Of course, the current soldiers' salaries are not as high as they were two years ago, in fact, every time Zhou Lang expands the army, the military salaries are downward, and they are promoted to officers while keeping the veterans' salaries unchanged.

The reason for this operation is not to save money, but because the military salary in the first place is unreasonable. At that time, Zhou Lang was alone, and if he didn't have a military salary that people could never refuse, why should others give you their lives. As Zhou Lang grows in the market, his premium ability increases, and of course he has to reduce his salary, which is also the operation that people like Zhou Lang are used to.

The sixty-three veterans recruited in the Zuo Battalion at the earliest, at that time, Zhou Lang promised to give them five silver dollars a day, which is money that ordinary people can't earn in a month, dock workers in Guangzhou, earn one tael of silver a month, Zeng Guofan's Hunan army five taels of silver a month, Zhou Lang gave his men a day's money, almost catching up with Zeng Guofan's Xiang army's monthly income. That was still the price sixty or seventy years later, the price of silver at that time was much lower than now, and the Hunan army of Zeng Guofan took five taels of silver, which was still a high military salary at that time, and the Green Camp and the Eight Banners were not comparable, but it was only the income of Zhou Lang's soldiers for a day, so you can imagine how much Zhou Lang spent in order to form a rebellious founding team.

Up to now, among the sixty-three soldiers, except for eight who died in battle, the other lowest ones have also risen to 1,000 yuan, and the salary given is worth it.

Later, after the Tiandihui uprising, the soldiers recruited by the Tiandihui were reduced to the level of one yuan a day, and a total of 1,000 people were recruited at that time.

Later, when the 3,000 recruits under Wang Fuqian were reorganized, the military salary was reduced to one yuan for two days.

When Chen Zhouquan successfully drove away the Qing army and a large number of refugees entered Fengshan County, the soldiers recruited by Zhou Lang reached the level of one yuan for three days, and the 20,000 troops formed during this period are now the trump card troops in Zhou Lang's hands.

The 100,000 recruits recruited in Fujian now are one yuan for five days, and they can get six yuan a month, which is equivalent to about four taels of silver.

However, this level of military salary, Zhou Lang does not intend to continue to fall, fighting is a kind of life-threatening work, they deserve a higher income than other professions, otherwise the psychology will be unbalanced, without the support of the national spirit, the dissatisfaction caused by low income can not be solved by any high-intensity training, and the army without morale, even if it is as strong as Napoleon's French army, will inexplicably bomb the camp.

140,000 officers and soldiers, the total monthly expenditure of military salaries as high as about 700,000 silver dollars, but also to equip the soldiers with uniform uniforms and weapons and equipment, this is another inexpensive expense, resulting in Zhou Lang in the year since he arrived in Fujian, has already spent 5 million silver dollars, and now every month needs about 1 million silver dollars to maintain the operation of the army.

The 20 million silver dollars blackmailed from Guangzhou have been almost spent in recent years, and in civil affairs, more than 3 million yuan was spent on hiring refugees to reclaim tea plantations, tuntian, etc., leaving Wei Lianli with 5 million to open up trade routes, and the army spent a total of 10 million, but what really spent money was like flowing water, and there was also the construction of the military industrial system.

When he was in Fengshan County, he invested three million silver dollars in the arsenal and shipyard, and when he arrived in Fujian, Zhou Lang rapidly expanded his production capacity and created a military industry that can be called the first arsenal in the East, with an investment of up to eight million silver dollars, which are all one-time investments.

These investments alone have consumed all the windfall made in Guangzhou, and even the funds raised from the previous expansion of shares in India have been fully spent. At the most dangerous time, there was less than 300,000 yuan of cash left on the books, and if it was a business, it was almost on the verge of bankruptcy.

The reason why Zhou Lang can still maintain it now can only be said that his luck is too good, after capturing Fuzhou, he seized as much as three million taels of silver from the treasury, as well as other pearls, jade, corals and other property worth 10 million taels.

It is this money that is supporting Zhou Lang's current expenses, but it can't support a few months, although the 10 million treasures are valuable, if they don't appear, they are just a bunch of useless waste.

Now he can only go to Guangzhou and Macao secretly through Wei Lianli to realize cash, but Zhu Jue is very strict there, although I don't know why he didn't seal up the Lian Li Xing Merchant House, but Wei Lianli, who is very sensitive to danger, has already noticed that the merchant house is being monitored, and he has not gone to Guangzhou to live or die, and has been hiding in Macao, and cashing in this batch of thieves through various brokers.

In the past, Zhou Lang did not have the habit of holding funds in his hands, and he always hoped to burn money in exchange for market position, but in this era, the situation of almost exercising the capital chain made him understand that in the absence of a good financial system and financing channel support, it is necessary to reserve sufficient emergency funds.

Of course, it is better to be able to obtain self-hematopoietic function and obtain a stable cash income, he must open source!

The biggest source of wealth is the tea leaves of Wuyi Mountain, and the spring tea season that has begun has indeed allowed Zhou Lang to get a bumper harvest.

In the past five years, the East India Company has counted the amount of tea exported from China to Britain, with an average of 152242 taels, with a total value of 3864126 taels, with an average of 25.38 taels per quintal, and the East India Company is keen on dealing in medium and high-end tea, while the commercial houses in other countries operate slightly lower tea grades, the lowest is 15 taels, and the average is 20 taels per quintal.

Due to the smuggling of companies from Denmark, Sweden and other countries, as well as some British retail merchants, the amount of tea purchased by the East India Company is only a part of China's exports, and Zhou Lang has no way of knowing how much the total amount is. However, Britain's domestic tea trade, which at one time smuggled more tea than the East India Company's legal tea, so that the East India Company's tea imports accounted for at most half of China's exports, and at its peak, the Danish and Swedish companies sent more tea to Europe than the East India Company.

Zhou Lang estimated that the total amount of tea exported legally and smuggled by Chinese tea merchants would reach 7,800 taels every year, of which about two-thirds of the tea produced in Fujian was produced, which means that Zhou Lang now controls two-thirds of China's tea export output, worth more than 2 million taels of silver.

Even so, tea can not solve Zhou Lang's financial crisis, because Zhou Lang's current method of obtaining benefits through tea is to draw taxes, a box of tea to draw a tael tariff, a load is two boxes, because of the impact of the war, tea merchants in Guangzhou can buy less than one-third of the tea in previous years, resulting in a sharp rise in the price of tea, those who actively come to Fujian to open up trade, the purchase price in Fujian has reached 30 taels per quintal, each quintal of tax two taels of silver, the tax rate is equivalent to 6%, plus the fixed tax charged by ships entering and leaving the port, The face tax paid by the commercial bank, the port under Zhou Lang's control can collect one-tenth of the selling price of tea, that is, the tea can only bring Zhou Lang more than 200,000 taels of tax.

This obviously cannot meet Zhou Lang's expenses.

Therefore, Zhou Lang also needs to develop more financial resources, and at the same time, because although Zhou Lang has made publicity, some commercial banks have not actively come to Fujian to develop, so this year's tea exports have been affected, otherwise the price will not rise so high. But the sales volume is actually declining, in order to ensure that every load of tea can find a buyer, Zhou Lang asked Wei Lianli's Lian Li Xing to come forward and sign a package purchase contract with Fujian tea merchants, at a guaranteed price of 25 taels per load, to purchase unlimited quantities from them.

This is also why there are fewer people who buy clearly, and the price of tea is so high in Fujian, and the reason why Guangzhou is high is because Guangzhou suddenly has a scarcity of tea, but the sales channels are still there, but Fujian is the origin, the closer to the origin, the lower the price, which is the eternal truth, which can be the bottom line for Wei Lianli, so that the price in Fujian is still high.

The massive amount of tea bought by Wei Lianli Bao must be shipped out for sale, which is Zhou Lang's second source of wealth: trade!

Anyway, now the Manchu Qing Dynasty can no longer threaten Zhou Lang's maritime safety, and Zhou Lang fortunately sent most of the ships to form a huge tea fleet and go to India.

Tea is the main business of the East India Company, tea procurement often accounts for more than eighty percent of the value of the East India Company's purchases of goods in China, other countries are similar, France accounts for 82%, Sweden is 95.1%, Denmark is as high as 97.6%, the lowest is the Netherlands and the United States, the Netherlands also accounts for 53.7%, the United States is 52%, obviously tea is the best-selling commodity, Denmark, Sweden and other small countries, and even directly developed into a franchise business.

The reason why bestsellers sell well must be because of the huge profits, otherwise there would not be so many people who come to China to buy tea.

The price of tea is not fixed, under normal circumstances, the price of ordinary tea sold in Guangzhou is between 15 and 25 taels, the price of tea in the origin is 13 taels, and the cost of transporting it to Guangzhou by land from Anhui, Zhejiang and Fujian tea areas is about 3 taels, and the profit margin is 20%, and the profit margin is 20%, The average CIF value of tea in England was 27.5 pence per pound, 120 pounds per quintal, and 3,300 pence, or 41.25 taels, and the gross profit received by the East India Company was 21.25 taels, and after deducting a dozen points of tariff, there were also 18.59 taels.

Zhou Lang helped the East India Company transport tea to India, and he didn't dare to say that he could share half of his profits, and Zhou Lang would wholesale it to the East India Company for every load of five taels of silver, and then purchase cotton and other raw materials from India to return to China, the profit should be about the same, if you transport 100,000 quintals of tea, you can make a profit of one million taels back and forth.