Chapter 348: Money, Food, and Troops
Yang Zhengshan asked Zhou Ren again: "How much food do we have now?"

"Your Excellency, at present, the sixteen granaries of the government office are all full, with a total grain inventory of 160,000 dan. In addition, there are another 8,000 dan of grain and 30,000 dan of horse feed in the warehouse of the Finance and Grain Department!" Zhou Ren replied.

As a military organization, storing food is a must. Over the years, we have spent as much silver as we have, but we have stored as much food as we can.

As the saying goes, if you have food in your hands, you will not be worried.

"Where's the cash?" Yang Zhengshan continued to ask.

"Cash!" Zhou Ren thought for a moment and said, "The silver treasury has 50,000 taels of cash, the grain department has more than 30,000 taels of cash, and another 30,000 taels of cash was just allocated to the engineering department two days ago!"

"And there should be 100,000 taels of silver at the dock!"

The money management of Tenglongwei is rather complicated, because there are many places to spend money, and each department has its own small treasury.

However, the largest silver vault was not the one in the government office, but the navy’s silver vault.

Because the navy's treasury contained payments for merchant ships and taxes levied on other fleets.

All in all, Tenglongwei can now mobilize more than 200,000 taels of silver.

This number may sound like a lot, but it is actually not much.

Don't forget that the payment for a trade by Tenglongwei's fleet was 70,000 to 80,000 silver taels, and the dock only had 100,000 taels of silver in cash, which was not much.

In recent years, the financial revenue of Tenglongwei has been very high. Last year, the total financial revenue of Tenglongwei reached 780,000 taels of silver, while the expenditure was 760,000 taels of silver, barely leaving a surplus of 20,000 taels.

With high income comes high expenses.

Apart from anything else, the salary expenditure for the soldiers alone is not a small amount.

The Royal Guard Battalion, the Five Army Battalion and the Navy were all considered camp soldiers and were paid full salaries.

The annual salary for an ordinary soldier was 24 taels of silver, or 2 taels per month.

The Royal Guard Battalion has 200 people, the Fifth Army Battalion is expanded to 6,000 people, and the Navy has 5,600 soldiers, which makes a total of 11,800 people. The annual salary is about 280,000.

In addition, the soldiers who trained in the camp also had to be paid, the women's training camp also had to be paid, the engineers in the engineering team also had to be paid, the workers in the salt fields, the sailors on merchant ships, etc. all had to receive monthly wages.

Officials in the yamen also need to be given salaries.

If you calculate carefully, it would cost nearly 450,000 taels of silver just to pay the salaries of the Tenglong Guards each year.

And this does not include the food and wages of ordinary soldiers. You have to know that ordinary soldiers still have to be given half of the food and wages even if they don't train or go on missions.

The food and salary is in the form of grain, so money is not counted.

Yang Zhengshan roughly calculated that the Tenglong Guards' annual expenditure on money and grain was about 800,000 taels.

It would be impossible for anyone else to support such a huge expense.

Of course, if other guard posts were used, the expenses would not be so high.

Not to mention the garrisons, I guess the expenses of a provincial military commission are not as high as those of the Tenglong Guards.

The Dusi Yamen would not maintain a battalion of soldiers, nor would it raise the navy as a battalion of soldiers.

Well, treating the navy as camp soldiers is a special case of Tenglong Guard. Generally speaking, other naval guards will not pay the sailors according to the treatment of camp soldiers. They will pay the sailors according to the treatment of garrison soldiers, that is, full pay when going to sea, and half pay when not going to sea.

However, regardless of whether Tamron's expenditures are high or not, Tamron's current financial situation is still very good.

There is money, food, complete weapons and armor, as well as a large amount of supplies, enough to fight a major war.

Yang Zhengshan glanced at Xie Yuan and said, "Let's temporarily stop the expansion plan of the Acropolis. All the money will be returned to the government's treasury. We may not receive any money for a long time, so we have to spend it sparingly!"

When war breaks out, all industries decline.

Tenglongwei used to spend money lavishly, but now he has to learn to tighten his belt.

"I understand!" Xie Yuan had no objection.

Yang Zhengshan stood up, his expression becoming serious, "From now on, the Tenglong Guards will enter combat mode, the Royal Guard Battalion and the Five Army Battalions will be ready to go into battle at any time!"

"Each thousand households will mobilize all soldiers. The thousand households will lead their soldiers to join the Weicheng. The deputy thousand households will organize the remaining soldiers to guard the garrison!"

This is when the benefits of Tenglongwei's military training can be seen.

Tenglongwei not only trains regular soldiers, but also trains surplus soldiers.

Even if all the regular soldiers of the Tenglong Guard were withdrawn at this time, there were still trained soldiers in each centurion unit and garrison, so there would be no situation where there was no defense force at all.

After all the soldiers were mobilized, the strength under Yang Zhengshan's command could instantly expand to 16,000, not including the navy.

"Yes!" everyone responded in unison.

With Yang Zhengshan's order, the Tenglongwei war machine finally started to operate.

Tenglongwei is a military organization and a war machine that Yang Zhengshan spent five years building.

Everything Yang Zhengshan did could be said to be in the service of the war.

At this moment, no one had a clear idea of ​​how terrifying Tenglongwei was.

But if you think about how much money Tenglongwei has spent in the past five years, you will understand how terrifying Tenglongwei is.

I can’t say how much more, but I still have three million taels of silver.

In addition to silver, Tenglongwei also has spiritual spring water provided by Yang Zhengshan.

...Nanlingtun.

The two riders rushed into the village in a hurry.

"Where is the flag officer Zhang Hu?"

One person shouted loudly.

In the classroom in the center of the village, Zhang Hu heard the noise and ran out in a hurry. He looked at the person who came and was slightly stunned. Then he smiled and said, "Why are you two brothers running to my place?"

They were all members of the same centurion unit. Although they lived in two different places, the Hundred Households Office and Nanlingtun, they were only three miles apart, so everyone knew each other very well.

However, the two familiar men did not joke with Zhang Hu at this time. Instead, they took out a document and said, "Military order, order the flag officer Zhang Hu to gather all the soldiers, carry strong weapons and arrive at the 100-household station within an hour!"

Zhang Hu took the order with a look of astonishment on his face. He looked at the red seal and the content on it and asked in confusion, "What happened?"

Calling all soldiers!
This is the first time. In the past, when going to the Acropolis Barracks for training, they went in batches and not all soldiers were sent for training at once.

But now all the soldiers have to be summoned!
"I don't know. This is not an order from the Captain, but from the Captain above! We have to reach the Captain's Office within two hours, so hurry up!"

Zhang Hu felt that something big was going to happen, so he didn't dare to ask any more questions and said, "Okay!"

Afterwards, bursts of clanging gong sounds were heard in Nanling Village. Two soldiers on horseback, holding gongs, were beating them quickly in the countryside around the village.

Many soldiers who were working in the fields were stunned when they heard the gong sound, but then they reacted, dropped their farm tools, said something to their families, and quickly ran towards the village.

"hurry up……"

Zhang Hu stood in front of the door of the armory warehouse in the squad room and urged the soldiers to put on their armor.

Ordinary soldiers did not have iron armor, only cotton armor, and were equipped with weapons such as spears, swords, shields, bows and arrows.

Normally, weapons and armor are stored in warehouses and are not distributed except to soldiers on duty.

"Sir, what happened?" a small flag officer asked in a low voice.

"Stop talking nonsense and quickly line up your men!" Zhang Hu glared and roared.

Damn, something big happened!

Sir Qianhu summons all soldiers!
This is most likely not an order from the Captain, but an order from the Guards.

Wei Si summoned all soldiers!
This matter must be very big!
Zhang Hu didn’t know what was going on, but he knew that something big must have happened, and it was very likely that they would need to go on an expedition!
No matter what, the military order has been issued and he must execute it.

Tenglongwei’s military law is no joke!
About half an hour later, all thirty-eight soldiers from the five small flags of Nanling Tun arrived.

As for why there were not fifty-six, it was because eighteen soldiers were selected into the five military camps.

Without any delay, after making sure that all the people were present, Zhang Hu immediately took the soldiers to the Hundred Households Office.

After they arrived at the Hundred Households Office, they stayed for only a quarter of an hour before rushing towards the Thousand Households Office.

If you stand above Tenglongwei and look down at this moment, you will find that on the roads, teams are constantly gathering and moving.

Soon, long teams appeared on the official road, leaving the caravans and pedestrians on the road stunned.

"What happened? Why are there so many soldiers on the road?"

"I think he's going to the camp for training!"

"Impossible, there won't be so many people going to the camp for training, at most there will be dozens or even hundreds of people!"

"There are hundreds of them. Wow, I've heard that the officers of Tenglong Guard are powerful, but I didn't expect them to be so powerful!"

"That's right. The officers of Tenglong Guard train frequently!"

……

Many passers-by pointed and talked about the soldiers on the way.

The training of Tenglongwei’s soldiers is no secret, and all merchants doing business in Tenglongwei know about it. In the past, when they were on the road, they would often encounter soldiers going to the camp for training.

At first they kept their distance, fearing that these soldiers would cause them trouble. Later, after understanding the situation, they were no longer afraid of these soldiers, and some even came forward to ask questions out of curiosity.

But there are many rules in the camp, and the soldiers will not answer any questions they have about the camp. If they want to talk about family matters, the soldiers don't mind chatting with them while they are on the road.

In just one day, a large number of soldiers gathered in the south of the Acropolis.

The camp certainly couldn't accommodate so many soldiers, so they could only set up camp on the open ground.

The clerks in the Wei Si Yamen were also busy moving a large number of tents, food, and bedding out of the warehouse and transporting them out of the city.

The four gates of the Acropolis have been put under control, and merchants are only allowed to leave but not enter.

To put it simply, Yang Zhengshan drove away all the merchants in the city.

There is no way. Although the Acropolis is small, there are many merchants gathered there, and the personnel are complicated after all.

On weekdays, Yang Zhengshan didn't care about these things, because no one dared to act wildly in the city, but once the war began, no one of unknown origin could stay in the city.

Although this will affect Tenglongwei's business, there is nothing that can be done about it.

Tenglongwei has been transformed into a war machine, so commercial affairs should also stop. Except for the government's own fleet or trusted merchants, Tenglongwei can no longer receive other merchants.

Many merchants were dissatisfied with this, but their dissatisfaction did not last long because the news about the entry of the Wuliang army had spread.

(End of this chapter)