The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 37 Miscellaneous Affairs
Early in the morning, as soon as Yue Wenxuan walked to the sand table, he heard bursts of singing coming from the sand table.

"I forge iron in the morning and in the evening. I forge a pair of scissors for my sister. She asked me to rest, but I didn't. I wanted to go home and forge iron at night..."

It is impossible to learn blacksmithing skills overnight, but it is more than enough to learn the "Blacksmith Song".

A large group of apprentices led by the Plastic Man Blacksmith have all learned the "Song of Being Alone". They are singing happily and running towards the rising sun on the road to a lonely life.

The plastic blacksmith sang, taught his apprentices, and worked all night long. After a full night of hard work, it was time to rest. Although he was a plastic man, he was designed based on the living habits of real people. When real people need to rest, the plastic man also needs to rest.

The plastic blacksmith drove all the apprentices out and told them to come back to study in the afternoon. Then he closed the yard door, found a long bench, lay down on it, and fell asleep comfortably.

The apprentices left Wangjiazhuang Fort and returned to their homes.

As they walked, they were singing the song "Destined to Be Lonely". The terrible lyrics echoed over the entire Dongmiaozi Village, making the "sisters" in the village panic. They thought to themselves: When I invite them to rest at home in the future, they will really refuse to rest like the song says, and insist on going home to work as ironwork at night. What should I do?
Yue Wenxuan smiled and shook his head, turning his attention away from the apprentices and inspecting the main fort...

Qi Jiguang was already on the parade grounds, marking the start of his morning exercises. The original eight mandarin duck formations were already well-trained, while the four newly formed mandarin duck formations, formed from surrendered soldiers, were just beginning the "standing in formation and memorizing military regulations" phase.

A small number of these surrendered soldiers came from the Wang family's servants and guards, and most of them were ruffians and militia recruited by Mr. Wang. In terms of military discipline and regulations, they were even worse than the rebel army at the beginning, and they must be strictly controlled.

Less than five minutes into the training, a ruffian was heard talking in the ranks. Qi Jiguang glared at him, and the military court came over, dragged the ruffian out, tied him up and beat him, making him scream in pain. This, however, temporarily intimidated the other ruffians.

Continuing to inspect other places, at the door of the warehouse in Wangjiazhuang Fort, Qian Zhuoqun was sitting in front of a desk, holding a Cuju in his left hand and a brush in his right hand. There were an abacus and account books on the table, and he looked very worried.

It turned out that he was counting the food and property seized from the Wang family, combining the food and pork brought down from the mountain by the rebels with the property of the Wang family, and calculating how long these food could feed the rebel soldiers.

Yesterday, Zhang Dalang used some money to buy a set of blacksmith's tools, which also needs to be recorded in the inventory.

A batch of grain must also be prepared to exchange for the salt made by the salt workers.

Mr. Wang used to buy salt at the price of 3 wen per catty, but he would not pay directly. Instead, he converted it into grain mixed with sand and gave it to the salt workers. This was the only way to ensure their survival. Otherwise, they would have money but no grain, and that would be a dead end.

After the rebel army took over, they of course had to provide food to the salt workers.

There will be no sand mixed in. The rebel army is not so cruel. Moreover, there really is a god above our heads. The True Lord will never allow them to do this.

We need to send some real food to the salt collectors.

The vehicles for transporting salt and grain were readily available, but who should be sent to transport the salt? Sending the rebels wouldn't cost them any money, but it would delay their training. If they didn't send the rebels, they would have to hire laborers from the village and pay them for the labor.

We have to take inventory of the Wang family’s property and find out exactly how much money is in the warehouse so we can make arrangements later.

This was no small task, but Qian Zhuoqun was the only one in the entire rebel army who could write and count, and Madam Gong Er only knew some common characters and could not help.

All the internal affairs work fell on Qian Zhuoqun alone. He was overwhelmed and felt numb.

He was getting very upset...

A soldier came running over and reported, "Second brother! The Immortal Craftsman told me before he went to bed this morning to prepare more iron ingots and iron ore for him, saying that the ore we have will be gone in a few days. Oh, and the Immortal Craftsman also needs coal. Please think of a way."

Qian Zhuoqun was completely paralyzed: "Where can I get these?" The soldier said: "If Second Brother can't do it, then no one else can do it either."

Qian Zhuoqun: “…”

Well, what the soldier said made sense. He was the only one in the entire Jimo volunteer army who had the ability to allocate supplies. He quickly took out the knowledge he had learned as a wealthy businessman and sorted it out.

"The iron ore in Jimo County mainly comes from the Wangcun Town Iron Mine, which is about 60 miles away from where we are now."

"As for coal, it mainly comes from the west slope of Laoshan Mountain and the Chengyang Coal Mine."

Qian Zhuoqun frowned, thought for a moment, then waved his hand and said, "Go tell Madam Gong Er to dispatch two alert scouts, mount the warhorses the Jin thieves gave us, and go to Wangcun Town and Chengyang Coal Mine to take a look at the conditions there. Find out the status of the iron and coal mines, and then we can discuss matters."

The soldiers obeyed the order and left.

Qian Zhuoqun was about to bury his head in the account book when Qi Jiguang walked up to him and asked, "Are you the quartermaster?"

Qian Zhuoqun was stunned and thought to himself: I am the second in command of the copycat.

However, it seems that it is not wrong to call him quartermaster.

He quickly clasped his fists in greeting and said, "General Qi Tian, ​​I am the quartermaster."

Qi Jiguang: "We've fought two consecutive battles in the past few days. The ears the soldiers cut off should be exchanged for reward silver, otherwise they will rot in a few days."

Qian Zhuoqun: "That's true. Then please ask General Qi Tian to tell the brothers to come to me to collect their reward." At this time, Yue Wenxuan had not put any gold or silver ingots into the sand table, but after the rebel army captured Wangjiazhuang Fort, they seized tens of thousands of copper coins from the basement. They would not be short of money in the short term, so Qian Zhuoqun planned to use the money to distribute rewards.

Qi Jiguang nodded with satisfaction, then recited a set of rules: "You must give my soldiers the finest snowflake silver. Don't use those impure silver with many impurities to fill the gap."

Qian Zhuoqun thought to himself: Grandpa Heavenly General, we in the mortal world usually don’t give out silver, we give out copper coins. The 30 taels of silver you offered as a reward for one head, I will convert it into 30 strings of copper coins to distribute. Where would you get the rotten silver with so many impurities and impurities?
What's more, these are not only your soldiers, but also my old brothers.

They all respect me as Brother Qian, how can I treat them unfairly?
After Qi Jiguang finished reciting the instructions, he turned and walked back to the front yard. He said loudly to the several Yuanyang formations in front of him, "After the training in the parade grounds is over today, you can go to the quartermaster to collect your reward silver."

When the rebels heard this, they immediately wanted to cheer.

But as soon as everyone opened their mouths, they immediately realized, "No, we're still in the queue." Everyone stopped at the same time and swallowed back what they were about to say. This really required extreme control of facial muscles, and everyone's face almost twitched.

Only Zhang Dashu roared out: "Haha, that's great."

Qi Jiguang's eyes glared at him: "Talking in the queue will result in forty beatings."

Zhang Dashu: "Ah? Eh? This... uh..."

The military court came over, and Zhang Dashu squatted down with his hands on his head, looking pitiful.

(End of this chapter)