Zhang Xuezeng went to Kunshan Dongjia Embroidery Village on the third day after the inspection.

In the Yamen of Susong River Road, Cao Zhende, who is also responsible for managing the river and supervising grain, has been living a really leisurely life recently, and he can't see the anxiety and busyness that should have been at this time in previous years.

According to the old system of the Ming Dynasty, after the autumn grain was put into storage in September, October was the key stage of the collection of grain, not to mention that this year, the imperial court also added a new "training salary".

However, a recital from Yang Gelao, the governor of the six provinces, asked the emperor to postpone the transportation of grain to the north and transport the first batch of tax grain in the south of the Yangtze River to the front line of Anlu to supply military supplies.

This order relieved Cao Zhende, and he soon discovered that the few subordinate officials who were newly added this year were still working very hard, lest they make mistakes, which further reduced the pressure on Shangguan.

Cao Zhende's immediate boss, Zhu Dadian, also specially came to take care of him, asking him to take care of one of the new subordinates named Shen Shuren, and he must do official business, and check his bad accounts with a magnifying glass.

In this way, Cao Zhende is even more calm, and he should use his own energy to urge things in previous years, and he is not in a hurry to urge.

He knew that even if there was a slight delay, Zhu Dadian would help him carry it. As long as the fault is all on Shen Shuren, it can be regarded as a great contribution to Governor Zhu.

……

"After eating crab roe and rolling tofu, Emperor Lao Tzu is not as good as me."

At this moment, it was lunch time again, and Cao Zhende, who had a good life, was hiding in the back hall alone, and there was no maid next to him.

There was only a casserole charcoal stove in front of him, gurgling and bubbling, and the pot was tumbling with braised crab roe and roe tofu, and sprinkled with boneless Taihu whitebait.

Eating such a delicacy and drinking Huiji rice wine, Cao Zhende couldn't help but whisper, and he also had an illusion of the current situation in his heart.

This year's people's day, how can it be so sad as the outside says!

According to the servant who bought vegetables, the price of fish in Suzhou has fallen slightly recently, and it is not much higher than the price of white rice.

Hairy crabs, which have less meat and are not eaten, have plummeted to a little lower than white rice - white rice costs three taels or four dollars of silver and one stone, and hairy crabs only cost more than two cents and one catty, and one hundred catties are only more than two taels. The grass carp still needs three and a half cents of silver.

Cao Zhende is not a native of Suzhou, he came from other places to make money. He has been eating since he was a child, and he doesn't like to eat hairy crabs.

But Suzhou is the fashion benchmark of the Ming Dynasty, and he has completely fallen over the years, and he wants to flaunt the "Suzhou lifestyle" more than the locals, and he must eat the braised crab roe tofu.

Cao Zhende was full of wine and food, and one of his masters suddenly ran in in a hurry and said a few messages in his ear:

"Master, tomorrow Zhangfutai will have a banquet for the gentry of various counties, as well as the people from various yamen related to our river and Caoyun, saying that there are some measures to benefit the people to be promoted, and encourage everyone to work together to tide over the difficulties."

Cao Zhende was picking his teeth with the toe of a crab leg, and he heard that Zhang Xuezeng wanted to persuade farmers to encourage everyone to speed up tax payment and grain payment, but he didn't know what to do.

"That's it, then let's listen to it, anyway, it's within our authority, someone is willing to help, and I'm happy to be idle." Cao Zhende threw away the crab legs and told the master to prepare by himself.

……

The next morning, Cao Zhende followed some other gentry and officials to Zhang Xuezeng's appointment. And the location where Zhang Xuezeng set up a banquet was still in Kunshan Dongjia Embroidery Village.

This is the place where Shen Shuren's various technological innovation pilots are carried out, and many measures are more convenient to display.

After the guests arrived, Zhang Xuezeng only said a few words, and then went straight to the point:

"Ladies and gentlemen, everyone should know about the drought in Zhejiang this year. I Susonghu Sanfu, a variety of cotton mulberry, clothing quilt in the world, rations are difficult to self-sufficiency, it is also well known.

The reason why I invite you to come today is because Shen Shuren, a member of the Yamen of Susong River, has come up with some ways to adapt measures to local conditions and boost the self-sufficiency of rations in Suhu and Huhu, and he is willing to offer them for everyone's reference.

The government has been personally surveying for several days and has found that it does work. Although the production is not much now, as long as it is promoted, it can quickly restore the confidence of the people.

You should also see that more than 100 acres of mulberry gardens around this Dongjia embroidery village are adapted to local conditions, using the natural harbor and wetland of Yangcheng Lake, the weir is shallow and deep, and it is rectified into rows of fish ponds, and the two ends are also dammed and blocked to facilitate harvesting.

Each mu of mulberry forest can produce an additional 100 catties of fish every year, and the mulberry water and fertilizer are also better, and the yield of mulberry leaves can be increased instead of decreasing. If you want to learn, Shen Dian's family will send someone to give guidance, and the government will also report this good law to ask for credit for Shen Dian, so that it can be promoted to Huzhou next door. ”

After Zhang Xuezeng finished speaking, the local gentry officials were quite surprised, and everyone didn't dare to believe it directly at first, so they still learned to observe it.

Shen Shuren also asked people to dig a few more cofferdams for releasing water from fish ponds as a demonstration. Everyone saw that there were a lot of fish in it, and they were amazed when they heard that they could begin to take shape after just over two months.

Although there is no shortage of fish in Suzhou, the fish in the Yangtze River and Taihu Lake have to be caught hard after all. You can directly put water in the ditch of your own mulberry garden, but it is much more stable than relying on the sky to eat.

What's more, many people have already thought that now that it is about to be idle in the middle of winter, silkworm farmers have nothing to do, and they just use their surplus labor to dig ditches and ridges, tidy up their fields, and produce more fish in winter, which is an extra harvest for nothing.

For Shen Shuren, agricultural engineering experience was not protected by law in the Ming Dynasty, and there was no way to apply for a patent, so it was better to take it out and buy a good reputation. If Zhang Xuezeng truthfully performed the meritorious service, maybe he could provide Yang Sichang with some excuses to help Shen Shuren be promoted quickly.

Among the crowd of inspection officials, the most shocked was Cao Zhende.

At this moment, his heart was already clear: no wonder the servant who had recently bought vegetables told him every day that the price of fish had fallen, and that hairy crabs were cheaper than white rice, which had added a new source of supply.

Cao Zhende was secretly worried, but he didn't know that his idea belonged to another scheme.

The area that the Shen family is currently piloting does not have so much energy and output at all. In recent days, the Shen family has only organized a group of fishermen and secretly subsidized them to ship goods at a low price in order to lower the market.

Anyway, fish fresh has a short shelf life, and I am not afraid that others will hoard it to play against the opponent after absorbing it, and it will definitely be able to suppress the price temporarily.

To put it bluntly, Shen Shuren's move is definitely an illegal operation in the future, and it will be subject to an anti-unfair competition investigation like the illegal subsidies of the United States.

But who let the Ming Dynasty not have the Anti-Unfair Competition Law? Relying on illegal subsidies to set off smoke bombs to create panic in the market, no one cares about it at all.

A series of off-the-board moves, coupled with Zhang Xuezeng's high-profile announcement today, the people who don't know the truth still think that Shen Shuren's new technology has been secretly held back for a long time and promoted thousands of acres, and the shipment will have such great power.

The gentry looked at each other, Zhang Xuezeng saw that the rhetoric was effective, and hurriedly took the opportunity to add a fire:

"Ladies and gentlemen, there are so many extra supplies in Suhu and Huhu out of thin air, and food prices will definitely not rise in the future. If you have a lot of grain in stock, you should pay taxes in a timely manner to save some trouble for the imperial court, and the government will naturally not treat you badly. When the price of food comes down a bit, wouldn't it be the best of both worlds for you to buy and save it? ”

Soon, there were a few gentlemen who were willing to compromise and relented, anyway, they didn't lose money, so they sold the favor between the prefect and the Shen family.

Shen Shuren had never had a chance to speak, but he also jumped out at this time, and only after obtaining Zhang Xuezeng's authorization did he announce a request:

"Ladies and gentlemen, everyone is a local, and I don't hide some words. According to the law of the imperial court, the grain chiefs of each county and township should have delivered the grain and military grain, which should have been delivered at the water warehouse mouth of each county.

However, the time shift is different, when Suzhou local rice fields more than 100,000 hectares, the grain is all in the field, in the counties of the water warehouse delivery, is to save everyone's transshipment loading and unloading labor.

Some of the grain handed over by the counties of Suzhou is unloaded from Liujiagang in Taicang, and some are unloaded from the mouth of the Wujiang River in Taihu Lake and transported to the water warehouses of the counties.

Since the beginning of this year, there has been a severe drought in Zhejiang, and the grain ships from the Jiangnan River to the mouth of the Wujiang River are almost gone, and they are all big ships from southern Zhejiang to the East China Sea. Let's save some things and allow all counties to go directly to Taicang Liujiagang for unified delivery, what do you think? ”

Shen Shuren's words, people who do not engage in Cao Yun are easy to be confused at first glance, but they can understand with a little explanation: In previous years, when buying grain, there were big ships and small boats, and the big ships went along the coast, and the small boats took the southern section of the Grand Canal.

When Caoliang went north, there were also those who took the Yangtze River to Yangzhou, and there were also those who took the canal to Zhenjiang and then crossed the river - now Shen Shuren asked them to unify it, and don't take the canal, and take the Yangtze River in a unified way, so as not to exchange large and small boats.

After Shen Shuren finished speaking, the gentry of the counties were even more shaken. If the delivery is centralized, they can also save some trouble, and they can hire fewer dock workers to load and unload, which is a win-win situation.

Cao Zhende, who was the only one on the side, finally couldn't help it when he heard this. He has thoroughly understood what will happen to Shen Shuren's serial moves - Zhu Dadian wants to frame the Shen family for making false accounts on transportation costs, and the biggest operating space is in the dock loading and unloading fees!

If more than half of this money is saved, maybe Shen Shuren will really be able to transport the grain to the front line in Luzhou by relying only on the silver of "one dollar and three cents per stone" to cross the river!

The task of framing the Shen family given to him by Governor Zhu was a complete failure!

"Wait! Shen Lin, you are just an eight-grade warden in the Yijie District of the River Yamen, do you still have Shangguan in your eyes, and do you have the law of the imperial court! Since Chenghua, the imperial court has implemented the long-term transportation law, and the delivery of the water in each county is the law, so you dare to change it privately? ”

When Shen Shuren reaches this point, he will not get used to Cao Zhende.

Although the other party is only eight in the fourth grade, he is doing this for the sake of Yang Sichang's front-line military rations without delay, and he believes that as long as there is no financial fraud and these implementation methods are flexible, Yang Sichang will definitely help him to cover the bottom.

And he won't work under Cao Zhende for long, and by the end of the year, he will be able to be promoted and leave after finishing this year's military rations and transportation errands.

He was unceremonious: "The subordinates don't dare to look at the supreme official!" It's just that Yang Ge Lao is in urgent need of military rations in Anlu. I suggest this, also in order to speed up the turnaround, and the military situation is like fire.

If you have any inadequate instructions, please forgive me! Then I'll ask for instructions now, I don't know if Tai Keken approves it? ”

Cao Zhende was so angry that his head was about to smoke, but at this time, Zhang Xuezeng came out to play a round: "Brother Cao Xian, Xiao Shen is also in a hurry, for the sake of state affairs, some inadequate procedures and rudeness, you should give me a face." You don't want Yang Ge to wait, right? ”

Cao Zhende's level is not as good as Zhang Xuezeng, and he is still the number one in the local area, so he can only bear it.

Zhang Xuezeng didn't give the other party a chance to breathe, and hurriedly continued with a set of combination moves: "Then this matter is settled, and the government will not hesitate to tell everyone that those who are willing to cooperate with Shen Dianzhi as soon as possible and deliver the grain and military food as soon as possible will be rewarded."

Shen Dianzhi has made great achievements in craftsmanship and skills, and has studied the first Xu Ge Lao's "Complete Book of Agricultural Administration", and Song Changgeng's "Heavenly Creation", he can teach everyone the method of increasing production, but not only this Sankey fish pond a trick. Whoever is diligent in state affairs will be taught first. ”

With Zhang Xuezeng's official voice guarantee, under such a pull, the local gentry in Susong have defected, and they are all looking forward to cooperating with the Shen family.

To say that the Shen family can get top-secret dry goods, they absolutely believe it. Who made the Shen family the richest man in Suzhou, how could he not have some secret tricks to make money.