Take the warehouse back to the end of the Ming Dynasty

Page 164

When the soldiers lifted the stone slab, a large hole with a diameter of five or six feet appeared in everyone's sight.

Zhao Wen stood by the entrance of the cave, looked at the big hole, and his eyes lit up, "Dig along this big hole and look around, I want to see how much silver there is underneath."

As soon as Zhao Wen finished speaking, the soldiers with tools began to dig around along the cellar entrance.

When the cellar was dug up by the Longmen army, Zhao Wen was completely stunned by the scene in front of him.

The entire cellar was full of silver bricks, gold bricks were placed on top of the silver bricks, and wooden boxes containing copper coins.

I don't know how many years these things have existed. The wooden boxes that store the copper coins are already rusty. When the soldiers of the Longmen Army tried to move them, the wooden boxes shattered into slag in an instant.

The copper coins inside flowed out immediately, Zhao Wen picked up a copper coin, put it under the sun and looked at it carefully.

"Grandma's belongs to Jiajing Tongbao. The Fan family really has a long history."

Zhao Wen threw the copper coin on the ground, speechless.

When the Longmen army moved out all the silver and gold in the cellar, they didn't even count them, and they directly loaded them into carts and transported them to the posthouse.

As for Fan Yongdou and other members of the Fan family, Zhao Wen also brought them back to the post house.

Although a lot of money was found from Fan's residence, it was not the real wealth of the Fan family.

The Fan family has been in the northern part of the Ming Dynasty for so many years, and they have a lot of property and shops in their hands, and these things are also worth a lot of money.

Zhao Wen would feel panicked if he didn't completely drain the Fan family.

When Zhao Wen returned to the post house, Cao Huachun stood at the door of the post house to greet him.

Zhao Wen looked at Cao Huachun and jumped off his horse, "Grandpa, are there any idlers waiting in this posthouse?"

"Since you left, the miscellaneous family has changed the post house up and down, and now the whole post house belongs to us." Cao Huachun said to Zhao Wen with a smile on his face.

Zhao Wen nodded at Cao Huachun, and then shouted at the soldiers pulling the cart behind: "Bring me all the things and put them in the backyard of the post house. At the same time, you give me the post house as the center, give me Surround the post house, and no one is allowed to approach."

After Zhao Wen finished everything, the people who went to copy other Shanxi merchants hurried back with their things.

Fortunately, the post house in Datong Town has a large area, otherwise, it really wouldn't be able to store so many things.

For a while, the backyard of the post house was piled up like a hill.

The silver and gold were packed into sacks or wooden boxes, and they were neatly stacked in the backyard.

After finishing all this, Zhao Wen called Zhao Daniu and Song Hu over, and after exhorting them a few words, he asked them to lead the team to the remaining two places where the Fan family kept silver.

In fact, it wasn't just the Fan family who hid silver like this, almost all the eight Shanxi merchants were like this.

Shanxi merchants never hide all their silver in one place. They follow the policy of cunning rabbits and three caves, and hide their silver scattered.

Therefore, when copying the home of Shanxi merchants, it was quite laborious.

When Zhao Wen and Cao Huachun ransacked their homes, they not only copied the Eight Shanxi Merchants, but also those small families attached to the Eight Shanxi Merchants.

Because the area involved this time is too large, it took almost ten days just to search the house.

When the silver, gold, copper coins, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, strange stones and other things confiscated from the house were counted, Zhao Wen and Cao Huachun went completely crazy.

"General Zhao, how much silver did you tell me just now?" Cao Huachun pointed at Zhao Wen, his body trembling constantly, his eyes full of horror.

Holding a ledger, Zhao Wen looked at the figures calculated by the accounting office he had brought, took a deep breath, and endured his excitement, "The cash copied out alone is more than 9000 million taels, and it doesn't even take The copied gold antique calligraphy and paintings, the house deeds and land deeds that are being sorted out, etc. If you add up all these things, it may exceed [-] million, that is, [-] million taels."

Cao Huachun's whole body was trembling non-stop. He stood up from the chair and looked at Wu Yao who was also very excited in the room, "You take Jin Yiwei and Dongchang troops, and surround this room for me. No one is allowed to approach within twenty steps."

"Yes!" Wu Yao cupped his hands at Cao Huachun excitedly, and then walked outside.

Cao Huachun looked at Wu Yao who was going out, turned around, and walked up to Zhao Wen, "General Zhao, did you calculate the money correctly?"

"The accountants I brought are all old accountants that have been calculated for many years. This number is absolutely unmistakable."

Zhao Wen handed over the account book in his hand to Cao Huachun, and said with a smile on his face.

Cao Huachun took the ledger and casually flipped through a few pages.

After a while, Cao Huachun put down the ledger in his hand and looked at Zhao Wen, "With so much money, how much do you think we should hand over to the emperor?"

Zhao Wen squinted his eyes and looked at Cao Huachun, "How much do you think is appropriate?"

"According to the opinions of the miscellaneous family, all these silvers must not be handed over to the emperor. If the emperor knows that we have copied so much money, he will definitely think that all businessmen in the world are like this. Now, isn’t that the source of the chaos? According to the opinions of the miscellaneous, hand over 2000 million taels of silver and 3 taels of gold, what do you think?”

Cao Huachun stretched out two fingers, shaking them in front of Zhao Wen.

"Too much, in my opinion, 500 taels of silver is just right. As for the gold, I think it's fine. If you hand in too much, His Majesty will be addicted to ransacking your home. work.

So, 500 million taels of silver is just right, and at the same time, hand over those calligraphy and paintings, antiques, strange stones and other things to His Majesty.I believe that His Majesty is very interested in these things. " Zhao Wen squeezed his chin and said slowly to Cao Huachun.

Cao Huachun looked at Zhao Wen, his eyes lit up, "What General Zhao said is very reasonable, then we will hand over to the emperor 500 million taels of silver and those calligraphy and painting antiques.

How should the remaining money be divided?The people I brought out have all contributed. If I don't give them any points or gag their mouths, I'm afraid they will yell everywhere. "

"As you said, my Longmen army took a lot of effort to ransack the house this time. It's not easy for these soldiers under my command to fight without money. It's absolutely impossible to lose 6000 million taels." Zhao Wenyi He patted the table and said in a deep voice.

"6000 million taels? You might as well kill the miscellaneous family and give you 4000 million taels at most."

"What? 4000 million taels? Impossible, at least 800 million taels!"

"Forty-five million taels, no more."

"Fifty-five million taels, no less."

"Maximum 5000 million taels, no more."

The two argued over the distribution of the last batch of silver. After a heated argument, Zhao Wen got 5000 million taels, and Cao Huachun got almost 3000 million taels of silver.

At this point, the Shanxi merchants who had been in the Ming Dynasty for countless years disappeared completely, and the name of the Shanxi merchants became a legend in the Ming Dynasty.

After Cao Huachun brought back the money handed over to Chongzhen, the happy Chongzhen didn't fall asleep for several days, and kept saying that Cao Huachun and Zhao Wen were loyal ministers and other compliments.

Today's Chongzhen is almost crazy, how can he not be excited when he sees these silvers?

When Zhao Wen led his men back to Longmen Fort with the money they confiscated, Longmen Fort was almost cleaned up.Zhao Wen didn't stay in Longmen Fort for a few days, and he led most of the personnel in Longmen Fort and headed towards Xuanzhen Town.

Zhao Wen did not completely evacuate Longmen Fort, and left more than 100 soldiers guarding Longmen Fort.

Of course, not all the people in Longmen Castle were willing to go to Xuanzhen Town with Zhao Wen, and Zhao Wen did not force these people.After all, the land near Longmen Fort still needs to be cultivated, and the ironworks and clothing factories in Longmen Fort also need to produce things, but the scale is much smaller than before.

When Zhao Wen came to Xuanzhen Town, the first thing he did was to clean up all the garbage in the town.

After all, plagues in this era are very easy to produce, and piles of garbage are breeding grounds for various viruses and bacteria.

So cleaning up the garbage was the first thing Zhao Wen did.

Although the Ming Dynasty also had laws and regulations on garbage cleanup, these laws and regulations had almost become a piece of waste paper in the Chongzhen Dynasty, and few people followed them.

In addition, most of the people in the town are military households. These poor military households can't even eat enough to eat. How can they care about garbage?

At the beginning, the people living in Xuanzhen didn't take it seriously. Even though Zhao Wen sent people to publicize it, these people still went their own way and dumped garbage at will.

Even if Zhao Wen set up garbage tables in every alley and trash cans on the streets, the people who are used to dumping garbage at will simply don't like this.

In desperation, Zhao Wen had no choice but to resort to the big killer that is commonly used in later generations, which is a fine.

Anyone who is caught dumping garbage at random and defecating everywhere will be fined by Longmen Army soldiers wearing red armbands to maintain law and order.

If you can't pay the fine, then I'm sorry, you not only have to take back all the garbage you dumped, but also clean up the garbage for free for three days.

If you don't want to do it, it's easy to do, just put on the shackles and parade in the streets.

Under Zhao Wen's successive strikes, the environment in the entire town has taken on a new look.

But when dealing with this matter, Zhao Wen felt more and more that he didn't have enough manpower.

Moreover, the Longmen Army in my hands are soldiers. If I keep letting them do this kind of thing and delay training, wouldn't the gain outweigh the loss?

After Zhao Wen thought hard, Zhao Wen decided to come up with the strategy of reserve service for later generations.It's just that Zhao Wen made a series of modifications to it.

After this order was issued, Zhao Wen began to sift through the people who had been snatched back from Jiannu.

Zhao Wen brought back a total of 15 people from Jiannu, and many of them were strong and healthy, so there was no problem of insufficient soldiers.

Zhao Wen selected more than 15 young and strong among the 1 people. Zhao Wen reorganized them according to the establishment of the Longmen Army and divided them into ten thousand households.

The officers at all levels in the reserve are veterans of the Longmen Army, which allows them to form combat effectiveness in a short period of time.

But the main function of this reserve force is to be responsible for the public security of the entire Xuan Town, so it is not as good as the Longmen Army in terms of training and military pay.

After finishing the reserve service, Zhao Wen began to expand the Longmen Army again.

The original 4000 people were expanded by Zhao to 1 people.

During the expansion, Zhao Wen set up a logistics department, which was mainly in charge of Qi Qingtian.

The logistics department mainly manages the logistics transportation, recruit training, military merit evaluation and distribution of military pay of the Longmen Army.

In Daming, the training of recruits, the evaluation of military merits, and the payment of military salaries are the responsibility of the officers in the army, but in this way, problems such as corruption and excessive power of officers will inevitably arise.

In order to avoid this situation, Zhao Wen separated the training of recruits, the payment of military salaries, and the evaluation of military merits from the army.

The expanded 6000 soldiers will be trained in the logistics department, and when the training is completed, these trained soldiers will be distributed to various households.

In this way, the strength of the four thousand households will be greatly increased. Originally, there were only more than 1000 people in the hands of one thousand households, but now the number of soldiers in each of the thousand households has exceeded 2000. It will lead to too much power in the hands of Zhao Daniu, Song Hu and others.

Although these people are loyal to Zhao Wen, it is not a good thing to have too much power in their hands.

In order to prevent the excessive expansion of the rights in the hands of these people, Zhao Wen established five thousand households.

Of course, these five thousand households were not all recruits. When Zhao Wen was reorganizing, he disrupted all the members of the Longmen Army, and then reorganized.So there are quite a few veterans among the five thousand households that have just been established.

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Chapter 212 Establishing a Bank

After the establishment of the reserve force, the law and order in the entire Xuan Town improved a lot in an instant.

In the streets of Xuan Town, there are reservists in gray patrolling almost every day.

In order to facilitate management, Zhao Wen set the color of the reserve uniforms to gray.

"My lord, our cement factory has been shut down for such a long time, shouldn't it start?"

Liu Wenzhong looked at Zhao Wen who was sitting in the hall of the General Military Mansion, and said in a deep voice.

Zhao Wen held the table with his right hand and kept patting it, "Yes, the cement plant should start working too. By the way, let's transfer back the manager of the previous cement plant. This Wang Yuxiu is not suitable for a manager at all. Fan Hua That guy can deceive him with just a fake document. If someone does this again in the future, will my cement factory still be able to run? By the way, the glass kiln must be established in time.

Also, spring plowing is coming soon, and the land of those military households outside the city must be plowed in time.These military households must be mobilized and let them cultivate the land.This year I came to Xuanzhen for the first time to work. You told them that the grain cultivated by military households can be reduced by half this year. "

Liu Wenzhong said: "My lord, I'm afraid this matter is not easy. We can't control the land outside the city."

"You mean, the land outside the city has been taken over by people?" Zhao Wen narrowed his eyes and looked at Liu Wenzhong.

It has become an open secret that military officers occupied military households' fields in the late Ming Dynasty and forced military households to cultivate the land for themselves.

Now when Zhao Wen heard Liu Wenzhong's words, he immediately thought of these things.

"My lord, things are worse than you imagined. These fields were not only occupied by local officers, but also plundered by gentry in Xuanzhen City. Now the fields of military households outside the city are basically owned by these officers and gentry, we think It might not be easy to intervene." Liu Wenzhong looked at Zhao Wen and said slowly.

Zhao Wen stood up from his chair and looked at the blue sky outside the hall, "There is no delay in spring plowing. As the saying goes, if there is little food, the people are unstable. If this problem cannot be solved, then our rule in Xuanzhen will be like duckweed on the water." generally."

"Yes, my lord, if this matter is not resolved properly, then our status in Xuanzhen will become like that of Lu Daliang. The people in Xuanzhen only recognize those gentry and military officers, but not us." Liu Wen The crowd let out a sigh of relief, and said with worried faces.

Zhao Wen returned to the hall, slapped the table, a sneer gradually appeared on his face, "Find Wang Qi for me, I have something to look for him."

Liu Wenzhong cupped his hands at Zhao Wengong, and then walked outside.

Looking at Liu Wenzhong's leaving back, Zhao Wen gradually showed a gloomy expression on his face.

"You moths, if I don't clean you up, how can I develop? How can I win the hearts of the people?"

The purpose of Zhao Wen looking for Wang Qi was to find out the details of these people, and then directly sent troops to ransack their homes one by one.

After a while, Wang Qi came into the hall wearing a black dress.

"My subordinates see you!" Wang Qi saluted Zhao Wen.

Zhao Wen sat on the chair, looked at Wang Qi, pointed to the chair next to him, and said slowly, "Sit down, how is the matter with the hidden guard?"

"Thank you, sir!" Wang Qi cupped his hands at Zhao Wengong, and then sat on the chair.

"My lord, the affairs of the hidden guards are almost done, and now these 500 people are almost ready to be sent out."

Zhao Wen picked up the teacup on the table and sipped it, "Since that's the case, I have a matter for you. Within three days, you go to collect all the details of all the gentry in Xuanzhen City and the officers of the original Xuanzhen City. Give me a touch.

I want to know how many fields they have under their names, how many of them are obtained by stealing, how much silver and their houses and lands.At the same time, reveal to me all the bad things they have done in the past few years.I don't care what method you use, even if you give false testimony, in short, I just want to get their criminal evidence.

By the way, after this matter is over, you go and find out the Wanquan Left Guard, Wanquan Right Guard, Huai'an Guard, and the officers of the guards in various places. I want to know how many soldiers they have, and how many of them are food soldiers. The empty pay, and how many military households' fields are occupied.