Shandong Salt Transportation Department has been in a state of sacking before, and the annual salt tax paid is only more than 100,000 taels, which shows the degree of the officials among them. In addition to Zhao Yan, the salt transport envoy, there is also a Censor of the Salt Transportation Department sent by Chongzhen, who is an inspector.

Cao Jingen, the censor of Shandong Salt Transport Department, had previously had some "collusion" with Zhao Yan. He has not yet joined the ranks of salt trafficking.

It is very convenient to sell salt in Shandong. After all, Zhao Yan will send soldiers to escort it, and there are almost no risks on the way.

After Zhao Yan arrived at the Yanyun Department's yamen, he directly began to rectify the situation. The first thing was to lay off the personnel. Except for the Yanyun Department's Censor and his confidants, all the others were cut off.

Speaking of the three fires that the new official took office, Zhao Yan's fire was extremely fierce. Zhao Yan stayed with Jinan for more than ten days, and met with Shandong merchants several times during this period.

The contents of negotiations with these merchants are mainly about the details of trafficking.

Regarding Zhao Yan's salt administration reform plan, the Salt Transportation Department only carries out output and everyone can participate in trafficking. It will be sold at a price of 2 taels and 5 cents per load of salt. The discount policy will no longer be implemented next year, but members of the Shandong Salt Association can enjoy a 10% discount.

It is obviously unlikely that Zhao Yan will handle the government affairs of the Salt Transportation Department all day long, so he promoted Dong Hejie, the shopkeeper of the Salt Transportation Department, and the Salt Transportation Department will be in charge.

Dong Hejie is one of the most outstanding shopkeepers in the business, and so far no corruption has been discovered.

As for the anti-corruption methods, Zhao Yan is constantly improving. So far, a sound reporting system has been formed. Anyone who reports are true will be rewarded. Anyone who accepts corruption and bribes will be punished, and those who are dereliction of duty will be punished from salary to punishment.

At the same time, an inspection brigade was established. The personnel of the inspection brigade were drawn from the employment camp. For the first time, 3,000 people would be selected. Three thousand people would be selected from the garrison. Each of these six thousand people would form a brigade, every two hundred people would form a squadron, and every forty people would form a small team.

These four inspection brigades will be divided into six provinces, Shandong, Henan, Anhui, Shanxi, Huguang and Beizhili. Each team will set up checkpoints in various places to inspect private salt and work part-time to suppress bandits.

If you encounter a large group of bandits, the team will contact the squadron and the squadron will jointly attack. If it is still difficult, contact the squadron and the squadron will organize troops to attack.

At the same time, each team of the inspection brigade also worked part-time to save lives and help the wounded, recruit refugees and other work.

One thousand people in each province are stationed in various checkpoints. Anyone who traffics in private salt will be detained to Shandong for interrogation after investigation. In terms of the assessment of these salt diced salt, it depends on whether the local private salt is rampant. There is also a public opinion survey. If the public fails to meet the standards and the people are not satisfied with them, they will question the officers of the squad, squadron, and brigade.

Polls are a very direct anti-corruption method and are currently used in various villages. In the past, some town chiefs urged the villagers to carry out production like contract workers in order to improve their political achievements. They had to get up before dawn and go out to work. They worked until dark and did not come back. They treated people as cows.

At first, Zhao Yan did not notice it because although the villagers were forced to work, the income from the labor was their own. Therefore, they did not feel that something was wrong. Moreover, the leaders of the villages in the garrison were much better than the officials in other places. The most important thing was that they would not exploit them. Although they were dissatisfied, they could still tolerate it. After all, it was their own if they did more.

It was not until later when he asked about the behavior of the treasury chief, he discovered the problem. Therefore, Zhao Yan stipulated that a nominal investigation was given. If the people in a certain area where a civil servant was responsible for were generally dissatisfied with him, he would be dismissed directly. If the circumstances were bad, he would have to accept other sanctions.

It is also stipulated that the public opinion surveys are conducted every six months. Now the heads of each town are afraid to mess with their political achievements. When improving production, they can only organize them patiently, and provide ideological education to those lazy town residents.

These salt diced people are even more important to pay attention to their influence in activities in other provinces. If they make a lot of complaints, they will lose their reputation.

At the same time, in order to improve the inspection ability, everyone prepares horses, but they are not at the level of war horses, but they are also at the level of horse riding. Horses of this level are a bit useless as war horses, and are a bit useless for transportation. They are not as fast or endurance as horse riding, but they are obviously good to equip second-line troops.

The battalion commander Xu An was responsible for dispatching six inspection brigades and personally took charge of Shandong. The other five provinces each had brigade commanders. In addition to the combat soldiers, each squadron was equipped with a political commissar to maintain discipline. If something really happened, the first thing to do was to ask these political commissars.

In terms of details of trafficking, first the salt merchants buy salt from Shandong, and then the Salt Transportation Department opens the corresponding number of salt turbulences. With these salt turbulences, they can be sold openly to various places.

Of course, Zhu Youjian did not specify where these salts can be sold, but Zhao Yan took office as the Shandong Salt Transportation Department this time, and everything was not a problem. At most, he would fight a war of verbal sales with Lianghuai salt merchants.

It is difficult for salt dippers to enter the south. After all, the south is the territory of the salt merchants in the two Huaihe Rivers, and Huaihe River is dominant in the south, so Zhao Yan’s plan is to eat the northern market first, and then gradually erode the south.

It is not a problem to sell four or five million yuan in the northern market. As long as you eat this market, the 5 million taels of salt tax paid every year will meet the standard. If you sell more, you will get more money.

Anyway, Zhao Yan made up his mind to pay 5 million taels of work to the court every year, and keep the rest himself.

After Zhao Yan explained all the things that need attention, he returned to Zhaojiabao from Jinan and began to reorganize the employment camp. Next year, they will be assigned to set up a card for inspection, and the inspection methods and procedures will be trained.

After the policy came, the departments began to get busy, and the hiring battalions began to reorganize each team, with twenty spearmen, fifteen musketeers and five cavalrymen. At the same time, each squadron was equipped with two 75mm howitzers, and each brigade was equipped with twenty 75mm cannons for siege.

At present, in terms of casting cannons, heavy city defense cannons, shore defense cannons and naval cannons all use cast iron, while light cannons are made of brass transported back from Japan. Cast iron cannons are fragile, but there is no need to worry about this problem after adding the cannon.

If the field gun is added with a barrel, it will become heavier and will affect the mobile name. Therefore, brass cast cannons are used. However, the brass cannon is softer and cannot be used to continuously shoot high-intensity. If you shoot a dozen cannons at a time, you must stop and cool down. At the same time, the average life span is only 300 rounds. After 300 rounds, the barrel will deform, which will affect the shooting accuracy and need to be dragged back to the military bureau and recast.

...In mid-November, the basic vermicelli processing industry has entered the final stage. After a month of busy processing, 3 billion jin of sweet potatoes have been processed by nearly one million people, and all of them have been made into starch.

These starches will be processed in a special workshop and then vermicelli will be obtained.

After the sweet potato harvest was harvested, the sweet potato yield in Handan and Yingzhou was not high. Because the planting was rushing, the base fertilizer was not applied, and the growth time was not sufficient. Although the planting area was more than that in Huangxian, the yield per mu was less than half of the villages in Denglai. Yingzhou collected 1.9 billion jin, and Handan only collected 1.6 billion jin.

Yingzhou processed 1.3 billion jin, leaving 500 million jin as food rations, and Handan processed 900 million jin, leaving 700 million jin.

The sweet potatoes used to process vermicelli in the three places reached 5.2 billion jin, and a total of 670 million jin of refined starch (335,000 tons) were obtained. The starch extraction rate was 2 percentage points lower than the estimated 15%. It was obviously because of the untimely processing, which led to the saccharification of the sweet potato and the starch extraction rate decreased.

After Zhao Yan returned to Huang County, he immediately announced that the towns and the New Year will be held in half a month. It is time for all the military and civilians to rest for a while.

Throughout the year, the people in the garrison are either building infrastructure, farming, breeding and training, and only then will the important festival be on holiday.

The heads of each village also began to pay the wages for processing vermicelli this month. The rent of the village is wheat and three potatoes, so the sweet potatoes used to process vermicelli this time are all collected.

The people in the village sent long teams to receive wages one by one.

The wages issued this time were all wrapped in red paper, which was also considered the New Year's money issued. When the red envelope was opened, there were three taels of silver in it, and the elderly and weak also paid one taels of five coins.

"Sanliang of silver, why is it so much?" A strong man opened the red envelope and found that there was actually three taels of silver in it. He couldn't help but say in surprise: "Did you send it wrong?"

"I have three or three." At this time, someone next to me also said.

"I have this too."

After opening the red envelope, these people were all surprised. Now Denglai often builds water conservancy, roads and bridges, and the people in the garrison are sometimes recruited to work. This is different from the officials. There is a wage for working, but the monthly wage is usually one or two taels of silver. If you don’t want to go, it depends on your own consciousness. However, every time you hire someone to work, the response is always very enthusiastic. If anyone goes well, he will be looked down upon by others.

"The general said that the New Year is coming soon, and this is the New Year's money for everyone so that everyone can have a fat New Year. In addition, each household will also send a fat chicken, which will probably be transported to our garrison in two days." The garrison explained.

"Oh! Our family has raised more than twenty chickens~! The chickens are given by the general, and most of them can lay eggs, so how can we still need a general?" A woman said immediately.

"Yes! I have raised more than 30 pieces in my family, but unfortunately most of them died, but there are more than 10 pieces. I have eaten enough, so how can I ask for a general again?"

"Hmph! It's weird that you can't bear to eat. General doesn't know what you are thinking. They all want to build a house. How many chickens will be missing? Now under the rule of the general, it's not easy to make money. As long as you are diligent and not afraid of hardship, it's not easy to earn more than ten taels of silver a year. If the village hero has excellent grades in the competition, it's not a problem to earn twenty taels a year. Building a house is not easy to build a house?" The president of the Natun snorted coldly, "I will get the chicken back tomorrow. I must stew it delicious on New Year's Eve. General still hopes that you can keep your body and kill the enemy!"

"The General is so kind to us! Tuntou, do you think we have set up a sign of immortality for the General to worship every day?" A man asked in a muffled voice.

"General is so young, why are you erecting the eternal life card? It's unlucky, no, no." The head of Natun waved his hand when he heard this. The adults never liked that they organized the people to chant public morality, and followed the instructions above to tell them not to think about flattery all day long, and it was important to do more practical things for the people.

(To be continued)
Chapter completed!