Shandong Salt Transportation Division has been in a state of chicken ribs before, and the annual salt tax paid is only more than 100,000 taels, which shows the [***] degree of the officials. In addition to Zhao Yan, the salt transportation envoy, there is also a salt transportation department sent by Chongzhen, which is a supervising official.

Cao Jingen, the current incumbent Shandong Salt Transportation Division, had 'colluded' with Zhao Yan before, and this did not even join the ranks of salt sellers.

It is very convenient to sell salt in Shandong, after all, Zhao Yan will send soldiers to escort it, and there is almost no risk on the road.

After Zhao Yan arrived at the Yamen of the Salt Transportation Division, he directly began to rectify it on a large scale, first of all, to lay off personnel, except for the Imperial History of the Salt Transportation Division and his cronies, the rest were all abolished.

It is said that the new official took office with three fires, but Zhao Yan's fire burned fiercely and abnormally. Zhao Yan stayed in Jinan for more than ten days, during which he met with those Shandong merchants several times.

The discussions with these traders were mainly about the details of trafficking.

As for Zhao Yan's salt policy reform plan, the salt transportation department is only responsible for output, and everyone can participate in trafficking, and the price of each load of salt is sold at a price of 25 yuan, and the discount policy will no longer be implemented next year, but members of the Shandong Salt Association can enjoy a 9% discount.

Zhao Yan was obviously unlikely to deal with the government affairs of the Salt Transportation Division all day long, so he promoted Dong Hejie, the treasurer of the commercial bank, to the Salt Transportation Division, and the Salt Transportation Division would be in charge of it.

Dong Hejie is the most capable of the dozen or so big treasurers of the firm, and so far no corruption has been found.

As far as the anti-corruption method is concerned, Zhao Yan is constantly improving, and so far a sound reporting system has been formed, and all those who report the truth will be rewarded. Anyone who embezzles ink and accepts bribes will be punished, and those who derelict their duties will be punished with fines and salaries.

At the same time, an inspection brigade was set up, and the personnel of the inspection brigade will be drawn from the mercenary battalion, and 3,000 people will be selected for the first time, and another 3,000 people will be selected from the cantonments, and each of these 6,000 people will form a brigade, every 200 people will form a squadron, and every 40 people will form a small team.

These four inspection brigades will be divided into six provinces, namely, Shandong, Henan, Anhui, Shanxi, Huguang, and Beizhili, and each squad will set up cards in various places to inspect illegal salt and work part-time to suppress bandits.

If there is a large group of bandits, the squad will contact the squadron, and the squadron will jointly attack, if it is still more tricky, then contact the brigade, and the brigade will organize men and horses to attack.

At the same time, the various squads of the inspection brigade also work part-time to save lives and help the wounded, recruit displaced people, and other work.

1,000 people from each province are stationed at various checkpoints, and all those who traffic illicit salt will be sent to Shandong for interrogation after investigation and punishment. In terms of the assessment of these salt dings, it is to see whether the local illegal salt and banditry are rampant, and then there is a public opinion poll, if the public opinion poll is not satisfactory and the people are not satisfied with them, they will blame the officers of the squad, squadron, and brigade.

In the past, in order to improve their political performance, some tun chiefs urged the people to produce as if they were contract workers, and they had to get up before dawn to go out to work, and they did not come back until dark, treating people as oxen.

At first, Zhao Yan didn't notice it, because although those tun people were forced to work, but the income from their labor was their own, so they didn't feel anything wrong about it, and those tun chiefs in tundi were much better than the officials in other places, and the most important thing was that they would not exploit them, although they were dissatisfied, they could still bear it, after all, it was their own to do more.

It wasn't until later that the problem was discovered when he asked the tunmin about the behavior and style of the tun chief, so Zhao Yan prescribed a nominal investigation of this assessment, if the people in a certain area in charge of a certain clerk were generally dissatisfied with him, then he would be removed from his post directly, and if the circumstances were bad, he would be subject to other sanctions.

It also stipulates that public opinion polls should be conducted every six months, and now the tun chiefs in the various tun areas do not dare to mess around for the sake of political achievements, and they can generally only patiently organize and carry out ideological education for those lazy tun people when it comes to improving production.

These salts are active in other provinces, and they should pay more attention to the influence, if they make a lot of complaints, their reputation will be lost, and the gains outweigh the losses.

At the same time, in order to improve the inspection ability, these salt Ding people prepare horses, but they are not at the level of war horses, but they are also at the level of horses, and the horses of this level are slightly chicken ribs when used as war horses, and they are a bit overkill when used for transportation, and they are not as good as horses in speed and endurance, but they are obviously good for equipping second-line troops.

Xu An, commander of the mercenary battalion, was responsible for dispatching six inspection brigades and personally sitting in Shandong, and the other five provinces were each led by a captain.

In terms of trafficking details, first the salt merchants buy salt from Shandong, and then the salt transportation department prescribes a corresponding amount of salt leads, with which they can be sold to various places in an open and honest manner.

Of course, Zhu Youzhen did not stipulate where these salts could be sold, but Zhao Yan took up the post of Shandong Salt Transportation Division this time, and everything was not a problem, at most he was fighting a war of words with the two Huai salt merchants in the sales range.

It is more difficult for Yanding to enter the south, after all, the south is the territory of the two Huai salt merchants, and Huai Yan is dominant in the south, so Zhao Yan's plan is to eat the northern market first, and then gradually encroach on the south.

It is not a problem to sell four or five million taels in the northern market, as long as you eat this market, the annual tax of five million taels of salt will be up to the standard, and the more you sell, the more you get.

Anyway, Zhao Yan made up his mind to hand over five million taels to the court every year, and keep the rest by himself.

After Zhao Yan explained all the things that needed attention, he returned to Zhaojiabao from Jinan and began to reorganize the mercenary battalion.

As soon as the policy was introduced, the departments began to get busy, and the mercenary battalions began to be reorganized, with twenty pikemen, fifteen musketeers, and five cavalrymen in each squad, while each squadron was equipped with two 75-mm howitzers, and each brigade was equipped with twenty siege 75-mm cannons.

At present, in terms of casting artillery, the Ordnance Bureau uses cast iron for heavy city defense guns, coastal defense guns, and naval guns, and brass for light guns. Cast iron cannons are fragile, but you don't need to worry about this problem with the addition of a barrel.

If the field gun is added with a barrel, it will become heavier and will affect the mobile surname, so the brass cast cannon is used, but the brass cannon is softer and cannot continuously do high-intensity shooting, and it must stop to cool down after firing a dozen or so guns at a time. At the same time, the average life is only 300 rounds, and the barrel will be deformed after 300 rounds, which will affect the shooting accuracy, and it needs to be towed back to the Ordnance Bureau for recasting.

…… In mid-November, the basic vermicelli processing line has entered the final stage, after a month of busy processing, 3 billion catties of sweet potatoes in the processing of nearly one million people, all made into starch.

These starches will be processed by specialized workshops and then the vermicelli will be obtained.

Handan, Yingzhou two places, after the sweet potato harvest, have also carried out vermicelli processing, Handan and Yingzhou's sweet potato yield is not high, because this year is a hasty planting, the bottom fertilizer is not applied, the growth time is not sufficient, although the planting area is more than Huangxian love, the yield per mu is less than half of the land in Denglai, Yingzhou received 1.9 billion catties, Handan only received 1.6 billion catties.

Yingzhou processed 1.3 billion catties, leaving 500 million catties as rations, and Handan processed 900 million catties, leaving 700 million catties.

The sweet potatoes used to process vermicelli in the three places reached 5.2 billion catties, and a total of 670 million catties (335,000 tons) of refined starch were obtained, and the starch extraction rate was 2 percentage points lower than the estimated 15%, apparently because the processing was not timely, resulting in sweet potato saccharification and reduced starch extraction rate.

After Zhao Yan returned to Huangxian, he immediately announced that all the tun areas had entered the holiday stage, and the New Year would be celebrated in half a month, so it was time for all the soldiers and civilians to rest for a while.

Throughout the year, the people of the tundi are either building infrastructure, farming, breeding and training, and there is a day off on important festivals.

The chiefs of each tun also began to pay the wages for processing vermicelli this month, and the land rent was wheat three potatoes and nine potatoes, so all the sweet potatoes used to process vermicelli this time were harvested.

The people of the tundi sent a long queue to receive their wages one by one.

The wages issued this time are wrapped in red paper, which is also regarded as the New Year's money issued, and when the red envelope is opened, there are three taels of silver in it, and the old and weak also have one or five dollars.

"Three taels of silver, why are there so many?" After a strong man opened the red envelope, he found that there were three taels of silver in it, and he couldn't help but be surprised: "Is it wrong?" ”

"I've got three taels here." At this time, a person on the side also said.

"I have that too."

After opening the red envelope, these people are surprised, now Denglai often repairs water conservancy, or repairs roads and bridges or something, the people of Tundi are sometimes called to work, which is different from the government's errands, there is a salary to work, but a month's salary is generally one or two silver, if you don't want to go, you can also, mainly look at consciousness, but every time you recruit people to work, the response is always very enthusiastic, who is sound and goes, it will be looked down upon by others.

"The general said that the New Year is coming soon, this is the New Year's money for everyone, so that everyone can have a fat year, and each household will also send a fat chicken, and it is estimated that it will be transported to our tun in two days." Tun Chang explained.

"Yikes! Our family has more than 20 chickens~! The chickens are all given by the general, and most of them can lay eggs, so how can they still ask for the general. A woman said immediately.

"Yes! I have more than 30 of them at home, but unfortunately most of them died, but there are more than 10 of them, and it is enough to eat them myself, where can I ask for more generals. ”

"Humph! It's strange that you are willing to eat, the general still doesn't know your thoughts, and they all want to build a house, and there will be a shortage of chickens to build a house? Now under the rule of the general, it is not easy to earn silver, as long as you are diligent and not afraid of hardship, it is not simple to earn a dozen taels of silver a year, if the township Yongda has excellent grades, it is not a problem to earn twenty taels a year, and it is not simple to build a house? Natun Chang snorted coldly and said, "When you bring the chicken back tomorrow, you must stew it well on Chinese New Year's Eve, and the general still expects you to be able to go into battle to kill the enemy!" ”

"The General is so kind to me! Tuntou, do you think we set up an immortal card for the general to worship every day? A man asked angrily.

"The general is so young, what kind of immortal card do you set up, it's unlucky, don't, don't." When the tun chief heard this, he hurriedly waved his hand, and the adults never liked them organizing the people to chant public morality or something, so according to the instructions above, let them not think about flattery all day long, and do more practical things for the people.

(To be continued)