Chapter 26 Who dares to disobey Shen Gongzi's promotion
As long as the process of collecting and transporting grain is sorted out smoothly, technological innovation is deployed in place, and cost management is ensured, it can be done successfully.
The rest is all physical work, simple and repetitive work, and there is nothing to elaborate on.
From October to December, for three months, Shen Shuren continued to copy his work model, transporting batches of military rations raised from the Su and Song Dynasties to the front line of Hefei at historically low logistics costs.
For the first two grain shipments, he personally escorted them on the ship. Starting with the third batch, after he became familiar with the relevant operations, he felt that he would not learn anything new if he continued to transport grain, so he completely transferred to a civilian job and took over the escort work. Leave it to your subordinates and family.
In the past few months, Shen Shuren has made hundreds of thousands of profits in Su and Song Prefectures by promoting cotton mulberry picking, shuttle looms, and mulberry fish ponds.
After all, there are many local super factory owners in Suzhou with tens of thousands of looms. Frightened by the powerful position of the Shen family and Xuge's hometown, and the constraints of the downstream supply chain, many people have to give in and buy Shen Shuren's. For technology licensing, each machine can earn a net licensing fee of several taels, which adds up to hundreds of thousands of taels.
At the beginning, Shen Tingyang only took 100,000 taels of cash to support his son's official career and investment in supporting facilities. Although the money was spent on the construction of docks and the excavation of mulberry fish ponds, the subsequent earnings earned The money kept flowing in, and in the end, Shen Shuren had several times more money at his disposal.
By the time Chen Shuren's last batch of reserve military rations arrived in Hefei, Yang Sichang had already left Hefei and headed to Wuchang to deploy containment and defense.
Those who were subsequently responsible for the defense and reception work in Hefei were Shi Kefa and Commander-in-Chief Huang Degong.
In the past three months, the troops under Shi Huang's command also fought several battles with the 5th Battalion of Gezuo and won some small victories. Unfortunately, they failed to achieve any encirclement and annihilation results.
Every time the 5th Battalion of Gezuo left the Yinghuo Mountains (Dabie Mountains) and penetrated the Hefei Plain, they always grabbed a handful and left.
Even if the Ming army defeated the troops who came out to rob, the bandits could quickly flee and return to the Yinghuo Mountain area. The Ming army was unable to enter the complex terrain to pursue, so they had no choice but to give up. The war in the Anlu war zone was dragged into stalemate stage.
Chen Shuren's cousin Zhang Huangyan also gained a little hard work in helping Shi Kefa with logistics.
Mainly, corvee labor was organized along the way to build some port facilities, dock machinery, and provide some assistance.
In addition, when transporting grain with the strong men of Tongcheng, he cooperated with Zuo Zixiong's grain guard from Qianhu in the Feishui Guard Station to repel several groups of grain-grabbing troops under Lin Chengcheng and Liu Xiyao.
The organizational form of the bandits is very loose. The control of the five leaders of the Gezuo bandits over their generals is far less strict than that of the official army. It is more like guerrillas fighting independently.
Those combat operations that attempted to grab food were not under the unified command of Lin Chengcheng and others. They were entirely carried out by the mountain kings of each defense zone, who took action on their own based on the intelligence they detected.
They often had fewer troops at their disposal and no friendly forces to cooperate, which gave Zhang Huangyan the opportunity to make meritorious deeds.
Before leaving, Yang Sichang asked Shi Kefa to keep an eye on Shen Shuren and Zhang Huangyan to see if they were talents worthy of promotion.
Shi Kefa also kept it in mind, recorded the merits of the two of them, and reported them in time, especially before the official inspection at the end of the year, he tried to say a few nice words as much as possible to help Mr. Yang Ge return the favor.
Although Shi Kefa still doesn't know what exactly Shen Shuren did for Mr. Yang Ge in the first place to obtain such a big favor.
But Shi Kefa is very measured. He will not be curious about things that the leader does not allow him to ask, and he will just carry them out. Shen Shuren and Zhang Huangyan do have practical talents and are worthy of his cultivation.
At the end of the twelfth lunar month, Shi Kefa made some calculations and estimated that Chen Shuren's meritorious service in the past few months would be enough for him to be promoted from the eighth grade to the seventh grade.
If you continue to run errands at the Susonghe Road Yamen, you can be promoted to the rank of seventh-rank treasury envoy.
Zhang Huangyan's achievements are not as conspicuous as Shen Shuren's. He can be promoted to the seventh rank at most, which requires a little money. Being promoted from the county's Dianshi to the county magistrate is not bad.
After Shi Kefa reported his merits, he also wrote a letter privately to Shen Shuren and asked the Shen family to transport grain to Hefei's close family members to take it back.
The letter was nothing more than words of encouragement, suggesting that he should work hard and continue to serve the country.
…
When Shen Shuren, who was in Suzhou, received Shi Kefa's reply, it was already halfway through the twelfth lunar month, and the New Year would be coming soon.
The Shen family members were very happy to know that their eldest son had outstanding performance as an official and that he might be promoted after his inspection in Beijing at the end of the year. Everyone in the family felt that they were proud of themselves.
Even Shen Shuren's new friends Fang Yizhi and Xu Xilie learned the news when they came to visit and sincerely expressed their congratulations.
"Brother Shen Xian is really lucky. He has a prosperous official career. He can be promoted in just three or four months after entering the official position. It's not half-level promotion. Brother Yu will be in high school in the spring of next year. At most, he will be on the same level as Brother Xian." That’s it, whether you take the Jinshi exam or not, it doesn’t seem to be that valuable anymore.” Fang Yizhi joked and laughed at himself.
Xu Xilie on the side took it for granted: "Hey, you can't say that. Brother Shen Xian's achievements are real and convincing. The method of loading and unloading of water transport that he improved has now been fully promoted to Su and Song. Mansion.
If it is extended to the entire South Zhili and the entire Jiangnan in the future, how much labor can it save for the court? Our grain from South Zhili can be transported to Huai'an as long as we add Jiangyin, but what about Jiangxi and Huguang? It is necessary to increase the number of camps across the lake, because due to changes in water conditions in the waterway, large and small ships need to be changed more frequently.
If it were also promoted in Huai'an, Linqing, Shandong, and Tongzhou, North Zhili, it would be easy to save hundreds of thousands of people's labor. What a huge expense. If I want to say such a big contribution, it is directly promoted. It’s not too much to go from the sixth rank to the seventh rank. That’s just because the court is stingy!”
Among the three, the one who felt the most surprised and uncomfortable was Shen Shuren himself. He also did not expect that back in the late Ming Dynasty, officials would be promoted so quickly. It seemed a bit unreasonable, like writing a novel. of.
But after calming down, I made my own calculations and accepted this setting - official promotion was indeed slow in most of the Ming Dynasty, but the late Ming Dynasty was a special case, especially in the last years of Chongzhen.
Bandits and Tatars were too rampant, and officials and generals everywhere were killed and too many vacancies were created.
Take Wei Zaode, who will be the number one scholar in the Spring Festival after the New Year, as an example. He became the number one scholar in the 13th year of Chongzhen Emperor's reign. He was promoted to the sixth rank and entered the Hanlin Academy system to compile. And just three years later , by the end of the 16th year of Chongzhen, this man had already become a minister and entered the cabinet!
Let’s turn to the last month before Chongzhen hanged himself. As the previous chief assistant was dismissed due to poor organization and operations, Wei Zaode directly became the chief assistant!
It only took four years from the time when a new official became the chief minister. Who would dare to believe it in normal years?
Moreover, after the death of Chongzhen, the official positions in the Nanming court were actually indiscriminate. As long as they were willing to continue to be loyal to Nanming, whether it was Hongguang or Yongli, they would crazily give titles to officials, because the official titles of the Ming Dynasty were no longer valuable. Mainly Only the righteousness remains.
Actual power is wrested back from the Tatars and thieves by the people who want to be officials through their own real skills and hard power.
From this point of view, it was actually very cost-effective to enter time travel in the last few years of the Ming Dynasty, take the official route to get promoted quickly to gain capital, and then cooperate with the fact that you have money and someone with the strength to exchange the power of a false official.
The only thing to note is that no matter how he is promoted, he cannot eventually be promoted to a central official in the capital, otherwise it will be over and he will be buried with Chongzhen like Wei Zaode.
The most cost-effective way to get promoted is to become a local feudal official and command troops in a feudal town, but never enter the central government.
Of course, this trick is limited to rich and powerful families like Shen Shuren.
If his family didn't have a financial foundation of three to four million taels of silver, a hundred large ships, and tens of thousands of sailors and servants to support him, then he would not be able to hold actual power even though he had an official reputation.
Both are indispensable.
…
After discussing with friends and further clarifying the path he wanted to take, Shen Shuren also had a clearer view of the next step.
He suddenly felt that he could consider adding more firepower and speeding up his promotion.
In the middle of winter, because the northern canal froze and the coastal areas of the Bohai Sea also froze, the yamen responsible for water transportation and river work were originally free and had no official duties to worry about.
Chen Shuren realized that he might be idle for the next two months, and it would be okay to leave Suzhou for two months. A bold idea came to his mind.
According to the "History of the Ming Dynasty", in the last two imperial examinations of the Ming Dynasty, the weight of eight-legged essays was unprecedentedly reduced, while the weight of current policy theory was increased, which led to a person like Wei Zaode who talked a lot about things to be the number one scholar.
I have read the biography of Wei Zaode in the history of the Ming Dynasty, and I know directly the general idea of the investigation this year. If I prepare in advance, maybe I can really get a vote?
Of course, my eight-part essay is really not that good, that is, it is at the level of a scholar. I have never practiced eight-legged essay since I was a student at the Imperial College.
Therefore, even if he knows most of the questions in advance, he does not dare to expect to be in the top two, but if he finds some ways to cater to the political opinions of the graders above, it is not completely hopeless to get into the top three.
The most important thing is that in the three months since I became friends with Fang Yizhi, I have made some subtle progress in terms of speech. Fang Yizhi is the Jieyuan of Nanzhili after all, even if I just talk about culture and exchange ideas with him every day Philosophy, technology, and progress are also very comprehensive.
Anyway, during the next two months when the canal froze, a civil servant like him was idle. He would not lose money if he tried, but at most he would return without success.
So, after the three of them drank wine and talked about promotion, Shen Shuren turned the topic back to Fang Yizhi: "Brother Fang, the new year is approaching, do you want to go back to Tongcheng to reunite with your family for the New Year? Or go north as soon as possible, Are you preparing for spring at the end of February?"
When Fang Yizhi heard him mention his family, he was also in a depressed mood. He drank a large glass of dull wine and sighed: "When the Gezuo Fifth Battalion was raging in the summer, there was also a lot of destruction around Tongcheng. Some relatives in my clan were separated. Some were killed by Lin Chengcheng and Liu Xiyao's bandits.
I feel ashamed to say that those in my family are not as courageous and courageous as Brother Cangshui. Brother Cangshui dared to take the risk to go to Tongcheng to become an official. However, two-thirds of my relatives left home and fled to Nanjing.
Even if I want to go back to celebrate the New Year, I will only go back to Nanjing. I can't go back to Tongcheng - so I am not in a hurry. If I want to go back to Nanjing from here, five or six days will be enough.
And I don’t really want to go back. Nowadays, the war is in chaos and the roads are rough. It may not be possible to go from Nanjing to Beijing in one and a half months, and there are some riots on the road, which is even more dangerous. I am wondering if I should go north in advance and stay longer. If the situation goes wrong, we have to find another way to get to Beijing."
Shen Shuren and Xu Xilie also fully understood Fang Yizhi's words.
In ancient times, transportation was inconvenient. It was normal for wanderers to travel far away and not go home during the New Year. This was especially true in troubled times.
Chen Shuren rolled his eyes, and suddenly thought of a way to get the best of both worlds, and suggested: "Since Brother Fang doesn't have to go home to celebrate the New Year, and is just worried about the uneasy journey north to Beijing, I have a way -
It is better to take the sea route and follow my father's first batch of grain ships to go north after the Bohai Sea thaws next spring. After the grain is unloaded, we can go ashore in Tianjin and go directly to the capital. My father has been traveling in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea for more than ten years, so he is very familiar with the sea conditions, even if there is no favorable wind. , it will only take more than ten days to arrive.”
"Go to the capital from Tianjin by sea and land?" Fang Yizhi, a native of Huizhou, has never been to the sea in his life, and he was a little scared after hearing this.
However, when he heard that Shen Tingyang had been gone for more than ten years, he felt a little relieved and felt that he could really consider it.