Seeing Fazheng's determined gaze, Yuan Shu smiled: "Okay, I'll wait for the day when you can be on your own!"

With Zhang Liao as the governor of Yuzhang County and Fa Zheng as the chief historian, coupled with 20,000 elite soldiers, Yuan Shu felt that everything was basically foolproof.

Now that the two counties in the south were temporarily stable, Yuan Shu focused his attention on the upcoming merchants.

Two months ago, Yuan Shu handed over the perfume and mirror business to the Zhen family, and gained a lot of benefits. By the way, Yuan Shu asked the Zhen family to tell them that he had other hugely profitable things like perfume that needed to be sold by someone.

Distributed it to merchants all over the world, and said that these things would be sold in Jinling in two months.

The deadline is in two days, and Yuan Shu plans to go to Jinling in person to preside over it.

On the one hand, meet the merchants from all over the world, and on the other hand, take a look at the current Jinling City.

It has been many months since Yuan Shu re-established commercial taxes. Not only has he abolished many harsh and miscellaneous taxes, but due to the current situation in Jiangdong, Yuan Shu has only levied transaction taxes for the time being, thus attracting a large number of merchants to Jiangdong.

You must know that trading in other places not only requires various tariffs, but may not be able to be sold, and it is also easy to be robbed by some local snakes, and ultimately lose all your money.

Because of Tian Feng's selflessness and the existence of the Procuratorate under Yuan Shu, the wealthy gentry and officials here in Yuan Shu did not dare to do evil, and the atmosphere was very good.

In addition, Yuan Shu also attached great importance to merchants, not only reducing business taxes, but also using laws to protect the basic interests of merchants. Therefore, most merchants are willing to do business in Jiangdong.

Even the surrounding Jingzhou and Yuzhou have benefited a lot.

Last month alone, Yuan Shu received 3 million yuan in taxes, which was three or four times higher than Yangzhou's previous year's tax revenue. When this data was compiled, Tian Feng was shocked.

Moreover, the monthly tax revenue is still increasing at a geometric rate. Tian Feng and others can be said to be completely convinced by Yuan Shu's decision.

Some aristocratic families in nearby Jingzhou and Yuzhou were jealous when they saw Yangzhou's current prosperity, and tried their best to get a piece of the pie.

However, due to Yuan Shu's strength, they were never able to enter Yangzhou and were unable to succeed. They could only grit their teeth and make some small moves secretly to prevent merchants from going to Yangzhou.

The prefects and governors in other places also thought about doing what Yuan Shu did, but they gave up as soon as the idea came into their minds.

Because the aristocratic family would not agree, this policy is obviously to harm the interests of the aristocratic family to improve the interests of merchants, thereby attracting merchants to come and raise taxes.

These people are not as powerful as Yuan Shu, who can suppress all the aristocratic families under his command. Their rule is based on the aristocratic families, so although they see the benefits of this policy, they have never been able to implement it.

However, even though these aristocratic families were secretly trying to prevent merchants from going to Yangzhou, they still could not stop the merchants' desire for profits.

Since there are more and more merchants in Yangzhou now, it can be said that as long as things are transported to Yangzhou, they can be sold, and because the taxes are low, the benefits obtained are much more than usual.

Every businessman flocked to this kind of business that was sure to make a profit. Even though there were countless interceptions, the major businessmen still came up with many ways to bring the goods into Yangzhou. Yuan Shu also secretly supported many smuggling shippers.

These people's business.

In addition to bringing more taxes, the increase in merchants also brought two benefits to Yuan Shu.

First, the purchase of supplies such as grain and war horses.

Yuan Shu has been secretly purchasing grain and war horses at high prices. After all, troubled times will come in a year, so there is no harm in stocking up on more war supplies.

Taking advantage of the fact that food prices are not high and war horses have not been monopolized by border warlords, Yuan Shu plans to buy more. After all, he is a man who wants to dominate the world, not just to separate one side like Soochow in history.

The second is Yuan Shu’s other big plan, Qianzhuang.

Since the Yangzhou bank opened by Yuan Shu had the Yangzhou government as a guarantee, some merchants initially exchanged the large amounts of five-baht coins they carried with them for bank notes when entering Jiangdong in order to facilitate transactions within Yangzhou.

These banknotes were made by Yuan Shu's craftsmen after constant attempts based on Yuan Shu's suggestions on the presence of concave and convex marks and anti-counterfeiting marks.

In addition, there is a code printed on the banknote, and the large-denomination banknote also has a one-to-one correspondence record with the owner of the banknote. Yuan Shu personally verified that this kind of banknote can be used for at least several decades.

Merchants who come to Yangzhou exchange the large quantities of copper coins that are difficult to carry with them into silver notes. This facilitates commercial transactions within Yangzhou and is relatively safer. There is no need to worry about being robbed or stolen by bandits and the like.

At worst, you can go to a bank and get another one based on your identity.

Therefore, businessmen who came to Yangzhou to do business were happy to deposit their money in banks and turn it into banknotes.

Of course, they were also very cautious. When the transaction was almost done and they left Jiangdong, they converted all the banknotes into money and took them away.

After all, no one knows whether Yangzhou Bank is always reliable. In a short period of time, Yuan Shu's strength and Yangzhou's stability can make the bank more credible. But if Yuan Shu collapses or other problems arise, what will happen if his own money is hacked?

manage?

Therefore, these people only regard Yangzhou Bank as a temporary transit station. Only a small number of bold businessmen or those with other hidden secrets can store part of their wealth in the bank for a long time.

However, Yuan Shu was already very satisfied with this, as long as these businessmen slowly accepted the existence of the bank.

Now that they are weak, it is normal for them to be worried. When they become strong enough, they will no longer be so timid. By then, their bank will be fully formed.

The arrival of merchants concentrated the resources of the entire Han Dynasty into Yangzhou, increased local taxes, enriched the people, and established banks.

It has brought so many benefits that even Yuan Shu, both overt and covert, can’t count them.

That's why Tian Feng and others admire Yuan Shu's decision to reduce business taxes.

Because few people in this era look squarely at businessmen, let alone see their tremendous power.

However, no matter how powerful a businessman is, if he does not have basic supplies, he is nothing but a rootless person.

In this era of scarcity of materials, Yuan Shu still focused on industries that could create materials, such as agricultural handicrafts and animal husbandry.

What Yuan Shu is doing now is to use merchants to absorb the wealth and materials of the entire Han Dynasty to cultivate Yangzhou.

Only when Yuan Shu makes Yangzhou fat enough can merchants play a greater role and gain more benefits.

This once again forms a virtuous cycle.

Merchants absorbed the wealth of the Han Dynasty, and the wealth was used to build Yangzhou. The strength of Yangzhou brought prosperity to the people and the prosperity of agricultural and handicraft industries, thus bringing more material base. The existence of the material base once again strengthened the merchants.
Chapter completed!