Villager of Daming

Chapter 1293: I wish I could get promoted later but I would die earlier

The number of cement roads in the village has increased. Basically, there are cement roads everywhere, and there are railroad tracks. There are people on duty at the switchboards and telephone lines are connected.

Small trains were running back and forth, and people who had undergone strict political review and came to work here were moving things up and down.

When Zhu Yuanzhang arrived, these people moved far away and would be called when needed.

After receiving the news in advance that the head of Xiaqiu Village was coming to visit, the officials of Ningguo Prefecture went to Xiaqiu Village first. They took the water route, and the steam-powered boat was faster than the horse-drawn carriage on land.

They wanted to build a railway from Xuancheng County to Xiaqiao Village, but unfortunately the budget was too high. Taiping Prefecture could not afford so much money, and the court could not give them money to build a railway.

Railways are meaningless to Ningguo Mansion; they only need ships to transport things!
The people in the other twenty-one villages built their own roads and had many large livestock. If they wanted to come to Xiaqiu Village to drive their carts, they could just call to find a boat to transport goods to Nanjing.

There are two telephones in a village, and the telephone line is purchased with money. A fee of twenty strings of cash is required every month regardless of whether or not one makes any calls.

In the past, earning 20 strings of cash a month was simply a living hell for the village, but now any family can earn 30 or 40 strings of cash a month.

The money they earn in a month is equivalent to what others earn in several years. They have no worries about food and drink, and sometimes they go to Nanjing in groups to visit Xiaqiu Village.

Their daughter was promised to someone from Xiaqiu Village. The fiancées of the twenty people who left with the team went to Xiaqiu Village to adapt.

When they come back from Nanjing, they will bring back a lot of books, Chinese patent medicines and powders.

Right now they are harvesting cotton, harvesting it one piece at a time, and shipping it to Nanjing, directly giving it to the factory in Xiaqiu Village, exchanging part of it for money and part for cloth.

"Just like that! Are you preparing to enter the court?" Zhu Yuanzhang was talking to Li Guan, the magistrate of Xuancheng County at this moment.

Zheng Zhubu, Guan Xiancheng, Wang Dianshi have all arrived, as well as the prefect Song Zifei and others. It's time for everyone to be promoted. They should stay here and develop the economy, so that there will be true political stability and harmony among the people.

"Your Majesty, can we do it after the New Year? We can still make money this year, so let us report the fiscal revenue."

County Magistrate Li did not want to go to Beijing immediately. He made a lot of money this year, so he wanted to coordinate the financial revenue by the end of the year before going there, with impressive results.

Other officials nodded, indicating that they could wait a little longer and there was no rush.

The county officials thought they would have to serve as officials in the prefecture, but His Majesty told them to go directly to the imperial city. This was such a good treatment.

However, this year's fiscal revenue must be calculated first so that people know why they can get in.

"Not bad!" Zhu Yuanzhang nodded.

He knew the approximate data. Even though there were still several months to the end of the year, Xiaqiu Village had a digital model.

Within a floating range, the data is normal; if it exceeds the range, it will be audited immediately.

Local officials had no idea that there were such tricks. Once Xiaqiu Village found out, they would definitely investigate.

"The original clerks should be given a heads-up, including those in the Taiping Prefecture government office. We can't just ignore them once they have achieved results. Otherwise, anyone in that position will lose their motivation to make progress. What else can they do if they don't make money?"

Zhu Yuanzhang proposed to promote the clerks. However, the clerks belonged to the outer nine classes and it was very difficult for them to enter the inner nine classes, so they were not given a regular position.

Taiping Prefecture's fiscal surplus this year exceeds 600,000 strings of cash, and the key is that Taiping Prefecture used the fiscal revenue to build roads.

A lot of money was spent on building roads, repairing houses for the people, and constructing water conservancy projects, but there was still more than 600,000 strings of cash left.

If they hadn't spent money so hard, the surplus would have been more than one million strings of cash, just for one prefecture.

How much was the revenue of the imperial court in the first few years? In the year when the country was officially founded, it was more than 3 million guan.

Such achievements, or political performance, are enough to scare a lot of people. Officials must calculate the money carefully before getting promoted, otherwise whose money will it belong to?

"Thank you, Your Majesty. Would you like to know more about the situation here?"

Wang Dianshi asked expectantly, "Just ask and I will give you the answer."

"Haha! Hehehehehe..." Zhu Yuanzhang responded with a laugh.

He didn't ask! What was there to ask? The officials of Ningguo Mansion were more familiar with Xiaqiu Village than they were with other places in their own country. Who would dare to ignore Xiaqiu Village? "Hehehehe..." The officials of Ningguo Mansion laughed together.

……

In the evening, the animals and plants in Xiaqiu Village were in trouble. So many people came and they had to eat, so those that needed to be killed were killed, and those that needed to be pulled out were pulled out.

When Zhu Yuanzhang came to Xiaqiu Village for the first time, he needed to get ingredients from other places, as animals in the village could not be killed casually.

Nowadays, the scale of livestock farming in the village is so large that killing a few hundred sheep will not cause any harm, not to mention that there are also bamboo rats, rabbits, pigs, donkeys, cattle, poultry, fish, crabs...

So we eat hotpot in the evening, with some stir-fried vegetables, mixed vegetables and side dishes.

In order to prevent people from carbon monoxide poisoning, hot pot uses liquid fuel and industrial alcohol.

It is made from secondary fermentation of straw and distiller's grains. It is an experimental product and the cost is actually quite high, but it must be done. Once the process is finalized, we will start industrial production of alcohol.

This is used to cultivate better yeast, which can be used to saccharify some sugar-containing plants to obtain alcohol, which can be used directly in industry without the need for purification for medical or edible use.

The cost of purification is high and not cost-effective, so it is better to ferment grains directly.

The place for dining is in the main house of Xiaqiu Village. Everyone will sleep here at night. The people of Xiaqiu Village have already burned incense. The headman did not cry, but tears were welling up in his eyes.

This time he really wasn't pretending. If he was pretending he could cry loudly, but if he wasn't pretending he would try hard not to let the tears fall.

No one else in Xiaqiu Village cried either. They all kept their lips tightly pursed while burning incense and kowtowing.

They went to worship the mountain god temple again. The people in Xiaqiu Village always believed that the mountain god also made a contribution, and that their ancestors and the mountain god together sent Hanhan to the village.

Of course, the greatest credit goes to the head of the village, as it was he who asked for Hanhan, a silly child he had found from somewhere else.

"Shabu tripe, lamb tripe will cook very quickly in the hot pot, in just two breaths."

Zhu Chong introduced shabu-shabu mutton tripe to Gege Haji. The more sheep were killed, the more mutton tripe there would be, but not everyone could eat it all.

Gegehaji: "..."

"Thank you, Your Highness, for telling me. It really only took two breaths to cook it. I didn't know that before!" She expressed her gratitude.

Zhu Chong was stunned: "..."

"It's okay. I'll teach you how to feed cattle and sheep in the future."

Zhu Chong was thick-skinned. He just remembered that what Gege Haji was best at was animal husbandry. Teaching a herdsman how to eat cattle and sheep seemed like a joke, right?
"Report~~~ Your Majesty, the Goryeo King Wang Zhuan was assassinated. Our spies over there have sent the news."

Everyone was eating and watching the singing and dancing performance when someone came running over, anxiously asking to see him. When he arrived at the place, he knelt down and shouted.

All the people who were eating stopped for a moment. Zhu Wentian narrowed his eyes. The time was wrong! He should have persisted for more than a month!

Was it that the historical data was wrong, or that the time of action was earlier than expected? There must be something wrong.

"Well...Yichang, you...uh..."

When Zhu Yuanzhang reacted, he looked at the head of the village first. He wanted to say, "Why don't you stop eating and ask someone knowledgeable instead?"

The head of the village took a deep breath and said, "Your Majesty, please wait a moment. Ling'er, bring me the box. It is the box with three boxes inside it."

"Is it the box that mentioned the death of the King of Goryeo? Ah! I see."

Ling'er blinked, stood up and went to look for the box.

Zhu Yuanzhang and others who knew the situation in Xiaqiu Village: "..."

(End of this chapter)