The most arrogant in history

Chapter 385: The art of drilling through mountains.

Ye Kun was choked and rolled his eyes back: "Junior sister, how do you know that I am thinking about the few copper coins in the pockets of ordinary people?"

"You lend money to ordinary people, don't you want to make money?"

"I..." Ye Kun smiled bitterly:

"What I mean is that the landlords and gentry lend money at an annual interest rate of 60%, which ordinary people cannot afford. If we, the government, lower the annual interest rate to 15%, wouldn't that benefit the people?"

Gongsun Erniang was very good at accounting, she was not an ordinary person, she smiled and said:

"The annual interest rate of 15 percent, calculated at 100 wen, will become 200 wen in five years at most. It's a good business. You can double your money in five years without doing anything."

"I have management costs. Building a lending system doesn't require people to do the work?"

"That's too much." Gongsun Erniang bargained: "If you set the annual interest rate at 10%, I will take over this matter."

"Okay, okay, okay. As you say, 10 percent!"

Ye Kun had no choice but to give in.

In Chinese history, Wang Anshi's reforms in the Song Dynasty included the Qingmiao Law, which was to lend money to the common people.

The annual interest rate is 20%.

Wang Anshi's original intention was the same as Ye Kun's, one was to make things convenient for the people, and the other was to enrich the national treasury.

However, Wang Anshi's good friend Sima Guang strongly opposed it, and became enemies with Wang Anshi, chasing Wang Anshi and scolding him all day long.

Sima Guang really cursed him and even wrote an article to curse him - you are the prime minister of the Song Dynasty, but you are competing with the people for profit and are only interested in the few copper coins in the pockets of ordinary people. Is this what a human being should do?

Wang Anshi resisted the pressure and enforced the Qingmiao Law, but it failed in the end.

Because the grassroots officials are corrupt and reckless, they force the people who are not short of money to take out loans, and the people who are really short of money have to give gifts when they want to take out loans...

In addition, the administrative efficiency is too low, and the little money earned is not enough to cover expenses.

There were also wealthy gentry who colluded with officials and covered up everything, lending out government money and lending it to the people at a higher price.

Ye Kun knew the reason why Wang Anshi's reform failed, so he never vigorously promoted government lending.

Now that there are thousands of Mohist disciples, he decided to give it a try.

Gongsun Erniang was satisfied and suggested:

"If we promote government lending on a large scale, there must be multi-party supervision. I suggest that Ma Zhao, Wu Qiong and I work together to supervise each other and ensure that the accounts are clean. Anyone who dares to embezzle a copper coin will have his property confiscated!"

Ye Kun smiled and said, "This is a very good proposal. We can select a few areas to conduct pilot projects and improve the management and accounting systems."

With an annual interest rate of 10%, Ye Kun was worried that it would not be enough to cover his expenses.

You need paper to keep accounts, right? You need a house to keep the account books, and office staff need travel expenses and wages, right?

If something unfortunate happens, there will always be bad debts and overdue debts, right?

Adding everything up, I should be thankful that I didn’t lose money!

Huang Sizhong has already arrested Ge Yougen, and is conducting on-site work and making a public verdict.

Ge Yougen refused to accept the decision and shouted, "That's what I did in Changsha. The wealthy people in Jiangdong all lend money at high interest rates. Why is it not allowed here? If you kill me, it will surely chill the hearts of the people in the world!"

"When you are in Jiangdong, I don't care. But when you are under my rule, you must abide by my rules!"

Ye Kun was furious and waved his hand, "Behead!"

For change to happen, someone has to take the blame.

The knife flashed, and Ge Yougen's head fell to the ground.

Huang Sizhong searched out the IOUs from the Ge family, burned them, and shouted to the villagers: "Fellow villagers, the money you owed Ge Yougen is now written off. The land you sold to Ge Yougen will also be returned to its original owner!"

Ye Kun added: "Send a cavalry squad with Ge Yougen's head to spread the word in every village in the county. From now on, anyone who lends money privately with an annual interest rate of more than 24 years will be beheaded and their property confiscated! There will be a reward for reporting this to the common people!"

Use heavy codes in troubled times.

If we don't kill a few people, the other gentry won't know how to be afraid.

The gentry class is very smart. They have various ways to make money. If they are strictly controlled, a huge gap between the rich and the poor will form again within three to five years. Then the poor will not be able to eat enough and will rise up, and history will begin to repeat itself...

There was a movie where there was a famine and the landlords and the common people fled together.

The landlord said, as long as they could avoid the famine and settle down, he would still be a landlord in a few years, but those poor people would still be poor.

So Ye Kun has been fighting against the landlord class, openly and secretly, racking his brains.

Seeing Ge Yougen’s head fall to the ground, the whole village of Gejiazhuang was shocked.

Ye Kun left some people behind to continue handling the affairs of Gejiazhuang, and he led a large team to Lingshan County.

While walking on the road, Ye Kun asked Gongsun Erniang and Ding Ding: "Two junior sisters, there is a large coal mine here with a large reserve, but it is difficult to mine. Do you have any good ideas?"

Tintin said casually: "If we drill through the mountain, we can start mining, right?"

Ye Kun smiled and said, "Can you break through the mountain?"

Ding Ding smiled and said, "Master Shen Jizi once taught us the art of traveling through mountains. I think it's feasible."

"There is also the art of walking through mountains? That's amazing, how come I don't know about it? Why haven't I heard you mention it before?"

"You didn't ask me." Tintin said innocently, "Besides, I'm not responsible for road construction or mining, so I never thought about it."

"Then tell me, how do you get through the mountain?" Ye Kun still didn't quite believe it.

"It's about making a 'fire engine', using fire and water to dig a cave in the mountains."

Ding Ding gestured and gave a brief description.

Ye Kun understood and said with a smile: "Thank you, Junior Sister. Design a spray train right away and test the effect. It will be convenient for building roads through mountains or mining in the future."

In fact, this art of traveling through mountains has existed for hundreds of years and is easy to understand.

It is to use copper and iron materials to create a hollow roller.

Charcoal is placed inside the drum, ignited, and pushed into the cave. After heating the stone wall, the drum is withdrawn and water is poured on the stone wall. The sudden cooling method is used to cause the rock to break and fall off.

After one operation is completed, push the roller in again and repeat the cycle.

The advantage of this is that it maximizes the use of charcoal fuel and is a mobile equipment, which greatly increases efficiency.

Theoretically, such a mountain-penetrating spray gun, combined with a blower and duct ventilation, can be used to open mountain tunnels, and the speed will not be too slow.

Tintin nodded and gladly accepted the task.

After arriving in Lingshan County, Ding Ding worked overtime and drew the blueprints of a mountain-penetrating spray-engine train overnight.

Ye Kun ordered people to copy it and send it to the Phoenix Mountain area and mining sites in various places.

Fenghuang Mountain is building a highway from Hanzhong to Zhongyuan. This technology can be used as a reference to design some tunnels that are not too long.

After a day off, Ye Kun took Huang Sizhong to visit the coal mine in person.

In the southwest of Lingshan County, there is a large canyon, which is twenty miles long and one hundred feet deep at its deepest point.

Coal is found in faults deep in the canyon.

Huang Sizhong said that mining is too difficult because the canyon is too deep, and it is difficult for workers to go up and down, and for coal to be transported.

It was the rainy season and there was a lot of water at the bottom of the canyon.

Among the technical personnel on site, there was one in charge of mining, who suggested that Ye Kun expand the search area and find a suitable location for mining.

Ye Kun agreed to this suggestion and sent out the Flying Tigers, equipped with ropes and tools, to search the mountain in cooperation with professional personnel for mineral veins.

Hard work pays off.

Two days later, they finally found seven or eight mineral veins in this mountain area.