At this time, the attendant Zhou Rui suddenly said: "My lord, there are ducks ahead, let's wait first, shall we?" ”

"Over the ducks?" Zhang Han was on the move, but he didn't need Zhou Rui to explain, and the ducks soon appeared in front of him...... What a spectacular scene this is, a large flock of yellow feathers have not faded off the half-sized ducks swaying their bodies, while screaming, driven by people to keep rushing to the north, there are a small number of adult ducks in the duck flock, it is estimated that most of them are female ducks, there are some smaller ducklings are following behind the female duck, lined up in a long line, a normal female duck must not hatch so many ducklings, most of them are the credit of the kang room. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

"Old Uncle Zhou!"

Zhang Han saw Zhou Fengji at a glance, arched his hand far away on the horse, and then was about to get off the horse to salute.

"Wenlan, don't be polite." Zhou Fengji hurriedly trotted over, pressed Zhang Han's legs, and said with a smile: "I, the 'subordinates', have already blocked Wenlan's way, and I really can't afford to ask you to come down to pay a salute." ”

Zhang Han looked at Zhou Fengji and said with a smile: "Old Uncle Zhou, your legs and feet look much neater than when you were in Xinpingbao, and your face is also tanned and red, but you look much more energetic." ”

"It's nature." Zhou Fengji said with a smile: "Now we are chasing ducks everywhere every day, and we now have more than 50 kang houses from Tianchengwei to Lingqiu, not only hatching ducks, but also some geese, and there are a lot of them." Even the goose grows slower than the duck and is more squeamish, but as long as we are not afraid of hard work, I am afraid that the soldiers will not only have duck meat to eat, but also goose meat to eat. ”

"Uncle Zhou has worked hard." Zhang Han was very moved and said: "No matter what, the body bones are the most important. However, looking at your appearance, uncle, I am afraid that you are much happier than when you were in Xinpingbao, so I can rest assured. ”

Zhang Han then asked: "There are more than 50 kang houses, how many ducks and geese have hatched now?" ”

"Not a lot." Zhou Fengji thought for a while and said: "The scale of the kang room is not small, at least there are more than ten rooms, which can hatch thousands of eggs at a time, and this time the ducks are already the third time, you have also seen it, all over the mountains, at least twenty or thirty thousand." Before the summer, it is estimated that there can be more than 100,000 into the water, I found some experienced duck chasers in the countryside to help, they said, as long as the ducks go into the water, after the summer will rub long, and it is not likely to get sick, not like raising chickens, a chicken plague is a group of deaths, so you can't cry! If the ducks grow fat and survive before the winter of this year, and there are more eggs laid by then, I plan to expand the breeding scale to more than 200,000 miles next year. ”

"I'm going to get to the other side of the Sanggan River."

"yes, just over there." Zhou Fengji said: "It is the manpower of raising ducks, it is estimated that it will cost a lot of money to hire more, and one person can see a group of thousands at most, and it will cost two or three hundred people next year, but it is not a small expense." ”

"It's a good deal, Uncle Zhou." Zhang Han said: "Ducks in the river, don't feed them in summer, just a small amount of coarse grains and some grass to feed, kill most of them before winter, and don't need to prepare food for them in winter, not like shepherding, the place is big, in addition to its own food, it has to add food, otherwise it will not grow fat, if you want to spend the winter, you have to prepare a lot of hay, and you have to be carefully served by many people...... I'm just stupid, why didn't I think of large-scale stocking of this stubble earlier, and spent a lot of effort on raising pigs and chickens. ”

Zhang Han really didn't expect it before, he took out a small notepad again, and at the same time took out a hard pen from the cowhide bag...... This kind of hard charcoal pen was specially made for him by the military secretary he instructed, and it can be regarded as a privilege given to him by Zhang Han himself...... Zhang Han thought that he didn't have this kind of ability, so it was faster and easier to write honestly with a hard pen.

"Next year, you will send 500 people to Uncle Zhou." Zhang Hanshabu wrote a formal order, and at the same time asked Zhou Rui to take his own seal to cover it, of course, this official document also had to be sent by Zhou Fengji to the attendant department, and after the attendant division officially issued it, the divisions would follow it, and the corresponding process would be carried out...... This is not that someone wants to defy Zhang Han's authority, this set of procedures is set by himself, and of course he has to take the lead in complying with it.

Zhang Han said to Zhou Fengji: "From this year to next year, we will mainly try to plant cotton on the grassland, and now the fields have opened a lot, and I will go to see it after a while. The staple food is guaranteed, and the stored grain is enough, but an army of 100,000 has been added at once, and each soldier must ensure the intake of four taels of meat and eggs a day, and nearly 200,000 people will eat how much meat you have to eat a day......"

Zhou Fengji felt dizzy, he really couldn't calculate what a huge number it was.

Zhang Han told him: "Let's be less, at least fifty or sixty thousand catties of meat a day, now a pig can be slaughtered less than a hundred catties of meat, that is to say, five or six hundred big fat pigs a day are enough for the whole army to eat, not only slaughtered and killed, but also usually killed meat to reserve, to be dried, pickled, and canned, the more meat is better, but the military department has already wrapped up the entire Datong Mansion pig farmers, and the gentry and people elsewhere can't buy meat, so now they can only guarantee to kill about 200 pigs a day. The gap is very large, last year from the grassland to get back hundreds of thousands of sheep, a sheep can produce less than 20 catties of meat, what is the use? However, bones are useful, and grinding them into flour is good feed...... Speaking far away, raising ducks and geese is a good thing, Uncle Zhou, you do it first, the nearby big rivers and small rivers and trunk canals can be used to do these things, and there must be a supporting feed farm and a place for winter, I will explain these to Li Dongxue to handle the ......"

Zhou Fengji didn't expect to get such a big support, he just had fun raising ducks, of course, with his temperament, he also wanted to do this well, he couldn't ask the military secretary to lose money, he originally had to do something so that people couldn't say that he was idle, who knew that doing a small thing casually would be a big militaristic article in Zhang Han!

The old shopkeeper can't speak, today and Zhang Han are also really chance encounters, originally Zhang Xuezeng had already asked him to come to see Zhang Han and find greater support, Zhou Fengji was afraid that Zhang Han would be embarrassed, and now that he thinks about it, he doesn't know him as well as Zhang Han's third uncle...... This person is really ambitious and resolute!

"The north and south canals are also ten miles long, but unfortunately you can't put ducks...... Zhang Han's thoughts have turned to other places, and it is easy to see the situation on the north and south canals on this official road: quite a lot of machinery has been erected on both sides of the channel, the most is of course the stamping machine used by the mint, a large number of copper ingots are transported from the grassland, and then stamped with machine molds here, and the workers polish it again, basically it can be formed and used, a string of 1,000 yuan, hundreds of thousands of dollars have to be produced every day, and the net income of a month has exceeded 200,000 taels. It is moving towards 300,000 taels......

Zhang Han couldn't help but wonder how good it would be if the copper mine could maintain such a high output as it is now!

It's a pity that that's impossible, the copper ore mining area has been mined almost, the current high output can be maintained for a few months at most, after the autumn, it is estimated that a maximum of 200,000 jin to 250,000 jin a month will be mined, this is the limit of this copper mine, unless Zhang Han does not talk about the cost and safety of the multi-li mine and furnace, a month of tens of thousands of more than tens of thousands of jin is estimated to be not enough to compensate for the loss of production accidents.

Even so, Tian Jitang smiled extremely happily...... From last year to this spring, and Yusheng's financial situation is very unhealthy, although it is far from the point where it is difficult to turn over debt, but it is also like a strong man who has a cold and flu, sneezing and snot every day, and his body always feels not very refreshing.

At the end of last year, the great victory of the grassland captured a large number of people, from horses to ploughing cattle to a large number of sheep, and sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in two months, which overturned the famine at the end of the year and the shortness of the beginning of spring, but then came the great expansion of the army and the clearing of the grassland, and a large amount of silver was used up like a flowing water, and there was a large area of red letters on the account books...... It was Zhang Han's idea to record the deficit with red letters, and at that time, Tian Jitang looked at the large red letters every day, and he was so anxious that he scratched his head in his public hall...... This was originally an ordinary account man, Zhang Han entrusted him with a heavy responsibility, and even Li Jingming, the account of the old store with Yusheng, did not get so much trust from Zhang Han to Tian Jitang, Tian Jitang has nothing else to worry about, he is not yet fifty, his body is strong, and there is nothing to worry about at home, and Yusheng has a big gap for a while, this old account room is in the public hall every day with a candle and looks at the account book in a daze, during that time, people are looking at his window, Tian Hei's face is in a daze again, and there are many arrears on the account again, If Tian Jitang blew out the candle flame and went home with a brisk walk and humming a little song one day, it must be that his financial situation has improved...... It's a pity that Tian Jitang went home happily, and before the copper mine made a profit, there were not many promises.

As soon as he thought of this, Zhang Han thought of the expenses in the next few months, and he was also worried about Tian Jitang's state of mind, this account man, but he was really too conscientious!

In addition to the Mint Bureau, more places in the north and south canals were built a large number of factories, and Zhang Han ordered a new mechanical bureau under the Military and Political Department to cast various machine tools.

In the past, most of the machine tools of Yusheng were bought in Macau, or asked to buy them in the Jesú Club in Batavia, most of their machines came from Europe, and all kinds of machine tools were very complete, especially the boring machine for military purposes, etc., and it was much easier and cheaper to buy from the Jeese Club than to cast it by itself.

But and Yusheng has been trying to make machines by himself, at the beginning of the armor and weapons bureau is to cast their own rolling mill, that is a technological leap, and then Li Zhuang here is to start making various machines by themselves, to now, Zhang Han wants the Machinery Bureau to try to make textile looms, from a technical point of view, there are not too many difficulties.

The duck flock was finally over, and Zhou Fengji also inquired about Zhang Han's approximate return date, planning to send some good fat ducks to Zhang Han's private residence at that time, until Zhang Han said that he couldn't grasp it, and he had to look at the overall situation as a time, and the old shopkeeper clicked his mouth and left with a regretful face.