Chapter 4: The Zheng Family Past

The day after Zhang Mai entered the Dingxia Valley, several core figures of the Tang army met at the imperial envoy's mansion to exchange information from each other. Guo Shidao told Zhang Mai that he had sent Liu An to sneak into Talas and the area around Julan City to collect information. "I heard that most of the Tang people who stayed here have changed their surnames, and even the Zheng family has not contacted us for several years. So we are really a disgrace to the situation here."

"Zheng family?" Zhang Mai asked, "Guo Yanglu Zheng's Zheng family?"

He had been joining the Tang Army of Anxi for a while, so he naturally knew that on the eve of the fall of the four towns of Anxi, the last four towns were Guo, Yang, Lu, and Zheng.

"Yes," said Guo Shidao: "The Zheng family is a descendant of Zheng Jugong, the governor of the Khotan. At that time, the descendants of our four towns had a disagreement in the Shule area and split for the first time." When they said this, several veterans sighed together and heard Guo Shidao continue: "The Lu family refused to leave, so they stayed in the Shule area and cut their hair into monks. Why did they refuse to leave? For some reason, the older generation did not pass on the reason. Shule is thousands of miles away from here, and we have not had any news about the Lu family for many years. I don't know if it is still there. The other three families are bumpy and tide and split again when they arrive in the Talas area..."

He seemed to remember something that was unbearable to look back on. His eyebrows frowned and stopped for a long time. Zhang Mai did not dare to urge him. Guo Shidao said: "Guo, Yang, An and others passed through the desert and headed north to the Xinshuye City area. Of course, there was no Xinshuye City at that time. The Zheng family still stayed in the area of ​​Talas and Julan City."

Zhang Mai asked: "Why is the Zheng family unwilling to leave? Since they can stop leaving, why does Guo and Yang have to leave? What happened at the beginning? So that the three families split again?"

"This..." Guo Shidao hesitated for a moment. The four surnames of Guo, Yang, Lu and Zheng supported each other while the country was destroyed. Their interdependence was probably even closer than their blood relatives. Under such a situation, they were even divided. Zhang Mai also speculated that something inappropriate happened.

Guo Shidao Yang Dingguo and others are descendants of the person involved. Although they know about the affairs of their ancestors, they are taboos for the respected people and refuse to talk about them directly. But thinking about Zhang Mai as an imperial envoy, he should also know this past. Besides, this past may also be related to the urgent need to open up the situation, so it is inconvenient to hide it anymore. He said, "Alas, think about it now, although the Zheng family did that back then, the ancestors of the Guo and Yang surnames, as well as the ancestors of the An family, are actually a little... a little paranoid."

He was talking about his ancestors, so he was naturally cautious and tolerant in his words, but Zhang Mai could also imagine that the three families must have had great conflicts.

"At the beginning, our three families were all responsible for the affairs, and the money and grain were all operated by the Zheng family. Before the three families split, the successive garrisons and military officials were all children of the Zheng family."

Zhang Mai thought to himself: "It seems that this contradiction must be related to money and grain." Then he asked: "Will the Zheng family custodian steal and embezzle public funds for the treasury? "

"No, no, the money and grain in the hands of the Zheng family not only did not lose money, but instead reaped year by year. Especially after arriving in Talas, the Zheng family changed the system of operating a bounty interest, and the money and grain increased faster."

"The system of operating a bounty interest?"

Guo Shidao said: "If we were only in charge of the internal allocation of money and grain, a few people would be enough. But at that time we were a wandering army, with no land and no land, no rent or taxes. If we did not open source, we would have to spend all our money. Therefore, we had to use military capital as our capital to operate and reopen, and then we would have to have a whole team of people. After discussion, the Great Guardians' Account Conference decided to let the Zheng family, who was best at this, take a group of people to do business. At that time, we were calling this group of people and flocks."

Zhang Mai nodded and thought to himself: "That's equivalent to the Tang army setting up a company and taking out military funds to let the Zheng family make money through commercial operations. They have lost this method. The remnants of the Tang army can travel west step by step. To this day, there are indeed talented people in it."

I heard Guo Shidao continue: "The people transferred to the Zheng family back then were mostly smart and wise people in the army. Human nature is hard to achieve both. Since the person is smart enough, it is inevitable... it is inevitable that he is not as simple as possible."

Guo Shidao is kind-hearted. Although the Zheng family obviously stood opposite Guo and Yang in the matter back then, he was very restrained in using words and tried not to use derogatory words. Zhang Mai could hear the implicit meaning and thought: "If you say that, then most of the people under the Zheng family were selfish and greedy back then."

But if a businessman is not greedy, how can he do a good business?

"When our three families moved to this area of ​​Talas, the political situation here was quite chaotic and uncertain. This was a good thing for a wandering army like us. The southeast of the Talas River Basin is the Julan Mountains and the southwest of the Dayuan Mountains. The east and north are deserts, and there are geographical obstacles. In addition, the military and political situation at that time was quite convenient for fishing in troubled waters, so our Tang army decided to take root here and prepare to seize this area. Before the troops moved, food and grass came first. Just when our army was in urgent need of money and food, Zheng Ci, the head of the Zheng family, at that time, reorganized the freight department. As a result, this change..."

"Is something going on?" Zhang Mai thought to himself that this must be the key to the problem.

But Guo Shidao said: "No, it has achieved great success. In a few months, the military capital gains have increased several times! We originally planned to accumulate financial and material resources in five years, but in less than two years, the profits of the Mercantile Mansion had exceeded our five-year expectations."

Zhang Mai couldn't help but exclaim, but the result was beyond his expectations. He couldn't help asking: "That's how the head of the Zheng family is an amazing business genius. How did he change it?"

Zheng Ci, the ancestor of the Zheng family, involved a large range of reforms to the breeding house, and there were quite complicated and sophisticated details. For the larger ones, the two most important points are: one is to reform in means and the other is to reform in system.

Guo Shidao said: "The reform of means is to use military means to do business with military tactics, use spies to spy on intelligence, use rumors to raise or lower prices, and attack opponents. In some special businesses, under the cover of the Tang army's force, they travel through dangerous areas that ordinary merchants cannot cross, so that goods can reach their destination earlier, and even launch sneak attacks, such as stealing the sweat-blooded BMWs of Dayuan people as seeds, in order to make profits."

There is a prerequisite for such business methods that you must rely on a well-trained force group. Ordinary merchants will naturally not be able to compete with them without this condition. In the way of doing business, as long as the price difference is slight, there will be price advantages, and the goods will be transported quickly will have logistics advantages. If the price control and other factors are superimposed to produce an additive effect, the profit generated is not an addition, but a multiplication bonus.

"As for the system reform, it was divided into two times. The first time was to meet the needs of means, the part was 15 regiments (when Zhang Mai heard this, he thought that this was clearly divided into the parent company of the Mercantile Mansion into fifteen subsidiaries). Six of them were the general regiments, responsible for spying, planning, promotion, negotiation, logistics and totality. The so-called Mercantile Mansion actually included rumors and negotiations, which actually included bribery. If we were just in business, this was not very open and upright. But at that time, we thought it was to raise military funds, so we would never get tired of deceiving the soldiers. Except for these six regiments, the other nine were opened in various places, or formed caravans to conduct business. The fifteen regiments each had their own departments, but the Zheng family coordinated the arrangements during the operation. During that period, our wandering army was maintained by the Mercantile Mansion."

When Zhang Mai heard this, he admired Zheng Ci very much, and thought that this man was simply a management wizard and marketing wizard, and he used both military tactics and political means to business.

"With such means and such a structure, in this era, he may have few opponents in the shopping mall." Zhang Mai said.

"It is true. However, although our Tang army was not large at that time, we had to train, build weapons, and feed war horses. In addition, the various actions that assisted the federation government were also very expensive. Zheng Ci Gong was responsible for the federation government. It was already rare to ensure that the balance of income and expenditure was guaranteed. It was even more difficult to save money in addition to such a large amount of money. However, Zheng Ci Gong did not give up and did not complain. According to the predecessors, Zheng Ci Gong was worried about this matter for two years, and his hair was as deep as snow when he was less than fifty years old. In the end, he still thought of a solution, that is, to carry out the second federation government reform. After this reform, he was alas-"

Zhang Maiyao thought that the business genius was working hard for the future of the Tang army. In addition to admiring his ability, he also admired his loyalty and righteousness. However, when he heard this, he still couldn't figure out what the relationship between Zheng Ci's reforms and the division of the Tang army.

"A person who is loyal, righteous, intelligent and intelligent should not lead the Tang army to split! Is it actually true that the Zheng family is right? The Guo and Yang families are wrong?"

But this was impossible to say, and he just asked, "What did Mr. Zheng change?" He thought that as long as he figured out the causes and consequences of that matter, he could judge who was right and who was wrong.

Guo Shidao said: "This time Zheng Cigong's reform is to share the profits of the Mercantile and his subordinates."

"Sharing the profit with subordinates?" Zhang Mai couldn't understand: "What does this mean?"

Guo Shidao said to Yang Ding Guodao: "You explain it."

Yang Dingguo took the conversation and said, "Special Envoy, all of our Anxi Tang Army were wandering back then. The army was the family, the family was the army, and the whole army was the army, and there was no distinction between them. The situation was actually very similar to today. When we entered our Tang army, we really had blessings, hardships, food, and clothes. Although the whole army was not completely different, the difference was not very big."

"Yes, yes." Zhang Mai nodded repeatedly. Who can not get tired of that indifference for those who have been in the metropolis for too long? In modern society, every metropolis in the metropolis has a population of millions or even tens of millions, but the iron gates separate the warmth between people. People come and go on the streets, but everyone who comes and goes seems so lonely.

On the contrary, he devoted himself to the big family of Anxi Tang Jun these days. Although he was small in the private space, not so free, and his living conditions were extremely difficult, the warmth brought by this collective life made him feel warm. Here Zhang Mai felt that at least hundreds of people were truly caring about him. Sometimes he often thought that the extraordinary performance during this period was related to the nourishment of this collective care. He was standing on the shoulders of all Tang Jun, so he was able to exert his power that he could not have originally exerted.

At least so far, Zhang Mai still enjoys this kind of life.
Chapter completed!