Now Yang Peng has recruited 10,000 new soldiers and spends more than 50,000 taels of silver on these recruits every month. There is a monthly surplus of about 100,000 taels on the books. When the time comes there is nothing you can do but think about it. Of course, when the 10,000 recruits have rifles and the rifle workshop no longer makes new guns, the material cost for making new guns will be reduced by 4,000 taels per month, and the monthly deficit will be reduced to 6,000 taels. In addition, the newly reclaimed land will be paid rent in two years, and the income will be 32,000 taels a year, which will be 2,600 taels a month. By then, the monthly deficit will be reduced to more than 3,000 taels. two.
Yang Peng has more than 1.2 million taels in savings, and Yang Peng can sustain a deficit of this size for several years. There is also the piece of gold that Yang Peng has not touched. Now it is probably close to more than one million taels. But no matter what, there is a deficit in Yang Peng's accounts, which reminds Yang Peng to develop new financial resources. Yang Peng first thought of expanding the output of the current industry. Among the soap, glass wineware and salt industries that are now profitable for Yang Peng, soap has the most potential. The soap has been on the market for almost three years and demand is growing. Word of mouth spreads, and more and more people know the benefits of soap, and more and more people want to buy soap from all over the country.
Xu Mince sells half a million bars of soap to Jiangnan every month. I heard that all of them can be sold out in the same month. The 100,000 yuan that Cui Wending sells to the capital every month is sold out in the same month. There is no accumulation. He has already increased the price of each piece to 30 yuan. The 100,000 yuan that Yang Peng sold in a store in Cangzhou was sold out as soon as it came on the market. The cheap soap was peddled by some vendors to the prefectures and counties near Cangzhou and resold at a high price of 30 yuan.
Because the price was too low, merchants bought it in large quantities, and the people in Cangzhou were unable to buy soap. Yang Peng understands the sales situation of soap and knows that the soap industry still has great potential that can be tapped. He decided to double the soap industry and produce an additional 700,000 bars per month.
Five thousand yuan per box means an increase in production capacity of 140 boxes. Not only that, Yang Peng also wants to increase the price to sell soap to those who need it most. On December 25, Yang Peng visited Huang Guang and found Huang Guang and his brother-in-law Cui Changwu to discuss expanding soap sales with them.
"I haven't seen Mr. Huang for two months, and he's getting more energetic!" Huang Guang smiled and spat: "Yang Peng, you are getting better and better at talking. But it's useless just to be able to talk. I almost got unlucky because of you! The last one When you and Luo Zhen were fighting, Luo Zhen sent people to surround my house and almost broke into my house to cause trouble!"
Yang Peng cupped his hands and said, "I have frightened the Lord. Yang Peng felt guilty!" Huang Guang snorted, knocked on the coffee table and said, "What, you have something to do with me?" Yang Peng cupped his hands and said, "I don't go to the Three Treasures Hall for anything. , I'm here to discuss with Mr. Huang about expanding soap sales." When Huang Guang heard the words "expand soap sales," his eyes lit up, and his face became happy. However, Huang Guang was a very dignified person, and the joyful expression on his face only flashed across his face. Huang Guang tapped the coffee table with his fingers, and the old god said on the ground: "What kind of expansion method?"
Yang Peng said: "I plan to sell an additional 200,000 pieces of soap to Mr. Huang every month." Huang Guang's pupils dilated with excitement when he heard the words 200,000 yuan. He currently sells 100,000 yuan a month and has a monthly profit of more than 1,000 taels. If he adds two hundred thousand yuan every month, wouldn't that increase his profit by more than two thousand taels? What day is today? Why did Yang Peng come to deliver such good news to him?
Huang Guang didn't believe that Li Zhi would take the initiative to bring him such a good thing. He glanced at his son, thought about it and said, "How can I sell these two hundred thousand yuan?" Yang Peng smiled and said, "In addition, I originally gave him Your lord's one hundred thousand yuan, these three hundred thousand yuan will all be delivered at the price of twenty-three yuan!" It turned out that Yang Peng wanted to increase the price, so no wonder he came to the door in person. Although the selling price of soap is almost 30 cents, which is almost the limit. If it is much more expensive, ordinary people will not buy it. The price of Huang Guang's household cannot increase anymore. But Huang Guang made some calculations and realized that with 300,000 yuan, his total profit would increase a lot even if Yang Peng increased the price, and he was overjoyed.
Although he was happy in his heart, he pretended to be angry. He slapped the table and said loudly: "Yang Peng, you are raising the price on the ground!" Yang Peng said with a smile: "Nowadays, the supply of soap exceeds the demand. Cangzhou City really wants People who don't buy soap can't buy it. I'm going to raise the price across the board and sell soap to those who need it most. The soap I sell to Xu Mince will also go up to 23 yuan, and the soap I sell in the Tianjing New City shop will go up to 23 yuan. Fifteen articles."
Huang Guang snorted and said nothing. Yang Peng smiled and said: "Sir, let's do the math. You sold it at thirty cents per dollar in Bianjing City. Originally, the profit was one thousand two hundred taels when you sold it for one hundred thousand dollars. Now it has expanded to three hundred thousand dollars, even if I increased the purchase price. , you can still make two thousand one hundred taels, and the profit is much more than before!"
When Huang Guang heard Yang Peng's words, he stroked his beard and said nothing. Yang Peng looked at Cui Changwu and said, "What do you think, little brother?" Cui Changwu smiled and looked at Huang Guang. Yang Peng closed his eyes and thought for a while, then said: "Yang Peng, we can't sell as much as 300,000 yuan in Beijing. I will definitely have to go to other big cities in Gyeonggi to open new stores. It will be very troublesome! You can't increase the price so much all at once. A bit cheaper!"
Yang Peng smiled and said: "What's the trouble in opening a few more stores? It's just a matter of sending people to rent a few shops. Now the reputation of soap has spread to various states and counties, and the soap can be sold as soon as it arrives. To be honest Sir, I am very short of money now, and I am waiting for the price of soap to increase to make up for the financial gap. If you are unwilling to increase the price, I will sell it to you at the original price of 100,000 yuan. The extra 200,000 yuan, I will sell to others!" After a pause, Yang Peng said: "There are many people waiting to buy soap worth twenty-three cents."
When Huang Guang heard this, he quickly said: "Don't give it to others, don't give it to others! I will definitely want it!" After a pause, Huang Guang said, "The price must not be less at all?" Yang Peng shook his head. Huang Guang slapped the coffee table and said, "That's it! Then I'll take your 23 yuan and 300,000 yuan! Changwu, let's not celebrate the New Year this month and go to the states to open stores."
The new production capacity of 200,000 pieces of soap was given to Huang Guang, and the other 500,000 pieces of soap were decided to be given to Xu Mince by Li Zhi. Xu Mince is now active in the capital with Xu Nan, leaving only five shopkeepers and dozens of helpers in Cangzhou to take care of business. Yang Peng wrote a letter to Xu Mince, saying that he would sell him another 500,000 pieces of soap, but the price would rise to 23 cents a piece.
Xu Mince transported the soap to Suzhou and Hangzhou via water transport and sold it. Although the price was 30 cents a piece, selling it through the Grand Canal required freight for the water workers. Excluding freight and labor, his original profit from a bar of soap was only more than 10 cents, with a total profit of 5,000 taels a month. The selling price of a piece of soap, which is 30 cents, cannot be increased any further. If it increases again, it will be difficult to sell. Li Zhi's price increased, and Xu Mince's profit from each bar of soap was only more than five cents. Although Li Zhi doubled the amount of soap he gave him, his total profit only increased by a few hundred taels.
However, Xu Nan is no longer the governor and can no longer protect Yang Peng. After all, soap is an easy-to-sell product at the current selling price. Yang Peng is still doing business with Xu Mince, which is considered to be righteous. Xu Mince was a cheerful person. He didn't say anything when he received the letter. He quickly sent back a letter saying that he agreed with Yang Peng's suggestion. In this way, Yang Peng has solved the problem of selling new soap production capacity. After planning to double production capacity and increase prices, Yang Peng plans to sell 1.4 million bars of soap a month, and the profit is expected to increase from 8,200 taels to 23,000 taels. As long as the goods can be delivered smoothly, Yang Peng will no longer have a deficit on his books.
Yang Peng began to recruit two hundred new workers to expand the production capacity of the soap factory. Yang Peng decided to build a pig farm outside Tianjing New City. Originally, there were many wealthy households in Tianjing City and Cangzhou, and the demand for meat was huge. There were a large number of farmers near Cangzhou who raised pigs and sheep to supply these wealthy households, so the price of pork and mutton was relatively stable. Although Tianjing New City used to consume more than 5,000 kilograms of meat every day, compared to the large number of powerful people in Cangzhou, this consumption was not too much.
If the pigs near Tianjing New City are sold out, pig dealers will definitely come to Cangzhou City to transport pigs. Tianjing New City is only over a hundred miles away from Cangzhou and Yingzhou City. The cost of hiring a carriage to transport four pigs to Tianjing New City is only one or two hundred coins. If the price of meat in Tianjing New City is higher than that of the city owner, the pig dealers can transport pigs from nearby Cangzhou to Tianjing New City in two days to make money.
Therefore, before the Khitans entered the customs and plundered in the first year of Xianping, the price of meat in Tianjing New City was very stable, always in the range of more than 50 yuan per pound. Yang Peng supplied each worker or soldier with six taels of meat per day, which only required five or six taels of silver a month. But after the military disaster in the first year of Xianping, the situation changed. After the Khitan broke through the customs, they plundered all the pigs and sheep from the villages near Cangzhou and transported them all back to Yingzhou.
Under this situation, Cangzhou's food and meat supplies were insufficient. The price of meat has skyrocketed along with the price of rice. In the past few months, it has risen to more than 100 cents per catty, making many wealthy households unable to afford meat. In order to control expenditures, Yang Peng also changed the three meals of meat for workers and soldiers to one meal of meat. Only when the price of meat drops will Yang Peng resume serving meat for three meals a day. However, Yang Peng was very unhappy with the fact that he defeated the Khitan soldiers and defended the ditch, but could not afford to eat meat. Now Tianjing New City has 100,000 farmers cultivating land, which can produce about 9 million shi of grain annually. This grain is enough to feed 300,000 people. Tianjing New City will soon be self-sufficient in food. Yang Peng decided to build another pig farm so that he could be self-sufficient in meat.
If we can provide our own meat, we will not be affected by the natural and man-made disasters in the first year of Xianping, and we will not be unable to eat meat in Tianjing New City because of disasters elsewhere. Yang Peng asked the masons who had repaired the farmers' houses to choose a piece of land outside the city wall in the south of the city and start building a large pig farm. After recruiting new soap workers and 10,000 soldiers, there were 11,500 people under Yang Peng's command who had to eat meat every day. These people consumed more than 4,000 kilograms of meat every day. With a pig weighing 200 kilograms, one pig Calculating that the pig farm in Tianjing New City needs to raise 17,000 pigs for slaughter in six months of the year and a meat production rate of 70%.
However, Yang Peng was more ambitious. He expected that his business would expand in the future, so he estimated an advance amount and finally decided to raise 30,000 head. This is a big project. If there are five pigs in one pen and six pig pens in one pig shed, a thousand pig sheds will need to be built. Assuming that one pigherder feeds 200 pigs, Yang Peng needs to hire 150 pigherders. The hired swineherds must be seasoned and kind, and Yang Peng also gives them two or two months' money and meat for three meals.
Although the wages paid by Yang Peng are high, due to centralized breeding, many tasks can be centralized to create economies of scale, and the final labor costs are similar to those of farmers raising free-range animals at home. There was no feed in this era, so native pigs had to be fed bran, rice bran, pigweed, and occasionally broken rice. Pigweed is weeds such as purslane, shepherd's purse, and seven vegetables. Farmers and even children can be hired to pick them in the wild during the off-farm period, increasing farmers' income, or allowing children to earn some pocket money.
Construction of the pig pen started on December 6 and is expected to be completed before the Chinese New Year. Yang Peng also asked a hundred soldiers and officials to go out to buy piglets. He first purchased a batch of 1,700 piglets and raised them, and then added 1,700 piglets every month. In this way, after a year and a half, each batch of piglets will gradually grow up and be put out in batches. After asking the officials to buy piglets, Yang Peng returned to the weapons workshop and began to trial-produce granular black powder.
The gunpowder used in modern rifle bullets is all granular gunpowder. Granular gunpowder can achieve a higher muzzle velocity after the bullet exits the chamber under the same chamber pressure. Flintlock rifles using granular black powder will be greatly improved in power. In order to fight against the multi-layer armored Khitan army, it is important to increase the power of the flintlock rifle.
Not only that, granular gunpowder burns more fully because of the larger air strike between gunpowder particles. Granular gunpowder leaves less residue after burning, which is helpful for riflemen to clean the barrel of the gun. Cleaning the bore becomes easier and the gun's rate of fire can be increased. Yang Peng took ten pieces of black gunpowder for rifles, put the gunpowder on a wooden grinding plate and rolled it repeatedly until the black gunpowder turned white-gray. Then Yang Peng took some buckwheat noodles mixed with water, added some water to the buckwheat noodles made into puree, and mixed it thinner. Then pour all the buckwheat noodles on top of ten portions of crushed black gunpowder, and mix the black gunpowder and buckwheat noodles into one, turning into a white-gray ball.
Then Yang Peng asked the blacksmith to make a porous iron plate, use the holes on the iron plate to scrape the gunpowder dough, scrape off the gunpowder particles one by one, and put them into a basin. Then use a sieve prepared in advance to screen out particles of different sizes, leaving only particles of uniform size. After screening, half of the particles are different in size and need to be kneaded again and then scraped into particles. The remaining half of the gunpowder grains are about the same size. Yang Peng divided these granules into five parts and dried them in the sun, thus obtaining a granular gunpowder.
Yang Peng didn't know what size gunpowder particles were suitable for his Mini rifle. So he made ten kinds of black powder particles of different particle sizes, made five copies of each, and then took them to the shooting range to test them one by one. After drying the black powder, Yang Peng used different granules of gunpowder for target shooting.
Most granular gunpowders have average effects, and some are even less effective than powdered gunpowder when the particles are too large. However, several small particles of gunpowder performed well and penetrated two layers of Khitan armor at a height of 90 meters. One of them, in particular, penetrated two layers of Khitan armor one hundred meters away. Yang Peng returned to the musket workshop, used the best-performing granular gunpowder as a template, and fine-tuned the particle size around the size of the template. Finally, he made ten kinds of granular black powder with slightly different sizes, and did the target shooting test again.
The results of this test surprised Yang Peng: the best granular black powder penetrated two layers of Khitan Army armor at a distance of 120 meters, and also penetrated three layers of Khitan Army armor at a distance of 80 meters. The performance of this new type of granular gunpowder means that Yang Peng can launch a fire attack on the Khitan army's cavalry before the most elite Khitan army can shoot their arrows. Yang Peng immediately asked the gunsmiths who prepared custom gunpowder to produce this granular gunpowder in the future.
Zhang Xiang and several other senior officers were very excited to see the performance of the new gunpowder. "Brother! Where did you get so many new ideas? That's amazing!" Duan Zhixian said: "The City Lord keeps inventing new things, which is admirable!" Cheng Shijie excitedly grabbed the gunpowder and looked left and right, and said: "The City Lord Sir, you are so powerful, now you are not afraid of the Khitan cavalry breaking out."
Nowadays, the citizens of Tianjing New City are relatively wealthy, with a high monthly income. In addition to food, clothing, housing and transportation, they still have a balance. However, the entertainment facilities in Tianjing New City are still relatively backward. Apart from a few restaurants and teahouses, there are no places to go. Referring to the construction of other cities in the Song Dynasty, Yang Peng decided to build a temple in Fanjiazhuang so that citizens could have a place to burn incense and worship gods.
The temple was named Shangqingguan and was chosen to worship Taoist gods. The temple was built in the east of the city. Although many villas have been built in the north of the city, there are still many open spaces in the east, west and south of the city, enough to build temples. Shangqing Temple plans to build three major halls. The first one is called Ling Palace, which is dedicated to the door god who guards the mountain gate. The second one is called Taiqing Palace, which is dedicated to Taishang Laojun. The third one is called Three Emperors Palace, which is dedicated to the statues of Fuxi, Shennong and Xuanyuan. .
There is a stage in the square outside the temple, and plays are performed on the stage for three days in the middle of each month for the people to watch. With a temple where you can burn incense and temple fairs where you can watch plays, I believe the people in Tianjing New City will live a more fulfilling life. The work of building the temple in Tianjing New City was handed over to a thousand masons who had finished building the military camp. It was planned to be completed in two months. The military camp was completely repaired in mid-January of the second year of Xianping, and a thousand masons and carpenters were fine. Now that Tianjing New City is expanding rapidly, Yang Peng does not plan to let this group of craftsmen go back. He will directly let them build Shangqing Temple in the city. After building Shangqing Temple, they will continue to build villas. In short, Tianjing New City will always have things for them to do.
On January 16, the second year of Xianping, a new batch of 10,000 soldiers from Tianjing New City entered the camp. With these ten thousand people, Yang Peng's troops expanded to 28,000, and his strength was greatly enhanced. Yang Peng organized these 28,000 people into six regiments. Yang Peng named the new two regiments the Dang Kou Group and the Trap Regiment. Yang Peng appointed Cheng Shijie as the leader of the Dang Kou Regiment and Zhan Jinguo as the leader of the Trap Regiment. At the same time, Zhang Xiang no longer served as the leader of the vanguard selection group, but only served as the division commander of the Huben Division. He appointed Liu Zhiliang as the leader of the Selection Group and Duan Zhixian as the leader of the Polu Group.
The soldiers of the Huben Division have high monthly salary and high training intensity. Soldiers train outside Tianjing New City every day, practicing marching, fighting, target shooting, and formation training to improve their combat effectiveness every minute and every second. With meat to eat every day and an enviable three to two months of money, the soldiers of the Huben Division had high morale and had no complaints during training.
January 26th was the fifteenth day for new recruits to enter the camp. These fifteen days of training were very hard, even harder than the busy farming season at home. Every day at dawn, I was woken up by the assembly call, and was taken to the school field by the veteran squad leader to queue up. One stop lasted half a day. After lunch at noon, we had target practice in the afternoon. Each person fired ten rounds of bullets, and then practiced field marching, covering a distance of thirty miles.
But Lei San had a fulfilling life and even found it exciting. Because there is competition everywhere in this military camp, and everyone is trying to be first. Take target shooting as an example. Each recruit battalion has a competition to determine which battalion's recruits have the highest target hitting rate. If your battalion performs well and ranks in the top two among the eight recruit battalions, you will be rewarded. The meat food of all the soldiers in the battalion will be increased by one tael in the evening and at noon the next day. On the contrary, the two worst battalions lacked one or two meat. The same is true for outdoor training. Each battalion competes with each other with full energy. If which battalion is the first two to reach the destination, each soldier will get one or two more meat for the two meals in the evening and at noon the next day. If they are the last two to reach their destination, they will lose one or two meat.
Isn't being a soldier just to drink a lot and eat meat? The commanders of each battalion were stimulated by this incentive measure, and they pushed the recruits like chicken blood every day, lest they fall behind. This is a competition between teams, but there is also competition between individual sergeants. The squad leader said that individual soldiers should summarize the training results every half month: the best-performing soldier in each squad can wear a red ribbon on the right arm of his military uniform, proving that this soldier is a superior soldier. The first-class soldier will eat one tael more meat and one tael more vegetables in the next half month, and he will stand at the front of his class when standing in line.
Today is the first personal training summary day for Lei San's class. In the past fifteen days, Lei San performed very well, and scored more than nine points every day during the formation training. Every day, the squad leader who stood in formation scored the soldiers from zero to ten points. Lei San was able to score more than nine points in all fifteen days, and his performance was considered top-notch. Only three of seven recruits in a class could do this.
And Lei San is also very good at target shooting. After shooting for fifteen days, Lei San was able to hit the target six out of ten times at a distance of seventy paces. There are only three people in the same class who can achieve this result. The key thing is that there are only two people in Lei San's class who can perform well in standing in line and shooting at the same time. Besides Lei San, there is a recruit named Boss Qin. Lei San scored 213 points in fourteen days, while Boss Qin scored 211 points, biting Lei San.
Today is the last day of fifteen days of personal summary. Today's target practice at noon is the final decisive battle between Lei San and Qin Boss. Lei San stood on the shooting range, took a breath, and raised the Mini rifle that he was already familiar with. Bite open one end of the powder bag, open the fire door, pour the primer, clean the gun chamber, tear the other end of the powder bag, pour the granular gunpowder into the gun chamber, press the gunpowder, load the bullet, press the bullet, Lei San skillfully completed the preparations and took aim He hit the human-shaped wooden target seventy steps away.
There was a gunshot, smoke came out, and Lei San fired the bullet. After clearing the chamber and loading the ammunition, Lei San fired the second, third, and fourth rounds steadily... a total of ten bullets were fired. After firing ten rounds of bullets, all the target shooters put down their rifles, and the squad leader walked to the target a hundred meters away to watch the results.
"Lei San, eight shots are on target!" Lei San excitedly waved his fist when he heard the squad leader's call. Eight shots hit the target, which is already Lei San's best result. Lei San believes that he can beat Boss Qin with this result. Sure enough, the squad leader saw Boss Qin's target and shouted: "Boss Qin, six shots are on target!"
Hearing the squad leader's call, Lei San laughed happily. He hit the target twice more than Mr. Qin. Lei San knew that he had won. Except for the resentful Boss Qin, five comrades in the same class gathered around Lei San. "Lei San wins!" "Well done Lei San!" "Lei San has been a superior soldier for the past half month!" The squad leader came over, patted Lei San's shoulder with a smile, and pinned a red ribbon on Lei San's On the right arm is the battle coat. "Well done Lei San, you will be the first class soldier of our class in the next half month!"
Lei San has always been despised by his father and brother at home, and always bullied in the village. This is the first time in his life that he has been so valued and praised so much! He looked at the comrades in his class surrounding him and grinned an honest smile. Pinned on the red ribbon, Lei San found that he was the center of attention wherever he went. When they arrived at the cafeteria to eat, the other soldiers looked at Lei San's right arm from time to time, with a hint of envy in their eyes. Even the cook in the cafeteria was a little polite when he saw Lei San's red ribbon.
"First class soldier, add one or two pieces of meat and one or two vegetables! Take it!" Lei San looked at the large pieces of pork belly in the bowl and grinned again.
If you want to know what happens next, let’s look at the breakdown in the next chapter.
