There were already places and some talents. The selection and training of intelligence personnel had also begun. There were still two years before the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Therefore, for Ding Huai, the most important thing now was to accumulate money. Now, Ding Huai's beer production was in full swing. Although it had only been half a year, it had already brought Ding Huai a huge profit of ten thousand catties of gold. However, this progress was far from satisfactory to Ding Huai.
Let's calculate it carefully. At the end of the Han Dynasty, the exchange rate between gold and money was 1: 10,000. A warhorse would cost 20,000 to 100,000 gold coins, which was equivalent to 2 to 10 catties of gold. A good horse would cost an astronomical price of more than 200,000 gold coins. Each soldier consumed 1.8 dan of grain per month, which was 4220 yuan per year. Each soldier consumed 500 grams of salt per month, which was 144 coins per year. Each soldier's clothes cost 3400 coins per year, their living expenses cost 8000 coins per year, each horse consumed 3.3 dan of grain per month, which was 7920 coins per year. Burial expenses cost 3400 coins per person, and the general's pension cost 100,000 to 600,000 coins per person. This did not include the soldiers 'weapons, armor, meat, and the general's salary. In short, war required a large amount of money. Without the support of money, one could not even afford to feed the soldiers, let alone buy weapons and other military equipment.
Based on Ding Huai's beer profits, even if he could expand the scale in the future and double the sales volume, by the time of the Yellow Turban Uprising, he would only be able to earn 100,000 catties of gold. In addition, the tax revenue of Hanzhong County would only reach 110,000 catties of gold in two and a half years. This was far from reaching Ding Huai's goal, so Ding Huai decided to start selling the paper he made.
Ding Huai had improved the paper made during the end of the Han Dynasty. Not only was the color of the paper produced much whiter, but the texture, thickness, and toughness had also made a huge leap. Although it was much worse than modern paper, this kind of paper was already considered top-notch at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Ding Huai's new paper had already been launched, and it immediately caused a strong response throughout the country. Due to the limitations of the production level, the paper produced at the end of the Han Dynasty was almost the same as modern paper money, or even worse. However, even so, not everyone could use such paper, let alone the new paper produced by Ding Huai.
In less than a month's time, Ding Huai's paper production could no longer supply the needs of merchants everywhere, causing Ding Huai to have no choice but to expand production and continue to expand production. In an instant, almost all the people with status gave up on the original paper and started using the new paper invented by Ding Huai. It was as if this was a symbol of status. The price of the previous paper also plummeted, causing many small paper shops to have no choice but to close down. Ding Huai also suffered a lot of criticism because of this, which was something Ding Huai did not expect.
As a result, Ding Huai also had dealings with a few wealthy merchants at the end of the Han Dynasty, such as the Zhen family of Ye City, the Mi family of Xuzhou, the Wei family of Hedong, etc. The Wei family of Hedong was very grateful to Ding Huai. This was because when the Spirit Emperor granted the marriage and Cai Yong rejected it, if Ding Huai had not spoken out to persuade him, not only would Cai Yong have suffered, but even the Wei family of Hedong would have suffered. In ancient times, most people would repay kindness. The Hedong Wei family had never dared to forget Ding Huai's kindness. Now that Ding Huai had produced new paper, the Hedong Wei family naturally became the biggest seller of Ding Huai's new paper.
Wei Zhongdao was still young, only 11 years old, and could not come to Hanzhong. However, Wei Zhongdao's elder brother, Wei Zi, had personally come to Hanzhong to purchase goods and expressed his gratitude to Ding Huai on behalf of the Wei family. Ding Huai naturally wanted to befriend a wealthy family like the Wei family in the east of the river and proposed that Wei Zi become sworn brothers. Wei Zi naturally had no reason to refuse such a request. Instead, he thought that he had gained a great advantage by being able to become sworn brothers with Ding Huai, the Hanzhong prefect and Marquis Yunting. In fact, becoming sworn brothers with Ding Huai was an advantage for Wei Zhongdao. However, this advantage was not what Wei Zhongdao had imagined. It was because the Wei family had become the main source of money and food for Ding Huai in the future. As the territory occupied by Ding Huai continued to expand, and with Ding Huai's protection, the Wei family's business also grew bigger and bigger. In one word, this kind of relationship was a win-win situation.
To Wei Zhongdao, the most important thing was that Ding Huai had personally come to the Wei family several years later to cure his chronic diseases. In history, Wei Zhongdao died of coughing up blood at a young age. Although the Wei family was very rich, the medical standards at that time were too backward. This disease was a terminal illness at that time, and even the divine doctor Hua Tuo could not do anything about it. This matter moved Wei Zhongdao even more, causing the Wei family to become Ding Huai's solid treasury of money. It also caused Ding Huai to never worry about money in the future. This was because later on, not only the Wei family, but even the Zhen family of Ye City and the Mi family of Xu Prefecture also became Ding Huai's backers. This was something to be discussed in the future, so let's not mention it for now.
The emergence of Ding Huai's new paper had indeed brought a lot of convenience to society. For example, for calligraphers and painters, the paper produced by Ding Huai not only could be preserved for a long time, but it also greatly improved the quality of their calligraphy and paintings. In addition, the degree of damage to the brush when using this paper was compared to the original inferior paper. The number of brushes used was 1:10, so it had also stimulated the improvement of the brush industry. Brush manufacturers no longer cared about quantity. There were also many other benefits that came with paying more attention to the quality of the brush. I won't mention them one by one here. Therefore, because of this incident, after the Spirit Monarch received Ding Huai's promise and offered the paper to the royal family for free, he promoted Ding Huai's title from Marquis Ting to Marquis Duxiang, with 2,000 households of food.
With the two major sources of income from beer and paper, Ding Huai's money reserves grew rapidly. By the end of the fifth year of Guanghe, Ding Huai's money reserves had already reached 300,000 catties of gold. This year was 182 AD. Ding Huai's 10,000 soldiers were almost done with their training. After winter, Ding Huai was ready to attack the bandits in Hanzhong.
Ding Huai had also bought 5,000 high-quality Xianbei horses from Xiliang, and the Wei family had also offered 2,000 high-quality Xianbei horses to Ding Huai for free. Adding on the 3,000 cavalry from Bingzhou, Ding Huai now had 10,000 horses. This number was already quite large. Ding Huai naturally did not dare to tell anyone. Only Yan Pu, Gao Shun, Pang De, Zhang Ren, Cheng Lian, Xu Rong, and a few others knew about this matter. Ding Huai only announced that he had bought two hundred horses, while Ma Ding Huai kept the rest in Ji Valley. Firstly, he did not dare to let the outside world know. Fortunately, it was still a peaceful period, so information was not taken seriously. Secondly, he could breed more horses for future use.
There was another thing that Ding Huai was also secretly doing. It was smelting iron. There were many iron mines in Hanzhong, and they were all high-quality iron. This was also one of the reasons why Ding Huai chose Hanzhong at that time. Ding Huai secretly built a large iron smelting shop in a place called Keshan in Hanzhong. Zheng Hun, a famous blacksmith at the end of Han Dynasty, was in charge of forging weapons and armor.
Although Ding Huai didn't know much about forging, Ding Huai's guidance was still very useful in comparison to the backward iron smelting technology at the end of the Han Dynasty. It made the quality of the iron that Zheng Hun refined much better than at that time. Although it couldn't be compared to divine weapons, it was enough at that time.
Zheng Hun was the best forging master at the end of the Han Dynasty. With high-grade iron ore and the best forging master at that time, Ding Huai did not need to invest too much energy in the forging of weapons and armor. He only needed to continuously input funds. In addition, in order to prevent the bandits from harassing Hanzhong, Ding Huai chose the place where the soldiers trained next to Keshan.
Due to the fact that the iron smelting technology at the end of the Han Dynasty was rather backward, almost all of it relied on manual operation. Due to the difference in physical strength and endurance, the strength of the bellows and the strength of the iron during the smelting process often led to the difference in the quality of the forged weapons and armors. It was easy to produce inferior products. For example, for the waist knives used by soldiers, it was generally good to succeed in five out of ten. The other unqualified ones had to be melted and reforged. If not, once a soldier used it on the battlefield, his sword would be cut off by the enemy, and even his own body would be cut off. Therefore, the quality of the weapon was very important. It could directly affect the morale and combat effectiveness of the army. In fact, if the strength of both sides was similar, the army with the advantage of weapons and armor would definitely be able to win the final victory.
In order to solve this problem, Ding Huai specially designed a water blast fan. Because Ding Huai's physics was not good, the draft of the water blast fan he drew was simply a mess. Helplessly, under Ding Huai's repeated explanations, Ma Jun used half a month to invent the water blast fan, solving this big problem in smelting iron, raising the success rate of forging from 50% to 80%. This was already very satisfying to Ding Huai, and even more surprising to Zheng Hun. Due to the limitations of the conditions at that time, 80% was a figure that no blacksmith dared to imagine. He did not expect that it would be driven by the big wheel that his lord had randomly designed. It was actually realized without much effort. Zheng Hun could not help but be filled with endless worship for Ding Huai.
In fact, this could not be said to be Ding Huai's credit. The sketch was a mess, and Ding Huai's explanation was even more of a mess. He did not understand it very well, so how could he explain it thoroughly, especially to an inventor like Ma Jun? In the end, under Ma Jun's dense questions, the sweat on Ding Huai's head did not disappear. Fortunately, Ma Jun saw his lord's embarrassed look and did not ask any more questions. He went to study it himself. Therefore, Ding Huai's contribution only gave Ma Jun an idea and a rough outline of the water irrigation fan. The rest was Ma Jun's credit.
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