Li Xiao had read the Tang newspaper and was worried about the situation in western Liaoning, where the Tatars were now invading, but he was faintly happy. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

If he hadn't taken the opportunity to retreat south to Shandong, Hugh would have said anything about farming and development, and he would not have been able to save his life with just his own meager troops.

Li Xiao can imagine that the pier of no return, where he once stayed, is estimated to have been turned into ashes under the hands of the Tartars.

In this war-torn world, the reality is so cruel, you don't have enough strength, and you won't even be given the basic right to live.

At this time, Li Xiao was listening intently to Wu Liang's report on the test results.

"My lord, I waited here at the Squatting Dog Mountain, and after three days of investigation and measurement, except for the discovery of a lime mine cave, I have not found any other minerals worthy of mining. According to the craftsmen, there are a lot of bluestones on this mountain, and it would be good if it was a quarry. In addition, at the foot of Shannan, there is a large area of clay, which can also be used if it is burned bricks. ”

After listening to Wu Liang's report, Li Xiao felt a little lost.

Alas, why did I travel to this world at the end of the Ming Dynasty and couldn't touch anything that opened the golden finger?

Think about the people who travel through the crowd, even if the place they occupy is small, or even just a small island, but the land they occupy is to have iron and iron, copper and copper, and even gold and silver deposits, all of which are available, just waiting for the domineering protagonist to dig and make money. And he has been so difficult to build this squatting dog mountain, except for the worthless bluestone, lime and brick-burning clay, but there is no metal ore with military or economic value to be mined, this person is really incomparable.

However, Li Xiao quickly recovered from his loss.

This squatting dog mountain, which can mine bluestone, lime and produce bricks, is quite valuable. After all, now they are building a lot of construction materials, and if they can produce them themselves, they can greatly reduce the construction costs.

What's more, you can use the quarries and brickyards to fully house those bandit prisoners, as well as absorb the surplus labor on your own side, although the profit is meager, it is still a thing that can be done for a long time.

Li Xiao, who had made up his mind, immediately arranged for Wu Liang to go to Chang Dali, the leader of the craftsmen, and asked him to select a few quarrying and brick-burning experts from among the craftsmen, and prepare to go to Squatting Dog Mountain to open a quarry, lime mill and brick factory.

Chang Dali quickly selected 10 craftsmen, including 3 quarrying masters, 4 brick masters, and 3 lime burner masters.

"Master Li, this is Gu Fa, the head of the quarryman, this is the head of the brick master Zhu Dasheng, and this is the lime master Liao Quanlu."

In Li Xiao's office grass room, Wu Liang came in with three leaders, and then introduced them to Li Xiao one by one.

Li Xiao smiled and greeted them one by one, his polite actions made the three craftsmen who were already feeling restrained feel a little uneasy, these craftsmen with rough faces smiled and didn't know how to place their hands and feet.

Li Xiao then comforted them a few words, and then said to Wu Liang: "Wu Zanhua, you are fully responsible for the establishment of this factory, and you should be responsible for the preparation of the raw materials required. ”

"Students obey the orders of adults."

When it comes to starting a factory, Li Xiao is sure that Wu Liang, who is doing things well, will definitely be able to do a good job. Compared with such relatively simple things, what Li Xiao needs to deal with most now is the growing size of the fort, so that the chaotic finances and management have begun to appear.

Since Li Xiaojun moved to Chifeng Fort in Shandong, because of the complexity of everything, everything was hastily created, and some time ago he had to suppress bandits, and he had no time and energy to straighten out the management matters in the fort.

It's just that now with the stability of the surrounding environment, Li Xiao feels that it is time to put the personnel management and financial supply in the fort on the right track.

Li Xiao thought about it for two days, and then in the afternoon of the same day, he called Wu Liang, Xu Xiuqing, Tian Wei, Wang Yishou, Mo Changrong, Duan Shidi, Zhao Jie, Chen Monkey, and An Monk to his own grass house to discuss matters together.

Now these people can be said to be the core figures of Li Xiaojun. And Xu Xiuqing and Monk An, who had newly added Li Xiaojun's inner circle, were even more inexplicably excited.

After Monk An returned from Squatting Dog Mountain with the army, Li Xiao asked him for his opinion and asked him if he would like to stay in his army, and Monk An readily agreed. Li Xiao appointed him as the captain of the sixth spear team, and his six subordinates were also split into each team of spearmen.

Li Xiao let a spearman captain enter the inner circle, and there is no doubt that there are many of them who have the feelings of the deceased that day, and Monk An, who realized this, felt both ashamed and ashamed in his heart.

"Ladies and gentlemen, now that the population of our army is growing day by day, the army and the people are complicated, and the original set of management methods in Liaodong is quite uncomfortable, and I invite you to come here today to talk about how to reform the current situation."

As soon as Li Xiao's words came out, everyone agreed.

Wu Liang took the lead in speaking from the side: "The concerns of adults are very reasonable. The students thought that although there was nothing to do in our army now, it was also secretly alive. At present, our army has expanded nearly tenfold, but even the types of salaries of generals at this level are still vague, and it is necessary to determine them as soon as possible. ”

Li Xiao nodded in agreement with Wu Liang's point of view. Subsequently, everyone discussed and finally decided on Li Xiaojun's salary level, as follows:

The monthly salary is set at 10 taels.

The monthly salary is set at 8 taels.

The captain of the shield soldiers, the captain of the spearmen, the chief of the Xuanhu cavalry, the chief of the flying harrier, the deputy directors of various departments, etc., the monthly salary is set at 6 taels.

The deputy captain of the shield soldiers, the deputy captain of the spearmen, the deputy captain of the Xuanhu cavalry, the deputy captain of the flying harrier, etc., the monthly salary is set at 5 taels.

The monthly salary of the shield armor commander, the spear armor commander, etc., is set at 4 taels.

The monthly salary of the deputy armor commander of the shield soldiers, the deputy armor commander of the spearmen, etc., is set at 3 taels.

Xuanhu Cavalry, the cavalry of the Flying Harrier has a monthly salary of 2.5 taels.

Shieldmen, spearmen, gunners, musketeers, sailors, and clerks all have a monthly salary of 1.5 taels.

At present, Li Xiaojun has 3 teams of 366 shields, 732 people in 6 teams of spearmen, 130 cavalry, 150 firearms troops, 30 sailors, plus the salaries of various generals and civilian officials, the total monthly salary is nearly 2,800 taels.

Next, Li Xiao put forward an opinion, that is, because all families now have salaries, so the family members are separated from Li Xiaojun's supply system, and Li Xiaojun no longer provides food, but buys it in the shops outside the fort by himself, and in order to ensure that each family member can spend normally, a monthly food subsidy of 0.5 taels will be issued to each household.

If it is a family of sacrificed soldiers, the monthly subsidy will be increased to 2 taels, and if it is a family of disabled veterans, depending on the degree of disability, see if there is still the ability to work, and then subsidize 2 taels or 1 tael respectively.

As a result, an additional monthly subsidy of about 750 taels is required.

At present, there are more than 350 craftsmen who build the city wall, and in the case of providing their food, each person is paid an average of 1.5 taels of silver per month, and a total of 525 taels of silver per month.

After Li Xiao and everyone finished the calculation, they all took a breath unconsciously, this number is really not unknown, and they were shocked when they counted it.

That is, without counting the cost of food and without combat missions, the fixed salary expenditure per month has reached 4,075 taels of silver!

Li Xiao then calculated the specific food expenses every month.

Now, according to Li Xiao's latest regulations, in Li Xiao's army, only soldiers, craftsmen, and more than 300 captives on the squatting dog mountain need to be fed, then, according to the standard food of two catties of grain a day and three taels of pork per person, then, one bucket of rice can be eaten for about 4 days, and according to one stone of rice grain for ten buckets, then one person has to eat 7 and a half buckets of rice grain a month, which is equivalent to 0.75 stones, and the total grain consumption in a month is about 1550 stones.

Now in Li Xiao's army, because of the more than 3,000 stone of grain seized from the bandits in the squatting dog mountain last time, he can barely supply for two months for the time being. In the future, you will need to spend additional money to buy it. According to the current price of 2 taels of silver for one stone of rice grain in Shandong, the monthly food cost is 3,100 taels.

Now the price of pork in Shandong is about 2 cents of silver per catty, and it can be calculated that the total amount of pork consumed per month is nearly 18,700 catties, and another 370 taels of silver are needed.

In addition, there are more than 130 horses for horse feed, according to a horse per day four catties of feed, eight catties of grass, each horse needs to consume about eight cents of silver bean fodder money, about 310 taels of horse feed per month.

It can be calculated that Li Xiaojun's food consumption is about 3,780 taels a month.

This figure is almost the same as Li Xiaojun's salary.

In this way, Li Xiaojun's monthly fixed expenses for the whole army are 7,855 taels in total. In a year, more than 94,000 taels of silver are spent.

Now Li Xiaojun's inventory of gold and silver plus silk and the like, its total can be converted into more than 450,000 taels of silver, it seems, it seems that Li Xiaojun can live for 5 years without a problem, but Li Xiao knows that this calculation method of maintaining the status quo has no meaning.

At present, there are still nearly 1,000 soldiers who do not have suitable armor, and more than 700 soldiers who do not have suitable weapons, and if they are well equipped, then these expenses will be 4 to 50,000 taels of silver.

There is also the cost of materials to build the fort, such as the bluestone foundation, the bluestone streets and alleys, the city tower and the city gate, plus the cost of doubling the construction cost of the bricks, the glutinous rice used to pound the soil and the bricks, and all kinds of buildings to be built in the fort in the future, Li Xiao estimates that if the fort is all built, it will cost at least nearly 20,000 taels of silver.

If Li Xiao had to expand the castle in the future, recruit more troops, and set up a factory to buy equipment, and other expenses, the silver he seemed to have abundant in hand would be quickly drained like flowing water.

The result of the final calculation made everyone infinitely emotional. Especially those generals, in everyone's heart, there is a feeling that they don't know how expensive firewood and rice are not at home.

Li Xiao and a group of generals, next, were about to clarify some of the management rules in the fort, when suddenly a sergeant came to report, saying that Cui Zeng, the inspection department of Mazhu Town, came to see Li Xiao.

Li Xiao and the generals looked at each other, this Cui Zeng had no contact, but he didn't know what he was doing?

As soon as Li Xiao groaned, he asked everyone to disperse, and at the same time explained to them, and in the future, he would act according to the content of today's meeting.

Every man departed as promised.

"Bring Inspector Cui to see the official." After everyone left, Li Xiao straightened his clothes and said lightly to the sergeant.