Not long after, Zhao Jun met with the official from the Arms and Grain Reserves Department in the study.
The dark study room became brighter as the lights were lit, and the shadows were constantly swaying in the lights.
"Tell me, what do you want from me?"
Zhao Jun sat down in his seat and asked directly.
The official in the Grain Reserves Department was named Fan Zheng.
When asked directly by Zhao Jun, Fan Zheng showed no intention of being secretive. He just cupped his hands and said, "Your Majesty, I need your help!"
"Oh? What help?"
Zhao Jun raised his eyebrows and looked at him.
"To be precise, it should be the help of Feiyun Chamber of Commerce." Fan Zheng explained.
Then he told the reason.
"Your Majesty, you left the matter of horse exchange to the lower official. The lower official is very grateful, but when it comes to trading horses with the Tatars, our Grain Reserve Department alone is completely insufficient.
And as you said before, normal winemaking takes at least a year anyway. It is completely impossible for us to make enough wine in the remaining four months!
Therefore, if we want to obtain enough wine within four months, we can only trade within the customs.
Although there is a shortage of food in the pass, a large amount of wine is still brewed every year.
Especially those cities where aristocratic families are entrenched, there are countless drinks brewed every year.
The official has no intention of exchanging those good wines, as long as he can exchange them for a large amount of the most common turbid wine!
But this official can't do it, and he must ask the Feiyun Chamber of Commerce under your command for help. "
Zhao Jun suddenly became interested when he heard this, sat up straight and asked: "What do you mean? Why do you need so much turbid wine?
Didn't you say before that what the Tatars need is strong liquor? "
Fan Zheng smiled mysteriously, first looked around and confirmed that there were no outsiders here, and then said with a proud face: "My lord, you don't know, I have discovered a secret method that can turn turbid wine into strong wine.
It’s just that the consumption of turbid wine is relatively large.
That's why we need to exchange grain for a large amount of wine first.
After this transformation using Xiaguan's secret method, Xiaguan can turn ten pounds of turbid wine into three pounds of strong liquor!
As long as we switch hands, we can get the spirits we need in the shortest possible time! "
Zhao Jun smiled, amused by Fan Zheng's mysterious appearance. What secret method? Isn't it the distillation method?
He could guess it by himself, but Zhao Jun didn't say it out loud. He just nodded and agreed: "Okay, since you have this password, I can inform Yunli and ask him to cooperate with you in using food." Exchange wine within the pass.
But, as I said in the conference hall before, wine is only one of the difficulties you have to face. The other difficulty is whether the Tatars are willing to trade with us under such circumstances. How do you solve it? "
Fan Zheng said confidently: "Don't worry, Your Majesty, this issue is very simple. Although it seems that we are going to war with the Tatars, this is a matter between us and the Tatar tribe, and the main forces in the war are those Big tribe.
We only need to focus our customer targets on those small Tatar tribes and let the planning Tatars in the county find those small tribes to trade with them.
Driven by profit, even if those small tribes know that they are going to war with us, they will agree to trade with us. "
Zhao Jun only thought for a moment before he understood his idea, and nodded in agreement.
"Okay, I will order the Feiyun Chamber of Commerce to fully assist you in this matter, and I will also notify the naturalized Tatar tribe.
You only need to do what you said and exchange for enough war horses for Yunzhou County, then the position of director of the Grain Reserve Department will definitely be yours. "
Fan Zheng immediately grinned happily after receiving Zhao Jun's promise.
"Thank you, Your Majesty!"
…
Soon after the meeting, the entire Yunzhou County became busy.
Everyone was preparing for a possible Tatar invasion in mid-September.
Various logistical materials were mass-produced, and recruitment work was also carried out in the three counties of Shendu.
What surprised Yunzhou County officials was that they had imagined that as life improved, those people would become resistant to serving as soldiers, and their recruitment work would become extremely difficult.
But what they didn't expect was that as soon as the news of the conscription was publicized, a large number of young and middle-aged people were sent over by their families to serve as soldiers for the prince.
According to these young men, the old man in the family said so!
We are able to have the good life we have now because the prince and the escort are carrying the burden for us to move forward.
We ordinary people have nothing to do to help the prince except farming. Now the prince needs people to resist the Tatars and continue to maintain this kind of life, then we will become soldiers!
Serve as a soldier for the prince!
Become those who bear the burden for everyone, and resist the Tatars for the prince and your family!
Recruitment was in full swing, and the recruitment work that was originally thought to take a long time was filled with people in less than half a month.
One hundred thousand recruits entered the camp and began a new round of recruit training.
Here, the recruitment of new soldiers went extremely smoothly.
Fan Zheng did not encounter any problems here.
Within the customs, food is now hard currency.
Generally, one hundred kilograms of grain in the pass can produce fifty kilograms of wine, but the Feiyun Chamber of Commerce offered a price of one hundred kilograms of grain for thirty kilograms of wine.
Such an advantageous price naturally aroused great interest among the aristocratic families running the wine business.
One hundred kilograms of grain can brew a full fifty kilograms of turbid wine, but Feiyun Chamber of Commerce only needs 30 kilograms. This means that as long as they are willing to exchange, they can directly earn nearly 20 kilograms of turbid wine. The price difference is one hundred They can earn forty pounds of grain!
This business is simply not a good deal!
In the current situation in the Song Dynasty, food is very precious. Even for families like theirs, the amount of wine brewed has decreased a lot in the past two years.
It's because there is less food.
Now that they have the opportunity to exchange the previously stored turbid wine for food, they are naturally willing to make some money.
Soon, Feiyun Chamber of Commerce started trading with a large number of aristocratic merchant houses.
A lump sum of grain went out and jars of wine were returned.
The aristocratic family got food, and Yunzhou County got wine. Everyone was happy.
When the first batch of 100,000 kilograms of wine was sent back to Yunzhou County, Fan Zheng quickly turned the 100,000 kilograms of turbid wine into 30,000 kilograms of high-strength liquor through distillation.
Fan Zheng then went to find the naturalized Tatar tribes in the territory and asked for help.
And with Zhao Jun's advance greeting, the clan leaders of the naturalized tribes did not embarrass him and directly agreed.
They just made a small request, that is, let Fan Zheng also sell them a batch of turbid wine. However, they could not bring out war horses and could only trade with gold and silver or cattle and sheep.
They are also Tatars. Although they have been naturalized, it does not mean that their eating habits will change. Similarly, they are also very interested in this batch of wine.
If they hadn't run out of horses, they would have bought the wine themselves, but now they could only watch it greedily.
To this, Fan Zheng simply agreed.
However, there are restrictions on the amount of spirits that can be traded to them. The maximum amount can only be traded to five thousand kilograms, and the rest must be exchanged for war horses. After all, this batch of spirits was originally made in exchange for war horses.
If no restrictions are made, I am afraid that these naturalized Tatar tribes will be directly replaced.
The tribal chiefs were naturally very happy to receive these benefits and agreed immediately.
Soon they used a batch of cattle, sheep and gold and silver to exchange all the amount they could exchange for.
Immediately afterwards, he kept the remaining spirits and began to make arrangements to find other Tatar tribes to exchange horses.
And soon, they have a goal...
(End of chapter)
