As soon as Hao Tong disappeared, it was more than ten days, so that Su Hao was a little skeptical that he had run back to Yunnan. Deng Kui also did what he said, in these days, he really followed Su Hao's side, never leaving an inch, and it seemed that he regarded Su Hao as a key object of protection.

Su Hao was too lazy to guess what these two soldiers were thinking, he still had his own mess to do, Deng Kui was willing to follow, Su Hao was also very happy, at least he could treat Deng Kui as a soldier from time to time, helping to run errands, carry things and the like.

Dai Qi returned from the provincial capital and brought back a kiln photo issued by the chief minister, which showed the signatures of the household and the workshop. Dai Qi told Su Hao that the political envoy was very supportive of the opening of the coal kiln, and specially sent a document to Fengcheng County, asking the county government to give necessary convenience. As for the mining tax of the coal kiln, the household side made a rough calculation, and determined that the tax amount for a year was 500 taels, in addition, the secretary of the household house also specifically told Dai Qi that if the output of the coal kiln was less than 5 million catties at that time, he could apply for tax reduction and exemption again.

In the Ming Dynasty, the yamen was set up, and there were corresponding departments from the central to the local. The six central departments, which correspond to the six rooms in the locality, are also called the six cao. The household house and workshop mentioned by Dai Qi are both provincial institutions, and although they have the same name as the county institutions, they are completely different in level.

"Will Jingran go so well?" Su Hao asked in surprise. In his impression, the officialdom of the late Ming Dynasty should be extremely dark and decadent, and according to his conjecture, how could it not be delayed for several months to obtain these licenses.

Dai Qi said with a smile: "Master Su, you don't know anything, we open a coal kiln, it is also a move to improve people's livelihood, and the political secretary has always vigorously advocated such things." ”

"I see." Su Hao said.

"Of course, on the side of the house, I also checked it a little, otherwise, in terms of the verification of the tax amount, it would not be so easy to talk." Dyche said.

"......" Su Hao was speechless, he wanted to praise the officials in the province for being honest just now.

Dai Qi said again: "The workshop didn't ask us to be filial piety. However, Nanchang Mansion was extremely short of coal in winter, so the Lei Si official in the workshop specially told me that this winter, hundreds of thousands of catties of good coal should be set aside for him, and he would distribute it to the officials in the province. ”

"These hundreds of thousands of catties of good coal won't be given away for nothing, right?" Su Hao asked worriedly.

Dai Qi said: "Of course not, they will buy it at the market price." Nowadays, it is not easy to buy good coal, and it is impossible for anyone to take out hundreds of thousands of catties of coal at once for filial piety. ”

"Hehe, this means that we also have some in-demand materials, which can be sold at a price." Su Hao said with a smile.

With the kiln license, Su's trading bank's coal mining business is completely legal. In Xuanfeng Township, Yu Fuyang has recruited nearly 200 righteous men who are coal miners, concentrated in the mountain farm of Zhao Luo's family, and can start work at any time.

According to Su Hao's instructions, Chen Guanyu and Xu Zong organized the righteous husbands to build a temporary shed as their white spoon residence. Although it is only a temporary residence, Su Hao still requires them to ensure that the environment is clean and tidy, no garbage is allowed to be piled up in front of and behind the house, and alcohol and brawls are strictly prohibited in the residence. Su Hao also specially explained that Chen Guanyu invited more than a dozen women from the surrounding villages to be responsible for cooking, laundry, and cleaning for the righteous husbands, which is called the logistics department.

Su Hao and Yu Fuyang jointly designed a huge bellows, which can be driven by four or five to pour air into a 100-meter-deep underground to exhaust the underground gas. A simple minecart has also been designed, which can be loaded with nearly a thousand catties of coal, and can be easily pushed out of the roadway with one entry.

The improvement of these tools was conceived by Su Hao, and then found carpenters and blacksmiths to realize, in the process, Su Hao was once again impressed by the superb skills and rich imagination of the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty.

After another survey, Su Hao finally selected five well locations in the mountain field of Xuanfeng Township, and asked Yu Fuyang to lead the righteous men to dig shafts to find coal seams. Learning from the lessons of Yu Fuyang's original coal kiln, Su Hao told Yu Fuyang that if he encounters a coal seam with a thickness of less than three feet, do not stop, but continue to dig down, and there will naturally be thicker coal seams below.

"Master Su, do you mean that if I dig down the original coal shaft, there will be a thick coal seam underneath?" Yu Fuyang asked Su Hao.

Su Hao smiled slightly, and said: "If Yu Tongtou is interested, you might as well let the righteous husbands dig and try, not too deep, dig another 20 feet, and there should be results." ”

When Yu Fuyang heard this, he really found a few people to dig deep on the basis of his original coal kiln, and after digging 20 feet, he really found another coal seam six or seven feet thick. Yu Fuyang realized how big a mistake he had made before, and now it was too late to realize it, because his coal kiln had been sold to Su Hao.

Of course, in this matter, Yu Fuyang does not resent Su Hao, he is not good at learning, and he enters Baoshan and returns empty-handed, so he can't complain. He is now getting a high salary in Su Hao's mine, looking at the output of the coal mine, it is estimated that his future dividends will not be less, and his income is generally a few percent more than when he was the head of the mine, so he is also satisfied.

After knowing the gap between himself and Su Hao, Yu Fuyang was even more desperate, firmly believing that as long as he followed Su Hao closely, he would naturally have the opportunity to soar in the future.

At the same time as the vigorous start of coal mining, Su Hao arranged to set up several lime kilns in the mountain field and began to burn lime. Limestone is something that is everywhere and it is not difficult to take. The process of burning lime is also very simple, as long as the limestone and briquettes are stacked in the kiln layer by layer, and then roasted by fire, quicklime can be obtained. Xu Zong had some experience in this area, so the management of the lime kiln was completely handed over to Xu Zong.

There is no need to worry about the sale of quicklime, Zhu Xi has already greeted the farmers in several surrounding villages, and recruited tenant farmers to transform the red soil wasteland in Zhao Luo's farm. Su Hao promised to provide him with 500,000 catties of quicklime and 250,000 catties of phosphate rock powder, which was enough to transform 50 hectares of wasteland. Zhu Xi has already calculated repeatedly with an abacus, if the rent of 1 stone rice per mu of land is collected, then after deducting the cost of these fertilizers, the Zhao family can net at least 1,000 taels of income.

The most important thing is that the rent of the land can be received every year, and the red soil wasteland will be fully improved after applying lime and phosphate fertilizer for several consecutive years, and the future can only be fertilized again every few years, so that the cost can be greatly reduced, and the income of the Zhao family will be increased.

Cheng Yi was officially recruited into Su's firm, and after Su Hao's short-term training, he was sent to the coal mine as the chief accountant. The name of this position was invented by Su Hao, but everyone can understand it. As early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, China had called the officials responsible for accounting for the official financial revenue and expenditure as the Sihui, and at the same time called the rì regular flow account as the account, and the account summary as the meeting.

In the tenth year of Wanli, a classic book compiled by the Ministry of Household to describe the financial situation of the whole country is called "Wanli Accounting Record", which shows that the word accounting has long existed, but the general business banks call this position the account office.

Su Hao gave Cheng Yi a high salary of 5 taels of silver per month, and made her responsible for all the silver cashiers in the coal mine, and even Xu Zong and Yu Fuyang had to be controlled by her. Cheng Yi was originally born in a family of eunuchs, but because of the disaster, she has been living with low eyebrows and pleasing eyes all these years. Now that she is in power, the girl has suddenly rejuvenated, full of energy, commanding, and quite a bit of strength in later generations of units.

While settling down in the coal mine, Su Hao took him to the mountainous area south of Fengcheng for a turn, and bought several inconspicuous small mountain farms from the local landlords with the price of buying wasteland. In the eyes of those landlords, these mountain farms have no other role than being able to plant some camellia trees, and there are fools from the county town who are willing to spend money to buy them, so why don't they do it?

Su Hao recruited a group of stonemasons in the county town and organized them into several groups, each of which was led by an old stonemason and a servant of the workshop, who were sent to several mountains to mine stones. The stones mined by the stonemasons were pulled back to the vicinity of the county seat in ox carts and piled up in a yard bought by Chen Guanyu, waiting for further processing.

These stones, which are worthless in the eyes of everyone, are all treasures in Su Hao's opinion. Some of them are phosphate rock, as long as they are smashed, they can be thrown into the field as phosphate fertilizer, and the price of every 100 catties can be sold for 3 yuan of silver; Part of it is quartz, and the Hao family father and son have successfully smelted high-quality glass from them; In addition, there is a gray-brown stone with a little metallic luster, Su Hao did not say what they are used for, but explained that you should pay attention to the rain and don't get these stones wet.

Thanks to the 500 taels of silver tickets left by Hao Tong, Su Hao was able to start so many projects at the same time. Although the cost of each project was carefully calculated, the silver was quickly used up like flowing water. Fortunately, the coal mine has begun to produce output, and the glazed workshop of Hao's father and son can also provide Su Hao with some profits, so that Su Hao does not fall into financial crisis.

When all its businesses began to get on the right track, and Su Hao was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief, Hao Tong also reappeared. appeared with Hao Tong, and there was also a soldier wearing a mandarin duck robe, who looked magnificent, like an official. Su Hao didn't have much research on the official clothing of the Ming Dynasty, and he couldn't tell what level of official the other party was.

"Lao Hao, what did you bring in?" Su Hao asked Hao Tong strangely.

"Master Su, this is the commander of Nanchang Wei, and Fang Shu is the same as Fang Shu, Fang Dajin." Hao Tong whispered to Su Hao.