Zhao Yan stayed in Taiyuan for half a month, and all the places concentrated their cash silver, silk and jewelry in Taiyuan. The silver liang seized was 58 million taels, while those silk liang should be worth about 10 million taels, and these things were not easy to cash out.

If you copy the Shanxi merchants away, you don’t have to worry about the finances this year. Shandong’s fiscal expenditure is relatively large now, so there is nothing you can do about it.

A lot of money has to be spent.

However, there are not many opportunities like this. As the largest merchant gang in the north of the Ming Dynasty, the Shanxi merchants had no goals after being investigated by Zhao Yan.

With those real estate and some industries distributed by Shanxi merchants outside, it is no problem to collect hundreds of millions of taels of taxes this time, but the cashing time may be longer.

When Li Zicheng entered the capital, he could find thousands of tens of thousands of taels of silver from officials, which was not considered real estate! He found hundreds of millions of taels of assets in Shanxi merchants, but it was not much different. After all, this was the top merchant gang in the Ming Dynasty, and its financial resources were naturally not comparable to those of Shandong merchants.

Of course, there are still goals, and there are two goals at present.

One is a salt merchant in Lianghuai and the other is Zheng's group.

The money for these two targets is also huge. Whenever they are short of money, they will take surgery. In half a month, Zhao Yan counted the silver and had cramps in his hands.

It has been almost a month since I came out, so I have to go back and guide the scientific research work immediately. The house search work in Shanxi has been almost completed. The cash and valuable things have been moved to Taiyuan. The real estate has been sealed and will be temporarily left there for the time being, waiting for people from the Commercial Department to come and receive it.

So Zhao Yan took Mao Yuanyi and others back to Zhaojiabao.

What we took away together were naturally the gold, silver and jewelry, and there was also a group of Shanxi merchants. These Shanxi merchants had to take them back to Zhaojiabao for a good review.

Shanxi merchants are playing typical collusion between officials and businessmen. If they continue to dig along the way, they can really get rid of many officials. This is a great opportunity for Zhao Yan to suppress political enemies.

Zhao Yan's team was in a mighty way. Except for leaving 5,000 armed police forces in Shanxi and armed police sent to other provinces to seize Shanxi merchant industries, the rest of the people were withdrawn.

The return march speed was relatively slow, and it took Zhao Yan half a month to return to Zhaojia Fort.

As soon as he returned to Zhaojiabao, Zhao Yan filled the precious metals such as gold, silver and copper that were searched this time into the vault. Zhao Yan asked someone to screen the jewelry, calligraphy and paintings, antiques, jade and other items, and left all the fine products and then put them in the Denglai Museum for collection.

Zhao Yan plans to wait until the price of these things rises in the future before selling them. Anyway, there is no shortage of money now, so he wants to store them in the museum!

As for those real estates, there is no rush to take action for the time being.

The five million acres of land in Confucius Mansion, Shandong have not been sold yet due to the land price plummeting. The number of land acres found in Shanxi has not yet been counted.

But it was soon, and a group of accountants were constantly calculating there.

Soon, part of the real estate in Shanxi was counted. Most of the houses found were luxury houses, with the number of arable land censored to about 10 million mu, and most of them were concentrated in the essence of Shanxi, mostly in larger basins such as Datong, Xinzhou, Taihou, Linfen, Yuncheng, and Changzhi. In addition, some land was distributed in small basins such as Yangquan, Shouyang, Xiangyuan, Licheng, and Jincheng in the east.

The money shops found were eight years old, spread across more than a dozen big cities and hundreds of semicolons. At present, there are not many ticket numbers for Shanxi merchants, but there are also some, most of which are distributed in northern provinces.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, money shops had become a financial organization that not only operates exchanges, but also handles loans, providing convenience for issuing posts and withdrawals. The tickets that were originally exchanged in the two places also became credit circulation tools for money shops to issue banknotes. In addition, several small-scale money exchange shops, money rice shops, etc. are quite active in rural areas.

Compared with banks, this kind of money house is not so professional, but it also has a certain similar surname to banks.

These money banks do not have much deposit, but they also have the function of collecting funds. However, they only provide merchants with convenience for long-distance trade, and do not absorb deposits and issue loans on a large scale like banks.

Zhao Yan did not intend to swallow the funds absorbed. After all, this was not the money of Shanxi merchants, so he would give them back to anyone else. So Zhao Yan allocated these money banks to Denglai Bank and asked Denglai Bank to accept these money banks and then returned the collected funds back.

As for those usury loans, you don’t need small amounts, but those with larger amounts are required, but interest is not charged.

Ultimate loans are a common means for these Shanxi merchants to make a fortune. In addition to money houses, they also use usury loans like pawnshops.

There are more pawn shops. The pawn shops of Shanxi merchants are spread all over the Ming Dynasty. Most of them are concentrated in the north, and a few are involved in the south. However, there are many commercial groups in the south, and Shanxi merchants are not so compatible in the south.

According to the contracts found, these Shanxi merchants owned more than 500 pawn shops, and more than 100 pawn shops have been searched.

There are more than 400 other companies distributed in various provinces that have not been checked yet, but have sent out search personnel.

If you search these money houses, you can collect a considerable amount of money. Zhao Yan is not very good at this. The surname Suo threw all these things to Zhao Quan to deal with.

He went to the Science and Technology Academy to guide scientific research.

After several months of construction, the steam engine manufacturing plant has started construction, and now five more steam engines have been built.

After these steam engines were produced, they were immediately assigned to various research groups.

The Military Intelligence Bureau was the first to successfully apply steam engines to stamping and drilling, which is not a technical issue.

After all, punching and drilling technology have existed in Shandong for a long time, but it uses hydraulic power.

Hydraulic stamping is not very stable, and construction cannot be started when the river is dry, which also greatly affects the weapons production of the Military Weapon Bureau.

With a steam engine, it means that there is a machine with greater power, more stable output, no location restrictions, and can greatly reduce production costs.

The Military Weapons Bureau soon applied steam engines to the production of weapons and arms.

Cold weapons are now directly forged and pressed by steam engines. Plate armor has also started to be forged and pressed by steam engines, and muskets have also been drilled with steam engines.

A high-power steam engine can drive dozens of drill bits, and the production speed of muskets will increase greatly for a while.

Zhao Yan is not very satisfied with the current musket. He is studying the continuous firing of muskets. Black powder muskets can also be continuously fired. There is no doubt about this.

However, Zhao Yan has also devoted a lot of energy to the research on smokeless gunpowder.

Zhao Yanyou has the specific formula of smokeless gunpowder, but the chemistry is not very perfect. In this year's fiscal budget, there is a systematic project to collect experimental materials, which is to improve this issue.

Since the beginning of the year, a special department has been established to collect materials for scientific research, and a large number of them are collected. Various substances and materials will be collected in large quantities and stored in a classified manner for scientific experiments.

In terms of chemistry, the scientific name must first correspond to specific substances. Although the chemical system of Denlai is very advanced, the people from the Academy of Sciences have not yet thoroughly studied it.

This year, the manpower has been a little more abundant, and research funds have also increased.

Since the beginning of the year, researchers from the Department of Chemistry have begun to conduct large quantities of experiments, constantly verifying Zhao Yan's chemical formulas in textbooks, and corresponding elements.

The report submitted by the Chemistry Group said that smokeless gunpowder can be produced in as little as half a year at the latest.

At that time, Zhao Yan will directly draw the Mauser 98K design drawings, and the combat effectiveness of the army will be greatly improved.

In addition to muskets, artillery is also a very important thing.

In war, Zhao Yan always tends to use machines to deal with the enemy, rather than fighting wits with machines, which can reduce casualties and minimize casualties.

Of course, the cost of war also needs to be taken into account.

The reason why the Buluo Empire declined was because the war dragged him to death.

In the production of artillery, the Military Intelligence Bureau has also begun experimenting with breach furnace steel and steam engines to manufacture new artillery.

After the open furnace steel enters the application, the weight of the cannon will be greatly reduced.

After using steam engines and lathes for manufacturing, the specifications of the cannons will be more unified. After the smokeless gunpowder appears, the power of the cannons will also be greatly improved.

The steam engine manufacturing factory has now determined three types of steam engine manufacturing specifications, one is a steam engine used in textile factories. This steam engine is small and can drive 300 spindles, and the efficiency of the textile factory is improved again.

The other two types, one is forging type, and the other is drilling type, which are all things that the military weapon bureau wants.

After these three specifications of steam engines have been determined, the steam engine manufacturer is fully expanding its manufacturing capacity, and the personnel of the steam engine manufacturer have rapidly expanded to more than 10,000.

These people are distributed in various manufacturing plants, each manufacturing plant responsible for the manufacturing of a certain part. These manufacturing plants are also studying the use of steam engines to provide manufacturing speed and quality.

Under the huge power of the steam engine, productivity is simply increasing rapidly. When applied to the manufacturing of steam engines, the production efficiency of steam engines is rapidly improving.

After the manufacturing efficiency of steam engines is improved, more industries will enter the era of leap in productivity.

When a person can complete a hundred people's work, the productivity will theoretically increase by hundreds of times, and the things produced will also increase by hundreds of times.

Of course, this is the productivity in the industry. Excluding some industries where productivity has not improved, the productivity will gradually increase from the assumption that it is the first double, and it will increase by several times, which is equivalent to several times more than before.

When steam engine manufacturers were trying every means to apply steam engines to steam engine manufacturing, other industries also began to pay attention to the Hercules of steam engines.

The power team is using steam engines to study thermal power generation, the Navy is using steam engines to study ironclad ships, and the Ministry of Transport is using steam engines to study trains.

Of course, these are relatively technical names. Among them, ironclad ships are the most difficult, thermal power generation is the least difficult, and trains are also easier. After all, once the railway is repaired and broken, just make it clear about the linkage and shock absorbing devices, but this involves the shaping of steel.

Parts manufacturers are also studying the use of steam engines for parts manufacturing, which also coincides with the research of steam engine manufacturers, so the two sides are working together.

The emergence of steam engines is a comprehensive improvement.

Cement factories also use steam engines in cement production.

In the past, cement plants used animal power and hydraulic power to crush materials, but now they have been replaced by steam engine rolling materials. The efficiency is not a little bit higher, but a huge improvement.

The production costs of cement are reduced again.

This also means that the construction cost of infrastructure will be reduced.

After the steel industry is put into use, the steel cost will be greatly reduced, which will also reduce the cost of infrastructure construction and reduce military expenditure.

It's just the power of a steam engine.

It can bring a society into an era of taking off.

Technology does not mean that it is profitable if you improve. The most important thing is to maintain an advanced surname. As long as you are more advanced than others, you can develop very smoothly.

If others enter the era of internal combustion engines and a certain country is still using steam engines, the production cost will be higher than that of others, and if they lag behind others in competition, they will not make money, and they will not have the money to invest in new research and development.

At present, many industries plan to use steam engines to replace human, animal and hydraulic power, but the manufacturing speed of steam engine manufacturers is not very fast, and many industries cannot obtain steam engines.

The steam engines produced are mainly concentrated in parts manufacturing.

As long as the parts manufacturing speed increases, the steam engine can be built as much as it wants in the future. Other industries will give them a few units to perform application experiments, so they will not rush to install them on a large scale.

"Within this year, steam engine manufacturers should be able to achieve a significant improvement in manufacturing efficiency and will be able to produce a large number of steam engines next year."

Li Weiping, who is in charge of the steam engine manufacturing plant, reported to Zhao Yan.

"We must study it quickly." Zhao Yan nodded with satisfaction, and then reminded him that he was more at ease with the application of steam engines. After all, everything has come out, and it is only in the morning and evening to apply it to various industries.

But it's better to be earlier than to be later.

Of course, the management and development of Shanxi were immediately brought to the desk by Zhao Yan.
To be continued...