The road outside Shangyuan Manor is now a flat road with a width of two feet. The road is paved with a layer of sand, which extends from the bottom of the plateau to the entrance of the manor. Even in heavy rains, there is no muddy accumulation.
The construction of this road did not require any labor or materials from the manor; it was paved with bags of sand from nearby villagers.
There is a canal market on both sides of the road. Villagers are accustomed to gathering here to buy and sell daily products. No matter whether they buy or sell, they can get a fair price. Three or five chickens can be exchanged for needlework, and one or two buckets of miscellaneous rice can be exchanged for salt and vinegar.
.
Occasionally, weavers who got off work early thought that they would have to work a lot today, so they cruelly cut off two fingers of fat. When they got home, their aunts praised them, their children laughed, and the man even smiled naively and brought the wooden basin for bathing his feet to the bed.
The villagers only focus on the current life when buying and selling, and are reluctant to rent the shops and inns along the streets. However, the guests from far away villages have no place to live, and they are still thinking about when the new goods will be put on sale. They dare not leave for a moment, so they can only stay for a long time.
Come down.
In addition to the local merchants who handle business, there is also another group of people who make a living here.
These people have nimble hands and eyes. Whenever they see strangers or familiar customers coming in and out, they will approach them and ask: "Do you have a channel ticket? No matter how much it is, I will charge the highest price here! One ticket and one piece of cloth, and we will give you the amount in cash!"
Some people who were not familiar with the market and current affairs immediately became happy when they heard that there was such a bargain. They took out a piece of paper with red and green patterns and two fingers wide and said with a smile: "I have more than ten pieces here, are you not lying? I just entered the dealer."
I sold six or seven buckets of bean sprouts, and the people from that village stuffed them over, and I planned to use them on the road to wipe the toilet..."
“I want it, I want it, no matter how much, it’s ready for sale now!”
Before the man finished speaking, he was pulled out of the road. When he was struggling in panic, a roll of cloth was already stuffed in his arms, and the receipt was naturally taken away. He returned to the middle of the road with a blank look on his face to see if the coarse cloth in his arms was indeed
It’s true, then he realized it and murmured to himself: “Did I suffer a loss?”
He was not that stupid, so he turned around and walked to a stall selling baskets on the roadside, bent down and asked: "Brother, what is the piece of paper issued by the village that calls for a ticket?"
"Then, you have to keep the canal ticket. Lijiazhuang Shangzhi in Shangyuan sells goods. In addition to the goods, you also need to check and collect the canal ticket. Without this ticket, no matter how much goods you have, you will not be able to buy them.
goods!"
The stall owner was quite an enthusiastic person, and he chuckled after hearing this.
"So that's it, it's of no use, and I don't need to buy his materials!"
The man was relieved when he heard this. He just felt that the person who bought the ticket with the cloth just now was a fool. The owner of the village is also a boring person doing boring things. How can you still offer dragon liver and phoenix gallbladder to make people fight for it? Xiang
People only have food and clothing, what else do they want?
At this moment, a group of knights galloped out of the village, guarded by two carts, and headed straight for a large shop outside the village.
"It's new, it's new!"
Seeing this scene, the originally orderly market suddenly became boiling with shouts and shouts. People were running towards the big shop. The stall owner who was guarding the stall also jumped several feet high and hurriedly looked at the stall next to him.
Shouted: "Help me see the goods!"
Before he could finish his words, the stall owner had already jumped over ten feet away.
I just asked the person who saw this scene. He was a little dumbfounded for a while. He couldn't figure out what the madness of this Shangyuan native was. Because he was curious, he didn't rush on the road. He squatted on the roadside to see what this was.
moth.
After another half an hour, the stall owner came back sweating, holding a carved bamboo tube in his hand. He returned and sat down with an unlucky look on his face. He sighed to the stall owner next to him: "Unlucky me, I only got a tube of apricots."
It’s better to sell the canal tickets for more profit!”
The onlooker was overjoyed when he heard that the stall owner was in a hurry just to buy the sweetmeats: "Brother, are you Shangyuan people too ignorant? You don't know how to make this sweetmeat at home, so you want to fight for it here?"
"You know nothing!"
The stall owner was unhappy because he didn't get the product he wanted. After hearing this, he rolled his eyes and shouted loudly from the stall: "Li Zhuang apricot cake, there is only one and a half catties, first come, first served!"
As soon as these words were spoken, several people gathered nearby to ask about the price. The stall owner directly quoted three times the current price. The onlooker felt that the atmosphere of this town was rotten and couldn't help but said: "I also have delicious food at home.
It’s several times cheaper than this Chinese guy’s price!”
After hearing this, the few people who were still bargaining immediately surrounded the onlooker, each competing for the higher price. The onlooker couldn't help but widen his eyes when he saw this, and nodded hurriedly: "I will go home now, let my family make it, and return it later.
Here, we..."
"Is your family homemade? It's not Li Zhuang's? Get out of here and stop making trouble!"
When several people heard this, they immediately dispersed and turned to look back at the stall. The tube of apricot cake had already been sold.
Several people were unable to buy goods, so they glared at the onlookers, and some were already gearing up. When the onlookers saw this, they hurriedly left the place with the cloth under their arms, and after walking for a long time, they spat: "Crazy, Shang Yuan is all crazy!"
"
From here, he came down from the plain, and another person rushed out from the road next to him. He pulled the driver and said in a low voice: "Brother, are you going to Lizhuang to sell goods? Does his family have a channel ticket for you? One ticket is one foot of cloth, and the ticket is available now!"
"
When the man heard this, he was stunned for a moment. After a while, he looked at the roll of coarse cloth under his arm, threw it hard on the car board and roared: "I don't have it! This Shang Yuan, I will never come again!"
Li Tai did not know that there was a foreign guest who was at a loss as to what to do because of his strange hometown sentiment and almost collapsed, but even if he knew, he would just laugh it off.
The Kansai region has been in chaos for many years. The entire logistics transaction system has collapsed seriously and is almost non-existent. The social structure has almost no concept of division of labor and cooperation, and everyone has become an island.
Without division of labor and cooperation, and without mutual needs, social development will stagnate. Without the motivation to change the status quo, one generation after another will just stick to the status quo and live contentedly.
Li Tai has achieved considerable results in transforming the countryside. The promotion of the Quyuan plow has greatly shortened the farming cycle of the villagers. The reconstruction of the Longshou Canal has increased the crop yields along the line. How should this part of the saved manpower and increased income be utilized?
, in order to achieve better results?
The villagers used to plow the land in three days, but now they can do it in two. This saves them one day to go home and dig the ground to store more food. So what am I busy with?
Hurry up and come to my workshop to work, the real thing is to make more money!
I’ve made money but don’t know what to do. I’m hiding it at home and still feel nervous? I have a supply and marketing cooperative here. I can buy new clothes and add new dishes. After a hard day’s work, I feel full of energy!
This is the truth, but when he first established Qushi, Li Tai was also beating the drum in his heart. After all, the nostalgia has been like this for so many years, and the villagers may still be used to hoarding grain to prepare for shortages, and they may not be willing to enjoy the present.
So at first he just wanted to buy surplus agricultural products from the countryside and then transfer them to Huazhou, Chang'an and other cities with high demand for sale.
But when the canal market was built, Li Tai soon discovered that the desire for consumption in the countryside was not low. It was not that the villagers had no demand for consumption, but they just lacked a stable and continuous supply channel for goods.
Especially for some simple tool products, not everyone may know how to make them, but there is indeed a demand for them. Instead of trying to make them by yourself, which is a waste of labor and materials, it is better to buy them directly from the market.
In addition to tools and utensils, various agricultural and fresh ingredients also sell very well, and even supply often exceeds demand.
After all, a better life is the most instinctive pursuit of human beings. Even if Yang Bailao is so poor, he still has to put a two-foot-long red hair rope on his daughter.
Of course, there is another reason that encourages people to consume their surplus, and that is that the Western Wei government, or Yuwentai's tyrant, is not a good person.
On the eve of the Battle of Shayuan in the third year of Datong in the Western Wei Dynasty, there was a great famine in Guanxi. Yuwentai ordered the expansion of households to search for grain. It was a crime to store too much grain in the family. Although he conquered Hengnong and transported back a lot of grain, the battle of Shayuan
The war also achieved a glorious victory, but there was no promise of returning the confiscated food.
Therefore, the people in Kansai really don’t have a strong desire to hoard. It’s a serious matter to wear and eat. There is no point in saving rations for cats.
The profits from the business among the villagers are not large, and the essence is to exchange what they have and what they need. No matter how short of money Li Tai was, he would not be so crazy as to make profits from it.
But this atmosphere of prosperous business can be put to good use. Everything starts from small to large, from bottom to top. When some rules become common sense, they have power in themselves.
The channel tickets that are used for copy-selling transactions in the channel market today are this kind of product. The channel tickets are just a voucher for the internal recording of the contribution of the channel alliance. But when they are introduced into a supply and redemption system and are recognized by the public, they themselves have a certain
credit value.
Of course, it is also because Li Tai's manor can provide some high-quality goods that the channel tickets have the qualification to be linked to scarcity, and even have a certain degree of circulation.
With the approval within the Qu Alliance and the Qu Alliance's ticket as a qualification, Li Tai has created the prototype of a business system centered on him.
As long as it can ensure its own productivity leadership and the continuous supply of high-end goods, this business system will continue to expand. In short, channel tickets provide Li Tai with another means of controlling and regulating the market.
He can expand the radiation scope of the Canal Alliance by issuing additional canal tickets and replicate the Longshou Canal work in other villages. He can also use a growing market to attract sellers who possess scarce resources, such as those wealthy salt families in Hedong.
Or Dugu Xin, who was very powerful on the Hexi trade route, etc.
Of course, the current business system is still very immature and not enough to compete with the real big powers, but one day, Li Tai will be able to master the social resources that can allow him to have an equal dialogue with them and achieve mutual benefit.
He is not worried that this method will be copied and used by others in the short term. Every method has its own characteristics, and others may not be able to use it if he can.
As for the Western Wei Dynasty, it would be better to directly engage in monetary policy reform to integrate social resources than to engage in these.