Chapter 192: Military weapons revenue and expenditure, flintlock rifle? Summer tax and autumn grain!

The ambassador of Wuzhaibao Cang, Huang Ruzhen, is a distant relative of the Huang family. He has been managing the grain warehouse of Wuzhaibao over the years. He is responsible for supervising grain into the warehouse and distributing grain husks and other things.

Due to the bumper harvest every year, more and more military granaries inside and outside the fort have been built, and the accumulated grain, rice and forage are comparable to Taiying Cang in Taiyuan Prefecture. Wuzhai Cang is considered the largest granary in northwest Shanxi.

After autumn every year, after the harvest of each farm in Wuzhaibao, the grain is temporarily placed in the warehouses of each farm, and then specially selected and classified, treated impurities, and finally transported to the granary in the fort for storage. Generally speaking, there are various serious pest problems in the granary, especially the habit of moths such as wheat moths like to climb on the grain surface to mate and lay eggs, which is even more troublesome.

In the past, these pests could only be purged with bamboo brooms, but since Huang Laifu proposed the civilian pest control measures in later generations, the pest problem has been greatly solved. Other military prefectures and counties have also come to learn after seeing the successful experience of Wuzhai Cang Storage.

Huang Ru Town reported to Huang Laifu the total amount of grain stored in Wuzhai Warehouse and various storage and distribution situations. Next, Wang Qinian, director of Wuzhaibao Animal Husbandry Bureau, made a speech and report.

The hot sales of Wuzhaibao's non-staple food and the rapid development of the woolen industry naturally expanded the scale of Wuzhaibao's major livestock farms. By the end of this year, Wuzhaibao had expanded to ten large livestock farms, raising nearly 30,000 fat pigs, more than 80,000 sheep, countless chickens, ducks, fat fish, and even many rabbits and deer.

The Wuzhai Fort's captive raising and free-range farming method, coupled with the hatching method of underground warm circles, has a large number of veterinarians such as Wang Qinian, so the survival rate of animals in major livestock farms is very high. With Wang Qinian, a breeding expert, the vigorous development of major livestock farms in Wuzhai Fort is expected.

Next, Liu Tianlu, director of the Wuzhaibao Military Weapon Bureau, made a speech. The Wuzhaibao Military Weapon Bureau has developed greatly. Due to the expansion of Huang Laifu's army and the expansion of immigrants from outside the Great Wall, the larger the scale of the Wuzhaibao Military Weapon Workshop, the more the related weapons production is, the more hot it will be.

The Wuzhaibao Military Equipment Factory now has thousands of craftsmen of various colors, divided into two shifts, and is set to be made in four seasons. Up to this year, it can produce more than 3,000 long knives, more than 1,000 pairs of armor, more than 2,000 bird guns, and more than 2,000 puppets of other waist knives and target guns. The scale of the craftsmen is second only to more than 9,000 craftsmen in the Military Weapon Bureau of the Ministry of Works. However, the number of weapons produced each year exceeds the 3,600 pieces of waist knives and armor made by the Military Weapon Bureau of the Ministry of Works. It even exceeds the annual production quota of more than a dozen wards of some Dushi.

According to the Ming system, the military weapons bureaus of the various garrisons in the world have their own military weapons manufacturing quotas every year, and they must be handed over to the Ministry of Works. Each garrison needs to build 160 military weapons each year, including one helmet, armor, and waist knives. One bow, two strings, and thirty arrows. One bag, five guns, and one spear. The armour, waist knives and other quotas of military weapons will be handed over to the five village guards every year, and the bows, arrows, etc. will be handed over to the silver.

Due to the good management system of the Wuzhaibao Military Equipment Bureau, the quality is absolutely fine. Wuzhaibao weapons have become excellent representatives, and many military and garrison offices are interested in purchasing from the Wuzhaibao Military Equipment Bureau. Even the officials of the Ministry of Works are unwilling to let go of Wuzhaibao weapons.

Of course, the cost of making these weapons is also huge. Not to mention the monthly silver and grains of thousands of military craftsmen every year, even if they build these weapons every year, they also need a large number of good iron, buffalo leather, cotton rope, cooked copper and other things. Iron yellow Laifu has, but buffalo leather, cotton rope, cooked copper and other things, they need to spend a lot of money and grain to buy from other places every year.

When building weapons in Wuzhai Fort, it was built according to the equipment standards of the Imperial City Soldiers. The surface of each pair of armor must be made of thick blue and white cotton cloth, and the nail armor inside the outside must also be made of hot paint. Each pair of green cloth iron armor weighs 25 kilograms, and it requires 40 kilograms and eight kilograms of iron. It also requires a large number of buffalo leather, cotton rope, deer leather, etc. The waist knife and target also require a large number of universal oblique leather. These are all bought for money.

The iron produced by Shenchibao Iron Factory is not very good. It has many impurities and needs to be refined until it is cooked, which is severely damaged. However, it is necessary to make iron materials for armor, knife and guns. At least every fifteen kilograms of cooked iron, plus a lot of charcoal, can be refined into about three kilograms of good iron for making good armor leaves and good knives.

This is armor, knife and gun. As for bird guns, the loss is even more amazing. Forty kilograms of cooked iron can only be refined to eight kilograms of good iron for making bird guns. One hundred and seventy kilograms of charcoal is required, plus the wages, drilling hours, parts, wood, etc. The cost of a bird gun requires at least three taels, eight cents, and three cents. Of course, the cost of a bird gun in the Ministry of Industry is two taels, three cents, but the quality of this bird gun is not up to standard and it is always blown up, so Huang Laifu doesn't want it.

This is a bird gun, but when making a pistol, you need to use cooked copper. Each pistol weighs about five or six kilograms, and you also need to buy a lot of copper materials. There are also gunpowder of various kinds of medicines, sulfur, flame salt, lead bullets, etc., which also need to be purchased from the outside.

Especially the black lacquer bows of the Ming Border Army, the black lacquer birch hard bows, the black lacquer shark skin border bows, etc. The black carved feathered birch pole chisel iron arrows, the black carved feathered bamboo pole shooting horse iron arrows, the black carved feathered iron arrows, and the saddles, bridles, whips, bells, and chassis cannons used by horses. The Wuzhaibao Military Equipment Bureau is definitely not built and needs to be purchased from outside.

The cotton-flowered battle clothes worn by the Ming sergeants are called the Mandarin Duck Battle Jacket. They are red, purple, green and yellow, and are generally made of fine and broad white cotton cloth. Each jacket is four feet and six inches long, two kilograms of cotton-flowered velvet, and half a kilogram of fat jackets and trousers. There are also shoes that are nine inches and five cents long, or one foot or two cents long. There are also various military clothing and equipment for soldiers, such as Qianhong felt jackets, rain hats, rain cages, rain helmet cages, genuine leather bags, spear gun bags, flags, and digit belts.

In addition to some of these being manufactured by Wuzhaibao Wool Mill, the rest of them also have to buy them out of the box. It really costs money like flowing water!

Huang Laifu had long said that although the Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty would allocate some weapons and equipment, it was small in quantity and poor in quality, and often delayed the fight. To increase the combat effectiveness of his own army, Huang Laifu could only rely on himself to make enough food and clothing, which caused the rapid expansion of the cost of Wuzhaibao's military weapons.

Liu Tianlu slowly reported to Huang Laifu and everyone present the weapons inventory and revenue and expenditure of the Wuzhaibao Military Weapon Bureau. Generally speaking, the Military Weapon Bureau is a big money-intensive person and cannot be self-sufficient. He needs Huang Laifu to allocate a large amount of money every year.

In terms of weapon research and development, armor, swords and guns are used to use the general equipment of the Ming Dynasty, which is more sophisticated. However, in terms of armor production, Huang Laifu has some ideas, that is, in addition to important parts and some unimportant parts, they have been outsourced to some merchant workshops for production, so that the production speed will be faster. Anyway, China's advantage in scale armor is here, and it can be produced in assembly lines.

In terms of muskets, we continue to manufacture gun lifting and bird guns. At present, the gunpowder ratio of the big open flames is very close to the best ratio, and the proportion of the medicine and bullets is also very high. The air tightness of the bird guns is far better than that of Europe at that time. The key issue in the late Ming Dynasty bird guns was that quality control was not good. However, if it was a bird gun made by the Ming Dynasty, it would be a work of art compared to European road goods.

At present, the Ming army's bird guns have been used to quantify and subpackage the child medicine and pre-installed in each small bamboo bucket. During the battle, Qi Jiguang even knew the five-row shooting method. The bird guns are also powerful. In addition to being farther than the bow and arrow, they can also penetrate heavy armor. It can be said that as long as the quality problem is solved, the Ming Dynasty's bird guns have entered a perfect work of art.

The future development trend of firearms is to replace the flintlock gun. Now it is not far from the invention of the flintlock gun by Bi Maokang, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue of the Ming Dynasty in the early 17th century. The flintlock gun should have appeared in advance. The structure of the flintlock gun and the flintlock gun is similar, and even the plate machine system is the same. The only difference is in the fire device. One is a flintlock that relies on burning flint, and the other is a flintlock hammer to strike flint. This is actually just a matter of thinking.

Flintlocks require gears. Although China had begun to use gears as early as 400 BC. Moreover, during the Jiajing year, the governor of the Three-Borders of Shaanxi Zeng Mien invented a landmine, which used colorful depictions to depict large decorative jars filled with gunpowder, and there was also a lead wire, and a slow fire device, which was thrown by the Tatars. After picking them up, they would be in trouble. This slow fire device is a steel wheel lighter, that is, a gear device. There was a steel wheel lighter in Jiajing, but it was not until the 17th century that someone invented the flintlock rifle. History did play random cards.

Huang Laifu had forgotten when he told the Wuzhaibao Military Equipment Bureau to develop the flintlock rifle. It might be that there were no relevant talents in the Military Equipment Bureau to make precision metal gears. So far, no flintlock rifle has been built. Liu Tianlu asked Huang Laifu to introduce relevant talents.

Now the outstanding firearm talents in the Ming Dynasty are all in the military weapons bureaus and military battles in the capital. In particular, Zhao Shizhen, an expert in the invention of firearms, improved the Lumi gun, installed a steel knife at the tail of the gun bed, which can be used as a slashing sabre in close combat. He also invented a Thunder gun, which can be fired by a rotating wheel. He also invented a lightning gun, which adopts a rear-mounted sub-gun style, and is loaded into the barrel in turn during combat, and the shooting speed is significantly accelerated.

This guy is still a small official of the eighth rank in the Honglu Temple in Beijing. No matter what, this military talent Huang Laifu will not let him go. He planned to wait until he returned to Ningwu Pass after the New Year, and then he would find a way to get him to Wuzhai Fort.

Zhou Wendong, the manager of Wuzhaibao Bank and director of Wuzhaibao Accounting Bureau, made a speech and report on the accounting situation over the years, the various situations of Wuzhaibao Bank, etc. The Accounting Bureau is a very popular department in Wuzhaibao. The various farms and personal administrative units of Wuzhaibao, the budgets submitted by them, the finances of each bureau, the money and grain funds submitted by them, etc., all require the audit of the Accounting Bureau. It is a unit with extremely high gold content in Wuzhaibao.

In recent years, the Wuzhaibao Bank has made great progress. Not to mention that most of the merchants in Wuzhaibao deposited their money into the bank, they were ordinary military and civilians in Wuzhaibao. In recent years, they have also changed their practice of hiding their own money in the cellar and deposited the money into the bank to make money. The large amount of deposits in Wuzhaibao Bank is also convenient for Huang Laifu to do many things.

Qu Yuanrui, president of the Wuzhaibao Chamber of Commerce, also spoke. Over the years, Wuzhaibao commercial business has developed greatly, and Qu Yuanrui has also cooperated with Huang Laifu to do a lot of things. The operation of major workshops and mines, and even the cooperation of merchants in farms outside the West, have Qu Yuanrui swayed behind. Qu Yuanrui is Huang Laifu's in-laws and a good business partner that Huang Laifu cannot live without.

Huang Laifu plans to let Qu Yuanrui, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, continue to work.

Following the Wuzhai Fort General Jiang Dazhong spoke to report on the defense and other issues of Wuzhai Fort. He guarded Wuzhai Fort and protected Huang Laifu's fundamental land of making a fortune. Naturally, he worked hard and made great contributions and had a heavy responsibility. However, Huang Laifu's army was all big money-intensive, and he could not survive without funding. This was naturally the case with the Wuzhai Camp led by Jiang Dazhong.

Among the soldiers in the Wuzhai Camp, there are more than 3,000 battalions, each soldier costs one tael of silver per month, and each officer costs several taels to tens of taels per month. The military pay alone costs tens of thousands of taels of silver. There are also military uniforms, weapons and equipment, etc., which are very expensive. The cost of a bird gun alone costs more than three taels, and artillery chariots is even more expensive. The cost of a chariot alone costs thirty taels of silver per car. Swords, guns, armor, etc. is also a lot of money. There are also various weapons consumption, various benefits, etc., which also require a lot of money.

If there are still horses, it is even more difficult to raise. A military horse can eat more than six combat soldiers a year. Although the Wuzhai Camp is an intra-branch, each of them also has a horse for use as an infantryman.

In Wuzhai Fort, there is a special horse house warehouse for saving forage and supplying for feeding. There are thousands of horses, camels, donkeys, mules, oxes, sheep, foals, calves, etc. According to the horse house, a military horse requires three liters of wheat (6 kilograms), a liter of beans, and a bunch of grass. A donkey requires one liter of wheat and half a bunch of grass every day. The food they eat is a heavy burden. This is what you eat when you are idle and have nothing to do, and you eat more when you are fighting and marching.

After all the calculations, the cost of raising soldiers in the Wuzhai Camp is probably between 180,000 taels of silver a year. This is still a time of peace. If a war starts, the money spent and the loss of various materials will be astronomical.

Huang Laifu now has three battalions of soldiers, one battalion of Wuzhai Camp, one battalion of Zhenlu Camp in Laoying Fort, and one battalion of guards in Ningwu Pass. These three battalions of soldiers are heavy shackles pressing against Huang Laifu's head.

Although the boss will allocate some money, after layers of deductions, there is not much left in Huang Laifu's hands. He often owes. If Huang Laifu doesn't want his soldiers to become the same as the tofu soldiers in other parts of the Ming Dynasty, most of the money can only be paid out of Huang Laifu's own pockets.

Finally, Gu Yunniang, director of the Wuzhaibao Silver and Money Bureau, spoke. Shortly after Gu Yunniang married Huang Laifu, he took over the affairs of the Silver and Money Bureau from Butler Yang. After Qu Xiuhe got married, she kept helping her. At this time, a woman sat among everyone, showing the importance of her status, so she was naturally happy.

The Wuzhaibao Silver and Money Bureau, like the Wuzhaibao Accounting Bureau, is a unit with extremely high metal content in Wuzhaibao. Wuzhaibao manages accounts but not money, while Gu Yunniang's silver and money bureau manages money but not accounts. The two supervise and balance each other. The Silver and Money Bureau is located in Huangfu, and has a huge amount of silver deposits. Usually, Huang Laifu's servants guard the silver in Huangfu treasury. Anyone who wants to spend money must pass Gu Yunniang.

In addition to the various expenses of the various military farm bureaus, the 200,000 taels of tax-protected taxes for Wuzhai Fort, Shenchi Fort, Bajiao Fort, Laoying Fort, and Ningwuguan Fort are also paid by the Silver and Money Bureau. Huang Laifu's tax-protected tax is different from the summer tax and autumn grain forms in various parts of the Ming Dynasty.

The taxation of fields in the Ming Dynasty was collected in summer and autumn, and the annual tax silver could be paid in seven times. In this year's Shanxi Provincial Administration, the summer tax wheat in Xuanfu, the land of one mansion, was only 17,800 stones. The autumn grain wheat and wheat in one mansion were collected in only 25,000 stones. The summer tax and autumn grain in Xuanfu, was only 40,000 stones, and even less silver was lost.

The money paid to the Ministry of Revenue in several bitter and cold places in Wuzhaibao reached a real 200,000 taels of silver in a year. After autumn, the money was lifted away and it was not arrears at all. Why didn’t this make Zhang Wenbao, the grain manager of Shanxi’s Ministry of Revenue, smile? The officials of the Ministry of Revenue find it incredible? This also makes tax-packing a focus of thought for officials of the Ministry of Revenue.

In addition, the dividends obtained by the mining workshops in each fortress of Wuzhai Fort also distributed dividends to merchants and officers and generals, which was satisfactory to all parties, especially Emperor Wanli, who accounted for the majority of these dividends and was even more excited.

Gu Yunniang talked in detail about the situation of each amount spent by the Bank of China and Money Bureau, and compared it with the Accounts Bureau on the spot.

It was not until evening that everyone's report ended. Huang Laifu saw that it was getting late, so he briefly discussed the outline of the next five-year development plan, and sent the detailed documents to everyone. Finally, he smiled and said, "The development of Wuzhaibao is inseparable from the efforts of all colleagues. I also see everyone's hard work. However, the task of the next five-year plan is even more arduous. In order to build Wuzhaibao and other places better and better, please continue to work hard!"

He stood up, bowed to everyone, and smiled and said, "The New Year will be tomorrow. Here, I wish you a happy New Year. I wish you all a happy New Year, all your wishes come true and all your best!"
Chapter completed!