Zhangji, Duliangdao, Shanxi, has been living a very prosperous life recently.
Although Shanxi suffered a lot of damage after experiencing the rebellion of Jiang Quan and others, and even had locust plagues twice this year, which affected the grain harvest, these did not matter to Zhang Ji.
He is now the governor of the grain road and also the postal road, and he holds the power of the grain road of the province.
The more war and famine there is, the more valuable the food in his hands becomes.
The autumn harvest has begun. Although this autumn has been affected by drought, locust plagues, and war, Shanxi's grain planting has not been able to recover, and the output is far less than in previous years. But the grain harvest season is here again, and it is time for him to flex his muscles and money is rolling in.
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Last autumn and this summer, Zhang Ji had made a lot of money. Not only had he paid off all the 30,000 taels of Beijing debt and private debts he borrowed, but after deducting expenses, he still had more than 50,000 taels of silver.
When I first came here, I had to take care of many things, but now that the relationship is solid, it's time to make money with peace of mind.
Before officially opening the weighing scale to collect grain, Zhang Ji specially invited the confidants of each partner to come for a secret discussion, including the governor, the governor's children, staff, as well as the garrison generals, and even the shopkeepers of several major imperial merchants.
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"Master, there are people coming from the mountains."
Zhang Ji was very satisfied with the talks with the representatives of each company. Everyone has had a cooperative relationship for a year. The previous cooperation was very pleasant and they are willing to continue.
Regarding the Shanxi autumn grain collection, they all agreed to the new method proposed by Zhang Ji. Generally speaking, they first required all the people to pay the grain in their own right and collected grain on an mu-mu basis.
Previously, the tax for each mu of land was one tael of silver, and then all other services were paid at two cents and two cents per mu. For three acres, an additional three cents was added. The total was one tael, two cents, and five cents of silver. Then Zhang Ji et al.
An additional 20% is added to the fire cost, two cents are four and a half, and the remainder continues to be increased in a mess, such as transportation, losses, labor and food expenses, transportation fees, and registration paper fees, and another 20% is added.
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Therefore, we actually added four qian and nine, plus one, two, two, and five, so it is one, two, seven, and four.
Of course, this is only on the surface, they had other ways to make money last year.
For example, you can use some tricks on the Farma, use an old Farma or even use a fake Farma directly, plus the tricks used by the officials when weighing, you can get three taels for one hundred taels of silver on the Farma, and then you can use some tricks during the weighing, etc.
I can get another five taels.
Silver is exchanged for silver, but how can the common people have so much silver in their hands?
So last year, Zhang Ji and his colleagues' method was to deliberately suppress the purchase price of grain before imposing taxes, so that the people would not be able to sell it to them at a low price, because it was purchased by the government-designated grain merchants and could not be sold to others.
Originally, one stone of grain was worth several taels of silver, but they managed to squeeze it down to one tael. When the people exchanged grain for silver to pay taxes, they had to do some tricks on the silver scales, the scales, and even the quality.
In the end, the people were actually corrupted too much.
After Zhang Ji collected the silver, he re-melted it and secretly mixed it with lead to reduce the quality of the silver ingot and make another fortune.
Anyway, this matter has become an alliance of interests, from the governor-general to the local magistrate, the garrison general, etc., everyone has a share.
However, this year Zhang Ji felt that the money gained was still too little, so he proposed a new method of collecting grain.
This year we will collect grain in true form, which means collecting grain directly on a per-mu basis.
But it is not as simple as collecting food.
The standard of silver conversion that has been set before is one tael per mu, two cents of silver per mu, and various expenses, etc., and finally one tael per mu, seven cents and four per mu. This is actually based on the practice of sharing a small amount of silver per mu in the south.
But it also adds consumption, envy, etc.
This year it is said to be a grain levy, but it is not calculated based on the amount of grain levied per acre as before, but based on last year's levy of 1, 2, 7, and 4. Originally, last year, one stone of silver was converted into one tael of silver.
Zhang Ji plans to first convert these two, two, seven, and four qian into grain at a low price, and convert it into one stone, seven buckets, and four liters of grain. In fact, it is impossible to get one, two, and one stone of grain now. The price of grain in Shanxi must be at least three liters.
Two and one stone.
But he paid one liang and one stone for grain in advance, so he had to pay one stone, seven buckets and four liters of grain for one acre.
However, the so-called genuine grain collection is also false.
Zhang Ji first converted the small grain of silver into real grain, and then asked the people to pay the silver at the market price. Previously, one stone was converted into one tael, but now the market price was set at one stone to be converted into three taels of silver. In this conversion, the original one tael per mu was paid.
Seventy-four, now it becomes five taels and two cents.
Triple it.
But this is not the end yet, because what Zhang Ji wants is food, and food is more valuable.
So just like last year, before he finished paying the money, he would buy the money from big households, grain merchants, and common people's stalls, giving him two taels of silver for one stone of grain, and a penny less.
The people's grain is exchanged for silver, which is five liang and two qian and one stone, but when bought from the common people, it is one liang and nine qian and one liang.
I made three times the price difference from the people before, and now I have to make another profit.
This brain is full of thought.
Part of the purchased grain was delivered to the capital, part was supplied to the army, and part was purchased by the military bank, and the price to the army was another five taels and one stone.
Anyway, in order to make money, Zhang Ji was extremely crazy and daring.
But everyone from top to bottom opened up joints for him, shared the money together, and naturally covered it up together.
But greedy Zhang Ji doesn't know what it means to give up when things get better.
He was even bold enough to start a deal with the Ming army secretly.
When I heard that friends came from the mountains, I personally entertained them.
This friend from the mountains is actually from the Taihang Mountains. He is Yang Guohai, the nephew of Tu Guobao, the governor of Tianjin.
The two secretly hooked up last year.
Yang Guohai sold private salt to Zhang Ji, and Zhang Ji sold grain to Tu Guobao.
The salt obtained in exchange was sold in Shanxi and other places, and another profit was made.
"How much salt will Brother Yang bring this time?" Zhang Ji asked with a smile.
"Five thousand rock salt, just outside Jingxing Niangzi Pass."
"Should we follow the old rule of exchanging one stone of salt for one stone of grain?" Zhang Ji asked.
During the Chongzhen period, the price of salt was not expensive. In salt-producing areas such as Huaiyang and Susong, a hundred pounds of salt in the first year of Chongzhen only cost two cents. In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, due to floods, a hundred pounds of salt only cost five cents.
Salt is several times cheaper than grain.
Of course, Huaiyang Susong is a salt-producing area, and salt is cheap. In the mainland, especially in Shaanxi, salt is more expensive. At its peak, salt in Huazhou sold for nine taels of silver per hundred catties.
Because Shanxi has a large salt pond like Jiechi, the price of salt was not expensive in the Taiping years, no more than one tael of silver per hundred catties.
Salt is cheaper than grain.
However, the Ming army now controls the salt-producing areas along the coast, and the Tatar-controlled Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other places have insufficient salt supplies and the price of salt is very high.
Last year, the salt and grain trade between Zhang Ji and Yang Guohai was done on a one-to-one basis. The two parties traded in the Niangziguan area, handing over salt and grain in one hand.
Both Tu Guobao and Yang Guohai are short of salt, but they are short of food. They are currently active in the Taihang and Zhending areas. Shanxi rebel Zhang Ding has also joined forces with them. There are many people and horses, and food is relatively scarce.
It is more cost-effective to exchange salt for grain.
"Five thousand stones is too little."
"This is just the first batch. As long as Mr. Zhang can get grain, we can get as much salt as you need."
"good."
"Can you really get more grain?" Yang Guohai said that he had recently heard some rumors about Zhang Ji's plan to collect grain, and he felt a little unbelievable. Is it possible to collect grain like this?
"What's wrong?"
"Your Excellency, you cut off one acre of land left and right, and finally got five taels of silver per acre. Can the people pay it? Not to mention the situation in Shanxi in the past two years."
Zhang Ji just stroked his beard and smiled and said, "What is the current situation of food prices in the north? In fact, Brother Yang, you also know that it is more than ten taels of silver per stone in Beijing, so no matter how much the discount is, it is still more than five taels per mu."
room."
He doesn't care whether the levy is imposed or not. Anyway, he should set a higher figure first. This will leave room for leeway. When those unruly people bargain, there will definitely be those who cannot pay and are in arrears. What is lacking will be supplemented by other things.
Just right.
He doesn't care about the life and death of the people. Whether he pays 5 taels and 2 silver per acre to the people, or pays only 1 tael and 9 silver per stone to large merchants to buy grain, his purpose is just to make money.
When he got grain, the Shanxi merchants headed by the Eight Great Imperial Merchants could give him at least five or six liang per stone, which he could buy for one or two and nine, and sell for five or six taels, which would triple the amount.
That's six or seven times the amount of money.
And if he gets salt from Yang Guohai, he can also make several times profit by reselling it.
Although he had studied hard for twenty years and passed the imperial examination and read books about saints and sages for many years, he had long understood the ups and downs of officialdom in these years, and being an official was all about money.
If you have money, you can go through various connections, get an official position, get a good job, and make more money. Then you can build relationships, find a bigger backer, be promoted to a higher official, get a better job, and make more money.
Much silver.
When you have almost harvested, you can retire and return to your hometown and enjoy your life with peace of mind.
As for the rest, just do whatever you want.
You have the right not to use it, it will become useless after it expires.
This grain supervisor is a fat man, and he can only work for three years at most before giving up his position to someone else. If he doesn't make money quickly, he may not have a chance if he waits.
"Master Zhang, can you get some horses? Next time we want to exchange salt for some horses." Yang Guohai said bluntly.
Zhang Ji looked at Yang Guohai. He actually knew the identity of the man opposite him. He was the nephew of the traitor Tu Guobao. Tu Guobao was originally the governor of Jiangning and is now the governor of Tianjin in the south. This Yang Guohai is the commander-in-chief of Zhending.
Tu Guohai Yang Guohai and other activities were in Baoding, Zhending, and Taihang areas of Hebei. Although they did not occupy large cities, their strength was not small. In particular, they were able to contact the coast for smuggling. The imperial court launched several encirclements and suppressions, but they were not surrounded.
Zhang Ji also knew that Tu Guobao was just a partial force. The reason why Tu Guobao was able to cause such trouble in Hebei was definitely not because of how powerful he was. Just like himself, Shanxi's grain superintendent, was secretly doing business with him. Among the officials and generals in Hebei, he must have
There are also many people who secretly collude with Tu Guobao.
"Horses are not easy to deal with."
"Let's exchange salt for a good horse. The market price of a good horse is only more than 20 taels. Generally, a war horse only needs 12 taels. How about we exchange two rock salt for a horse?"
"I don't have any horses either."
"Will Shanxi merchants still be short of horses?"
Zhang Ji smiled and said, "I'll give it a try. If I can get a horse, would an ordinary horse be exchanged for three stone salt for one, and a good horse would be exchanged for six stone salt for one?"
Yang Guohai secretly cursed that this collection was really greedy, like a wild goose plucking its feathers. This obviously meant that he had to charge a 50% handling fee if he passed it.
"An ordinary horse has two stones and a half of salt, a good horse has five stones of salt. If you take an ordinary horse, you can earn at least half of it. At the current price, this half of stone salt is worth several taels, which is quite a lot."
Zhang Ji laughed and said, "I also need to take care of myself. Okay, let's settle it first."
Yang Guohai then said, "There is one more thing I want to discuss with Lord Zhang. You see how well we cooperate. If Sir, here in Shanxi, he knows some news that is not good for us, for example, Shanxi soldiers are going to cross Jingxing into Hebei,
Can you inform us in advance?”
"this······"
"Master Zhang, our business is very profitable, and we hope to have a long-term cooperation, right?"
Zhang Ji stroked his beard and nodded slightly. Such partners were still rare. He also hoped to get more salt through them, not to mention that there was also a big horse trade.
