At the foot of Tiantai Mountain, Zhao Gui and his family were busy picking tea leaves. At this time, the Qingming Festival had passed, but it had not yet passed the Grain Rain. Although the tea at this time was not as sweet and mellow as the Mingqian tea picked before the Qingming Festival, the tea before the Grain Rain
The Qiancha also has a generous and strong aroma of spring, which is more refreshing and refreshing. After one sip, it is full of connotations.
Zhao Gui, whose ancestral home is Shandong and has lived in the north for generations, has never planted or picked tea leaves before. His hands are usually used to write and record accounts and prepare medicinal materials. Now he carries a tea basket on his back and stands on the tea mountain to pick the fresh tea buds.
It seemed a bit clumsy, but he was still picking it with great concentration.
This tea garden lacks management, but fortunately it was simply pruned and cared for last autumn and winter. The tea leaves are good this year, with a little spring cold, and they look so green and noble.
It was raining and foggy on Tiantai Mountain, and it was noon before I knew it.
"Have a meal first."
Zhao Fu from next door came over and shouted, he has a large family, and his three older daughters all got married to the emperor's imperial camp soldiers as they wished last year. They are all non-commissioned officers, although they are all low-level soldiers with no rank. With him,
Zhao Fu is a good match, after all, he is just an outcast official from the Imperial Camp Liangtai.
But he was already very satisfied. The treatment of soldiers in the imperial camp was quite good. As a non-commissioned officer, even a corporal, the pay was slightly higher than that of a first-class soldier. In the army, he was either a commander, deputy or corps commander.
These are the flag bearers.
A first-class soldier gets one cent and five cents a day, four or two and a half cents a month, while a corporal earns one cent and six cents a day, a sergeant earns one cent and seven cents a day, and a sergeant earns one cent and eight cents a day. When going on an expedition, he also gets rations, plus rewards, etc.
The salary is very generous.
What's more, as a non-commissioned officer in the imperial camp, you will also have priority in marrying a wife, buying land and other benefits. If you marry a wife, the imperial camp will pay for it, so you don't have to bear the burden yourself, and the land purchase will also be in low-interest installments.
Zhao Fu's three sons-in-law were all poor people from Taizhou in the past, but they were young, brave and lucky. They followed His Majesty the Emperor in the army. Although they may have been ordinary and just non-commissioned officers, it was also because they joined the army later and were not the earliest ones.
Those batches.
But now, everything has changed. I have a wife, a farm and a house, and a place to settle down.
Zhao Fu himself performed well in Liangtai, although his ability was far inferior to that of Zhao Gui. Like Zhao Gui, he was not officially awarded the ninth grade official position after the year.
The salary is five taels.
"My hands are numb."
Zhao Gui stopped with a smile, walked to the tea tree and sat down.
"Yes, I've had cramps several times. The tea leaves are delicious but difficult to pick. We grown men picked embroidery needles all morning, but we didn't pick much."
They picked high-mountain Yunwu tea from Tiantai Mountain, which picked the tenderest bud tips. Mingqian and Yuqian tea picked one bud and one leaf, and one bud and two leaves.
One pound of fried tea, the top Mingqian tea, requires about 90,000 buds, and even the one-bud and two-leaf Yuqian tea requires at least 50,000 buds.
It is definitely a laborious task to pick 90,000 buds in a row to make one pound of tea leaves.
Zhao Fu, Zhao Gui and others all had cramps in their hands when picking tea. In fact, with their current positions and incomes, they can do without picking tea. However, they all came from the Central Plains and experienced famine. They all endured hardship. Today's life
It was hard-won, and the family finally settled down in Tiantai County, Taizhou, and they were unwilling to stop.
As winter turns to spring, they are busy rebuilding their homes, reclaiming wasteland, and cooperating to repair ditches. They started plowing the fields years ago to freeze the insect eggs in the soil to death. When spring comes after the new year, they start plowing the fields again. There is a lack of cattle. Everyone
It was dug with a plow on someone's back or even a hoe directly.
There is no day off.
Even on rainy days, I will weave baskets and mats.
They, a group of northerners, also began to learn from the locals here, how to plant mulberry trees and raise silkworms, how to grow hemp and mulberry, and even busied themselves with taking care of the tea gardens. They started picking the first batch of tea leaves before the Qingming Festival in the cold spring.
Zhao Fu lit a fire at the edge of the field, baked the wet clothes, then set up a pot and cooked a simple mountain lunch.
Boil water, cook a pot of sweet potato porridge, add some bacon, salted fish, and some spring bamboo shoots. When it is almost cooked, add bracken and wild onions pulled from the mountains. It will be a rare and delicious meal.
At this time, Zhao Fu's sons-in-law came up with a bunch of small fish, which were all small fish from mountain streams. They were all locals, and they were good at catching fish and shrimp.
There was more than a kilogram of fish, and Zhao Fu's son-in-law even caught a cauliflower snake. This snake had the unlucky fate of encountering him for some unknown reason, and was caught, beheaded, and skinned.
"It's a delicious meal today, let's grill the fish quickly."
The skinned snake meat was thrown into the porridge and cooked together by Lao Zhao.
"Come and have a rest, get ready to eat." Lao Zhao shouted to the women and children who were still busy picking tea.
The children came running over cheering, and the women replied that they would come after picking for a while and the meal was ready.
"This year's tea is good."
Zhao Gui looked at the tea buds he had worked so hard to pick.
Old Zhao smiled and said, "The tea industry is doing well this year, and the purchase price is quite high."
Tiantai's Yunwu tea is not a famous tea, even here in Zhejiang, there are West Lake Longjing tea in Hangzhou, white tea from Anji, Pingshui tea from Shaoxing, Putuo Buddha tea from Zhoushan, Guzhu purple bamboo shoots from Huzhou, Dongbai tea from Wuzhou, Muzhou
Jiukeng tea, etc.
Pingshui Town in Shaoxing was a famous distribution center for tea processing trade as early as the Tang Dynasty, and now it has become an important tea industry center in the Ming Dynasty.
A large amount of tea leaves from Tiantai and other places were transported to Pingshui for processing. Now there is a large tea factory run by the royal family in Pingshui. The royal tea factory uses a new pearl tea production method. The tea leaves are kneaded into a ball, forming a granular shape, thin, round and tight.
, like a pearl.
This kind of Pingshui pearl tea is similar in appearance to Tieguanyin. Tieguanyin is a famous tea from Fujian and is a green tea, while Pingshui pearl tea is fried green tea.
It takes an experienced master chef to fry a pot of flat water pearl tea for ten hours.
The reason why traditional green tea is made into this new type of pearl tea is also very simple. The main reason is for export trade. For a long time, the exported tea has been mainly based on Fujian Wuyi tea and Anhui Qimen tea.
It's black tea.
The green tea Tieguanyin was also very popular with foreign businessmen. After Zhu Yihai raised the flag, he trained his troops for the Northern Expedition and also opened up sea trade. Zhejiang has quite rich tea resources, so of course he would not miss it. He used his internal funds to establish a foreign trade tea shop in Ningbo Port.
OK, a tea house was established in Pingshui, Shaoxing, which provided a one-stop service for tea collection, production and sales.
This flat water pearl tea, called green pearl, is quite popular.
Especially the little Japanese, they like Pingshui pearl tea very much. The tea store exports it at a price of 24 taels per load. Although this is the export price of the tea store, it also includes customs declaration taxes, etc., and the tea farmers in the place of origin hand
The price of tea here is much lower, and there are many handling costs such as tea collection, tea production, and transportation to the port. However, the rise of Pingshui pearl tea has indeed driven up tea from the mountains around Shaoxing, and the purchase price has also increased.
Quite a few.
Tea in the Ming Dynasty is generally divided into three categories. The tea merchants in Fujian and Anhui have been engaged in the overseas tea trade for generations, mainly dealing in Wuyi black tea and Keemun black tea. The second one is the tea merchants in Shaanxi and Sichuan, who mainly deal in border tea trade.
, engaged in tea and horse trading, mainly marketing Kangzang.
In the past, merchants from Zhejiang, Huguang, and even Shanxi tea merchants were mainly engaged in tea trade in the mainland. Among them, Shanxi tea merchants were the strongest. They not only sold tea in the mainland, but also sold tea to Mongolia, the Western Regions and even Russia.
Basically, Fujian tea merchants mainly sell black tea to Macau, and the buyers are mainly Dutch. Shanxi tea merchants, on the other hand, export tea to Russia overland.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, most of the tea that went to sea in the southeast was actually monopolized by the Zheng family. Not only tea, but almost all the goods that went to sea from China were monopolized by the Zheng family. They acted as second-tier dealers and resold to the Dutch and others.
Zhu Yihai opened a port in Zhejiang and reopened trade with Japan, North Korea, Ryukyu, etc., and even directly traded with the Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, etc. This in itself also broke the Zheng family's monopoly. Due to the increase in Zhu Yihai's military strength, the emperor of tomorrow
As his prestige increased day by day, the Zheng family could only watch as the emperor took his food from the tiger's mouth.
Before Hangzhou was conquered, most of the tea from Zhejiang was concentrated in Pingshui Town, Shaoxing, and then left the port via Ningbo. Now even tea from Anhui goes to Qiantang Bay via Xin'anjiang, and tea from western Zhejiang also goes to Ningbo.
Pingshui and Ningbo have now become tea distribution centers and export ports that are rapidly emerging in the southeast. They have snatched nearly half of the original share of exported tea. Black tea exports are 26 taels per load, and green tea is 24 liang per load. The profits therein
Very high.
Through his own tea shop and tea house, Zhu Yihai not only supported the tea industry during the war, but also obtained high profits. The imperial court also obtained generous tea taxes through the collection of customs duties and tea taxes.
In the late Ming Dynasty, the tea tax was almost in name only. During the Longqing period, the amount of silver earned per year was only more than 10,000 taels.
During the Chongzhen period, the tea tax was almost non-existent. It is even said that in at least one year, the tea tax in Zhejiang Province was only 6 taels, while the tea tax in Yunnan, a border tea powerhouse, was only 17 taels.
Although I don’t know whether this rumor is accurate, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, when the Ming Dynasty collapsed, the tea tax did exist in name only.
In the early Ming Dynasty, it was stipulated that when tea farmers sold tea, they would draw one in thirty. When merchants bought tea, they had to pay the officials a certain amount of money before they were allowed to sell the goods out of the country. Later, the banknotes were introduced and the money was paid. Later, it was changed to a banknote.
The tea class is discounted in silver, and the tea merchants receive the silver directly.
Regardless of the situation, it is a fact that the tea tax existed in name only by the end of the Ming Dynasty.
After Zhu Yihai raised his army, he carried out reforms on tea and salt. He adopted a system similar to that on salt. Tribute tea and official tea were abolished and all were replaced by commercial tea, which is a free tea market.
There is no restriction on the identity of tea merchants, but tea farmers and tea merchants must pay tea tax. You can grow and buy tea as you like, but you must pay tax on planting and you must pay tax on buying and selling.
All tea farmers must register their tea with the government and then pay taxes every year. Merchants buy tea just like buying salt. They must first pay the introduction money for each tea. The introduction money is actually the tax-included tea price and is also a tax payment certificate. Tea merchants must pay the tax.
It has to be lured, otherwise it is just selling and smuggling.
In this way, the government does not need to do everything, and the tea farmers do not need to sell all the tea to the government, and then the government transports and stores the tea, which facilitates the processing and sales of tea.
In the Tang Dynasty, tea production could reach nearly one million sticks a year, and by the Song Dynasty, it was even several million sticks a year.
By the Ming Dynasty, the tea tax was more complicated because there were tribute tea and official tea, and official tea included tea and horse trade, etc. The exchange of tea for horses was a relatively important national policy and related to important materials such as war horses.
But now Zhu Yihai has changed tea like salt, and the tax rate has also been adjusted.
Tea growers grow tea and are taxed 10% on the final sales, while tea merchants sell tea and pay 10% tax on the final sale.
For tea exported to overseas markets, there is a tea tax at the port, which is usually a tax increase of 5%. Compared with the Qing Dynasty, the tea export tariff was as high as 25%, which led to the continuous decline in the overseas market share of Qing Dynasty tea. Zhu Yihai's
This tax rate is relatively low, which also makes the Ningbo tea shop's business very good now, especially Japanese businessmen are rushing to buy.
The tea market is good, and the government has opened up the intermediate links. This is of course a good thing for the tea farmers.
"The market is so good this year, I want to sell some tea." Lao Zhao said bluntly, "We old men are really not suitable to pick tea in the mountains like women. We can't pick much in a day, but we are literate and sensible, and we have done business.
I have a lot of experience, not to mention that I still have some official connections now, so if I sell tea, it will definitely be good."
Zhao Gui was also a little moved after hearing this. In fact, he and Lao Zhao are on vacation now. They have been busy at the Nantong dock last year, and then went to Nanjing after the year. It was not until Nanjing was recovered that they had some free time, and the grain platform also
Start giving everyone breaks in batches.
The vacation was not long, so he returned to the rooftop where his family had settled, reunited with them, and was also busy with spring plowing.
In fact, he has been thinking about buying some tea these days. Although he has never sold tea before, he has been in the medicinal material business, so he is still familiar with purchasing and selling.
The tea market is good this year and the price is good. However, tea farmers actually work hard to pick and rough process, and their income is limited. But if they sell tea, there is a lot of profit.
But this takes time and money.
After all, he is now the ninth-rank official of Liangtai. Although he is a minor official, he is still an official, and his leave is limited.
Furthermore, he has little capital now. Although he has received a few months' salary, the expenses for relocating the family are not small. His children are young and not as good as Lao Zhao. These three daughters are all married to imperial camp sergeants.
.
While grilling the fish, Lao Zhao said, "This is what I plan to do. We can go to the government's household bank to get a loan. We are officials and my son-in-law is a non-commissioned officer. We are all eligible for the loan, especially if it is used for work."
If you sell tea, the interest rate is still low. Let's take a loan and hire a few guys to go to the countryside to collect tea and sell it to tea houses. Although it's a bit harder, you can still make a few bucks, which is definitely better than picking tea.
"
Zhao Gui also knew about the loans his cousin was talking about. Nowadays, there are branches of household banks in various prefectures and counties, and there are even branches of the Royal Bank. They absorb deposits, handle exchanges and other businesses, and also lend money.
For business, we also provide some small loans to farmers, businessmen, etc., especially officials and military officers, as well as low-interest benefits.
Originally, it was to help and encourage various places to recover.