"The production of gold mines does not seem to be large."

When leaving the Linglong mining area, Zhang Mingyi smashed his mouth and suddenly burst out of a sentence:

"6,000 taels of gold per year, which sounds like a lot, but after deducting the cost, it is only tens of thousands of profits."

Xu Shiyang smiled and replied:

"If there is enough labor, gold production can be increased a lot."

"In previous years, the gold mines of the imperial court in Zhaoyuan, Qixia, Laizhou Mansion and other places in Qi Province could produce nearly 10,000 taels of gold annually, and this is only the official income.

"I estimate that if there is enough labor, an annual output of 30,000 taels of gold will not be a problem."

In the Yuan Dynasty of the other plane, the gold output of the two provinces of Denglai was about 30,000 taels, and Xu Shiyang thought that he could obtain a similar output value.

Zhang Mingyi lowered his head and calculated, and then said:

"Well, in this case, you can get 300,000 yuan for minting gold coins with Denglai gold, which is okay."

Banks in Qi Province have been minting gold and silver coins of equal amounts with hard currencies such as gold and silver, which are usually 7 percent gold and about 3 percent of base metals such as copper. Due to the stability of the currency, the two coins issued by Qi Province with a face value of one tael of gold and one tael of silver respectively circulated relatively smoothly.

Even with the gradual deepening of the relationship between the Xu and Li families, the gold and silver coins of Qi Province had a tendency to circulate overseas - at least the Tianzhu merchants who transported a large amount of Tianzhu native cloth to Xu Shiyang were willing to accept the gold and silver coins of Qi Province to pay for the goods.

"However, if you want to take these 300,000 yuan, Brother Xu, you have to find a way to catch more tartar labor." Zhang Mingyi said with a smile: "For 6,000 taels of gold, you have to fill in more than 2,000 tartars a year, for 30,000 taels, and you can't throw in 10,000 a year?" ”

"How can you throw it all in this place?" Xu Shiyang smiled and shook his head: "I want to throw all the Tartars into the mine to atone for my sins, but how many people are there in total?" What's more, it's not just gold mines that need manpower, but also silver, copper, iron, coal and so on. ”

"Especially in the iron ore mines, that is the real big manpower eater, so in the end we have to find a way to use the machine."

Xu Shiyang stretched out his finger and pointed to the windmills that were rising on the Gold Rush River: "First replace our own people with water hammers and water mills as much as possible, and we have to find a way to build special canals and reservoirs, so that we can recover small gold dust grains." ”

"As for the mines, I'm going to try out the tracks."

"What is the track? Chi Dao? Zhang Mingyi asked.

"Of course not, how do you build a road in the mine?" Xu Shiyang smiled: "I just want to let the slave workers play their role as much as possible." ”

Xu Shiyang's pit track is a small, fully human-powered wooden track that was used in Britain in the early days of the Industrial Revolution and in modern China, and is said to allow a half-grown child to haul hundreds of pounds of ore – of course, with increased efficiency at the same time as the income and life expectancy of mine workers continues to decline.

"After the track was repaired, Brother Zhang could understand what was going on at a glance. However, there is no hurry, although gold and silver are good, they should not be eaten and clothed, our foundation is still agriculture, farmers and fields. ”

"Well, it's good that Brother Xu can understand this truth." Zhang Mingyi nodded with satisfaction.

He vaguely felt that Xu Shiyang paid special attention to businessmen, and attached great importance to profit-seeking, but did not pay so much attention to the fundamental farming of the country.

……

Three days later, Xu Shiyang and his entourage entered the territory of Laizhou Mansion.

In charge of the civil affairs work in Laizhou is Xu Shiyang's brother Xu Shibai, although this kid has a history of trying to take refuge in the Tartars, but it seems that he has a hand in managing the territory.

At least in terms of arranging agricultural production, Xu Shibai is really well organized.

Maybe it's because Xu Mujiang has been a parent for so long, and he, as his son, has some experience in this area?

Anyway, on the road from Dengzhou Mansion to Laizhou Mansion, in the farmland on both sides of the road, Huang Cancan's armor is growing very gratifying, and the sorghum ears are heavy, and there is a bumper harvest scene.

Xu Shibai did not go out of the city to greet Xu Shiyang, after all, he was an elder brother, and feudal morality also allowed him to take Qiao in front of Xu Shiyang.

So Xu Shiyang had no choice but to go into the city to listen to his brother's report.

"After the completion of the household registration last year, the Laizhou government registered 1.1 million mu of land, and this year the official organized the reclamation of wasteland, and the registered land has exceeded 1.5 million mu."

Xu Shibai proudly declared:

"Last year, the high-grade fields in Laizhou harvested one stone per mu, the middle was 120 catties, and the inferior ones were only about 80 catties."

"This year, the water conservancy has been repaired, and many fields have become good watering fields, and the lower fields have also been upgraded to middle fields, coupled with the replanting of wheat beans, it is expected that this year's superior fields can harvest one and a half stones, and more than one stone in the middle fields, and the lower fields can also have about 120 catties."

"According to the tax rate set by the Governor's Office, the common people are taxed at 20 and the common people are taxed at 10, slaves only keep their rations, those who join the army or participate in the construction of water conservancy are reduced by taxes, and the newly opened wasteland is reduced by taxes, and it is estimated that 150,000 stone grain taxes can be collected this year."

Qi Province unified weights and measures, stone is no longer a simple volume unit, but fixed on the level of one stone equal to 150 catties, which can to a certain extent avoid the following officials to use the size of the container and kick the tip and other bad habits to exploit the people.

Of course, when calculating income, directly converting stones to weights also avoids the conversion between various weights of grains.

In this way, the six counties of Laizhou Prefecture, not counting state farms, and only the private sector, can provide 22.5 million catties of grain tax revenue for the Governor's Mansion this year.

Laizhou Mansion is a poor soil quality area in Qi Province, and the previous agricultural harvest is at the lowest level in the entire Qi Province, if it is not for the fact that the Governor's Mansion only occupies half of Quancheng and Yanzhou, Laizhou is even the smaller one.

Such a Laizhou can obtain 22.5 million catties of grain tax in a light tax state, which is naturally good news for Xu Shiyang.

Due to the relocation of the army headquarters to Dengzhou, Xu Shiyang has a better understanding of the data in Dengzhou, he estimates that this year's agricultural tax in Dengzhou will be higher than that in Laizhou, about 25 million catties, Quancheng and Yanzhou do not know how much, but it is estimated that it will not be less than Dengzhou, and the richest Qingzhou is estimated to have 50 million catties.

In this way, it is estimated that this year's grain tax can reach more than 12000000 catties, or about 800,000 stones.

Considering the number of people in Qi Province who have been released from farming, even if the income of agricultural companies and foreign aid is not counted, this grain tax alone is enough to sustain the current Governor's government for two years.

"That sounds like a good number." Zhang Mingyi said with a smile.

"It's just my personal guess, whether I can actually receive so much food depends on the specific situation at the end of the year, but I think it should not be far away."

Xu Shiyang replied:

"So it's not that I don't pay attention to farming, I will try to do my best under the existing conditions."

"But we are at war, and my main focus must be on the army and the production of weapons."