Chapter 297 Tenglongwei Engineering Team
The next morning, Zheng Xiao left Tenglongwei. He was the same as when he came and when he left, he still only had four followers with him.

After sending Zheng Xiao away, Yang Zhengshan did not make any unusual moves and was still busy dealing with Tenglongwei's affairs every day.

About ten days later, Zheng Xiao sent a letter.

The Luo family had completed the process of becoming salt merchants. Luo Fu prepared 3,000 salt permits for the Luo family. Each salt permit contained 300 kilograms of salt. 3,000 permits equaled 900,000 kilograms of salt, all of which were salt permits from Jing'an Prefecture.

To put it simply, the Luo family is now the salt merchant of Jing'an Prefecture, and the salt business in Jing'an Prefecture belongs exclusively to the Luo family.

After getting the salt permit, Luo Shang came to Tenglongwei again.

"grown ups!"

In the tea room, Luo Shang saw Yang Zhengshan and bowed with a happy face.

He didn't expect that this could be accomplished so easily.

Although it is only the salt business in Jing'an Prefecture, the profit is very considerable. The key is that their Luo family has entered the salt merchant industry this time, which has great significance for the future development of the Luo family.

Yang Zhengshan waved his hand nonchalantly and said, "Sit down and talk!"

The two of them sat down and Luo Shang poured tea for Yang Zhengshan.

"Is Lord Zheng okay?" Yang Zhengshan asked.

Luo Shang went to Liao'an Prefecture to collect the salt permit, and not only met Zheng Xiao, but also met Luo Fu.

"Everything is fine, Lord Zheng!" Luo Shang said, "But the Liaoan Li family seems a little dissatisfied!"

Yang Zhengshan smiled and said, "Of course they will be dissatisfied. These salt permits you give are taking food from their mouths. They should be happy."

The Liaoan Li family was originally the largest salt merchant in Liaoyuan. This time, they sold the salt permits of Jing'an Prefecture for the sake of Luo Fu.

Although Luo Shang had spent real money on these salt permits, the Liao'an Li family had lost the salt business in Jing'an Prefecture after all, and would lose more than 100,000 taels of silver every year in the future. It was understandable that they were dissatisfied.

"Hehe~~" Luo Shang smiled awkwardly. He didn't say this casually. He just wanted to remind Yang Zhengshan to pay attention to the Liaoan Li family, so that the Liaoan Li family would not cause trouble for their Luo family.

Yang Zhengshan drank tea and said, "The Tenglongwei salt field should be completed next month, and the first batch of salt should be in mid-June. Then you can just come and take the salt away!"

This time, because of the relationship between Zheng Xiao and Luo Fu, the Luo family was able to become a salt merchant so smoothly. At the same time, because of this, the Luo family would be subject to fewer restrictions.

Although there were only 3,000 salt permits, no one came to supervise how much salt the Luo family sold.

As long as Jing'an Prefecture can consume it, it doesn't matter how much salt we sell.

In addition, it became much more convenient for the Tenglongwei Salt Field to sell salt. Every year, it only needed to pay 1,200 taels of silver to the Pikou Salt Field in Liao'an Prefecture, and the Tenglongwei Salt Field could sell salt in the name of the Pikou Salt Field.

This also means that not only the Luo family has robbed the interests of the Liaoan Li family, but the Tenglongwei Salt Field has also robbed the interests of the Pikou Salt Field.

If all the salt sold in Jing'an Prefecture came from the Pikou Salt Field, the profits from the Pikou Salt Field would definitely be far more than one thousand taels of silver.

If it weren't for Luo Fu suppressing the opinions of the Li family and the Pikou Salt Field in order to win over Zheng Xiao, this matter would never have been accomplished so easily.

"Is the price of salt the same as in previous years?" Luo Shang asked.

The salt trade was monopolized, so the price of salt was naturally ridiculously high. Yang Zhengshan had lamented the high price of salt when he was still in the Yang family. He still remembered that the price of salt in Anning County was thirty cents per catty.

"Let's sell it at the price of previous years first, and when the output of the salt field increases, we can lower the price as appropriate!" Yang Zhengshan said.

The output of the salt field will definitely not be very high at the beginning, but with the expansion and improvement of the salt field, the output will definitely increase in the future.

After all, Yang Zhengshan is not a businessman and will not do anything that is only for profit.

He hoped that Tenglongwei could increase its income through the salt field, that the Luo family could make money through the salt business, and that the people could eat cheap salt.

"Your profit should be five cents per pound of salt!" Yang Zhengshan directly determined the profit of the Luo family.

Five cents per catty, if we assume 900,000 catties, the profit would be about four to five thousand taels of silver.

This profit is just a small profit for the Luo family.

But how much does salt actually cost?
In addition to the cost of building the salt field, there is also the labor cost. The cost of a pound of salt is estimated to be only about two or three cents. If Yang Zhengshan's requirements are met, the salt field will make the biggest profit.

But as mentioned before, Yang Zhengshan is not a profit-driven businessman.

"When the output of the salt field increases, we will lower the price of salt to around twelve or thirteen cents. When the price of salt is cheap, the sales volume will naturally increase, and your profit will also increase!"

"Okay, I understand!" Luo Shang agreed without thinking.

This was not a bad thing for him. The low profit margin of salt did not matter. The Luo family currently had many profitable businesses and had no shortage of money.

He was willing to let the Luo family become salt merchants not just to make money. Salt merchants have the highest status among all merchants because they often represent powerful connections.

To put it simply, becoming a salt merchant can improve Luo Shang's social status, and the improvement of social status will be more conducive to his other business.

So even if he couldn't make money from the salt trade, he was willing to become a salt merchant.

After the two of them had finished their discussion, Luo Shang left Tenglongwei. He still had a lot of things to do.

Yang Zhengshan continued to be busy handling official business within the yamen.

Since June, most things at Tenglongwei have been back on track.

First of all, the construction of houses in various garrisons and garrisons has basically been completed and entered the final stage.

Twelve thousand houses may sound like a lot, but in reality, there are not many houses allocated to each thousand-household station and each garrison.

It is relatively easy to build adobe houses. A dozen laborers can build three adobe houses in a day. A family of six houses plus a yard can be completed in three or four days.

The military households built their houses together with men, women, young and old. Five military households formed a group and built houses for each other. In just over a month, everyone could move into their new houses.

Of course, to achieve this, the organization and investment of the garrison were needed. If the military households were asked to organize themselves to build houses, and simply help for two days, everyone would still be willing, but if they were asked to take a month to build houses, it would be difficult to do so.

With the completion of house construction, the construction of various public facilities is put on the agenda.

According to Yang Zhengshan’s idea, Tenglongwei needs a major infrastructure construction.

The infrastructure includes the government offices, walls, roads, wells, and canals of each thousand-household office and garrison, as well as the repair of the Acropolis walls, the renovation of the city streets, the renovation of the city houses, and so on.

Since it is a large-scale infrastructure, it naturally requires a large number of manpower. First of all, the construction tasks of each thousand households and each garrison will be organized by the chief officers of each place, and the Weisi Yamen will pay wages and inspect the results according to the specific amount of work.

Secondly, the construction task of the Acropolis and the construction of roads within the scope of Tenglongwei were directly under the charge of the Weisi Yamen, and an engineering team was established.

There are actually not many construction tasks in Qianhu Suo and Tunbu. The yamen of Qianhu Suo only needs to have a dozen adobe houses, the walls of Tunbu do not need to be too high, the roads only need to be leveled, and a few more wells can be dug. The slightly more troublesome thing is the canal.

These tasks no longer need to be completed in a short period of time, they can be done slowly during the slack season.

So Yang Zhengshan delegated it to the Qianhu Suo and let the Qianhu Suo complete it on its own.

The engineering team was responsible for large projects. Within the Acropolis, Yang Zhengshan formulated a new plan. Although it could not be considered a reconstruction, there were many places that needed to be renovated. Outside the Acropolis, the main focus was on building roads.

The jurisdiction area of ​​Tenglongwei is approximately sixty miles from north to south and thirty miles from east to west. There are only two official roads in the area, one leading to Qinghua Prefecture City and the other leading to Jing'an Prefecture City. The road leading to Liao'an Prefecture in the south is not an official road, but just a small road that can barely accommodate horses, and even carriages cannot pass.

Yang Zhengshan wanted to build roads, both official roads and ordinary roads.

This is a relatively large project, and Yang Zhengshan estimates that it will take two to three years to complete.

After the construction of the house was completed, Yang Zhengshan ordered the Weisi Yamen to form an engineering team of a thousand people to enter the Acropolis to repair the city wall first.

Yang Zhengshan intends to train this engineering team into professional engineers. Professionally, they need carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, etc. Building houses, repairing roads and bridges are just their basic skills. Once they are proficient in their work, Yang Zhengshan will also need them to be able to manufacture siege equipment, build fortresses, etc.

Of course, since they are soldiers, they must also have certain combat capabilities and need to take some time to train.

They are not included in the organization of Tamron Guards, but they will have a stable monthly salary.

On the sixth day of the sixth month of the 30th year of Chengping, the first engineering team of Tenglongwei was established.

Every worker in the engineering team was selected from the lower-level guard posts.

Their ages ranged from sixteen to twenty and from thirty to forty.

Yang Zhengshan deliberately selected people in this way.

First, there are those between 30 and 40 years old. Although they are considered able-bodied men at this age, they are already old and their potential is undoubtedly much smaller than that of young people.

The second group was between sixteen and twenty years old. Those who were selected meant that they had two young males in their families. Without affecting the regular military households, about three hundred younger teenagers were selected from them.

Teenagers learn things faster, and they are prepared for technical jobs, such as carpentry, blacksmithing, etc.

After the engineering team was established, its first task was to repair the city wall.

With the arrival of these workers, the Acropolis became lively.

After the engineering team was formed, the construction of the salt field was almost completed, and the salt field began to recruit workers to dry salt.

At present, the salt field does not employ too many people, about two hundred people are enough, because the construction of the salt field is divided into phases, and the first phase has been completed, with a total of twenty drying yards of 100 square meters.

The salt field will continue to expand and will continue to recruit salt-drying workers.

Like the workers in the engineering team, the workers in the salt field also receive a fixed monthly salary.

The military households of Tenglongwei showed great enthusiasm for the engineering team and the salt field. The reason was simple: they could get a fixed monthly salary.

A stable income is definitely a great temptation for them.

Unfortunately, the engineering team and salt fields have not recruited many people at present, only about 1,200 in total.

However, the soldiers training in the military camp must also be paid, sufficient pay, and not only can they eat their fill, but they also have meat every day.

Having meat to eat every day, how tempting would it be for those military households who used to not even have enough to eat?

Imagine.

As the training situation in the military camp spread, all the registered soldiers of Tenglong Guard now wanted to enter the military camp for training.

They are looking forward to it and longing for it, and with expectation comes enthusiasm.

Some registered soldiers started training spontaneously before entering the barracks, wanting to practice on their own first so that they could perform better after entering the barracks and perhaps get rewards from their superiors.

This enthusiasm reached its peak after the first batch of soldiers completed basic training and returned home.

Basic training is still very new to the soldiers of Tenglong Guard, and the reward and punishment system of the military camp is also worth talking about among the military households.

Since it is training, it is definitely necessary to have rewards and punishments. If you train well, you can eat more meat, but if you train poorly, you can only watch others eat meat.

How could Yang Zhengshan not use such a simple and effective reward and punishment system?

After hearing about such a reward and punishment system, the soldiers who had not yet participated in training became more motivated, and many of them started practicing their ancestors' kung fu.

The Tenglong Guards used to be the elite among the elite. We cannot say that every soldier is a warrior, but there are definitely quite a few warriors among them.

In the past, they didn’t even have enough food to eat, so naturally they wouldn’t practice martial arts. But now that they can eat their fill, it’s time to pick up their ancestors’ kung fu.

Yang Zhengshan was also happy to see this happen.

This change is undoubtedly a good thing for the entire Tenglongwei.

Everyone is martial, this is what a garrison should be like.

(End of this chapter)