stubborn thief

Chapter 276 Office

In Awangdaiben's business, it's rare to see repeat customers.

In the Baili Territory, people knew that Monk Awang's medical skills were honed on the battlefield, and they would not go to him if they felt dizzy, but went to the wizard directly.

Unexpectedly, Ngawang met his loyal repeat customer in Nangqian.

He had just cured Yang Dingrui's high rebellion, and within a few days he came back with welts all over his body. He came twice in five days. Awang had a major breakthrough in his career, and he was so happy that he just wanted to talk.

Liu Chengzong looked at the whip marks on Yang Dingrui's back, and thought that Bai Zhatou knew how to be flexible.

These whip marks are obviously meaningless, and it is really the way of punishing slaves. I am afraid that Mr. Yang is gone, and he will never have the strength to run ninety miles at night to complain to him.

He admired Baizhatou's wisdom of firmly carrying out orders and only flexing in controllable areas.

Although the teacher has suffered some flesh and blood, it is not a bad thing. He really observed the life and treatment of the slaves, seeking benevolence and deserving benevolence, and he felt at home.

Yang Dingrui was covered with medicinal powder by Awang. Liu Chengzong checked Awang's prescription. It was made of Duyiwei, Xiaopi, dandelion and thorn beans, mixed with highland barley wine to adjust humidity for later use. They were all made from nearby materials to stop bleeding from external injuries. good results.

Yang Dingrui lay on the couch, lost in deep thought, and became taciturn.

Easier said than done, he thought that the slave Liu Chengzong spoke of was a slave of the Han Dynasty, but within two days, his identity underwent two extreme changes, which caused him a great shock in his heart.

On the first day when he arrived at Baizha Saltworks, he was a distinguished guest. At that time, he felt that he was like everything, but he was not like a human being.

On the second day after arriving at Baizha Saltworks, he was a lowly slave. At that time, he also felt that he was like everything, except that he was not human.

There is a world of difference between the two unlike human beings.

Yang Dingrui was not from a wealthy family, and he often went to work in the fields until he was admitted as a scholar. At that time, he had already worn the good-quality clothes issued to the students by the county school. To avoid stains on the clothes, it was not uncommon for him to wear a pair of shorts to work in the fields. .

The old women, aunts and young women in the country saw it from a distance, no matter how frivolous they said or covered their mouths and snickered, they had experienced it when he was young, and it was nothing.

But this time it was a different feeling.

In Liu Chengzong's consideration, he didn't want Yang Dingrui to suffer such a crime, but on the other hand, he needed someone to be the magistrate.

The two government offices that are planned to be established now, Xining's affairs are important, but there are only three main directions of responsibility, one is in the market, the other is in the army, and the third is in immigration. To put it bluntly, Xining's mansion around Qinghai Lake is his base camp and basic market. .

There is more important than anywhere, but they are all our own people, and the affairs are not complicated.

Father Liu Xiangyu has enough talents and connections to serve as magistrate.

Compared with Xining, Kangning is more complicated. He has many talented people who can govern the place. Whether he was the magistrate Yang Dingrui, the prefect Zhou Riqiang, the county magistrate Xu Zongxian of Zhenyuan, and the supervisor of Qingpingyuan Cui Cong, they all had governance experience. people with local experience.

But no one understands Corning.

A county official needs the cooperation of local subordinates to effectively govern the place, and the language barrier greatly limits their ability to work.

After talking with Yang Dingrui, Liu Chengzong's teacher planned to enter Baizha Saltworks again.

Yang Dingrui admitted that he was too big, and he really couldn't eat and live with the slaves.

However, he did not give up, but he no longer dreamed of eating and living with the slaves. He just wanted to live in the Baizha saltworks for seven or eight days, and see the living conditions of nobles, monks, wizards, warriors, commoners and slaves.

Liu Chengzong felt that the teacher's thinking was more practical this time, and he no longer asked for trouble.

After bidding farewell to Yang Dingrui, Liu Chengzong began to consider the issue of salt and money in Nangqian.

Everything is like a ring. If you want to collect indirect taxes from the people through the official salt, you first need to let the people have their own property and become rich.

After all, only free people need to pay taxes, the government cannot tax slaves, and slaves don't need salt.

But the rich people need much more salt than the poor. They have more meat and need tens or even hundreds of catties of salt to marinate food to ensure that it does not spoil.

Before the advent of refrigerators, salt was always the best way for the government to make money.

Thanks to the past political form of the Kangning Mansion, all the mountains, rivers, mining, livestock, and even everyone who walks on this land belong to Liu Chengzong.

Every bit of power he gives to people is a concession.

Huang Shengxiao, who was stationed in Nangsuoqianmo Palace, sent Liu Chengzong a small item, a silver coin to be precise.

This silver coin comes from Tibet and was obtained from the trade between Uzbek and Nepal. It is one of the currencies circulating in the Uzbek market.

There was a shortage of silver in Uzang, and the biggest silver inflow came from the Yuan Dynasty. Silver is precious. To prevent alkaline corrosion, silver was added to other metals, forming a unique process.

And this silver-copper mixed coin is named Tanka, which has neither the name of the king nor the date of the coin. It is unclear which country it came from. The casting technology is poor, crooked and not round, and the purity of the silver is also very low.

In bulk trade, people recognize this kind of tanka currency from Nepal, as well as silver taels, but in daily life, it is more barter.

Due to the small number of self-cultivating farmers and the self-sufficiency of slave owners, people's demand for trade is very low. Usually, they carry barley to the temple to donate some grain, borrow some grain, and exchange some tools.

This silver coin reminded Liu Chengzong that under the government, he needed to prepare a bank and mint copper coins.

The reason why copper coins are minted instead of silver coins and gold coins is because they are not used... Before inflation reaches a soldier's monthly salary of four taels, minting silver coins does not make much sense.

Silver coins can be cut with silver scissors and weighed with scissors, so silver coins are almost meaningless.

Even if the half silver coin is minted, the denomination is a bit too large for this era, and it is not convenient in daily life.

His idea is to mint copper coins, issue copper coins of Qinghai Grand Marshal's Mansion, use copper coins to regulate the official price of official silver exchange, and then use the amount of copper coins issued to regulate market grain prices, and finally achieve the goal of stabilizing the market.

The establishment of money houses, on the one hand, is to make up for the lack of temples in Kangning Prefecture and provide loan business for the people; on the other hand, it also provides convenience for the payment of salaries to the garrison and officials, and reduces the number of small bank transfers between the two prefectures.

The two prefectures are far away, lack post stations and road facilities, and have inconvenient transportation. The transfer of silver and materials requires the use of troops. If there are too many soldiers, it will be troublesome, and if there are too few soldiers, it may not be possible to keep the official bank.

The local soldiers controlled by the noble chieftains along the way, although not capable of rebellion, have the potential to become plateau horse bandits.

The vast and sparsely populated high mountains and deep valleys are simply breeding grounds for horse bandits and robbers.

The method that Liu Chengzong can think of for the time being is to reduce the number of transfers of silver taels, and combine the escort of silver taels with the soldiers' long-distance march training.

However, there must be someone responsible for the bank, and Liu Chengzong felt that the best candidate was Chengyun.

But right now Chengyun is in charge of the Juerwan market, and he has no resources at his disposal, so Liu Chengzong wrote a letter asking Chengyun to hand over the Juerwan market to his father-in-law Wang Lianshi, who followed him thousands of miles west, and come here first to discuss the matter with him.

Whenever he needed to employ people, Liu Chengzong would feel that there were too few talents around him, and he couldn't help regretting that he didn't break into Xi'an Mansion when he was wandering in Shaanxi, and packed up and tied all the officials from the six departments in Shaanxi.

It's exciting to think about all the officials of six ministries in one province being tied up.

But it doesn't matter, there will be opportunities in the future, his Luhuo County is already very close to Chengdu, Sichuan.

He planned to wait for the structure of Kangning Mansion to stabilize, and then send someone to set up an office in Chengdu Mansion. He would use a two-pronged approach to recruit Sichuan people who had lost their land, and at the same time sponsor and recruit failed scholars and unsuccessful candidates.

Cultured and powerful people are the pillars of an empire, and once these people do not get their due social status, they will become the biggest danger to an empire.

In terms of casting copper coins, Liu Chengzong has a great advantage... As the war has just ended, there are a large number of bronze Buddhas in every county of Kangning Prefecture that are urgently needed to be processed.

This thing is just like all kinds of magic weapons, and several of them can be found in every noble manor.

It is not like other things, most of the noble lords who usually talk about it are very sober when they escape, remembering to take away all the gold, silver and precious stones, but deliberately forget the heavy Buddha.

There are also some nobles who don't even bother to take gold and silver treasures, let alone remember to take the Buddha.

However, whether it is Bai Yan, Dai Qing, Xie Erhu's shepherd soldiers, or Liu Chengzong's lion soldiers, they are all very knowledgeable and will take away the gold and silver treasures that they have not had time to take away; will take.

So these things are still left in the ruins of manors and temples in various places, and some have been burned into solidified copper mudflats on the ground.

The war has made this land completely unrecognizable, but the large-scale shortage of rentier classes has also left this place in a state of ruin.

Now except for Makang County, the remaining six counties are like Nangqian, stationed in the most critical positions. The place is as orderly as before, and people's lives are still the same, but their hearts are in chaos.

Nobles have no slaves, and slaves have no masters. No one knows what to do next. They urgently need someone to give them an order to let them know what they should do.

This order was quickly issued, and the troops stationed in various places ran in all directions, mobilizing Ula servants, asking people to collect the copper and iron from the ruins of various battlefields to the garrison camps, and then those camps selected people to send them to Nangqian.

In just 20 days, more than [-] jin of copper materials were delivered to Nangqian, and more than [-] jin of copper materials were provided in Nangqian alone, with more on the way.

These things are much more than Liu Chengzong imagined. He originally planned to negotiate with the carrier and transport the copper to Xining Mansion for casting. This is a good deal. It will take hundreds of cars at once, and it will be too laborious to transport it there.

Just then, the carrier arrived.

Riding a fancy horse with a dragon pattern on his body, wearing chain mail, a helmet on his head, four pistols pinned to the saddle, and a centurion armed to the teeth, he came to Nangqian in a mighty manner. .

Liu Chengzong rubbed his face, thinking about his wording in the letter, didn't he say to call the younger brother to fight?

Chengyun's face was reddened by the armor, and he seemed to be exhausted. He was still on the bridge of the Zhaqu River, so he got off his horse, took off his helmet, and took off his armor and ran quickly.

When he came over, he was left with a sleeveless khaki soldier's short robe, which was lined with a buckskin arrow-sleeve jacket.

Liu Chengzong asked: "Why are you dressed like this, in horse harness?"

"I thought it was still a mess, but I didn't know it was very peaceful along the way." Chengyun panted, waving his hands, not knowing whether to laugh or cry: "I didn't dare to take off my armor all the way to sleep, I was exhausted."

Liu Chengzong said with a smile: "I came to fight, but you haven't practiced in the north, and you can't wear armor."

Chengyun nodded one after another, and said with a smile: "Practice, I have been running to the training camp a lot, it's not that I have passed through all the way, I definitely can't go to the battlefield like Brother Lion..."

As he spoke, he beat his chest, proudly: "Self-protection is no problem!"

"Hahaha!"

Liu Chengzong laughed heartily. When Chengyun said this, it reminded him of the day when they attacked the county government.

At this time, Liu Chengzong noticed that the sleeveless military jacket on Chengyun was very different from the one made in Yan'an Mansion. Half of the hem is decorated with black clouds on the front, and thickened with multi-strand stitched thick cloth on the back.

And Chengyun didn't come by himself. Behind him, Liu Chengzong's uncle Cai Zhongpan came with a smile.

"uncle!"

After saying hello, Cai Zhongpan got off his horse and said, "You talk about employing people here, and my uncle can't help you in the north, so just follow the carrier and see what I can do."

Liu Chengzong could clearly feel that after entering Qinghai in the first successful war and laying down a large area of ​​land, the mentality and temperament of his family members had obviously changed a lot.

Unlike in the past in northern Shaanxi, where people were desperate, helpless and desperate, everyone was full of hope for the future.

Liu Chengzong laughed and hugged Cai Zhongpan and Chengyun with his arms open, and greeted the lion soldiers who escorted them over, and then led them to Nangqian's manor, saying as he walked, "Sure enough, I understand me well, There is a shortage of people here, uncle and carrier will be of great help to me."

After speaking, Liu Chengzong asked the guards to go to the manor to report the news, and asked Fan Sanlang to prepare some wine and food to entertain the soldiers who came over. Then he said to the two of them: "Now, it's easy to talk about other things, but the two things are really up to you."

Cai Zhongpan was very happy when he heard the words, and asked, "Oh, what's the matter?"

Uncle has a sense of crisis. Since Liu Chengzong's uprising, the main force has been fighting outside with various government troops. Cai Zhongpan has always been by Liu Xiangyu's side to protect his family.

There is neither military exploits nor too much hard work.

Comfortable is comfortable, but right now, everyone who has anything to do with Little Lion is a general, not to mention those around Liu Shizi, but his nephew Chen Ruji, who was sent to Liu Chengzong's friend Yang Yanchang, sent a letter to him a while ago. They are all thousands of households from the fucking Ming Dynasty.

The news of the victory in the war spread to Juerwan, and the whole Lion Army was excited about it, and the family members were even more excited.

But when excited, people can't help but start to imagine that they have a piece of foundation, which is a foothold if it is small, and it is the foundation of the king's industry if it is big.

In any case, Liu Chengzong has become the de facto ruler of this land, and the rest is nothing more than a matter of formality.

Because of this, Cai Zhongpan expressed his panic to Liu Xiangyu, he felt that he had to do something.

"I want to mint copper coins and set up a government-run bank. This must be presided over by the carrier; and uncle, there is a county called Luhuo in the east, which is adjacent to Yazhou in Sichuan. It is the passage to Sichuan. I want uncle to go there."

Liu Chengzong said apologetically, and said to Cai Zhongpan: "The army has its own promotion system for military achievements. I can't convince the army by giving my uncle a military position. Besides, swords have no eyes on the battlefield. I plan to send some sergeants to uncle and set up another army in Luhuo. camp, choose 80 to [-] people, buy a few merchants, and learn Sichuan dialect.”

Cai Zhongpan understood the fact that he could not be given a military position, and he felt that this task would be very important in the future, so he was pleasantly surprised: "The lion plans to enter Sichuan?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head quickly, and said several nos in a row: "I can't get in, I can't get in, the terrain over there is dangerous, and the Sichuan government and army can block thousands of troops at a checkpoint, not to mention that the troops can't come back after entering Sichuan. I don't intend to fight."

Liu Chengzong rubbed his chin and said with a smile: "I want my uncle to try to buy the guards. In the future, in the name of entering Sichuan to do business, he used to buy unsuccessful talents."

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)