Although his identity suddenly fell from being in charge to being inferior to a civilian, he was in high spirits and high morale at this time!

is the so-called seven-rank official in front of the prime minister, with his loyalty to Lord Li, even the gatekeeper is not much worse than before, not to mention that everything is temporary, he believes that the lord will promote him in the future.

After Zhao Jun was executed, Li Wei's edict to be promoted to Shangshu was also quickly issued, and this time no one stopped him, and Li Wei successfully moved into Xue Xiang's original main hall.

The turmoil subsided, the situation calmed down again, and Li Wei began to work conscientiously for his father-in-law.

More than a dozen large cities across the country need to be built, and the cost ranges from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of thousands, plus those small county towns, roads, bridges, etc., the total cost is as high as more than 6 million yuan.

In some of these places, the construction had already started when Xue Xiang and Zhao Jun were there, but the progress of the project was half and half pulled, and the work was stopped when there was no money, and continued to work when there was money.

Li Wei looked at this number and was silent for a long time, the Minghuang Chamber of Commerce has developed to this day, and all the assets are less than five million yuan, and the cost is so large that he can't help but sigh for a while.

He sorted them out carefully, and prioritized the cities in the most important places, but without money, these places had to wait, which gave him a headache.

After pondering for a moment, Li Wei's expression suddenly relaxed, and he laughed softly: "Hey, what the hell am I doing, I am looking for Ru Taisu for money!" ”

Ru Taisu is the head of the household, and of course the court is looking for him with money!

Thinking of this, Li Wei picked up the account book, went out leisurely, and went to the household department around the corner.

"Is Ru-sama there?" Li Wei arrived at the yamen of the household department and asked the messenger on the side.

The messenger saluted respectfully and said, "Those who are there, the villain will go to the courtesy." ”

"Hey, no, I'll just go in and find him myself."

Li Wei waved his hand familiarly, and stepped in directly, and the messenger didn't dare to stop him, so he could only bow down and follow in.

"Lord Ru, are you busy?"

Li Wei walked into the lobby and said with a smile when he saw Ru Taisu who was in the office.

Ru Taisu glanced up at him, accustomed to his straightforward behavior, and waved his hand to let the messenger retreat.

"What's the matter with me?" Ru Taisu asked.

Li Wei didn't talk nonsense, and threw the accounts directly on his case: "Take the money!" ”

Ru Taisu glanced at him suspiciously, lowered his head and flipped through the accounts, and when he saw the figure of more than eight million yuan on it, he instantly gasped in shock.

"No money!"

Ru Taisu closed the account, pushed it forward, and said very simply.

Li Wei was not surprised by this, but continued: "You have no money to think of a way!" These are all approved by His Majesty! ”

"What can I do, now that the treasure money is under your control, and the household department only relies on taxes to support the daily expenses of the imperial court, how can I still come up with such a large amount of money?" Ru Taisu complained for a while.

"Money is not printed, you have to correct your old concept and think of how to generate income for the court!" Li Wei persuaded.

"Anyway, I don't have any money, so if not, you can go to Your Majesty!" Ru Taisu gave him a blank look, and said in a sloppy manner.

In his opinion, Li Wei just stands and talks without backache, how can it be so easy to generate income?

Li Wei frowned, he could understand Ru Taisu's difficulties, he couldn't get the cost of one million guan for the last expedition to Yunnan, let alone the six million guan now.

But this matter must be done, and he can only find another way to deal with the money.

Disappointed to leave the household, Li Wei went to Zhu Yuanzhang again with the idea of what to do, and Zhu Yuanzhang returned the problem to him without surprise and asked him to figure out his own way.

Li Wei returned to the Ministry of Industry with a sad face, holding the accounts and having a headache.

Although the director is under his control, printing money directly is tantamount to taking the old way, if it is not necessary, this method can not be used or try not to use it.

In fact, repairing the city is not in a hurry, Xue Xiang and Zhao Jun also repaired and stopped slowly, but Li Wei didn't want to spend so much, and it was uncomfortable to procrastinate.

After thinking about it, he could only hang a bond in the bank like he had done in Yunnan before, hoping to raise this astronomical amount.

On the other hand, he is also thinking about how to reduce costs.

Since we want to engage in construction projects, there is one thing that has to be mentioned, that is, cement.

Cement is the main material of later generations, plus the steel skeleton, can build a skyscraper up to five or six hundred meters high, can build a concrete jungle that can easily accommodate tens of millions of people, if there is cement, these buildings that seem unimaginable today can be realized one by one.

Of course, at the current level, it is definitely not possible to make such good cement, but it can still be used to build city walls, and the most important thing is that it can be used as a binder.

At present, the adhesive used in construction is clay yellow mud, and the high-grade is glutinous rice mortar.

Tall buildings such as the city walls and the imperial palace in dangerous locations are made of glutinous rice mortar.

This thing is easy to use, but it is too expensive, and the cost of building a city with this thing is ridiculously high.

It would be much better if it could be replaced with cement, the cost could be reduced, and the quality was not inferior.

After making up his mind, Li Wei first went to the bank to arrange for Shen Jingxian to hang up bonds and raise money and food.

However, this matter is not expected to go too smoothly, the last time the bond in Yunnan was finally the bottom of the money pocket of the bank, and it was not really bought by ordinary civilians, in the final analysis, it was still the people's trust in the imperial court is not enough, and they are afraid that they will not repay the money they borrowed.

This can only be done slowly, and credit cannot be built up in a while.

After leaving the bank, Li Wei went to the lime factory under the Ministry of Industry.

Cement had to be burned like lime, and it was fitting that they left it to them.

Fortunately, he was in charge of the Yamen, the professional counterpart of the Ministry of Industry, and the craftsmen and various workshops and kilns under his command were available, and the main materials for making cement, limestone, clay and iron ore powder, were also easily obtained.

However, he still has to study the ratio and firing temperature of these things.

In the lime factory, Li Wei returned to the status of a worker, as he did when he led the Ordnance Bureau to make steel, personally teaching craftsmen, mixing limestone and clay into raw meal with them, and then refining it into clinker, and then mixing it with iron ore powder.

It is not difficult to make primary cement, and the only difficulty is the control of raw material ratio and refining temperature.

After a period of research and experimentation, Li Wei finally produced a barely qualified primary cement.

However, this cannot be used directly, and it is necessary to make mortar and concrete, and record the ratio.

Different ratios will have different strength and hardness, and the use is also different.

Mortar made of cement mixed with sand and water is mainly used for the surface of the wall, while concrete with sand and gravel is used to cast the bearing wall.

Li Wei probably calculated the production cost, and felt that it was acceptable, it was definitely more expensive than clay, but it was much cheaper than glutinous rice mortar!

After finishing the cement, Li Wei got out of the lime factory and went to pay attention to the bank's bonds.

In the back hall of the bank, Shen Jing took the account of the bonds and presented them to Li Wei.

"That's why you sold so much?"

Li Wei couldn't help frowning when he saw the amount sold above.

It's been hanging for so long, and the amount of six million can be sold for more than 100,000, and this money is a drop in the bucket.

Shen Jing smiled awkwardly and said: "My lord, the amount of your bond is too big, and the Ministry of Industry has built a city, and the money will be gone, so the people are naturally worried that this money will be wasted." ”

Li Wei frowned, of course he understands this truth, he originally used the way of borrowing the old to repay the new, and put the money in first, but the people are not stupid, there is still a bit of spoils in the war, and the construction of the city is a meat bun and a dog, and it will be gone when it is used up.

Hey? Wrong!

It's not that the city is not used up, the city wall is built, the city is safer, and the price of the land must not be increased? Won't all houses and shops have to be doubled?

This is the same as building roads and public facilities in later generations, although the cost of the government has sunk, but the surrounding land and houses will skyrocket, to put it bluntly, the value of the government's investment has not disappeared, but has been transferred to the surrounding land and houses.

In later generations, many people took advantage of this to get rich overnight, and many companies hoarded land in advance to make profits, but in fact, they were all carving up the money invested by the government.

The same is true of repairing the city now!

The city walls were built, the city was safer, and the land and houses and shops inside naturally skyrocketed.

Thinking of this, Li Wei couldn't help but feel moved in his heart, in this case, can he learn from the real estate of later generations and directly sell the land and off-plan houses? It's okay to sell land!

With this thought, his heart suddenly became hot, if this is done properly, maybe not only does it not cost money, but it can also make money!

"Okay, let's do this in advance, I'll go back first."

Li Wei handed over the accounts to Shen Jing and left the bank in a hurry.

He had to plan the idea carefully to see if it could really be realized.

In the lobby of the Ministry of Industry, Li Wei gathered the officials in charge of building the city, and asked them to help roughly calculate the cost of land acquisition and city construction on the scale of a small city.

The cost of building a city is relatively easy to calculate, there are references to other cities, build a medium-sized city, about 500,000 guan, and the land is different from place to place, the cheap place ranges from tens of thousands, and the expensive place is enough for hundreds of thousands.

With 100,000 guan, buy a piece of land covering an area of 10,000 mu and build a city, totaling 600,000 guan.

That is, the price of the land must be sold at least 60 yuan per mu in order to recover the cost.

One acre of land is more than 600 square meters, even if you don't build high-rise buildings, according to the plot ratio of 0.5, there are more than 300 square meters.

Nowadays, the housing prices in Beijing are about five to ten per square meter, and it should be no problem for the small town to sell consistently, so calculated, no matter how the land of this acre of land is converted, it can be sold for one or two hundred yuan, even if it is calculated according to one hundred yuan, it will definitely make a lot of money! (End of chapter)