Yang Qilong's military advisor is quite formal!
Not only did he receive the military advisor's seal, official uniform (Confucius uniform) and the imperial edict at the Jianguo Mansion, but he was also assigned a residence in Jieyang County and received the corresponding salary - fifty taels of silver a month!
Well, fifty taels of silver a month may not seem like much, but it is currently the highest standard of salary issued by the Jieyang court.
Zhu Cijiong, the king of the prison country, and Zhu Heji, the prince's eldest son, are also receiving only fifty taels a month... and they don't have any extra income!
This is not something you talk about casually, but it must be made public and subject to the supervision of the big guys! Now the world is for the common good! Even if King Zhu Tian and Zhu Heji want to be kings, they can only be "prime kings". Of course, the two of them can still eat fish and meat with this little income.
After all, in Chaozhou today, there are fewer people and more land, and you can still eat seafood by the sea, so delicious food is not expensive.
And they both still have some old roots. Zhu Heji also received two dowries, one from Qiu Shuzhen and one from Da Boling... and they could also eat soft rice, which tasted good!
However, the South and North Bei Nei Factories founded by Zhu Heji and the East Factory contributed by Eunuch Pang are now "public". It’s not okay if you don’t “serve the public”!
The Jieyang court now has hundreds of civil and military officials, a standing army of 1,500 to 6,000 people, and more than 1,000 teachers and students of the Academy Youth Hall to support.
The monthly expenses are as high as seven to eight thousand taels of silver, and the income is only ten thousand taels a year from Yanping Palace and 20,000 shi meters a year from Qiu Hui, as well as taxes from Jieyang Beiguan Commercial City and Jieyang County. ...a month's worth is only seven or eight hundred taels.
In other words, the Jieyang imperial court's monthly tribute tax revenue was only two to three thousand taels, while its expenses were seven to eight thousand taels, resulting in a deficit of five to six thousand taels!
And for such a big hole, in addition to resting on their laurels, they can only rely on the five factories in the southeast, northwest and northwest to fill it! At present, among the products of the five factories, the ones that earn the fastest money are the fire salt from the West Factory and the gunpowder from the Nei Factory!
After Zhu Heji took control of Jieyang County, he immediately issued a "manure collection order" - the people living in the county and the large animals raised in the county must be registered and hand in a certain amount of feces and urine every day.
The feces and urine are collected by Xichang, then mixed with soil according to a certain proportion, and stacked in a newly built nitrate collection pond outside Dongguan of the county seat - this is the site of Xichang's main factory, and the collector over there in Gucheng Village. The saltpeter pond is now under the management of Xichang Gucheng Branch. Regardless of the main factory or branch factories, they have been expanding production in the past two months.
According to Zhu Heji's design, if the raw materials are sufficient, a saltpeter collecting tank can produce approximately 1,500 to 2,000 jins of saltpeter every month, and can extract 15 to 20 jins of fire saltpeter. At the same time, it requires It consumes 150 to 200 kilograms of "raw materials"... Now the Gucheng branch has 60 "pools", with a monthly output of up to 1,000 kilograms of fire salt! The supply of raw materials at Jieyang General Factory is also sufficient and free, so there are as many as 200 "pools" that have been built or planned to be built!
If all are completed, the monthly output of the entire West Factory will steadily exceed 4,000 kilograms! Zhu Heji's standing army only had 1,500 people. Of course, he could not use that much saltpeter or gunpowder... So before all these saltpeter pools were built, Zhu Heji had already started to collect salt from Qiu Hui and Liu Guoxuan. Order accepted!
This fire salt and high-quality granular gunpowder are hard currency here in Guangdong. Every wealthy family wants to buy it... If you buy it back, you can fight with the clan in the next village, and you can use it to scare people away or to collect them. Tax dog officials and officials.
If anyone doesn’t have one, they won’t be able to sleep peacefully!
Therefore, as long as the West Factory and the Inner Factory buy three to four thousand kilograms of gunpowder within a month, they can earn about five thousand taels of silver to subsidize the state... Although they are still unable to make ends meet, it can also greatly alleviate the problem. The speed of cash consumption can help the Jieyang court support the two leading products of "Da Ming Chun Liquor" and "Dongchang Xiang" to start making substantial profits.
By that time, the finances of the Jieyang court would be stable.
However, the Jieyang court's current trend of diligence and thrift for public service still made Yang Qilong, who temporarily became Yang Xiuqing, feel a vibrant new dynasty atmosphere.
Compared with the poor court in Jieyang, the Manchu and Qing court in Beijing seemed quite luxurious and smelled of decadence. You can tell by the smell that the Qing Dynasty is about to end!
Yang Qilong, who had put on the Confucian clothes that looked very economical, tied a linen belt around his waist, and hung a long sword on the belt, was now sitting on a high chair in the main hall of the Jianguo Mansion, looking at the whole court. The commoner minister suddenly felt that he had become a lot more energetic.
He will set off to Haiyang County tomorrow to win over Liu Jinzhong - not to win people for Zhu Hezi, but to win people for Wu Sangui. Today, Zhu Heji did not arrange for him to eat, drink and have fun in Jieyang County, but instead dragged him to court.
The purpose is to let him truly feel what it is like for the world to be a public court!
Only in this way can we have a sense of belonging!
"Ah, military advisor!"
When Yang Qilong was feeling the atmosphere of the new dynasty, he suddenly heard someone calling "strategist". He thought: "I am the military adviser! This is calling me!"
So he hurriedly stood up, and when he stood up, he heard Zhu Heji speak: "Commander Yang, please sit still. We, the original Confucians, follow the example of the ancient sages. We, kings and ministers, can sit down and discuss the doctrine."
Look, what a harmonious relationship between monarch and minister!
Yang Qilong quickly sat back, and then offered his hand to the Heavenly King Zhu Gong who just spoke, "Why did the Supervisor call me for something?"
King Zhu of Heaven is still dressed in simple clothes and scarves. Looking at Yang Qilong with a positive expression on his face, he feels a little dumbfounded. He actually wants to ask Zhuge Sanhe about choosing a concubine... But Looking at the expression of the newly appointed right military advisor, he was embarrassed to ask questions again.
So I had to change the topic, frowned and asked: "Our spies stationed in Mianhu Village just came to report that Shang Kexi had arrived yesterday, and he was accompanied by about 20,000 troops, but they did not rush in. We are currently building fortifications, and it seems we are going to fight a protracted war. Do you two strategists have any tricks up their sleeves to defeat the enemy?"
What? Yang Qilong was stunned and said to himself: "I don't have any tips! No one has given me tips, and I can't seem to come up with any tips..."
In fact, Zhuge Sanhe also has no clever ideas... Although he has many tips, he has no ready-made clever ideas to put in them because he has not obtained Zhuge Liang's true biography at all. He had to use his own brain to figure it out. It was not easy to be a military advisor!
But Zhuge Military Advisor can't say that there is no way to defeat the enemy now!
Now the strategist industry has begun to involute, and there are two strategists! He said there was nothing he could do. If Military Advisor Yang had something to do, who would be the boss in the Military Advisor's Office in the future?
Thinking of this, Military Advisor Zhuge waved his lion-headed and goose-feather fan and said, "Your Majesty, I have a wonderful way to defeat the enemy!"
There really is!
Heavenly King Zhu quickly asked: "Come quickly!"
Still want to talk?
Beads of sweat almost appeared on Zhuge's forehead, but he still had to hold on to the situation, so he had to think faster.
"Your Majesty, I suggest that we use the empty city strategy and the strategy of surrounding Wei and rescuing Zhao to defeat the enemy!"
These were the two tactics last time, and they’re here again this time! Zhuge's military advisor probably didn't have any other plans.
"How to use this empty city strategy?" Tianwang Zhu continued to ask.
"Your Majesty," Zhuge Military Advisor said, "This empty city plan is of course to open up the enemy's army and let Shang Kexiang's army march eastward. No defenses will be made in the west of Jieyang City, so that he will suspect that we are deliberately luring the enemy, and he will be fearful and dare not advance rashly."
An "empty city strategy" really worked!
King Zhu of Heaven asked again: "What about besieging Wei and rescuing Zhao?"
"Of course we will send troops to attack Guangzhou Prefecture by sea!" Zhu Heji immediately took over the question from King Zhu, "Guangzhou Prefecture is a happy home. Since he left his nest empty, then I will steal his home!"
