Every Red Mansion dungeon must play the ending of Long Aotian

After the arrangement was finalized, the four present began to gossip, and Xing Xiuyan asked Zuo Jinghang how it was such a coincidence that he happened to pass by.

Zuo Jinghang immediately beamed with joy: "Niece Xian, do you know how many more boats your uncle and I have?"

Xing Xiuyan hasn't reflected yet: "How many?"

"A total of twelve ships, and they are still warships! Great ships!"

Xing Xiuyan suddenly understood: "But the matter of the peninsula is over?"

Zuo Jinghang said: "It's not done! After receiving your father's note, His Majesty immediately sent envoys to the peninsula. Don't tell me! Those bastards are really playing tricks behind their backs. Seeing the special envoy's questioning, they were terrified and said No, no, as soon as I turned around, I immediately ordered the subordinates to destroy 160 ships, leaving only more than 52 ships for the court to investigate. The Fan family seized the opportunity to buy 40 of them, and only spent less than [-] taels of silver!"

Bai Xu blurted out: "So cheap?"

Almost for nothing!

Xing Xiuyan said: "I don't know. Whether it is the peninsula or the Japanese country, their smelting and casting technology is very backward. Therefore, since the Tang and Song Dynasties, the currencies of the two countries have relied on the copper coins of the Central Plains. And the way they use copper coins is the same as We are different. One tael in our mouth is one thousand taels, but they count ten taels of copper coins as one tael. On the peninsula, one thousand copper coins are called 100 taels.”

Copper coins in the Central Plains are hard currency in neighboring countries.

Bai Xu suddenly realized: "That's it! 40 taels of silver to buy 52 sea-going ships is indeed amazing, but if you use Peninsula's algorithm, it won't be obvious that 4000 million taels of copper bought 52 sea-going ships."

This is also Bai Xu's first exposure to overseas trade.

Min Wanzhong was concerned about another matter: "Twelve ships belonged to the Yellow Sea Navy, and the Bohai Sea Navy and Donghai Navy are similar. What about the remaining ships?"

Zuo Jing Channel: "Both the Bohai Navy and the Donghai Navy have ten ships. The remaining twenty ships are divided into two teams. One team travels between Haihekou and Jiangnan to ensure that rice grains from Jiangnan can enter Shandong regularly. The other team, His Majesty intends to form a caravan to travel between the Wa Kingdom and the peninsula. Without him, there are locust plagues everywhere, but the treasury is empty, and His Majesty has nothing to do!"

As for the inner treasury, it is well known that the inner treasury is rich.But being controlled by the Supreme Emperor, the Emperor can't touch it!He could only think of another way.

Xing Xiuyan said: "Uncle knows... But His Majesty appointed Uncle to escort? The niece must congratulate Uncle!"

"Same joy, same joy." Zuo Jinghang said, "Your Majesty also issued an edict that Laizhou will be one of the treaty ports in the future."

With that said, Zuo Jinghang took out the edict.

One is for Min Wanzhong, and the content is about the establishment of a treaty port in Laizhou, setting up a transshipment envoy and a promotion envoy.Let Min Wanzhong take care of him more.

One is for Xing Xiuyan, which agrees that Xing Xiuyan will dry seaweed and dried salted fish along the coast of Shandong.

There is also a secret order, which requires Xing Xiuyan to dry some salt while drying seaweed and dried salted fish.And these salts were only sold to Japan and the peninsula in exchange for gold and silver.

Only then did Min Wanzhong and Bai Xu understand why Zuo Jinghang happened to pass by Laizhou, and why he treated Xing Xiuyan so courteously!

They came here for Xing Xiuyan!

Without this secret order, Min Wanzhong would have delayed for a while, but with this secret order, could Min Wanzhong still be passive and sabotage?Of course, they stepped up their horsepower to clean up the group of Zaoli in Langya County, so that they could work for Long Live!

And those scorpions did make small moves, didn't they hit the fishing net now?

These things were all discussed by Zuo Jinghang, Min Wanzhong, and Bai Xu, but Xing Xiuyan didn't get involved at all.She just lived in the Laizhou government office for a while, and then someone took care of the outside affairs for her.

During the period of living in Laizhou Fuya, she finally saw her mother who had been away for more than three months, and learned about the current situation of the family from her mother.

It turned out that the emperor also issued an edict to Xing Zhong, allowing the states along the coast of Shandong to dry seaweed and make dried salted fish, and even clearly stated that as long as the salt contained in it did not exceed half, it would not be considered smuggled salt.

It has to be said that the merchants from Shanshan and Shanxi are among the most wealthy merchants in the world, and their sense of smell is keen. Even the angels here have not entered the territory of Shandong.

Since the previous dynasty, the salt tax in this world has been high, and selling salt according to the price of salt can't make money at all, or even lose money in eight or nine out of ten.Therefore, merchants from Shanshan and Shanxi secretly trade in private salt.Naturally, there is no need to go into details about the fate of being caught in the private salt trade.Now there is such a way to bypass such a high salt tax, and it is still a legal business without risking your head. How can these Shanshan businessmen not be excited?

So I heard that Xing Zhong wanted to ask them to borrow money. In order to get a share of the salted seaweed and salted fish meat business, these Shanshan merchants flattered them very much.The eight giants in Shanxi and Shanxi first offered 30 taels each, and second-class wealthy merchants like the Fang family followed suit. Xing Zhong easily borrowed 320 million taels of silver without interest!

When Xing's wife left Jinan this time, her destination was actually Qingzhou, but she just made a detour to see her daughter.Their Xing family also set up Zhuangzi in Qingzhou, preparing to dry seaweed.Only the third aunt of the Xing family was married, so she was left in Jinan to take care of her nephew by the way.

When mentioning this matter, Xing's wife was still not at ease:

"Girl, even though your father asked me to go to Qingzhou, I'm in a state of turmoil. Don't talk about anything else, just talk about the salt seaweed. Why do I feel that something is wrong?"

"Didn't Dad tell Mother?"

As soon as this was mentioned, Xing's wife was full of anger:

"Your father is so busy that he hits the back of his head with his heel, and he falls asleep every day when he comes back! How could he care about talking to me!"

Seeing her daughter's staring eyes, Mrs. Xing had to talk carefully to her daughter.

It turned out that Xing Zhong never thought that he could borrow more than 300 million taels of silver!But he borrowed the money in his own name, if he directly used it for disaster relief, how could he be willing?This has to be paid back!

Therefore, buying land to preserve value has become the first choice.

Xing Zhong bought a lot of land one after another, and then Xing Zhong discovered that many things are more convenient to do on his own fields.

If he hadn't purchased the land, Xing Zhong might have been constrained everywhere, spending countless time and energy arguing with the local big family.But now, the money to buy the land was borrowed by Xing Zhong himself, and he is running his own land, even if there are many people outside whispering, calling him a prodigal son, and digging a pond for a good high-quality paddy field, it will not hinder him. To Xing Zhong.

He can manage his own private land as he wants, and no one can say no!

There is no such thing as wrangling, and with Lin Ruhai's secret support and the support of the Fang family and other Shanshan tycoons, this efficiency has naturally followed.

The first advantage of digging an artificial lake is that it will attract a large number of people!It is the refugees from the next few provinces. After hearing about this, they all changed their direction and came to Shandong.

Without him, I can eat a lot.

With sufficient manpower, Xing Zhong's actions are naturally much more convenient.

Because it is a year of catastrophe, the land price is also cheap. In the past, [-] or [-] taels of high-quality good land can be bought easily at [-] taels and one mu. I can still let it go!

The Xing family suddenly became a big landlord in Shandong, with nearly 30 mu of land.

Although these 30 mu of land were scattered in different prefectures and counties, a lot of them were replaced by paying a slightly lower price and buying at a slightly higher price because of great care when buying them. Even if he was a celebrity in front of the emperor, everyone also gave face, and now it has become five Zhuangzi, big and small, located in different state capitals.

Xing Zhong was busy taking care of his own fields, so he was naturally tired.

When Xing Xiuyan heard about it, he said, "Although the land in Shandong is good, it is prone to locust plagues!"

Xing's wife said: "It's up to you. Why do you say that Gusu is a land of fish and rice and can support people? Isn't it because it is adjacent to Taihu Lake! How is your father not clear about this? Let's take this village that is about to be completed in Qimen County. Let’s just say, it covers a total area of ​​more than [-] mu, and now a pond of [-] mu has been dug. Oh, it can’t be called a pond, it should be called an artificial lake! A lake dug by hand!”

"Human... How did Dad think of it?"

"It's not that it takes so much labor to dig an artificial lake! Dig four feet down and lay cement slabs, and you can raise fish and shrimps. You can also raise crabs! What is the price of hairy crabs in Taihu Lake? Others don't know, but we don't know? !"

For ordinary people, taxes are a very troublesome thing.But for the big families, what they need is not the food and materials produced in the fields, what they want is gold and silver goods, which can be used for them to spend!

This point, whether it is a prominent family like the Jia family or a rookie in the officialdom like Xing Zhong, is no exception.

It is true that the rice is easy to sell, but the real money comes from things like hairy crabs, turtles, and poultry eggs such as chickens, ducks, geese, etc., which are more expensive than rice.

Xing Xiuyan said: "Four feet? Doesn't that cost a lot of manpower?"

"That's right! The Zhuangzi in Guangqimen County employed millions of people before! Because of this, your father now has an extra nickname in the officialdom."

"A nickname?"

"That's right. Now, people call your father stupid!"

"Stupid sir?"

"Correct."

When she said this, Mrs. Xing smiled all over her face. Although her name was not pleasant, her face was full of pride.

As far as the officialdom is concerned, Xing Zhong's behavior is very different.

Good fields are not used for farming but for digging lakes!Because of this incident, Xing Zhong got the nickname "Silly Sir".But it is such a "stupid adult" who has raised millions of laborers, and these artificial lakes in his hands have been dug to a depth of four feet!These artificial lakes also use earth method cement bricks to lay a layer on the bottom of the lake to prevent water seepage.

That's right, such things as homemade cement bricks have a light specific gravity. It is definitely not good to use them to control the Yellow River, and they will hurt the river bed instead. However, there is no big problem when used on the bottom of an artificial lake with no flow rate.

After all, experience and examples are readily available: the legendary Grand Canal is a similar method, with bluestone slabs at the bottom.It's just that Xing Zhong's financial resources are like this. It's the earth-style cement bricks, and Emperor Zhu Biyu approved a batch of iron ore slag for him, otherwise it would not be successful.

Who let Yantie go to the official camp!

But the credit is clearly laid out.The Zhuangzi in Qimen County was still small, and it attracted millions of laborers. Now several other Zhuangzi have started construction.Although it was not that there were no one muttering in the court, the emperor threw back all the impeachment memorials:

If you don't use this method to attract refugees to Shandong, should you wait for the refugees to gather and attack the capital?

Millions of refugees attacked the capital, enough to overthrow the rule of the dynasty!

This is absolutely intolerable to the royal family.

Didn't you see that the people from the Supreme Emperor's faction didn't make a sound?

The Supreme Emperor is not a fool!

It is true that encouraging farming and mulberry farming has been the official performance standard since ancient times, so there are things like filling lakes to make fields and destroying forests to open fields all over the country.Like Xing Zhong, in a normal year, it is enough for others to impeach him and make him lose his official position.

But what year is this year?

The locust plague has been raging in the provinces of Henan for two years, and the locust plague has been raging throughout Shandong for one year!The people in the Yellow River Basin will starve to death!At this time, not to mention returning the farmland to the lake, it is Xing Zhong who turned Shandong over. As long as he can attract enough people, as long as the refugees do not attack the capital in the end, he will be a great achievement!

For Xing's wife, it doesn't matter how much they go about in court. What matters is that the royal family acquiesced in the Xing family's excavation of the artificial lake.

After saying this, Xing's wife mentioned another thing that had worried her for several months:

"Girl, a few days ago, Yan Shenggong's mansion came to propose marriage."

Xing Xiuyan was taken aback for a moment, and opened her mouth: "Aniang~! My daughter is still young!"

Xing's wife immediately understood seven or eight points.

She stroked her daughter's hair and said, "That's right, there are plenty of good men in this world, we don't care about the empress of a saint!"

If it was still in Gusu, Yan Shenggong's name would definitely stun Xing Zhong and Xing's wife.But after coming to Shandong for nearly half a year, seeing what the Kong family did, the beautiful illusion was completely shattered.

What the hell are they!

How is it different from those dudes?

Xing Zhong's thoughts are unknown to Xing's wife, but Xing's wife can't help but compare the Kong family and the Jia family together in her heart-no way, the rich and noble families she is familiar with are not only the Lin family, but also the Jia family. Lin Daiyu and Mrs. Xing saw it all, so naturally they couldn't say anything bad!But what about the Kong family?

Xing's wife can only say that after the saints, they also have to eat whole grains, but the children of the Kong family she saw really didn't have a few decent ones!Especially the one who proposed to his daughter!

Xing's wife felt bad when she thought about what she had found.

Such a thing also came to marry our big girl?

Hearing what her mother said, Xing Xiuyan immediately realized that the suitor must be inappropriate, which made her very unhappy.

The mother and daughter had some gossip and separated the next day.

There are many things on them!

The author has something to say: Here is the amount of silver borrowed by Xing Zhong, see Cixi fled westward, passed through Shanxi on the way, and borrowed 30 taels of silver from Shanxi merchants.

Special Note.

See Ming and Qing Dynasties, almost all agricultural land was divided into grades, such as first-class, second-class, and third-class.The most expensive are the paddy fields in the suburbs of Beijing and Jiangnan, both of which are more than [-] mu. Although Shandong is a large agricultural province, its prosperity cannot be compared with that of Beijing and Jiangnan. Therefore, the first-class fields in Shandong are comparable to the second-class fields in Jiangnan. The price is comparable.The cheapest is the third-class thin sandy land and mountainous land. In Jiangnan, it is four to five taels. In some places in Shandong, you can buy it for only two or three taels.This is still a year of peace. If it is in a year of catastrophe, the price can even be cut in half.