In the warehouse on the east side of the county office, an old official was directing the officers to count the inventory. In the past month or so, the Houjin army has been continuously capturing all kinds of materials, and the tall and spacious granaries and warehouses are almost full, and the bags of grain are piled up higher than the beams on the roof of the granary. In the warehouse, cloth, salt, spices, medicinal herbs, copper and iron utensils, saltpeter and sulfur and other goods were stacked in piles, and there was almost no place for people to stay.

"Lao He, the injuries on your body are okay, right?" Fan Tongzhou, who led Yang Ming and his entourage into the door, greeted the old official.

"It's okay, it's just a little skin injury, thank you Mr. Fan for your concern." Yesterday, when Zhao Zhixian was anyway, this old official took the messenger to fight with a few Houjin scribes stationed in the warehouse, and was slightly injured.

"That's good. Lao He, this is General Yang who broke the army and recovered the county seat, and this is General Ding Bai......"

Fan Tongzhou introduced Yang Ming and others who arrived with the old official.

"I've seen General Yang." The old official arched his hand to Yang Ming.

"Lao He, General Yang wants to see the inventory of the treasury."

"Does Mr. Fan have an edict from Lord Zhixian?" The old official asked Fan Tongzhou.

"This ...... Lao He, these materials are all trophies captured by General Yang, and General Yang should take a look at the inventory. Fan Tongzhou explained to the old official.

"No one can check the list without an edict." The old official said neither humbly nor arrogantly.

"Bold!" Ding Yousan stepped forward, his hand pressed on the hilt of the knife and shouted. Today, Yang Minggang promised to accept them as housekeepers, and when the head of the family was in trouble, Ding Yousan also wanted to show it.

Yang Ming waved his hand and stopped Ding Yousan.

"Mr. He, when the Tartars were here the day before yesterday, could they read the book clearly?" Yang Ming just heard Fan Tongzhou call this old official Lao He, and knew the surname of this old official.

"This ......" The old official's face turned red, and then he said: "Since the magistrate has already dedicated the city, of course he has an order for the treasury. ”

When he said this, Yang Ming was not able to answer for a while. These old officials have been immersed in civil affairs for many years, and everything on the scene has long been ripe, and it is not easy to hold them in words. Yang Ming didn't want to be rough with these people, so he had to say to Fan Tongzhou: "Mr. Fan, please go to the county magistrate." ”

Before Fan Tongzhou could answer, he heard a sound of footsteps, and Zhao Zhixian hurriedly walked in with Zhao Jiaoyu and a few officials. This warehouse and the county government are one of the big compounds, and Zhao Zhixian learned that Yang Ming came to see the warehouse, and quickly rushed over.

"He Rushui, this county was recovered by General Yang's army, and the spoils and their inventory in the treasury, General Yang doesn't hurt to see it."

"General Yang wants to transfer the captured money, food and materials, but only according to the transfer. You just keep a good account book, and you just take care of the county's own things. ”

After Zhao Zhixian finished explaining to the old official He Rushui, he said to Fan Tongzhou: "Mr. Fan, you will follow General Yang in the future, and if there is anything, you can take care of both sides of the yali." After saying that, Zhao Zhixian looked at Zhao Jiaoyu, and Zhao Jiaoyu nodded.

Nominally, the teacher is the student, the teacher is the teacher, the show is the student, and it is a natural thing for the teacher to manage the students. But in fact, Xiucai's official school usually does not hold classes, and every time the big exam is approached, Xiucai only works hard at home, at most they study at school. In addition, when the examination was for Xiucai, the examination was presided over by the superior academic administration, and in that era, people only called the person who admitted them a teacher. Therefore, although the teacher is also a teacher in name, no one recognizes it, and in fact he can't control Xiucai. Zhao Zhixian greeted Zhao Jiaoyu, that is, he just gave Zhao Jiaoyu a face.

In fact, Zhao Zhixian's arrangement was told to Fan Tongzhou yesterday, and he said it again in front of Yang Ming today, which can be regarded as an explanation to both parties.

"General Yang, the official still has something to do - those hungry people are making trouble outside the city, and they are making noise about entering the city, and the official wants to go and see." Zhao Zhixian bowed his hand to Yang Ming and left in a hurry with people.

He Rushui took out the inventory and handed it to Yang Ming. Yang Ming flipped through it, and took out the list listed by Hauge yesterday - of course it was not written by Hauge himself, this kind of thing is naturally done by his subordinates, and after a rough comparison, it can basically match. Looking at the mountains of materials, I can't count them all for a while. After walking around the storehouse a few times, I looked at it roughly, and I thought that these storekeepers did not dare to do anything. Shunyi City is so big, it can't be hidden if it is smuggled out, if it is smuggled out of the city, it is even more difficult to think about it, it is purely looking for death.

"Where's the vault? Take us to see it. ”

He Rushui took Yang Ming and his party to a smaller warehouse. The walls of the green bricks are thicker than the large warehouses just now, and the ground is also covered with thick green bricks, and the walls are not open on all sides, and the holes between the roof and the wall are ventilated. On the shelves on the four sides of the storehouse were a handful of silver ingots, and on the ground were wooden boxes, which were also filled with silver blooms and loose silver.

Yang Ming picked up a silver ingot and held it in his hand heavily. The silver ingot is ship-shaped, the middle is girded, the two ends are curved upward, and there is a layer of spiral silk on the ingot surface, which is clearly visible from the outside and inside, which is the ripple pattern formed from the outside to the inside when the silver ingot is cast, the silver water is rapidly cooled by the high temperature and contracted, and the ripple pattern is formed from the outside to the inside. Generally speaking, those with a silver content of more than ninety percent have such a pattern, which is also the reason why the full-colored silver is usually called patterned silver. The bottom of the silver bloom is engraved with the inscription "Zhaoqing Huangjiang Factory Solve the Charge Silver Wu Pick Two Craftsmen Huang Jie", Zhaoqing Huangjiang Factory refers to the Huangjiang Tax Factory opened on the river bank outside the city of Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province in the fourth year of Wanli, where the imperial court collected the commercial tax of passing ships.

Yang Ming played with the silver ingot in his hand and fell into deep thought.

There were many reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty in history, but the most fundamental reason was the economic collapse of the Ming Dynasty, and the fuse that led to the economic collapse of the Ming Dynasty was the shortage of silver. Between 1620 and 1660, a trade crisis broke out in the European market, and the world trading system, centered on Seville in Spain, was dealt a heavy blow. Before the decline of European trade in the twenties of the 17th century, the number of Chinese merchant ships berthing in Manila was as high as 41 per year, and by 1629 (that is, the second year of Chongzhen) the number of Chinese merchant ships dropped to 6. Coupled with the shrinking of trade with Central Asia at that time, the import of silver from the New World into China was greatly reduced. 30s of the 17th century. Silver began to flow into China in large quantities, and silver from the Spanish New World was shipped to Manila by sea. Large quantities of Japanese silver were brought to Guangzhou by the Macau people, while more silver flowed into Macao from Goa in India via the Strait of Malacca. But it wasn't long before silver inflows were severely choked again. After 1634, King Philip IV of Spain restricted the export of ships from Acapulco and forcibly cut off trade with China. In the winter of 1639, 25,000 Chinese merchants were massacred by the Spaniards and natives in Manila; In 1640, Japan severed all trade with Macao; In 1641, Malacca fell to the Dutch and Goa's connection with Macau was severed. At this point, the Ming Dynasty's silver imports plummeted. Because of the lack of silver, Jiangnan's industry and commerce were hit hard, the country experienced hard deflation, and the price of grain fell by 70% in two or three years – this is in silver terms, and in copper terms it has risen tenfold. The full-blown currency crisis eventually led to the collapse of the national economy.

"General-" Fan Tongzhou saw Yang Ming holding the silver ingot thoughtfully, and was silent for a long time, not knowing what was going on, and hurriedly reminded him.

"Oh, didn't you say that there was still a Great Seal of the General Army in the storeroom? Let's see. ”

Yang Ming came back to his senses and thought that Hao Gelie's list contained "a large seal of the Ming General Army", so he asked casually.

He Rushui nodded, took out a wooden box from the corner of the warehouse, and opened it on the shelf in front of Yang Ming.

The inside of the box was padded with thick cloth, and several cloth packages were placed in the middle and corner of the box, He Rushui took out one of the cloth packages and handed it to Yang Ming.

When the package was opened, there was a square silver seal inside, the side of the seal was about three inches long, flat like a larger and thicker CPU, and the back of the seal was a tiger-shaped twist, called the Fuhu button, which was used to hold the seal. Yang Ming turned over the printing surface, and saw the four words "General Pingliao" engraved on the willow leaf seal on it.

With a long sigh, Yang Ming put the big seal back in the box and was silent.

This "General Pingliao" seal was taught by Zhao Shu, the chief soldier of Shanhaiguan. In September of the first year of Chongzhen (1628), Zhao led the teaching to hang the great seal of General Pingliao and led the army to garrison Shanhaiguan. When the Houjin soldiers invaded the city of Zunhua, Yuan Chonghuan urgently ordered Zhao to lead 4,000 soldiers and horses to the rescue, and Zhao led the Jiaojiao to march for three days and nights, and arrived outside the city of Zunhua on the first day of November. The Four Banners of the Manchurian Left Wing and the Mongol soldiers of Bel Azig and other subordinates ambushed Zhao Shujiao, and Zhao Shuojiao fell from his horse with an arrow, died in battle, and the whole army was annihilated.

How the Later Jin Army learned in advance about the time and route of Zhao Shujiao's march and thus set up an ambush to annihilate the enemy is now a matter of different opinions, some people think that Yuan Chonghuan betrayed Zhao Shujiao, and some people think that it was just a coincidence.

The old official He Rushui also sighed, and opened the other cloth packages in the box for Yang Ming to review, which were all treasures such as pearl and jade jewelry, ruyi, ivory, tortoiseshell, and agarwood. Although these things are valuable, they are difficult to get rid of and realize for a while, Yang Ming has never been very interested in this kind of items, but just looked at the inventory casually. When he saw a seal of Tian Huangshi, he didn't feel a move in his heart.

Tianhuang stone is a stone produced in Shoushan, Fuzhou, and is named because of its yellow color. Its color is warm and lovely, the texture is fine, and it is regarded as the "king of printed stones", the so-called "gold is easy to obtain, and Tianhuang is hard to find". In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Tian Huangshi was famous all over the world, and his worth doubled. When Pu Yi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, escaped from the Forbidden City, he sewed a Tian Huangshi triple seal in his cotton clothes.

The Tian Huangshi that Yang Ming saw was an idle medal, and the stone quality was not bad, and I don't know which literati the Houjin soldiers snatched it from. What made Yang Ming's heart move was not how expensive Tian Huangshi was, but just a few words engraved on this idle seal.

"I'll take this badge, put the rest away." Yang Ming said to He Rushui.

He Rushui nodded. In this era, Tian Huangshi is not as precious as later generations, and there are more valuable things in the cloth package than this Tian Huangshi, why Yang Ming only takes this, He Rushui is also a little incomprehensible.

When he came out to the outside detention room, He Rushui took out the account book, and wrote neatly in small letters, "Take a piece of Tian Huang on December 22, and hand over the contents of the treasury B word 327 boxes", and let Yang Ming draw the charge.

Yang Ming took a calligraphy class in middle school, and he could write the words with this brush, so he picked up the pen, signed his name in the line letters, and completed the formalities.

He Rushui took out a stack of official paper and handed it to Yang Ming, "If the general has any allocation in the future, just throw the paperwork." After that, he took out the letter book, bowed down and said, "Please keep the letter seal for the general." ”

Yang Ming took a thick pile of paper, the paper is about two feet long, about one foot six inches wide, printed with shading, faintly there is a spicy fragrance of pepper, which is soaked in pepper water when the paper is made, the purpose is to prevent insects.

The Ming Dynasty was very strict on the use of official paper, Hongwu ten years Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang issued the "Tianxia Zhu Si Wen Transfer Paper Style", strictly stipulating that different yamen grades and types of languages use different specifications of official paper, and strictly ordered that "those who are not as good as the style, the crime". On the one hand, this is to reflect the strictness of the hierarchy, and on the other hand, it also makes the specifications of official documents unified, neat and beautiful, which is convenient for the filing of various yamen documents and provides convenience for file management.

"Letter seal?" Yang Ming thought for a moment and took out the Tian Huang seal he had just taken out from his pocket.

"Use this?" He Rushui felt that he had finally figured out why Yang Ming wanted to take this Tian Huang just now.

"Well, that's it." Yang Ming said lightly.

Although he felt a little inexplicable, He Rushui didn't want to entangle with Yang Ming more, so he picked up the Tian Huang seal, dipped it in the ink clay, and pressed it on the seal book.

"The wind is clear and the moon is shining", four dignified and beautiful Yangwen seal characters fall on the letter book.