New Shun 1730

Looking at the twenty selected students from the staff class, Liu Yu breathed a sigh of relief. Six months of physical and mental hell were finally over.

In the past six months, I have been a company commander in the morning and a teacher in the afternoon, teaching the contents of the infantry drills bit by bit.

Fortunately, these people were all from the Wude Palace and had received military education in the camp since childhood, otherwise they would have collapsed even more.

As the saying goes, if you want to destroy something, you must first praise it.

Since Liu Yu had thought about destroying the privileged class of Liangjiazi, he would naturally find a way to put it into practice.

This is a long process. Now these young people are full of energy, just like the rising sun. He still has to teach them well.

We are still fellow travelers for now.

Now, the matter of the new army must be put aside for the time being, and Liu Yu must prepare for the next big thing.

"Young master, I have inquired clearly. This year's harvest season is very low, and the price of grain in Liaodong is very low. Beans only cost seven yuan, and wheat only five yuan. The grain harvest in Jiaodong is considered good, but most of it is spring wheat and autumn buds, and the price of buds is not high. "

Kang Bulao went out to travel for a few months. Not long after he came back, Liu Yu sent him to Penglai for a tour and asked about the price of food in Liaodong.

This year’s harvest season is so high that the price of soybeans in Liaodong is now falling. As soon as the new grain comes out, you have to sell it and pay taxes. Therefore, the price of grain will be violently suppressed by profiteers after the new grain comes out.

The common people have no money and are short of money. They all know that if they save it for a while and sell it later, they can sell more. But charging three to five dou more means that the price of food will plummet by three to five dou.

If you don't sell it, how will you pay various land taxes, silver coins, and repay usury?

In recent years, the population in Liaodong has increased, and immigrants have continued to migrate northward along the Liaohe Plain. The climate of the Little Ice Age has ended again, and there is a scene of soybeans and sorghum everywhere.

There are more and more ships transporting grain along the sea. A few days ago, there was a ship transporting soybeans to Shanghai and passing by Liugong Island.

Kang Busao knew that Liu Yu was not planning to engage in grain trade. His previous intention seemed to be to buy a bunch of grain and stockpile it.

As a retainer, Kang Busha felt the need to persuade Liu Yu.

"Sir, when you serve as a soldier, you eat the royal food. After recruiting soldiers, each soldier will receive three dou of rice in addition to his salary to support his family. This all comes from the granary."

"Before Wendeng Prefecture, there was Changping Granary, which stored 40,000 shi of grain. Now the imperial court has built several large warehouses near Weihai for Qingzhou soldiers. In the future, this batch will try to transport rice by sea. In the future, the grain and rice for recruiting soldiers will be They all come out of the warehouse. Grains are prone to mold, flammability, and beetles, so it is unwise to store grains.”

He knew that Liu Yu now had a large amount of money in his hand, totaling more than 400,000 taels.

The emperor asked Liu Yu to organize a battalion of 7,500 troops, and he was given the recruitment money of four liang per man. In addition to the money for ordnance, Liu Yu didn't want armor, matchlocks, spears, etc., so he gave another two hundred thousand taels, which included the cost of expanding the barracks.

It is equivalent to using this money to let Liu Yu build a new army and give the navy a certain scale. As for how to do it, the emperor really doesn't care if he says he doesn't care. As long as he doesn't compete with the people for profit and plunder, that's it. .

It was a good deal for the emperor, with low costs and high returns.

Not counting military pay, four to five million taels of silver can be used to train a new army that can compete with the Beijing camp. For the emperor, this is almost free of money.

Anyway, Liu Yu had put his life on the line, and the emperor still trusted him, so he might not keep his word, but Liu Yu really didn't ask about the fact that he hadn't recruited a single soldier so far.

Of course, you need to pay money to recruit soldiers. Future military pay does not count. For the first recruitment, you have to give a few taels of shelter money to arrange for a wife and children.

Ordnance also costs money, of course.

I don't know how many people in the court were jealous of the hundreds of thousands of taels of silver in Liu Yu's hand. They all thought of holding it in their hands without doing anything, misappropriating it, and loaning it out. What is the interest rate for one year?

Kang Buyao also knew that the imperial court wanted to make money for Liu Yu. As long as he did not compete with the people for profit and no one jointly impeached him, he would turn a blind eye.

But even if money begets money, it would be unwise to engage in grain trade. This year is a big harvest in the north and south, and grain prices in various places are not high. Soybeans from Liaodong can be sold to Songjiang and other places, making a lot of hard money.

If you are collecting grain, everyone knows that the price of grain is so low this year, and it is unlikely that it will be lower next year than this year. However... how much does it cost to take out a loan and earn interest per year for one tael of silver? Taking into account the loss and depreciation of the grain farm in a year, at what price can we earn more than the loan?

After several attempts at persuasion, Liu Yu thought for a long time, but finally came up with no explanation. He just said, "Zhongxian, don't persuade me any more about this matter. I've made up my mind. I'll collect some money later and stock up on more food."

Kang Buyao knew how to advance and retreat, and he also knew that Liu Yu would basically talk to him about everything and ask him to give him advice, but since he didn't want to explain this matter, he stopped asking and just did it.

Liu Yu didn't want to be a magic stick, but this time there was really no other way.

The Japanese like fireworks, something beautiful and short-lived. Later, there was a very famous Sumida River Fireworks Festival in Tokyo. The tradition of this fireworks festival was to commemorate an upcoming great famine.

This famine, which may come next year or the year after, has had a great impact. It gave Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune the title of "Rice General" and also caused Japan to completely tighten its trade policy and try its best to reduce the outflow of precious metals. The number of trade licenses issued has also dropped sharply.

The Sumida River Fireworks Festival in Tokyo is quite famous, and many people know about it.

The reason is to commemorate this great famine.

It is said that millions of farmers in Japan starved to death, especially in the Saikaido area, and grain output was only 20% of previous years.

Liu Yu knew about this incident and had heard about the Sumida River Fireworks Festival, but he didn't know that this famine was even more terrible than what he knew.

Because the cold summer caused by the Kuroshio warm current and the Kuril cold current affected more than just Japan.

Perhaps there were too many famines in the Qing Dynasty, and this one was not famous because it did not involve cannibalism, at least Liu Yu didn't know about it.

But in fact, from Feicheng, Shandong, all the way to Jiaodong, they were seriously affected.

Feicheng was famine, and the dead were lying side by side; Wendeng, Juxian, Zhaoyuan, and many people fled from famine.

In the following two years, it affected Jiangsu, and even Shanghai and Jiaxing, which were places of fish and rice.

Liu Yu didn't know that Shandong would have a major disaster, but he wanted to take advantage of the disaster year to immigrate and recruit soldiers, so food must be prepared.

Anyway, in the old times, there were famines every year, and people ate each other every two years on average. Famine was just a matter of size, which was not even considered.

Especially Shandong, Henan, Anhui... These places, since the three changes of the river destroyed the hinterland of the Yellow River and Huai River, don't ask which year these places have suffered disasters, but ask which year these places have not suffered disasters.

So Liu Yu wanted to store food, but he just regarded the disaster in the Central Plains as normal, and regarded the disaster in Japan as an opportunity.

In addition to preparing food for recruiting disaster victims as soldiers at a low price, Liu Yu also wanted to take this opportunity to grab more of Japan's trade share, and to "help in time of need" and "be close to each other" when the disaster was the most serious, in exchange for a few trade licenses.

Relying on Japan's silver to build a fleet that can blockade Japan and force Japan to only allow free trade with China, he can sell horses, samurai riding and shooting techniques, military books, cow horns, and even food for this.

The emperor and the court had no idea how much a navy would cost. If Liu Yu reported the real price, he would scare the Tianyou Palace and the six governments to collectively oppose it, thinking that the navy was useless and it would be better to stay at home and pretend that they didn't know that Westerners were eyeing them covetously.

He gave himself 20,000 taels of silver from the treasury and 500,000 taels of start-up capital, and thought that he could train a new army and a navy, which was no different from dreaming.

However, this 500,000 taels was already the limit. The 1 million taels that the emperor had promised to give was to be distributed over five years. Now it seems that the subsequent military pay is included in it.

In Liu Yu's eyes, the new army was raised by his stepmother, but it was just for the emperor to see. The navy was the real heart and soul, and it was also a gold-eating beast.

The price of a warship is very fixed. According to the calculation after the currency reform of Lord Niu, a warship costs about 25 pounds per ton. One pound is three taels of silver.

The decoration of cannons, etc., is an average of 50% to 60% of the overall tonnage cost of the warship. Of course, if you are rich and powerful and insist on using copper cannons instead of iron cannons, the price may be higher.

Perhaps the local Fuchuan wooden ships can be converted into warships, and perhaps there is really a miracle of Zheng He's treasure ship of 20,000 tons, but Liu Yu will not, and praying for miracles is not as realistic as it should be.

Thirty years ago, the Dutch and the Spanish fought each other in the Manila Sea for an afternoon. Both sides had used up their shells and gunpowder, but neither side sank. If they had used the Fuzhou ships, it would have been hard for them to withstand an afternoon of bombardment.

Liu Yu thought that it was better to follow the Westerners' path. It was not shameful to learn from others.

For the time being, in places like East Asia and Southeast Asia where naval noobs are fighting each other, we don't need too big warships. We need level 5 ships of 700 to 800 tons.

Level 4 ships are useless. They have fewer and smaller guns than level 3 ships, and their speed is much slower than level 5 ships. They are not qualified to line up for bombardment, and they can't run for escort and pursuit.

According to the price of about 150 taels per ton of warships, which is reserved for the French profit, two level 5 ships will cost 200,000 taels, not counting the subsequent training.

In the eyes of naval powers, two level 5 ships are not even qualified to participate in line-to-line bombardment.

Poor people are not qualified to play with the navy.

Dashun, with its weird ports open and childish policy of true free trade, is not qualified to build a navy.

All I can say is that, "thanks" to Japan's closed-door policy and the Zhengde New Order, trade is not free at all. Trade can only be done with a trade license. Otherwise, the Dutch, who have trading houses in Guangdong and can trade freely, will squeeze out all Chinese merchants.

In view of this special situation and the upcoming Kyoho famine in Japan, Liu Yu saw an opportunity to seize the trade license.

War horses for one, medicinal materials for one, buffalo horns for one, and archers for one. If you can take advantage of the famine in Japan and ship food over to "help in times of need", you may be able to exchange two more.

In this way, you can buy a level 5 ship in a year. In about five to eight years, you can try to turn your back on Japan and force it to trade freely.

Japan's special trade policy determines that trade with Japan is not about navigation and trade goods, but only about whether you can get a trade license.

He wants to use a batch of food to get the silver of a warship. Feed the enemy with food.