"Brother Zihou, can you help us introduce the situation of the Liao army fighting the grass valley every year?" I saw that Zhao Yan was silent for a moment, and then suddenly asked.!.

Zhang Zai said with a sad face when he heard this: "Fighting the grass valley has always been the tradition of the Liao army, every autumn harvest, the Liao army will go south, the reason why they do this, not only to rob property, but also to train troops, and when fighting the grass valley, the Liao army is generally scattered into a team of hundreds of people, like locusts in my Great Song Dynasty raging in the territory of the Song Dynasty, the general small villages can not stop the attack of these Liao troops at all, even if they encounter large villages, sometimes they will be broken by several Liao army hundred teams, Every year, the people on the border of the Great Song Dynasty are killed and injured countless times, and the loss of property is incalculable. ”

When Zhao Yan and Su Shi heard this, their faces also showed a look of pain, and at the same time, they hated the Liao State even more, but they also knew that no matter how much they hated it, it would not have much impact on the Liao State, unless they had the strength to destroy the Liao State in one fell swoop, they would not be able to change this situation in a short period of time.

"It's a pity that the imperial court is unwilling to allocate money and grain, and the annual tax revenue of Jiaohe County is also limited, otherwise if I have money in my hands, I can train the villagers into strong soldiers, even if I can't repel the Liao army, but there is no problem in keeping the peace in Jiaohe!" At this time, Zhang Zai suddenly sighed with emotion, he wanted to build Xiangyong into a truly warlike army, but unfortunately he had no money and no food in his hands, so he was powerless about it.

"Brother Zihou, although I am not a rich family like Brother Gonglin, in order to support Jiaohe County, Su is willing to donate thousands of yuan. To fund Brother Zihou's training! When Su Shi heard this, he immediately said, although a thousand guan is just a drop in the bucket for military training, it is also a piece of his heart, and this thousand guan is already the limit that Su Shi can take.

"This ......" Zhang Zai didn't know whether to accept Su Shi's kindness, but at this moment, I saw Zhao Yan suddenly smile and said: "Brother Zizhan is a good man, and you are willing to donate Brother Zihou, you are also a piece of heart for training, so Brother Zihou, don't shirk!" ”

Heard Zhao Yan's persuasion. Zhang Zai had no choice but to thank Su Shi. At this time, I saw Zhao Yan smile again and said: "Since Brother Zizhan has contributed to Brother Zihou, this king naturally can't be stingy, it just so happened that the palace had a lot of input last year, so I donated 10,000 yuan." In addition, it is better to teach a man to fish than to teach him to fish. This king gave Brother Zhang Zai another idea of wealth. As for whether you can seize this opportunity, it depends on Brother Zhang Zai's talent! ”

Originally, Zhao Yan also wanted to donate more, but he came up with an idea to increase the financial revenue of Jiaohe County. If Zhang Zai can seize this opportunity, it will definitely be much stronger than him donating 100,000 yuan.

When Zhang Zai heard that Zhao Yan was willing to contribute 10,000 yuan, the expression on his face was still very calm, although 10,000 guan looked like a lot, and he could even improve the military equipment of the villagers, but if he wanted to maintain a strong army, he had to invest a lot of money and food every year, so Zhao Yan's donation could only support one year at most, but when he heard Zhao Yan finally say that he would give him a wealth idea, this made Zhang Zai also a little moved, and asked a little eagerly: "Please tell the county king, I don't know what the money strategy is?" ”

Zhang Zai has always been very concerned about money, even if he has a fortune after becoming an official, his usual life is still very frugal, and the money saved was sent to his hometown in Shaanxi to fund the students in Guanzhong, and even when he died, the family had no money to bury, and in the end, it was his students who raised funds so that Zhang Zai could be buried in a smooth manner. But now in order to enhance the military strength of Jiaohe County, he is the first time that money is so important, and he even wants to learn from those merchants to do business, but unfortunately there is really no business to do in Jiaohe County, at most he collects taxes from some passing merchants, and the annual income is also very limited.

"Hehe, when I was wandering on the street with Brother Zizhan just now, the tofu in Jiaohe County is very famous, and we also tasted it, the tofu in Jiaohe County is indeed very delicious, and the idea of my wealth is on this tofu, if I can sell Jiaohe tofu to other places, wouldn't it make Jiaohe have one more way to make money?" Zhao Yan smiled smugly at this time.

Hearing that Zhao Yan actually wanted to let Jiaohe County sell tofu to make money, Zhang Zai said with a little crying and laughing: "What the king of the county thinks is too simple, although the tofu in Jiaohe County is very famous, but the tofu is not durable, even if it is transported by fast horses, at most it can only be sold in Yingzhou, if it is farther away, the tofu will deteriorate, and it is precisely for this reason that most of the tofu in Jiaohe County is only sold locally, and it is impossible to transport it to other places." ”

"Haha, what this king wants is to make those tofu moldy, otherwise it won't taste good!" Zhao Yan laughed at this time and said, there is a joke on the Internet in later generations, called selling tofu will never lose money, more water can be sold as tofu brain, less water can be sold as dried tofu, stinky can be used as stinky tofu, rotten can be made into tofu and so on, of course, the above is just a joke, but Zhao Yan thought of a way to make money, that is, tofu milk.

This thing appeared very early, it is said that there was a record of bean curd in the Wei and Jin dynasties, but this thing was not widely spread, and during the Northern Song Dynasty, there was only a place in Guilin in the south with tofu made of zuò, and it was not widely spread, at least Zhao Yan did not see anyone selling tofu in Tokyo City, in fact, it was not until the Ming Dynasty that the method of making tofu spread out, thus becoming a delicacy on the table of ordinary Chinese people.

"King Jun, what do you mean by this, how can you eat moldy tofu?" At this time, Su Shi was also very surprised when he heard this, although he had tasted countless delicacies, he had never heard of moldy tofu that could still be eaten by people?

"Haha, why can't you eat it, you have all eaten soybean paste, that thing is made by adding salt to the beans after mold, tofu is made of beans, so if the tofu is put into the mold and then salted, it can naturally be eaten, and the thing made by this method is called tofu milk, the texture is smooth and soft, the taste is delicious and fragrant, and it has another flavor than the bean paste!" Zhao Yan laughed again, and at the same time, in order to convince Su Shi and the others, he also took out the bean sauce as an example.

In fact, in addition to making tofu milk, you can also make stinky tofu, but the taste of stinky tofu is really unacceptable, people who like it can't put it down, and people who don't like it are disgusting even when they smell it, anyway, Zhao Yan doesn't like it very much, so compared to stinky tofu, it is still more acceptable to people with tofu. Of course, the tofu that Zhao Yan said refers to ordinary tofu, and it is said that there is also a kind of stinky tofu, which combines the characteristics of tofu and stinky tofu, but Zhao Yan has not eaten it.

"King Jun, hearing you say this, Su really wants to taste the flavor of this tofu, but he doesn't know how to make zuò, and how much time will it take?" Su Shi, a foodie, immediately lit up his eyes when he heard Zhao Yan's words, he reported a natural curiosity about all the novel foods, and he couldn't wait to taste them now.

In contrast, Zhang Zai was much more serious, and he thought for a moment and asked again: "King Jun, you said that tofu is the same as soybean paste, does that mean that this tofu can be stored for a long time like soybean paste?" ”

"Brother Zihou guessed well, the tofu is indeed the same as soybean paste, as long as you wait until the mold is smeared with salt, and then poured the braised soup, and then put it in a clay pot to seal, it is generally stored for a year without any problems, and it is said that the longer the time, the stronger the fragrance of the tofu!" Zhao Yan said with a smile, the reason why he chose tofu is that in addition to the delicious taste of this thing, the most important thing is that it can be stored for a long time and can be transported to other places for sale.

"Great! The lower officials represent the people of Jiaohe County to thank the king of the county! Zhang Zai stood up and saluted Zhao Yan at the moment, if someone else proposed this tofu method, he might still be suspicious, but Zhao Yan is different, firstly, the identity of the other party will definitely not joke with himself, and secondly, Zhang Zai also has an intuition, that is, this tofu proposed by Zhao Yan will definitely make a huge change in Jiaohe County.

Zhao Yan also hurriedly helped Zhang Zai up and asked him to sit down with a smile, and asked people to prepare pen and ink, and then Zhao Yan dictated, and Zhang Zai personally wrote down the method of making tofu and milk. Zhao Yan only remembered the method of making zuò tofu in later generations, and the recipe of braised soup was also very simple, so he told Zhang Zai at the end that there was still room for improvement in the method of making zuò that he proposed, and he must not stick to this recipe, he would definitely be able to make zuò with better taste in the future.

Next, Zhao Yan and Su Shi discussed with Zhang Zai how to promote the production of tofu in Jiaohe County, and both Zhang Zai and Su Shi believed that they should open some government-run workshops and then make zuò tofu for profit, so that all the income would be from the government. However, there is a disadvantage in this way, that is, the government needs to invest a huge amount of manpower, material and financial resources in advance, and the promotion of tofu also needs to be done by the government, which can be said to be very troublesome.

In this regard, Zhao Yan proposed a government-private partnership, in which the government would invest in the shares by making the system, and then select some private merchants or landlords to open workshops, and the government would only take a cut of it, and the rest would be done by those merchants and landlords. In this way, it seems to dilute the profits of the government, but it can increase the production of tofu in the shortest possible time, thereby increasing the tax revenue of the government, which can be said to be both worry-free and labor-saving.

In the end, after careful consideration, Zhang Zai decided to use Zhao Yan's method, after all, he didn't have so much spare money in his hands now, or Zhao Yan's method could increase the income of the county government faster. However, just when they had just finished discussing the above matter, Zhao Yan suddenly had a flash of inspiration, and he suddenly felt that it was a bit condescending to let such a person as Zhang Zai serve as a small county commander, and maybe he could arrange a more suitable place for him. (To be continued!)

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