A large-scale siege and suppression of Ashina Duowen is about to be staged in the Liaodong and Western Liaoning regions.
As part of the alliance, neither country wanted to see Ashina Tawen become powerful in Liaodong, and would not give Ashina Tawen the chance to become another King of Buyeo.
Li Po agreed with Yu Wenxin's suggestion and allowed him to unite the various tribes in eastern Liaoning and western Liaoning to prepare for the opening of a trade market in Liaodong City.
The alliance between the Tang Dynasty and the Turks aimed to position the Liaodong region as a free trade zone. Both countries would station troops here to deter unruly tribes.
At the same time, the Turks were not willing to spread their influence here in the Tang Dynasty, and agreed with the Tang Dynasty that the Tang Dynasty should not recruit Liaodong tribes for its own use like the former Sui Dynasty.
Anyway, they are just trying to contain each other and prevent the Northeast region from falling into the hands of the other side.
In actual operation, they left a lot of loopholes for the other party. No one would seriously abide by the provisions of the covenant. As long as there was no large-scale bloody conflict, some small actions were inevitable.
Just like now, if you want to set up a border market in Liaodong City, you have to do business with various tribes in Liaodong and Western Liaoning. Do they like to get along with each other in a friendly and peaceful way? Not necessarily?
The people there are more accustomed to doing business without capital than the Turks. If you want to calm them down, how can you do it without shedding some blood?
Li Po felt that the Chi Road leading to Liaodong City needed the contribution of the tribes in the Northeast. There were too many chaotic people there, and there were always some who wanted to be the king and dominate.
The army of the Tang Dynasty took this opportunity to tell them that building roads was the best way to change their backward and barbaric life. Only by immersing yourself in building roads and purifying your body and mind could you get closer to the gods they believed in.
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At the end of July, when all parts of the Tang Dynasty were preparing to enter the busy autumn harvest season, boatloads of sea salt arrived in the northern cities of Chang'an and Luoyang via water transport.
Salt prices everywhere plummeted, which greatly impacted the salt market, which is dominated by lake salt, well salt, rock salt, etc. The price of salt quickly reached an astonishingly low level.
In addition, the autumn harvest is approaching, the news reported from everywhere is extremely optimistic, and food prices are also falling.
In other words, at the end of the seventh year of Yuanzhen, Datang's basic commodity prices finally entered a new stage.
There were not so many complex issues in later economics that affected the whole body. In the current simple agricultural economy-based economic model, low basic commodity prices were a prerequisite for ensuring social prosperity.
Since ancient times, there has always been a saying that low grain prices hurt farmers.
In fact, it is the interests of the landlord class that are harmed. For ordinary farmers, if they farm for a year and pay taxes, it is considered a good situation to have enough for the whole family.
The free buying and selling of grain is carried out by landlords, and only they have a large amount of surplus grain in their hands.
The theory of harming farmers is that because grain prices are too low, landowners are no longer willing to sell the grains in their hands. They feel that they have suffered a loss. They are not very enthusiastic about letting farmers cultivate the land during the Chinese New Year, which indirectly hurts the interests of farmers.
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Sometimes, when food prices are high, they will hoard them to make food prices even higher. This is the origin of the saying that food costs more than hungry farmers. Therefore, food price fluctuations need to be effectively stabilized by the government.
In other words, the food in the national treasury is mainly used to stabilize food prices, and other things such as war, disaster relief, etc. are secondary.
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Grain prices in the early Tang Dynasty were in a downward straight line with no turning back. From the war in the late Sui Dynasty to the present, grain prices in various places have plummeted. In the seventh year of Yuanzhen, they dropped to a higher level, but they were not as low as to hurt farmers.
the point.
However, the price of salt has collapsed a bit. The sun-dried salt method implemented this year, with plant ash filtered multiple times, has produced a lot of high-quality fine salt, which has impacted the salt market in the north.
The people were happy to see that the price of salt kept changing day by day. In other words, it reduced the burden on farmers. This time it was only the government that was hurt.
Salt has always been an exclusive business of the government, and those who sell illegal salt will be punished. If the price of salt drops sharply, the government's income will be reduced.
The officials from the Ministry of Revenue could not sit still.
Salt profit was not a small sum. Exclusive business operations often resulted in huge profits. In the absence of large annual income in the north, salt profit accounted for one-third of the imperial court's income.
It can be said that half of the salaries of bureaucrats in the early Tang Dynasty were based on salt profits. This also related to the salaries of Tang army officers and soldiers. The continued decline in salt prices would cause problems in the operation of the court.
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So another small court meeting was held in the palace.
Bushi Yu, the Minister of Household Affairs, suggested exercising pricing power, then controlling the shipment volume of sea salt, and slowly increasing the salt production volume according to the world's population.
His proposal was approved by most people, and they all suggested that the implementation should be stepped up. Because the salt price is too low this year, it is likely to cause the collapse of salt policies in other places. If the places that produce lake salt, well salt, and rock salt go bankrupt, it will lead to salt production.
Scattered.
But they had no way to get enough sea salt, which could easily lead to local corruption. At the same time, the imperial court suffered a lot, as its income was reduced. What would happen to everyone's salaries?
Li Po was also a little confused about this. The advancement of technology, before it promoted social progress, first caused some seemingly serious consequences, which he did not expect at the beginning.
The cause of all this is the Haicheng Salt Field. Before Wang Ze, the general manager of Yangzhou, left his post, he made arrangements to allow the major salt fields in Haicheng to see an astonishing increase in shipments this year.
The sudden outbreak crashed the price of salt. In fact, the shipment volume was not as large as expected, but the harm of the rumors was even greater. The rumors spread like a plague, and salt prices plummeted in various places.
Su Tan also had a well-educated family and was worthy of being a child of the martial arts Su family. He felt that controlling the shipment volume of sea salt was not a good way. If he wanted to stop the collapse of salt prices, he had to think of another way.
Two days later, Su Quan wrote a letter. He proposed to open a border market salt law, sell salt to foreigners, and charge heavy taxes on them. This would not only digest the increasing sea salt, but also increase the court's fiscal revenue, and at the same time spread the word.
, actively carry out publicity, and then set the official price to prevent the price of salt from falling.
In addition, we must strive for excellence in the salt-making process to allow more fine salt to appear on the market. Since the salt trade with foreigners has been opened, we must divert the trouble to the east and use better salt to destroy their salt prices. We must
A few years later, foreigners could only use salt produced in the Tang Dynasty on the market.
It just so happened that the money produced by the Tang Dynasty had never been recognized by the barbarians everywhere. The salt could be borrowed and sold to circulate the money of the Tang Dynasty...
Killing two birds with one stone and finding an opportunity from the crisis, Li Po read Su Dan's letter and was very pleased. He was indeed wise in not letting Su Dan die of illness in Yunnei.