The most arrogant in history

Chapter 262: A dumb loss.

Xie Baochan was also full, so he thanked and said goodbye.

Jiang Yourong watched everyone eat dumplings and smiled, "Both dumplings and flour are delicious, but it's too wasteful. All the bran and wheat bran are wasted."

For Jiang Yourong, it was a sin to eat flour instead of wheat kernel rice.

Especially dumplings, which have to be filled with meat, seasonings and salt. It’s such a waste!

"How can it be wasted to feed the wheat bran to the pigs?" Ye Kun comforted Jiang Yourong:

"There is a law in this world called the conservation of energy. For example, wheat has a fixed nutritional value. We eat the flour, and the remaining bran is fed to pigs, so the nutritional value is still there. The pigs will grow meat after eating it, and we can eat it again, which is equivalent to eating the bran. There is no waste at all!"

Jiang Yourong shook his head and smiled:

"I can't argue with you. I just feel sorry for the poor. They can't even afford wheat rice, but we eat flour and put meat in it..."

Ye Kun smiled and said, "Madam, rest assured, I will make sure that the people of Yizhou can afford to eat dumplings in the future!"

Dai Xi smiled and said, "That will take a hundred years, right?"

"Three years, at most three years." Ye Kun was very confident.

If Ye Kun had not been busy conquering the world and had focused on developing production, it would only take a year for him to allow the people of Yizhou to eat dumplings occasionally.

War is a money-eating beast; fighting is too expensive.

The next morning, Ye Kun went to Ma Zhao's judicial prison lobby.

Yizhou was a large place, and the leading officials of various departments all had their own yamen hall.

Ma Zhao was in charge of criminal litigation in the entire territory and supervised the administration of officials. He was equivalent to the president of the court and the head of the Discipline Inspection Commission, so naturally he had his own lobby.

Arriving in the lobby, Ye Kun checked the files of those criminals.

Some people committed minor crimes, so Ye Kun arranged for them to work as punishment for their crimes.

Those big thieves and bandits were directly tattooed on their faces and sent to mine coal, smelt iron, or build roads and open up mountains.

There are also more than 200 economic criminals, who are private salt dealers or those who smuggle Shu brocade and ironware.

Ye Kun asked, "How were these two hundred or so people who sold illegal salt, as well as those who sold Shu brocade and ironware, dealt with in the past?"

"Behead him." Ma Zhao said without hesitation.

"Behead?" Ye Kun frowned.

He just wanted to make money and do some small business, but he is going to be beheaded. It is too harsh.

Ma Zhao had a blank expression on his face: "It has always been like this. Selling private salt and ironware and Shu brocade will result in death. Otherwise, if everyone sells them privately, Yizhou will have no tax revenue."

Salt and iron monopoly is a routine operation.

In Yizhou, there is now a new Shu brocade store.

All the Shu brocades owned by the people must be sold to the government;

The government then set a price for the Shu brocade and sold it to merchants, while also issuing certification procedures.

Only after obtaining certification documents can merchants take Shu brocade abroad for sale.

Of course, there were also many foreign merchants who came directly to Yizhou to purchase from the government.

Private traders of Shu brocade, salt and iron all took shortcuts and evaded taxes.

Moreover, there were many salt wells in Yizhou. Some people could produce salt by digging a well in their own kitchens, so there were many people selling private salt.

There is no way to catch them all.

Ye Kun wanted to save the lives of these merchants, so he discussed with Ma Zhao:

"How about this, Lord Ma? We should send these salt smugglers into exile. Since they can do business, it means they can read and do accounting, and they are familiar with the surrounding terrain and trails. Our troops are fighting bandits in the surrounding mountainous areas, and we need such talents..."

Ma Zhao sighed: "Since Lord Ye wants to protect these people, what else can I say?"

"Thank you very much."

Ye Kun gave the order: "Let these private salt dealers immigrate with their families to the southern part of Micang Mountain to open up wasteland and cultivate land. Their original land will be taken back and rented out to others for cultivation."

There are many barren hills in the Migang Mountain area, but the ownership of the hills is in the hands of local gentry.

In order to stabilize his rule and curry favor with local gentry, Gongsun Zhang granted land at will and gave most of the barren mountains to local gentry.

Now we need to reclaim the land and take it back.

Ye Kun took Ma Zhao and a large army to Micang Mountain and convened a meeting of local gentry.

Ma Zhao was also very insidious. He first asked the local gentry to report the area of ​​barren mountains.

The gentry were afraid that Ye Kun would levy taxes, so they tried their best to underreport or conceal the facts, crying poor and saying that the barren mountains produced no output and that life was difficult.

Ye Kun smiled and said, "Since the barren hills have no output, I will buy your land. I trust you, so I won't measure it. I will buy it according to the amount you quoted. It's all useless barren hills. One tael of silver per mu, is that enough?"

The gentry suffered a loss and had to accept their fate and hand over the barren mountain obediently.

Ye Kun spent only a few thousand taels of silver to reclaim all the land and forests in the Micang Mountain area, and let Guan Yong and Zhao Biao lead the team to carry out land reclamation and construction.

These two guys are both farmers and are proficient in all kinds of farm work.

An army of 20,000 was stationed in Micang Mountain to open up wasteland, train troops, dig ponds and build dams.

Ye Kun also recruited a large number of poor people from Yizhou to settle down in Mincang Mountain, and announced that those who participated in the reclamation and immigration would be provided with houses and farm tools.

Within five years, you are exempt from land tax, and no matter how much you harvest, it all belongs to you.

Some poor people were exploited so badly by the local gentry that they were left with no clothes to wear and no food to eat, and had no property, so they came here without hesitation, bringing their families with them.

Ye Kun kept his word and built a number of houses to accommodate the immigrants.

Ye Kun also provided loans with an annual interest rate of 10% to lend money to immigrant households to develop production.

This interest rate is a very reasonable price considering the annual interest rate among the general public is 60%!

But Ye Kun knew that this 10% annual interest, when compounded, would be more profitable than any other business!

In the future, the annual interest rate for home loans will be 5%, and you will have to pay it back for the rest of your life!

The immigrants did not dare to borrow too much. Generally speaking, they could survive by borrowing two or three taels of silver.

Ye Kun's bold policy was to give land and houses to the poor for free, which immediately attracted the poor people in the Micang Mountain area.

Many people broke away from the control of the local gentry and moved to Ye Kun's new immigrant village.

No one wants to be a tenant for a landlord if they can be a free man!

Ye Kun also welcomes local people to open up wasteland and immigrate, because these people still have some belongings and some production and living tools, which makes it easy to resettle them.

After arranging the reclamation and farming of Micang Mountain, Ye Kun returned to Chengdu to think about another major event.

Currency reform.

The monetary system of the Da Ding Kingdom was anchored by copper.

But copper coins were too heavy, and it was very inconvenient for merchants to carry a large amount of copper coins.

When doing business, counting coins can take half a day.

If you meet someone who doesn't know how to count, you have to count a hundred coins several times.

Now Yizhou is completely out of the control of the imperial court. Ye Kun can issue new currency and reform the currency system.

Since Yizhou produces silver, it plans to issue silver coins and implement a silver-based monetary policy.

Ye Kun summoned Zhuge Feng, Guan Yafu, Ma Zhao, Han Chun, Xie Tong and others, and expressed his idea of ​​minting silver coins.

Guan Yafu said: "Master Ye, this matter can only be done slowly, and we must not rush it. We can first mint a silver coin of one tael, with a market value of one thousand copper plates. We should not force the market to promote it, but count it as the salary of officials at all levels..."

Because of the war, the consumption of copper has increased. Now the exchange rate of silver for copper coins is one tael of silver is worth about five hundred copper coins.

Compared to two years ago, silver has depreciated by half.

Han Chun immediately objected, saying, "One ounce of silver is only equivalent to five hundred copper coins nowadays. If you insist on counting it as one thousand copper coins, officials at all levels will not agree."

Ma Zhao also objected: "Taking 500 coins and exchanging them for 1,000 coins is robbing, not a benevolent act."