Since July of the sixth year of Wanli, Gao has returned to his hometown for a year. nbsp; Now it is the seventh year of Wanli, and the year of the township test has arrived.

In the past year, everything has been very smooth for Gao Shishi, especially the momentum of various trading exhibitions is very good. Don't mention the old ones, just talking about new deals is worth laughing three times with high pragmatism.

The two major events of the new transaction, one is the establishment of Jinghua Bank, and the bank's loan to Huguang to build water conservancy, and the other is the establishment of Jinghua porcelain, and the name of Jinghua Yu kiln began to officially impact the revitalization of northern porcelain.

The former spent a lot of effort, but mainly not on raising funds, but on persuading the imperial court and Huguang officials. Through the operation of Gao Shipra, or Gao Party, the Hu Guangbu Political Envoy Department formally applied to the Central Committee after the autumn of the fifth year of Wanli, requesting permission for the Hu Guangbu Political Envoy and the local yamen to borrow money from the private "willing to borrow funds" to build water conservancy.

Of course, the political envoy of Hu Guangbu came up with a lot of reasons to prove that this was necessary, and the cabinet, under the strong support of Guo Pu and Zhang Siwei, voted to "approve the request of the department, but the interest on the borrowed bank shall not be higher than 10%." ”

Dredging in, Zhu Yijun Yubi Zhu criticized "building water conservancy can consolidate agriculture, it is true that the country's priority is to be invited by the department." ”

However, soon after the approval was issued, there was a dismissal, which came from the Ying Tianxun press, who said that the government's dismantling of the funds to the people was insulting to the majesty of the imperial court, and asked for a stop.

It stands to reason that Ying Tianxun can't care about Huguang's affairs, but everyone in the court knows that this matter is definitely not Ying Tianxun's personal idea, and I'm afraid that Ying Tianxun has the same attitude. The reason is not that Huguang's water conservancy repair is harmful to them, nor that Huguang's loan of money has something to do with them, but that they have learned that there is a clause in the transaction that Jinghua Bank lent to Huguang, which is that "Huguang can repay the principal and interest at a discount with rice grain." ，”

How much money Huguang wants to borrow is enough for one million taels of silver

According to this amount, if the discount is to repay the principal and interest every year, Huguang will have to pay a large amount of rice grain to the Jinghua Bank every year in the next ten years.

Even if the interest is not counted, Huguang will pay 125 stone of rice to Jinghua Bank according to the annual repayment of the principal of 100,000 taels. In fact, with the abundance of grain in Huguang, the impact of this number cannot be said to be particularly huge, and it is remarkable that the grain price of Yingtianfu in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River has risen slightly.

However, the problem lies in the fact that another surcharge allows Jinghua Bank to purchase Huguang rice at a fixed price every year, with an annual quota of no more than 1 million stones.

1,250,000 stone of rice can feed 50,000 or 60,000 people for a whole year, and if it is 1 million stone, it can feed at least 400,000 people.

If it is only to help the possible disaster victims in Henan Province, this number should basically be enough, after all, it is only the beginning of the Xiaoice River period, and the disaster is not as serious as the end of the Ming Dynasty. Of course, this relief is by no means free, it must be a cash-for-work relief, otherwise Gao Pragmatic Jinghua Bank will have to go bankrupt in a few years.

But in this way, it will have an impact on Nanzhili, and the price of grain will rise by at least 20 percent, or even 30 percent.

Wanli received a high and pragmatic secret report, and also knew that Henan and other northern provinces have often been affected by disasters and reduced production in recent years, and Nanzhili at least is not short of money, and it is not a big problem to spend more money to buy rice, so he resolutely approved the revival and waste of Huguang Water Conservancy. Needless to say, the patrol is its own duty. ”

From this, the matter was settled.

Although Henan did not suffer any major disasters in the fifth year of Wanli, in fact, this transaction is still profitable, because Gao Pragmatism is equivalent to being approved to buy rice in Huguang based on a lower market price.

The price of grain in Henan is much more expensive than that in Huguang, and if it is based on the normal market price, after adding the cost of trafficking, it may not make much money, but since the purchase price is a low price, then even if it is sold on the market in Henan, it will make money.

As for the future disaster, Henan's grain prices will definitely have to rise. If Gao Pragmatic is not in the spirit of relieving the displaced people, he can make a lot of money by selling it directly. But now he can help here, after all, his ability is limited, and it is good to be able to relieve some pressure on Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Beizhili or something, there is really no way to do it for a while.

I can only hope that the embankment that the river has spent a few years reinforced with cement will not be as easy to burst as before, and that the disaster in Henan will be lighter at that time, and maybe there will be displaced people to Henan after the disaster in Linxian Province.

The second thing that went smoothly was the matter of Jinghua Yu kiln.

Speaking of which, the smooth progress of this matter is even a little too high and pragmatic expectations, perhaps Gao pragmatic himself underestimated the current fame and appeal of the Xinzheng Gao family, anyway, Jinghua Yuyao has just been announced, but the trustee boasted in Shilin, and within two months, some people began to vote.

Almost all of these people who came were porcelain craftsmen, most of whom were still ancestral, and their skills were very different, but Zhang quickly arranged them into different categories with the help of the three major craftsmen, and then began trial production.

The first batch of products, "good and bad" is a light statement, it should be said that most of them did not meet Zhang's requirements, and she finally selected only seven pieces of porcelain. For the others, she suggested that Gao Shishi should not sell any of them, and directly distribute them to various factories and mines under his name for his own use.

Gao Pragmatic doesn't matter, he didn't think this thing was simple at the beginning, so he calmly let the porcelain craftsmen continue to try production, don't worry, don't be afraid of losing money Gao Pragmatic has already made a plan to lose money for five consecutive years, because he doesn't care, the matter of burning porcelain, in terms of cost alone, is not much to lose, and the bulk of the loss is actually just to feed these craftsmen who have not generated income.

Maybe it's the pragmatic attitude that encourages the porcelain craftsmen, maybe it's the northern porcelain industry that is declining but the heritage is still there, anyway, from the fourth batch of trial products, Jinghua Yu kiln has turned around

They tried to produce a batch of high-grade chicken blood black tea bowls, adhering to the characteristics of "Jun kiln is expensive", this batch of chicken blood black tea bowls with the inscription "Jinghua Yu kiln Daya" was sold to the Zhou Wangfu in Kaifeng, not to mention the direct turnaround in one fell swoop, and the name was also started.

Now the main problem of Jinghua porcelain is that it is difficult to expand the scale for a while, and the people who have the ability to vote for him are basically the same, and now to expand the scale, they can only slowly cultivate their own professionals. Porcelain making was a high-end craft in this era, and it didn't even take three or five years to get started, so Gao Pragmatism couldn't be rushed.

Fortunately, Jun kilns have always been known for their rarity, and their low production here makes people feel that "the genuine product of the origin is the authentic product of the origin, and it is really slow enough"11