Chapter 442 Naval General
Chapter 442 Naval General
Lai Huer smiled and said, "How could I not remember the dragon boat? It was the boat that the late emperor stayed on when he went to Jiangdu five years ago. At that time, the late emperor took a boat from Luoyang to Jiangdu. Due to the restrictions of the canal, the boats he took were relatively small. Later, when he returned to Xiangyang, he changed boats. It was the boats from Jiangling that took the late emperor to Xiangyang."
"What's the condition of Jiangling's ship?" Xiao Xia asked again.
Lai Huer shook his head. "It's not very good at the moment. In the past five years, only a small number of ships have been maintained. Most ships have not received any maintenance or repair. Many ships have cracked decks and deformed hulls. It's shocking and sad."
“So why not do the maintenance?”
Lai Huer sighed and said, "The maintenance of ships is very expensive and requires a lot of manpower and material resources. How can Jiangling County afford more than a thousand large ships? The court must allocate money. I have asked the court for money for ship maintenance every year, but there has never been any result. Later, I asked someone to ask the Ministry of Revenue privately, and I learned that the Ministry of Revenue believes that the world is peaceful now and warships are not needed. In addition, the maintenance expenses are huge. The complete maintenance of a ship costs hundreds of strings of cash, and there are more than a thousand ships!"
"One ship costs hundreds of strings of cash!" Xiao Xia was also shocked.
Lai Huer nodded, "Ordinary annual maintenance doesn't cost that much, but after all, it hasn't been maintained for five years, so it must be thoroughly maintained and repaired, which will cost money. First, the boat must be brought ashore, and tung oil must be applied three times inside and outside, leaving no corners untouched. The damaged parts must be replaced, the masts must be removed and re-oiled, and the ropes and sails must all be replaced. Of course, the labor and craftsman expenses must be added. Your Highness, calculate, does a boat cost a hundred strings of cash?"
Xiao Xia understood why the court did not approve the money. A batch of money would cost hundreds of thousands of strings of cash, which the court was unwilling to spend. Moreover, it was not an urgent need for war, so the court was certainly reluctant to spend such a large sum of money.
After talking with Lai Huer, Xiao Xia understood what was going on. As long as the Jiangnan Provincial Administration Office was willing to pay hundreds of thousands of strings of cash, the imperial court would definitely agree to transfer the ships from Jiangling to Jiangnan.
Xiao Xia was not in a hurry to recruit Lai Huer. Firstly, he was still in mourning, and secondly, the fleet had not yet arrived in Jiangnan. It would be much easier for him to recruit Lai Huer after the fleet arrived in Jiangnan.
Xiao Xia chatted for a few more minutes and then said goodbye and left.
Xiao Xia returned to Jiangdu and came to the office of the General Administration. The office was the specific functional agency of each mission. For example, the Shangshu Xingtai had more than a dozen functional agencies under it, including the Officials Office, the Internal Affairs Office, the Military Equipment Office, the Taxation Office, the Land and Property Office, the Local Warehouse Office, the Mining and Forestry Office, etc. For example, the Inspectorate also had the Supervisory Office and the Interview Office, one for officials and the other for the people.
These offices were originally all within the General Administration's Mansion, but as it became increasingly inconvenient, the General Administration's Mansion requisitioned a hundred acres of land from the City God Temple and the county government warehouse, close to the small city gate inside the city, and built five large buildings as the outer mansion of the General Administration's Mansion, and all the offices were moved here to work.
Among the five buildings, the largest one is the office of the Shangshu Xingtai, followed by the office shared by the Observation Commissioner's Office and the Transport Commissioner's Office, then the office of the Tixing Ancha Commissioner's Office, the fourth building is the military office, including the Jinwang Guard and the Tuanlian Office, and the last, slightly smaller building is the Muliu Mansion.
Just a dozen days ago, Xiao Xia recruited another group of staff, bringing the total number of his staff back to thirty-six.
Staff members are different from officials. Officials are sent by the General Administration Office when they go out to work, holding formal documents, while staff members are sent by Xiao Xia when they go out to work, holding the order of King Jin, and go out as special envoys of King Jin.
Just as aide Zheng Rong was appointed by Xiao Xia as the purchasing envoy, with full authority to handle coal matters, aide Chen Hua was appointed as the general manager of the Xihai Salt Company, handling salt affairs on behalf of Xiao Xia.
In addition, the staff also helped Xiao Xia control 30,000 troops, and the Tongpan of each mission was also served by the staff.
The Staff Office was actually Xiao Xia's private organization, which was funded by himself. This situation has always existed in history, sometimes it was more covert, but sometimes it was open.
For example, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty sent a large number of eunuchs to various places to do business, which was a public situation.
Xiao Xia came to the staff residence, where he also had an official room. Xiao Xia sat down in the official room and ordered, "Go find Li Luming!"
Since Zhang Liang was appointed as the Tongpan of the Tuanlianshisi, his Intelligence Agency was handed over to Li Luming, who is now the Chief of the Intelligence Agency.
The Intelligence Bureau is an agency under the General Staff Office and does not belong to the government.
Not long after, Li Luming hurried over and bowed, "Greetings, Your Highness!"
Xiao Xia smiled and said, "I asked Fang Xuanling to give the task of investigating the salt industry to the general manager. Did he give it to him?"
"I gave it to you a few days ago. I'm investigating the local salt control situation. Most of it is done, except for a few remote counties. News hasn't come yet." Xiao Xia nodded, "Give me the main ones first! The remote counties are not urgent, you can give them to me later."
"I will sort it out and give it to Your Highness!"
Xiao Xia added: "Also, we need to start recruiting warriors as soon as possible, but we can't recruit people against our principles. We must know their background."
Although Xiao Xia has 30,000 recruited soldiers, the army is different from the samurai. If they are deployed on a large scale, the army will definitely be strong, but if it is individuals who do the job, then of course the samurai will be more effective.
Just like the confiscation of the power of Liu Kun, a tyrant in Wu County, that was to catch evidence of Liu Kun's crimes, and to make an example of him, so 500 troops were sent. But you cannot send troops to suppress all the local tyrants, as that would cause chaos in the local area.
This is when the warriors come into play. Sending warriors to give secret warnings is both covert and will not cause any bad effects.
Li Luming bowed and said, "I have already started working on it!"
Xiao Xia thought about it and said, "The prince has a group of warriors who are coming over. Send someone to take them over. Also, the princess has more than 20 people coming over. Send someone to take them over as well. They don't need to come to Jiangdu. Just put them in the West Sea Trading Company and let them obey Chen Chu's orders!"
"I humbly obey my orders!"
After arranging matters concerning the warriors, Xiao Xia returned to the General's Mansion.
The Jiangdu Salt Inspectorate was under the jurisdiction of the Shaofu Inspectorate, a sixth-rank official. It had an office in Jiangdu and an independent salt warehouse at Pier No. 1. It was in charge of the Jiangdu Salt Field and had no relationship with the Jiangdu County or the Jiangnan Dao General Administration Office.
The current chief of the Salt Inspectorate is Wei Chaofeng, who is about 40 years old, tall and fat. His job is to sell the salt transported from the salt field to second-level salt merchants, and at the same time pay the salt households' salt permits.
Wei Chaofeng had been in Jiangdu for eight years. Before the late emperor visited Jiangdu, Wei Chaofeng was living a very happy life. All the salt merchants were flattering him and trying every means to bribe him.
But since the previous emperor's southern tour to Jiangdu, the Guanlong nobles jumped from behind the scenes to the front stage, and Wei Chaofeng's good days were over. Under pressure from the Guanlong nobles, his official salt could only be sold to the Wan, Cao and Yu families, and could no longer be sold to other second-tier salt merchants.
Since the Wan, Cao and Yu families were also second-tier salt merchants, other small and medium-sized salt merchants were unable to get the goods and changed their careers or went bankrupt.
Only seven or eight of the more than one hundred salt merchants remained, and they were the relatives of the three families of Wan Cao and Yu San, who were able to get a small supply of goods.
In the morning, Wei Chaofeng dozed off in his official room when his subordinates suddenly came running to him in a panic, saying, "Wei Jianjun, something bad has happened. Our salt warehouse has been robbed."
"what?"
Wei Chaofeng stood up and asked sharply, "When did it happen?"
"Just now, I just received news that our first warehouse was forcibly opened and there are ships stealing salt!"
"This is outrageous! Prepare the carriage immediately. I'm going to go to the salt warehouse to check. I'll also report the case to Jiangdu County and have them send detectives to arrest the perpetrators!"
Wei Chaofeng got on the carriage and rushed to Pier No. 1 on the Yangtze River in a hurry.
(End of this chapter)