【Ticket Request】

In the blink of an eye, three days have passed, and it is time to release the list.

As previously known, the county examination of the ink paper Zhixian will only first select the one that has broken the question one by one and then review it, and these ink papers are mostly from the first batch of people to submit the papers, and the remaining examination papers are at most handed over to the following teachings and teachings to pick up the gaps, and it is not easy to select one or two more from the dethroned examination papers.

The eight-character wall at the entrance of the county government has deliberately cleaned up the notices of the past, and many people have already surrounded the front of the wall, and they can see piles of people from a distance outside the crowd, Wang Xingping recognized that several of them should be familiar sedan chair drivers, who often walk around the neighborhood, and at the moment they are all wearing red clothes and red pants sitting on the ground chatting, Wang Xingping knows that these people are now part-time, and they are waiting for the first place in the county examination to follow the good news and ask for rewards. Although he was chatting now, his ears were pricked up.

Before moving, Wang Xingping also arrived in front of the crowd, and after a few steps in, he could already see the inside clearly. There is only one county trial list, and the names of the people are densely arranged in a circle, and only the first name is written in the circle. Wang Xingping is not tall, looking at the word 'Qiu Mao' on the person's name from a distance, his heart is really his case, and he looked at the list and found his name in the examination position, it seems that although this article is not as good as Mrs. Zhang's intentions, it is still successful.

As long as he gets it, this proves that his article itself is not much of a problem, and he thinks like this and is ready to pull Xiaoliu to go first, after all, it's just news, and if you know the result, it's just that.

The two were walking out, but they saw that the crowd was separated from the middle, and a good-faced young man was walking over surrounded by everyone, and there were people around him who kept complimenting him, and the young man kept returning the salute. In the noise, I don't know who shouted, 'The head of the case is here', and those who had been waiting for the good news all hugged each other, and with a stack of congratulations, they pulled the young man onto the sedan chair, and blew all the way to the big cross, and the young man's attendant quickly followed to lead the way.

Wang Xingping saw Qiu Maopu in the crowd, the two looked at each other and smiled, and Qiu Maopu also hurriedly followed behind the group of newspapers, which made Wang Xingping not strange. At this moment, the crowd also gathered around the sedan chair to the south to see the excitement, and the front of the eight-character wall was suddenly deserted, at this time Wang Xingping looked back again, only to see that the name in the middle of the list was the word 'Qiu Maosu', but Qiu Maopu was written in the innermost position of the first circle, and it was actually ranked second.

"It turned out that his brother was actually the first to be killed." Wang Xingping said with a smile.

He no longer went to join in the fun, but went to the iron factory first, he was going to talk to Liu Rust, and Liu Rust heard that he hurriedly came over first.

This Liu Rust was originally a broken scholar in Qujiang County, Shaozhou Prefecture, Guangdong, without meritorious fame, working in the Foshan Iron Works, and was hard to follow Wang Ge after being fired, although he was not good at hard work, but the technical attainments of iron smelting are not low, and he can read and hyphenate words, and write and calculate is not a problem, which may not be anything in Guangdong, but it is rare in Guizhou. What is even more rare is that he is very interested in the road of smelting and willing to study, but strictly speaking, he is a technical talent. Previously, Wang Ge and the others all chose to follow Wang Xingping to Jierong Fort to join the army, but this one only wanted to stay in the iron factory and work hard, and did not like military affairs.

The iron factory was fully converted to the production of firearms because of the adjustment of the previous year, and Liu Rust happened to be not interested in the civilian workshop on the other side, so he devoted all his energy to the manufacture of muskets, and the improvement of the process was actually very little, Wang Xingping naturally understood that it was impossible to fundamentally improve the ordnance only by relying on the accumulation of experience, and at most it could only improve the quality, but with Liu Rust to check the quality, it was indeed getting better and better.

Wang Xingping was quite satisfied with Liu Rust's work, although he did despise Liu Rust's dislike of hard work at first, but being a supervisor was to give full play to his potential, and now there are many craftsmen in Guizhou and Sichuan in the iron factory, but not many from Guangdong. Originally, Ye Yiwei only brought back about 30 people, including half-grown children, and later stacked them into military households, and more than 10 people were all assigned to the same military camp. In this way, there were not many remaining Guangdong craftsmen, so they all united to Liu Ru's side, and now Liu Ru in the iron factory can be regarded as having some power of his own. After comforting the craftsmen of the iron factory, Wang Xingping deliberately left Liu Ru to speak.

"Is Mr. Guizhou still used to life?"

"Where does the villain dare to call Mr., the blessing of the owner's family is still used to it." He is a shabby scholar, and he didn't even get into Xiucai, but he heard that Wang Xingping will pass next year's college exam, so where can he dare to answer Mr. At the beginning, the industry in his hometown had already been lost to him, and there were no living parents on the top, and the whole family was not hungry when he fed himself, and it was estimated that he would have to count on the help of the owner to marry a wife in the future, where would he not be used to it.

"Just get used to it." After Wang Xingping finished speaking, he asked lightly about the operation of the iron factory, "After the New Year, a lot of new workers were recruited, and after Wang Ge left, I relied on you to support me here, can I still cope with it?" ”

Liu Ru said with a smile, "Naturally, there are more helpers, but now there are only about 400 people, which is much better than those iron factories in Foshan Town, but there is a shortage of people." ”

"Naturally, I'll recruit more, how many more muskets can you have here before April?"

"If you recruit some more people, it's not difficult for the firearms workshop to come up with a thousand."

Wang Xingping calculated in his heart that 700 sticks were to be handed over to Sun Kaizuo, plus the previous 300 sticks were 1,000 sticks, and Guiyang Mansion wanted to give Poly Bank nearly 2,500 taels of silver for this purpose, which was different from the grain that could be used to build the northern city, this money was to be given to cash, and this batch of firearms supply would basically reduce the military expenses of the Guiyang garrison this year, and after that, the monthly production would be mainly used to establish the firearms battalion of the Jierong Institute, and Wang Xingping's initial plan was only to build a battalion of 500 people. Plus the substitution of a thousand more is enough to protect itself, and it is only a matter of about July, according to the current progress, the new city in Beicheng should be completed, and the township test will also begin. After the township test, Wang Xingping's local layout is over, he has already planned to go to Beijing with Ma Shiying, this is also to broaden his horizons, and Ma Shiying entered Beijing as a tribute this time, and the palace examination must point to Jinshi, whether it is the same year that the previous subject has been an official in Beijing, or the Jinshi of the same list in this subject has become a more convenient object for Wang Xingping's junior brother, and all kinds of news in Beijing are not much better than those in Guizhou. With his knowledge, as long as he can catch some rumors, why can't he help his business, but this needs to be arranged now, after all, this is not to say half a year, and there is still some care.

He returned to the topic again, although the cost of Poly Bank's own musket only had to be half of the official supply, but one also cost one or two or three dollars, according to Wang Xingping's thoughts, plus the estimated loss of more than 1,000 muskets, the previous few local conflicts, the hundred or so electric guns have been broken nearly ten, although it is not difficult to repair, but this loss is also a little painful, this equipment is neat and tidy is more than a thousand taels of silver. The autumn harvest is also early, and many fields are not well cultivated, at most they can leave a livelihood for the tun households, and it is absolutely impossible to make a fortune from it. And the arms business seems to be coming to an end at least this year, and the equipment of the Jie Rong Institute is all upside down, and in the second half of the year, except for the civilian equipment of the iron factory and the accident of the Futai, it is really overstretched.

It's a really uncomfortable feeling of lack of money. ’

"It seems that the matter of minting money has to be planned early."

The front was still talking about armaments, and then he talked about others, but Liu Ru was not surprised, he is now half the head of the iron factory, and he knows the operation clearly, looking at a prosperous scene, but he has to rely on silver to support. He is used to living a broken life, and he is naturally sensitive to money, so if Wang Xingping doesn't mention it, he will inevitably find an opportunity to speak.

He replied: "If the owner wants to mint money, I'm afraid he has to solve the copper material first, and it is not easy to do it without copper." ”

It is simple to say, but it is difficult to do, although Guizhou also produces copper, but not much, next door Yunnan copper more, but also more limited.

Wang Xingping himself once checked, originally thought that the later generations of Yunnan copper in the world, this Yunnan copper must be a lot, but turned over the copy, and turned over the book, only to find that Yunnan's copper mine production is really not much, and similar to Japan is mostly associated with silver. The imperial court has been asking Yunnan to pay tribute to gold and silver over the years, but the brass produced together has not attracted the attention of the imperial court, otherwise Yunnan Province would not still use shellfish coins today. It is said that the copper in eastern Yunnan is mostly poor ore, and the mining, washing and refining are labor-intensive and time-consuming.

But the overall copper production in Yunnan is still growing, about Xuande when the annual output is less than 10,000 catties, after the dismissal of the official mine gradually to the private sector, so that the output gradually came up, to Jiajing in the output of 150,000 catties a year, now a year is less than a million catties, compared to overseas, especially Japan is also a lot worse, which seems to be extremely incommensurate with the situation of Yunnan copper half of the world in later generations.

Now that the words have come to this point, Wang Xingping also said calmly: "This is exactly what is going on right now." ”

Liu Rust was also a clever person, so he naturally knew that Wang Xingping might want him to worry about this copper material. He is not a blind listener, but he is a little slippery, especially after staying here for a long time, he is willing to spend all day in the iron factory, and he does not want to go out on errands.

He deliberately asked, "Didn't the owner want me to go to Zhenyuan Mansion?" ”

Zhenyuan Mansion is the distribution place of Yunnan's gold, silver, copper, tin and other goods out of Yunnan in Guizhou, and Yunnan copper and other goods are transported to Huguang and then pass through the world. Zhenyuan Mansion is in the east of Guiyang, so the Yunnan goods out of the province to collect and distribute pickers would rather travel hundreds of miles more than Guiyang or because of the geography of Zhenyuan Mansion itself, the local is an important town in eastern Qiandong, the transportation is convenient, and the prosperity of commerce and trade is not slightly worse than Guiyang. Although both Zhenyuanfu and Zhenyuanwei have city walls, they are more used to prevent floods, so the city walls themselves are not closed. The Zhenyang River runs through the city, connecting the east and west, and is a unique place for commerce and trade. Here and then go east through Chenzhou Mansion to Changsha, or to the north through Sinan Mansion to Fuling has been and then east to Huguang Jingzhou Mansion is the main way for Yunnan goods to enter Sichuan and Hunan from Guizhou at this time.

But Liu Ru's answer was undoubtedly a bit different from what Wang Xingping thought.

Wang Xingping said: "Yunnan copper into Guizhou is not worth 30 Wen, to Zhenyuan will be doubled, but from Zhenyuan to transport copper back, this is another toss, how can it be done, to go to Yunnan naturally." He glanced at Liu Ru meaningfully, "I wonder if Mr. is willing to run for me?" ”

[Note: According to official information, Yunnan's copper mining is to Kang Yongqian before entering the heyday, in the Wanli period because of private mining and technical reasons the output has not been high, at that time Yunnan seems to only in the Song Dynasty gall copper method has improved, can only mine the surface associated with the catalysis of copper ore for a long time, to the middle of the Qing Dynasty only the so-called ore blending, blast furnace method to speed up the mining and smelting of copper, so Wanli Yunnan Province a year of copper production of less than one million catties, to Qianlong the highest annual production capacity of 10 million catties, supply 95% of the country's copper output, this is the fundamental difference. 】