The two men led Zhao Hao to the well in the northwest corner of the back yard.

Zhao Shizhen lifted a thick quilt wrapped around the well, and a familiar thing came into Zhao Hao's eyes.

"Hand pressure pump!"

Zhao Hao whistled happily, and with both hands he pressed the handle of the water pump with his hands. With a few clicks, he pumped up the water from the well, which was more than two meters deep. The faucet connected to the pump began to flow out water.

The water-lifting device, without the steam engine part, changed from automatic to manual, and was no different from the hand-operated pump used to pump water in rural areas in later generations.

"Master really knew about this thing a long time ago..."

Zhang Jian's self-confidence suffered a small blow.

He had originally planned to demonstrate it to his master to prove that he would not be a drag on the master's sect...

Zhang Jian is actually the one with the highest IQ and EQ among all the disciples... Even if his fellow disciples didn't tell him about it, he could clearly feel how much importance their master attached to the imperial examination.

In Zhang Jian's opinion, there is nothing strange about this.

He felt that his master wanted to establish the image of scientists as elites, and if all his disciples could pass the imperial examinations, it would be the most convincing.

After all, in the Ming Dynasty, if you can't even read the Four Books and Five Classics well and still say you are an elite, people will laugh at you... and I just happen to have that damn disease. As long as I stay in the school, my ideal of having all my students become Jinshi will never come true.

Therefore, he wanted to prove himself more and more in other ways. Without taking the imperial examination, he could also bring honor to his master's school.

Who would have thought that the invention he had spent so much time and effort on was actually the leftovers of his master's work.

"You were able to think of changing the water-lifting device to manual mode and create a practical machine without my prompting." Zhao Hao seemed to sense his frustration and patted the sixth disciple on the shoulder encouragingly.

"What a f*cking genius!"

Although he heard a vulgar word, Zhang Jian felt as if he heard the sound of heaven. He felt that his whole body suddenly became energetic!

"Thank you, Master. I will continue to work hard!"

"Um."

Zhao Hao looked at Zhao Shizhen again. Only his clever nephew could use a bunch of common materials to create such a perfect Newcomen engine model.

Then he smiled and encouraged him, "You are great too!"

The eldest nephew was immediately overjoyed.

~~

Before dinner, Sun Dawu and Guo Da came together.

Usually, the two of them took turns to report.

But Zhao Hao had been in seclusion with his father recently, and hadn't seen anyone for more than 20 days. Unexpectedly, these two people came together as soon as they came out of seclusion.

"You two have quite a keen nose." After the two kowtowed and greeted each other, Zhao Hao invited them to sit on the kang and said, "You haven't eaten yet, come, sit down and have some together."

"There is no place for us to eat in front of the young master." The two of them quickly declined.

Zhao Hao didn't force it.

Well, rules are a good thing, don't break them easily.

He took the millet porridge from Zhao Shouzheng, blew the hot air gently, and asked, "What good news is this? You two are so happy that your mouths are cracked to the back of your heads."

"Hehe, nothing can be hidden from you, young master." Sun Dawu said with a cheerful smile: "Today is the day when our coal yard officially opens for business for one month."

"It took 28 days to sell the goods." Guo Da added hurriedly.

"Really? I had forgotten about it." Zhao Hao asked casually while drinking the fragrant porridge, "How are your grades?"

"I'm here to tell you the good news." Sun Dawu quickly took out the coal yard account book from his pocket and handed it to Zhao Hao with both hands, saying, "I've counted it several times, and there must be no mistakes."

Zhao Hao nodded, picked up a piece of crispy pickled mustard greens with chopsticks and said, "Tell me about it."

"Yes, sir." Sun Dawu swallowed his saliva and said in a trembling voice while suppressing his excitement:

"This month, not counting the odds, the total income is 123,210 taels of silver and 28,790,000 catties of coal. After deducting the wages for the workers, the purchase of coal, the purchase of tools and other expenses, the total profit is 32,200 taels, sir..."

"Sir, I have lived for most of my life, and this is the first time I have heard of a business that is so profitable!" Guo Da also flattered him at the right time: "Sir, you are really a god! You are the reincarnation of the God of Wealth!"

"Of course, the God of Wealth also has the surname Zhao." Sun Dawu and Guo Da sang the same tune, praising Zhao Hao to great joy, but they still had to pretend to be calm in front of the people below:

"You are just ignorant. In the southeast, there are many businesses that are more profitable than selling coal."

"Anyway, I have never seen anything north of the Yangtze River!" Sun Dawu's cheeks trembled with excitement as he said, "Even if the price of the Lugou Bridge coal yard is included in the cost, you can still make back your investment in one month! Amazing, amazing!"

Zhao Hao thought to himself, I have even made back my investment in one day. Of course, a small business like Wei Ji Xian cannot be compared with this large industry that is both capital-intensive and labor-intensive.

Even if he could only get half of the 30,000 taels of net profit, that would still be 15,000 taels. He could only get 10,000 taels a year from Wei Ji Xian, so by comparison, it was indeed a small business.

Young Master Zhao thought happily that he could now turn the garden in Xiaocang Mountain into a palace in heaven and a fairyland on earth...

"Besides, this is the result of the halving of sales due to transportation restrictions in the first half of the month. I and Lao Sun estimate that if we increase production capacity and fully utilize transportation capacity next month, we may be able to earn 50,000 taels of silver!"

Zhao Shizhen, who was serving beside him, was stunned. Although he was not interested in doing business, he had been influenced by his uncle since he was a child, and he knew what it meant to earn 50,000 taels a month.

His uncle's fireworks shop made less than fifty taels a month. That business was already quite prosperous...

At this moment, the eldest nephew kept thinking about his uncle's words, "I'm not doing this for money..."

If you focus on making money, won't you be able to make 100,000 taels a month?

~~

"Alright, alright." Zhao Hao was tired of the endless flattery from the two, so he waved his hand and said with a smile: "Don't look so useless. I said that if I do this business..."

"It's not for making money!" Sun Dawu and Guo Da said in unison: "Otherwise we can make even more!"

"Well, don't say this kind of thing in the future. It sounds really asking for a beating..." Zhao Hao felt embarrassed himself and smiled, touching his nose.

The two stewards naturally laughed along.

"Okay, you two have made great contributions." Zhao Hao thought for a moment and said, "Each of you will be rewarded 800 taels. Take the remaining 600 taels and distribute them to the managers below. Just say it's an extra reward from me."

At this time, no matter whether it was a royal store or a private store, after making money, the owner would probably follow the industry rules and take out about half of the profit to reward his employees... Zhao Hao did the same at Wei Ji Xian.

This time, the amount Zhao Hao gave was slightly more than half of the original amount, and it was based on a huge profit. The two were naturally overjoyed and thanked the young master for the reward.

In this way, if they are not greedy or corrupt and work honestly, their annual income will exceed 10,000 taels. They are almost as good as the high and mighty Ji Sizheng...

Thinking of this, the two who were still worried about their fate a month ago were so happy that they almost fainted.

Little did they know that Ji Sizheng's current income was already far more than this amount...

ps. The fifth update is here, 8700 votes plus more. There are only three days left this month, please give me monthly votes and recommendation votes~~~~