all soldiers, carry strong weapons and arrive at the centurion station within an hour!"

Zhang Hu took the military order with a look of surprise on his face. Looking at the red seal and content on it, he asked in confusion, "What happened?"

Summon all soldiers!

This is the first time. In the past, even if they went to the Weicheng Barracks for training, they went in batches, and they would not transfer all soldiers to train at once.

But now they have to summon all soldiers!

"I don't know. It's not the order of the 100-household officer, but the order of the 100-household officer above! We have to arrive at the 100-household office within two hours, so hurry up!"

Zhang Hu felt that something big was going to happen, but he didn't dare to ask more questions, and said, "Okay!"

Then, a series of clanging gongs sounded in Nanling Village. Two soldiers rode on horses and quickly beat the gongs in the countryside around the village.

Many soldiers who were working in the fields were stunned when they heard the gongs, but then they reacted, dropped their farm tools, said something to their families, and ran quickly towards the village.

"Hurry up, hurry up..."

Zhang Hu stood in front of the armor warehouse in the class room and urged the soldiers to put on their armor.

Ordinary soldiers did not have iron armor, but only cotton armor, equipped with long spears, long swords, shields, bows and arrows and other weapons.

On weekdays, armor would be stored in the warehouse, and armor would not be issued except for soldiers who needed to be on duty.

"Sir, what happened?" A small flag officer asked in a low voice.

"Why are you talking so much nonsense? Hurry up and line up your people!" Zhang Hu glared and roared.

Damn it, something big has happened!

The captain summoned all the soldiers!

This is probably not the captain's order, but the Weisi's order.

The Weisi summoned all the soldiers!

This must be a big deal!

Zhang Hu didn't know what happened, but he knew that something big must have happened, and it was likely that they needed to go on an expedition!

Anyway, no matter what, the military order has been issued, and he must execute it.

The military law of Tenglongwei is no joke!

About half an hour later, the five small flags of Nanlingtun, a total of thirty-eight soldiers, were all present.

As for why it was not fifty-six, it was because eighteen soldiers were selected into the five military camps.

Without any delay, after confirming that the number of people was complete, Zhang Hu immediately took the soldiers to the Baihu Office.

After they arrived at the Baihu Office, they only stayed for a quarter of an hour and then ran to the Qianhu Office again.

If you stand above Tenglongwei and look down at this time, you will find that on the roads, teams are constantly gathering and moving.

Soon, long teams appeared on the official road, which surprised the caravans and pedestrians on the road.

"What happened? Why are there so many soldiers on the road?"

"They should be going to the camp for training!"

"Impossible, there won't be so many people going to the camp for training, at most dozens or hundreds of people!"

"There are hundreds of people, wow, I have heard that the officers of Tenglongwei are powerful, but I didn't expect them to be so powerful!"

"That's right, the officers of Tenglongwei are often trained!"

...

Many passers-by pointed at the soldiers on the road and talked about it.

The training of the soldiers of Tenglongwei is not a secret. All merchants who do business in Tenglongwei know about it. In the past, they often encountered soldiers going to the camp for training when they were on the road.

At first, they hid far away, fearing that these soldiers would cause trouble for them. Later, they understood, and they were no longer afraid of these soldiers. Some people even came forward to ask curiously.

It's just that there are many rules in the camp, and the soldiers will not answer any of their questions about the camp. If they chat about family matters, the soldiers don't mind chatting with them while they are on the road.

However, in one day, a large number of soldiers gathered in the south of the Weicheng.

The camp certainly can't accommodate so many soldiers, so these soldiers can only set up camp in the open space.

The clerks in the Weisi Yamen were also busy, moving a large number of tents, food, and bedding from the warehouse and transporting them outside the city.

The four gates of the Weicheng have been controlled, and merchants are only allowed to leave but not enter.

Simply put, Yang Zhengshan dispersed all the merchants in the city.

There is no way. Although the Weicheng is small, there are many merchants gathered in the Weicheng, and the personnel are complicated after all.

On weekdays, Yang Zhengshan doesn't care about these, because no one dares to act wild in the Weicheng, but once the war is entered, no one with unknown origins can stay in the city.

Although this will affect the business of Tenglongwei, there is no way to do it.

Tenglong Guard has been transformed into a war machine, so commercial matters should be stopped. Except for the government's own fleet or trusted merchants, Tenglong Guard can no longer receive other merchants.

Many merchants were dissatisfied with this, but their dissatisfaction did not last long, because the news about the entry of the Wuliang army had spread.