Chapter 191
The queen Zhang Yan has a good reputation in history and is even described as a white lotus by some people. Of course, this is impossible. If it were really a white lotus, she would not be alive until now.
Even Emperor Tianqi could die suddenly, let alone her. This place in the palace has the most people in the world, and those who can persevere are outstanding.
As Zhang Jin explained the whole story.
Zhang Yan was stunned.
How stupid could someone be fooled by this?
Zhang Jin said with an aggrieved look: "Sister, I really didn't mean to harm anyone... I just wanted to throw your carriage in Cheng Shijie's courtyard and let the Jinyi guards come and search his mansion to embarrass him!"
Queen Zhang is very speechless now.
Was it Cheng Shijie's face that was embarrassed?
This is the face of Zhang Yan, the queen, right?
This matter is too low-level, what kind of trouble can it cause Cheng Shijie?
Even if he had to deal with Cheng Shijie, it was as simple as letting the coachman drive the carriage and directly hit Cheng Shijie's carriage, or an out-of-control carriage hit the door of Cheng's mansion. As Queen Zhang Yan, what else could Cheng Shijie do?
Can Cheng Shijie still get Zhang Yan to come and apologize?
Don't say whether Cheng Shijie dared or not. Even if he dared, it was Emperor Chongzhen who had to apologize, not Zhang Yan.
It's better now, because her stupid brother made things worse.
With her disappearance, Emperor Chongzhen wanted to dig deep. Now all the civil and military officials knew everything they should know, and they should also know what they shouldn't know.
I'm afraid many people also knew the inside story. Zhang Yan, the queen's younger brother, was jealous of Cheng Shijie's unparalleled achievements and retaliated against him.
Let’s not talk about the impact of this incident on Zhang Yan, the queen. The key is how Zhang Yan will gain a foothold in the palace in the future. This is a sign of lax imperial control and poor discipline. Her father Zhang Guoji cannot escape this crime. Lost.
What to do now, Zhang Yan is also in chaos. Of course, if she reports directly to Emperor Chongzhen, Zhang Jin, a bastard, will be finished for the rest of his life even if he doesn't die.
But let Zhang Guoji...
Zhang Yan could only think about how to deal with the difficulties at hand.
…
Cheng Shijie did not pay too much attention to the disappearance of Queen Zhang Yan, because he knew very well that this issue was actually very simple, and could be big or small, or make a big fuss about it.
The key depends on Emperor Chongzhen's attitude. Soon, Emperor Chongzhen's attitude was revealed. First of all, Emperor Chongzhen never agreed to Cheng Shijie's request to restore the Twenty-Five Guards Memorial of Liaodong. It was not until now that Emperor Chongzhen agreed.
Since the Twenty-Five Guards of Liaodong had long been decommissioned, the Ministry of War transferred the Five Guards of Henan, the Five Guards of Shandong, and the Five Guards of Northern Zhili from the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion. There were a total of fifteen Guards and eight independent thousand-household stations, with a total of one hundred and eight thousand troops. People began to be assigned and transferred to Liaonan.
Rebuild Jinzhou Guard, Jinzhou Left Guard, Jinzhou Forward Guard, Jinzhou Right Guard, Gaizhou Guard, Lushun Guard, Haizhou Guard, Fuzhou Guard, Guangning Guard, Liaozhong Guard, Liaoyang Left Guard, Liaoyang Right Guard, Liaoyang Zuotunwei, Liaoyang Zuotunwei, Anshanwei.
This imperial edict was made known to the world, and Emperor Chongzhen used it to prove that he still trusted Cheng Shijie. If he didn't trust him, how could he possibly add more than 100,000 troops to Cheng Shijie at once?
Although it is said that the soldiers in the guard station are no longer useful, Emperor Chongzhen has no intention of throwing away the burden, but the problem is that this signal represents trust.
After the promulgation of this imperial edict, Emperor Chongzhen asked officials from the Ministry of Rites to come and guide Cheng Shijie in royal etiquette to prevent any mistakes during the wedding.
Cheng Shijie actually felt guilty about getting married in the Ming Dynasty. Women were said to be very sensitive, and he was also worried that Xiang Hui would find out about the problem.
However, Cheng Shijie was not idle during his stay in the capital.
Because Cheng Shijie knew that a modern army could not just shoot guns. Artillery was a technical branch. There were actually many scholars in the Ming Dynasty. Cheng Shijie could not trust these scholars who were influenced by official-oriented thinking. However, artillery required calculation and a certain level of education, but Ning Haijun still has a huge gap in cultivating qualified artillery.
In the past, there were more people than cannons. Now, with the increase in the production capacity of the Gun Bureau, the production of three-inch cannons has reached 36 guns a month, and on average, more than one cannon can be produced in a day.
This speed is obviously sufficient for the development of Ning Haijun's artillery, but the problem is that there are too few qualified artillerymen. In order to solve this problem, Cheng Shijie had to retire the original Fo Lang cannon. In fact, the Fo Lang Machine artillery is still very advanced in this era. It would be a pity to retire.
In the future, the Ning Navy will need to deal with rogue bandits. Unlike Jiannu, rogue bandits do not have a strong will to fight. They only need a cannon blast to kill or injure dozens or hundreds of people or tens of thousands of troops. They will collapse immediately. In this case, the Franco machine artillery must be retained. The kind of explosive shells that kill dozens or hundreds of people with one shot cannot be used to fight the rogue bandits.
After all, the rogue bandits are ordinary people who cannot survive. Cheng Shijie is not willing to massacre the rogue bandits. Therefore, even if Ning Haijun has produced enough artillery, he still wants to keep the Folan machine artillery and a large number of crossbows. .
Unlike firearms, lead is highly toxic. Once shot, in the era of lack of antibiotics, once shot, it is basically hopeless. But the crossbow is different. Even if the target does not have armor, as long as it does not hit a vital part, it will If an arrow pierces the thigh or arm, as long as the bones are not damaged, there is still a chance of survival and no disability.
But the problem is that even if a shot from a musket hits non-vital parts such as limbs, it is not easy to survive. When dealing with Jiannu, Cheng Shijie was afraid that the weapons were not poisonous enough. When facing rogue bandits in the future, he was afraid that the weapons would be too poisonous.
This is a typical double standard of Cheng Shijie.
For this reason, recruiting manpower and recruiting manpower with a certain level of education has become an urgent problem for Cheng Shijie. Cheng Shijie does not consider recruiting among traditional scholars. There is only one group of people who can meet the demand, and that is the men trained by merchants. These men can read. Able to read and calculate.
Of course, they also have problems, such as being cunning and cunning. This is actually not a big problem. If they are trained in Ning Haijun, their bad habits will be removed and cultivated slowly, and they will have a certain cultural foundation. It's easier to start from scratch than to start from scratch.
Even if training is started from scratch, Ning Haijun faces a serious shortage of teachers.
Sun Zhiwan was doing this. Cheng Shijie was quite satisfied with Sun Chengzong's grandson, who knew how to advance and retreat, had a good eye, and was very capable.
"Meet the Duke!"
"Yongyan, you're out of sight!"
"The etiquette cannot be revoked!"
Sun Zhiwan also knew that Cheng Shijie liked to get straight to the point, and when he had something to say, he said directly: "What the Duke asked me to do has been done. After this period of recruitment, a total of 857 people have been recruited. These people can all read more than 2,000 words and understand certain calculations. If some conditions are relaxed, more than 2,000 people can be recruited. This is the roster!"
Cheng Shijie held the thick roster and couldn't help but sigh that the demographic dividend of the Ming Dynasty was indeed unrivaled. If the prosperous Tang Dynasty had the population of the Ming Dynasty, it is estimated that Europe would still be speaking Tang dialect.
The literacy rate in the Ming Dynasty is not high. Compared with later generations, it is definitely the highest in the world. According to a special study conducted by Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, she concluded that in the mid-19th century By late stage, about 30% to 45% of men and 2% to 10% of women are literate. In this way, the average low limit is 16.6% to 20.5%, and the high limit is 24% to 28%.
Luo Youzhi's main reasons are: First, lower-level civil servants can read and write, and there are at least a hundred such clerks in small cities, and at most more than 3,000 in big cities, so there are about three million grass-roots civil servants in the country ( The term of office of grassroots civil servants is five years, and the number of conservative candidates is about twice the number of positions). This does not include officials working at the county, provincial, and central levels, as well as officials employed by the government to assist in handling government affairs.
Secondly, most businessmen are also literate, because accounting, keeping business history records, reporting to the government, etc. in business activities all require basic literacy skills. Thirdly, workers at ports and docks and ship owners traveling between various places needed to sign contracts during trade, so they could also read and write. Finally, ordinary people need contracts, or at least ghostwriters, to purchase, mortgage property, lease land, hire labor, borrow money, and even buy and sell children.
As the center of written communication, the literacy rate in cities is certainly very high, but the literacy rate in rural areas is also higher than we imagine. The main driving force for the spread of literacy is the development of printing after the thirteenth century. This view is almost the common conclusion of most cultural historians. The reasoning process is as follows: In the Ming Dynasty, not only book printing continued to develop, but also publishing was highly commercialized, and popular books were published in large numbers.
Southern Liaoning is a special phenomenon. This group mainly comes from two aspects. First, the Dongjiang Army soldiers and soldiers and civilians are mainly the surviving people in Liaodong. The refugees who cannot survive are mainly from Henan and Shandong. The third part comes from Dengzhou Guard.
The more than 10,000 people in Dengzhou Weizuo Qianhu Office, where Cheng Shijie started his career, have now become a minority group in southern Liaoning.
Cheng Shijie put down the roster and said calmly: "Yongyan, I want these people. The army adopts a elimination system for selection. Unqualified people can be brushed off. Now it's not just the artillery that is short of people, but the supply troops also need a lot of people." Talents who can calculate and read and write, let's say, the conditions are relaxed, people who can read and write 1,500 words, and people who can add and subtract within 10,000 words will be recruited."
"These two thousand people eating and drinking are not a small number!"
"If you don't have enough money, then ask Zheng Qi for it!"
At this time, Zheng Qi followed Cheng Shijie to the capital and was mainly responsible for Cheng Shijie's accounts. However, what made Cheng Shijie very angry was that Zheng Qi looked sloppy.
Except for the first time, under Yang Yuniang's recommendation, Zheng Jian and Zheng Qi's father and daughter came to see Cheng Shijie. However, Zheng Qi was already married, and the son-in-law he hired was a door-to-door son-in-law.
Working with Yang Yunniang had no impact, but when he came to the capital, Zheng Qi suddenly became sloppy.
Of course Cheng Shijie understood what she meant, pointed at Zheng Qi and said angrily: "I said you can't comb your hair? Can't you change into clean clothes? Your hair is disheveled all day long, you wear men's clothes, and you don't even wash your face. You're rude. Is it smeared with soy sauce? You smeared it on purpose, right? Who are you guarding against? If I wanted to bully you, could you still hide until today? "
Living in troubled times, beauty is a sin for women.
Zheng Qi must have understood this, so when he stayed with Cheng Shijie, he looked slovenly and unkempt all day long. His clothes had not been washed for who knows how long, and he still smelled a bit moldy.
It is good for women to have the awareness to protect themselves, but to this extent, it is a bit too much.
Not to mention anything else, Zheng Qi is now Cheng Shijie's accountant. Not only does he have to deal with Cheng Shijie, the boss, he will also have to deal with all kinds of gods and Buddhas in the future. His own people also have to say that if outsiders see Zheng Qi, they will say something or If I don’t say it, I might be complaining about Cheng Shijie’s offbeat hobbies in my heart.
What's more, a beautiful woman turns herself into such a ghost all day long. Does this reflect that Cheng Shijie is a pervert?
Probably!
Zheng Qi was stunned.
"Zheng Qi, listen to me. I pay you a salary of six hundred taels of silver every year just for your professional knowledge, not because of your beauty. No one can bully you here, so you'd better You must be more prompt in ordering yourself, otherwise you should resign!"
Cheng Shijie said angrily: "Do you know how many women six hundred taels of silver can buy? Besides, you are a married woman? I am not Cao Cao!"
Sure enough, although Cheng Shijie's words were a bit serious, Zheng Qi quickly changed into men's clothes, a blue Confucian shirt, and his hair was newly washed, which looked much more pleasing to the eye.
Although Cheng Shijie was very rich and brought one hundred thousand taels of silver with him when he came to the capital, the problem was that when he recruited artillerymen, he needed to pay settlement fees. Some people who were willing to go to Liaonan also needed to pay They arranged to go to Liaonan, and he was getting married. He needed to renovate the house and purchase fireworks, colored silks and various supplies necessary for the wedding.
Cheng Shijie must have made a good decision. He didn't want to hurt Xiang Hui, but he also didn't want to hurt Princess Le'an, a princess he had never met before. This marriage was actually a political marriage, and there was no harm to him and Princess Le'an.
However, as Cheng Shijie, he must have the proper procedures and etiquette for a wedding, so he spent money like water.
“If we don’t run the water table, the money will still be enough!”
"No, Liu Shui Xi will do as you please!"
Cheng Shijie thought for a moment and said, "I'll figure out a way about the money!"
…
"Borrow money? Duke Hai, don't joke with our family!"
When Cheng Shijie asked Gao Qiqian to ask for a loan, Gao Qiqian seemed to have heard the best joke in the world. Will Cheng Shijie be short of money?
The answer is no. In future generations, when someone describes someone’s family as having money, they will say that your family has mines?
Cheng Shijie now has mines, four copper mines, gold mines, silver mines, iron mines, and coal mines that add up to dozens of mines. Otherwise, the expenses of the Guangning Navy would be enough to crush Cheng Shijie to death.
Of course, Cheng Shijie also built large-scale roads, dug ditches, and built city walls in southern Liaoning. As for taxes in southern Liaoning, although commercial taxes were collected, they were actually far from enough to cover Cheng Shijie's expenses.
Cheng Shijie smiled and said: "Brother, let's settle the accounts. I am short of money now. You lend me one hundred thousand taels of silver. In half a year, I will pay you back one hundred and ten thousand taels of silver with interest!"
Gao Qiqian shook his head and said: "The bank can't just get this little interest!"
One-tenth of the interest for half a year would be regarded as a loan shark in later generations. In the Ming Dynasty, this was already considered a debt of gratitude, and the interest rate was too low.
"How much interest does Eunuch Gao want?"
Gao Qiqian shook his head and said: "It's not about how much interest, it's about our family running out of money!"
"How could there be no money? Don't tell me that you copied it..."
Before Cheng Shijie could finish speaking, Gao Qiqian said with a resentful look on his face: "General Cheng, don't even think about how much money His Majesty has in his inner treasury. During this period of time, he has both rewarded the troops and given them rewards..."
Cheng Shijie understood that Gao Qiqian's money was confiscated. In fact, it was not confiscated, but he was forced to donate it. Gao Qiqian guarded Cheng Shijie and made a lot of money. Many people in the palace were jealous of Gao Qiqian.
For example, Wang Zhixin, the admiral of Dongchang, was eyeing the position of Gao Qiqian. When Emperor Chongzhen had no money to reward Ning Haijun, he used the money he earned over the years to donate 300,000 taels of silver to Emperor Chongzhen.
Emperor Chongzhen was also curious about where Wang Zhixin got his money and thought he was embezzling, so he was very unhappy. Wang Zhixin told Emperor Chongzhen that he was learning from Liaonan and started collecting health fees in the capital. In more than half a year, he had collected more than thirty Ten thousand taels of silver.
In fact, more than half of it collected more than 300,000 taels of silver. It was okay at first, and it could still collect 70,000 to 80,000 taels of silver every month. The people were afraid of being punished, and everyone developed the habit of paying attention to hygiene. People who care about hygiene, even if they have a backing, can't be offended by Dongchang.
In more than half a year, a total of less than 200,000 taels of silver was collected. Wang Zhixin lost hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, and part of the money was obtained from corruption and bribery.
Because he gave money to Emperor Chongzhen, Wang Zhixin was promoted to the Supervisory Army Zhongxie. This Supervisory Army Zhongxie had a slightly lower level than Gao Qiqian's Supervisory Army Prime Minister. Therefore, Wang Zhixin also became the Supervisory Army General Manager, responsible for supervising the Eastern Army. Outside the factory, he serves as the Prime Minister of Guan Ning Army, which means that he has the power to replace all levels of generals in Guan Ning Army.
This time, Gao Qiqian sat on the wax.
He used the pretext of confiscating his house to donate most of it. He and Wang Zhixin pooled together nearly half of the military expenses. Most of the wine the Ning Navy officers drank and the meat they ate, including the rewards they received, were all Gao Qiqian's hard work.
Cheng Shijie wouldn't have the money even if he was given interest on one hundred thousand taels, let alone ten thousand taels of silver.
Seeing that Gao Qiqian had no money, Cheng Shijie didn't care too much.
He suddenly remembered a classic scam from later generations, the Ponzi scheme, which is the name for investment fraud in the financial field and the ancestor of the Pyramid scheme.
In China, Ponzi schemes are also known as "tear down the east wall to pay for the west wall" or "empty tricks". In short, new investors' money is used to pay interest and short-term returns to old investors to create the illusion of making money, thereby defrauding more investments. Many illegal pyramid schemes use this method to amass money.
Cheng Shijie's development in southern Liaoning requires a huge capital gap. Money is needed to reclaim wasteland, and money is needed to open factories. Money is needed everywhere.
However, these people in the capital made Cheng Shijie unhappy. If he couldn't use his troops to rob openly, he would do it secretly.
Cheng Shijie hurriedly sent someone to send a message to Yang Yunniang, asking her master Feng Sanniang to come forward. This genius who dared to pretend to be Mrs. Cheng Shijie was the best person to execute the Ponzi scheme.
The reason is that if you develop in southern Liaoning, you will make a lot of money.
Borrow money now and pay it back later. If the interest rate is high, some people will definitely be tempted. In order to prevent ordinary people from being implicated, a threshold is set.
Most ordinary people don't even have silver, so set it to one thousand taels. In this way, 99% of the ordinary, unkind landlords, gentry and officials, nobles and nobles, the richest people in the Ming Dynasty, can be intercepted. , then let them fall into the trap.
Cheng Shijie didn't even set up the game well, he just dived away and came back again.
"Eunuch Gao, what's important to you?"
"Mr. Haiguo, our family is also entrusted by others!"
"Let someone guess, this person should be Tai Kangbo!"
"Mr. Haiguo, you really guessed wrong this time!"
"oh!"
"This time our family is entrusted by Queen Zhang!"
Gao Qiqian smiled bitterly and said, "Our family has to obey Queen Zhang's order!"
Gao Qiqian knew very well that Emperor Tianqi always cherished Empress Zhang. When he was about to die, he entrusted Empress Zhang to his younger brother Xin Wang Zhu Youjian, with the order: "The palace has been with me for seven years, and I have always spoken uprightly and remonstrated, which has benefited me a lot. From now on, when I am young and widowed, I will be kind and merciful, and I will do good deeds in the palace." .”
After Zhu Youjian ascended the throne, he also respected the emperor's sister-in-law very much and gave Zhang Yan the title of "Queen Yi'an". During the Chongzhen Dynasty, she was respected and treated courteously by Sizong of the Ming Dynasty.
Once, Empress Zhou told Chongzhen how poor Zhou Yanru's character was. Emperor Chongzhen was dissatisfied with the discussion of government affairs in the harem and asked Empress Zhou how she knew. Empress Zhou responded with Empress Zhang. Emperor Chongzhen then removed Zhou Yanru as the first minister of the cabinet and kicked him out. Out of the cabinet.
Although Wen Tiren had some credit for the fall of the Zhou Dynasty, it was Empress Zhang who ultimately made Emperor Chongzhen make up his mind. She could influence Emperor Chongzhen's decision on national policy, which even Empress Zhou could not do.
Cheng Shijie laughed and said: "This is inconsistent with etiquette. Men and women are different!"
When Queen Zhang disappeared, Cheng Shijie was put on the fire to roast.
Although Cheng Shijie has no idea about Queen Zhang, he does not rule out that Queen Zhang set up a trap. Cheng Shijie has encountered such a situation in the workplace. At the original Hansteel Group, a colleague was tricked, and a female employee asked him Flattery, after giving the other person a little sweetness, then accuse the other person of sexual harassment.
If Cheng Shijie met Empress Zhang in private, all she had to do was for Empress Zhang to lower her face and Cheng Shijie would have yellow mud smeared into his crotch, turning into shit if not shit.
When people are in the arena, they have to be careful.
Especially the officialdom, which is a more dangerous place than Jianghu, Jianghu, at least there is some final morality, even if it is false love, it is still righteousness.
But in the officialdom, even the last face is lost. Just like the great writer Ouyang Xiu, he was tricked into calling him the old ash-grabber. The person who raked the ash could definitely not be Ouyang Xiu.
"Really missing?"
"Absolutely not seen!"
Cheng Shijie smiled resolutely and said, "If you have something to say, your father-in-law can convey it on your behalf!"
In Cheng Shijie's view, Queen Zhang is like that weasel. A weasel can bring good things to a chicken by giving him New Year greetings.
(End of chapter)
