The work of collecting and transporting grain can be done as long as the process is smooth, the technological innovation is in place, and the cost management is ensured.

The rest is all manual work, simple and repetitive labor, and there is nothing to repeat.

From October to December, for three months, Shen Shuren kept copying his own work model, transporting batches of military rations raised from Susong and Song Prefectures to the Hefei front line at historically low logistics costs.

The first two grain shipments were personally escorted by ship. At the beginning of the third batch, after he became familiar with the relevant operations, he felt that he would not be able to learn anything new if he was detained, so he completely transferred to the civilian position and handed over the escort work to his subordinates and his family.

In the past few months, Shen Shuren has relied on the promotion of cotton mulberry top buds, the promotion of shuttle looms, and mulberry fish ponds, and has also made hundreds of thousands of taels of profits in Susong and Songfu.

After all, there are many super factory owners in Suzhou with thousands of looms and tens of thousands of units, and because of the powerful position of the Shen family and Xu Ge's hometown, and the bottleneck of the downstream supply chain, many people have to accept the soft purchase of Shen Shuren's technical authorization, and each machine earns a net of several taels of licensing fees, which add up to hundreds of thousands of taels.

At the beginning, Shen Tingyang only took 100,000 taels of cash to support his son's investment in officials and supporting facilities. Although all this money was spent on the construction of mulberry fish ponds at various wharves, the money earned in the follow-up continued to be filled, and in the end, the money that Shen Shuren could directly dispose of was several times more.

By the time Shen Shuren's last batch of military rations were transported to Hefei, Yang Sichang had already left Hefei and went to Wuchang to deploy containment defenses.

The follow-up responsible for the defense and reception of Hefei was Shi Kefa and the general soldier Huang Degong.

In the past three months, the troops under Shi and Huang have also fought a few battles with the Fifth Battalion of Gezuo, and have also won some small victories, but unfortunately they have not been able to achieve any results of encirclement and annihilation.

Every time the Fifth Battalion of the Revolutionary Left left left the Yinghuo Mountains (Dabie Mountains) and penetrated into the mobile depth of the Hefei Plain, it was not too far away, and they were all grabbing a handful and leaving.

Even if the Ming army defeated the looting troops, the thieves could quickly scatter and return to the Yinghuo Mountains, and the Ming army could not enter the complex terrain to pursue, so they could only give up. The war in the Anlu war zone has also dragged into a stalemate stage.

Shen Shuren's cousin Zhang Huangyan also worked a little hard in the process of helping Shi Kefa with logistics.

The main thing is to organize conscripts to build some port facilities and wharf machinery along the way, and to provide some assistance.

In addition, when transporting grain with the strong men of Tongcheng, he cooperated with the grain guards of Zuo Zixiong of the Qianhu Guards of the Weishui Guard, and repelled several groups of Lin Chengcheng and Liu Xiyao's grain-grabbing troops.

The organizational form of the thieves is very loose, and the control of the five major thieves under their command is far less strict than that of the official army, and it is more like a guerrilla attack fighting on their own.

Those combat operations that tried to grab food did not come from the unified command of Lin Yangcheng and others. It is completely the king of the mountain in each defense area, and according to the information detected, he pats his head and adapts to the situation.

They often had fewer troops at their disposal, and there were no friendly forces to cooperate, which gave Zhang Huangyan the opportunity to make meritorious contributions.

Yang Sichang took care of Shi Kefa when he left, and wanted to keep an eye on Shen Shuren and Zhang Huangyan to see if they were talents worth promoting.

Shi Kefa also kept it in mind, and recorded the merits of the two of them and played them in time, especially before the end of the year, before the official department Jingcha, try to say as many kind words as possible, which can be regarded as helping Yang Ge Lao return favors.

Although Shi Kefa still doesn't know what Shen Shuren did for Yang Ge Lao in the first place, he has gained such a big favor.

But Shi Kefa is very measured, and the leader is resolutely not curious about what he doesn't want to ask, and he just implements it. Shen Shuren and Zhang Huangyan do have practical talents, which are worthy of his cultivation.

At the end of the month, Shi Kefa himself also calculated that the merits made by Shen Shuren in the past few months should be enough for him to rise from the eighth rank to the seventh grade.

If you continue to run errands in the Yamen of Susong River Road, then you will be able to upgrade to the seven-rank treasury envoy.

Zhang Huangyan's contribution is not as conspicuous as Shen Shuren's, at most he has been promoted to the seventh grade, so he has to spend a little money to make a point, and it is good to be promoted from the county's classic history to the county's Cheng.

After Shi Kefa reported his merits, he also wrote a letter to Shen Shuren in private, asking the Shen family to transport grain to Hefei and bring it back.

The letter contained nothing more than words of encouragement, suggesting that he should work hard to continue to serve his country.

……

Shen Shuren, who was in Suzhou, received Shi Kefa's reply when he was already halfway through the lunar month, and it was not long before the New Year.

The Shen family knew that the eldest young master had outstanding performance in the official examination and that he might be promoted after the Jingcha at the end of the year, and they were also very happy, and everyone in the door felt that their faces were bright.

Even Shen Shuren's new friends, Fang Yizhi and Xu Xilie, learned the news when they came to visit and sincerely congratulated them.

"Brother Shen Xian is really a lucky star, his official fortune is prosperous, he can be promoted in just three or four months, and he is not half a level and a half level of promotion, even if he is in high school after the spring of the foolish brother, he will be at the same level as the virtuous brother at most, and it seems that this Jinshi exam or not, it seems that it is not so valuable." Fang Yizhi laughed at himself.

Xu Xilie on the side felt that it was right: "Eh, you can't say that, Brother Shen Xian's achievements are really convincing to the public." His improved method of loading and unloading has now been fully extended to the two provinces of Susong.

In the future, if it is extended to the entire Nanzhili and the entire Jiangnan, how much labor can be saved for the imperial court? The grain from our Nanzhili side can be transported to Huai'an as long as the silver is levied across the river, but what about Jiangxi and Huguang? It is also necessary to levy a camp across the lake, because of the change in the water conditions of the waterway and the number of boat changes are more.

If it is also promoted in Huai'an, Linqing, Shandong, and Tongzhou, Beizhili, it will be easy to save hundreds of thousands of laborers, and what a large amount of expenditure it is. If you want me to say such a big credit, it is not an exaggeration to rise directly from the sixth grade, and the seventh grade is all stingy by the imperial court! ”

Among the three, the one who felt the most surprised and uncomfortable was Shen Shuren himself. He didn't expect that back in the late Ming Dynasty, the promotion of officials could be pulled so quickly, which seemed a bit unreasonable, like writing a novel.

But after calming down, I thought about it myself, and I accepted this setting - most of the Ming Dynasty officials were really slow to be promoted, but the end of the Ming Dynasty was a special case, especially in the last few years of Chongzhen.

Thieves and Tartars are too rampant, and there are too many vacancies for officials and generals from all over the country.

Take Wei Zaode, who will get the champion position in the spring festival after the year, as an example, he Chongzhen only entered the champion in thirteen years, and the top grid was matched from the sixth grade to the Hanlin Academy system for revision. And just three years later, by the end of Chongzhen's sixteenth year, this person had already worshiped Shangshu and entered the cabinet!

Turning the page to the last month before Chongzhen hanged himself, with the previous first assistant being deposed because of poor organization and combat, Wei Zaode directly became the first assistant!

From a newcomer to an official to the first assistant, it has only been four years, who would dare to believe it in normal years?

Moreover, after Chongzhen's death, the official positions of the Southern Ming Dynasty were actually indiscriminate. How many people are willing to continue to be loyal to Nanming, whether it is Hongguang or Yongli, they are crazy to give officials titles, because the official titles of Daming are no longer valuable, and only the name of righteousness is left.

The actual power is taken back from the Tartars and thieves by the people who want to be officials by themselves by relying on their real skills and hard power.

From this point of view, it was only in the last few years of the late Ming Dynasty that it was cut through, and it was actually very cost-effective to take the route of officialdom to quickly promote and earn capital, and then cooperate with the fact that you have money and someone has the strength to exchange the power of a fictitious official.

The only thing to note is that no matter how this promotion is promoted, it cannot be finally promoted to the central officer of the capital, so it will be over, and he will become Chongzhen's funeral like Wei Zaode.

The most cost-effective way to promote is to become a local feudal official and a general military domain, but never enter the center.

Of course, this trick is limited to wealthy and powerful families like Shen Shuren.

If his family did not have a family property of three or four million taels of silver, a hundred ships of the sea, and tens of thousands of sailors and family members, then he would have obtained the righteous status of the official face, and he would not be able to grasp the actual power.

Both are indispensable.

……

After learning from his friends and further clarifying the path he was going to take, Shen Shuren also saw the layout of the next step more clearly.

He suddenly felt that he could consider adding more fire to increase his promotion speed.

In the middle of winter, because the northern canal froze and the coastal areas of the Bohai Sea also froze, the yamen, who was in charge of the work of water transportation and river channels, was also idle and had no official business to worry about.

Shen Shuren realized that he might be idle in the next two months, and it would be okay to leave Suzhou for two months off, and a bold idea also popped up in his mind.

Since according to the "History of the Ming Dynasty", in the last two imperial examinations of the Ming Dynasty, the weight of the Bagu articles was unprecedentedly reduced, and the weight of the policy theory was increased, resulting in Wei Zaode, who talked about Yanyan, could also be the champion.

I have read the biography of Wei Zaode in the history of the Ming Dynasty, and I directly know the general investigation ideas of this year's examination, and if I prepare in advance, maybe I can really get a vote?

Of course, his eight-strand article is really not good, that is, the level of a showman. Since he became a prisoner of Guozi, he has not trained Baguwen.

So even if he knew most of the topics in advance, he didn't dare to expect the first and second grades, but it was not completely hopeless to go a little bit and cater to the political opinions of the above graders.

The most important thing is that in the three months that I have been friends with Fang Yizhi, there has been more or less subtle progress in terms of speech and wording. After all, Fang Yizhi is Nanzhili Xie Yuan, even if he just talks to him every day about culture, philosophy and technology, the progress is very comprehensive.

So, after the three of them drank wine and chatted about the promotion, Shen Shuren switched back to Fang Yizhi: "Brother Fang, the New Year is approaching, do you want to go back to Tongcheng to reunite with your family for the New Year?" Or do you want to go north as soon as possible and prepare for the spring festival at the end of February? ”

When Fang Yizhi heard him mention his family, he was also depressed, drank a large glass of stuffy wine, and sighed: "When the fifth camp of the Gezuo was raging in the summer, the surrounding area of Tongcheng was also destroyed, and some relatives in my clan were separated, and some were killed by Lin Yang's Liu Xiyao thief army.

I am ashamed to say that those people in my family are not as brave and resolute as Cangshui Xiandi, Cangshui Xiandi dares to risk going to Tongcheng to be an official, and two-thirds of my relatives have left home to flee to Nanjing.

Even if I want to go back for the New Year, it's just going back to Nanjing, and Tongcheng can't go back - so I'm not in a hurry, if I want to go back to Nanjing from here, five or six days is enough.

And I don't really want to go back, now the war is in chaos, and the roads are not quiet. It may not be possible to go from Nanjing to Beijing in a month and a half, and it is even more dangerous to encounter some thieves on the way. I wondered if I should go north in advance, leave more margin, and if the situation is not right, I will have to find another way into Beijing. ”

Fang Yizhi's words, Shen Shuren and Xu Xilie also fully understood.

The ancients had inconvenient transportation, and it was normal for wanderers to travel far away and not go home during the Chinese New Year, especially in troubled times.

Shen Shuren's eyes rolled, and he suddenly thought of a way to get the best of both worlds, and suggested: "Since Brother Fang doesn't have to go home for the New Year, he is just worried that the journey north to Beijing will be restless, and the younger brother has a way-

It is better to take the sea route and follow my father to the north of the first batch of grain ships after the Bohai Sea thaws in the spring of tomorrow. After the grain is unloaded, you can go ashore in Tianjin and go directly to the capital. My father has been running the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea for more than ten years, and he is very familiar with the sea conditions. ”

"From Tianjin to Beijing by land and sea?" Fang Yizhi, a native of Huidi, has never been to sea in his life, and he is a little scared when he hears it.

However, when he heard that Shen Tingyang had been gone for more than ten years, he was a little relieved, and felt that he could really consider it.