"Have Gao Jifu returned to the governor's mansion?" Li Tai remembered this more or less and couldn't help but ask Wang Zhenru.
"Go back!" Wang Zhenru nodded, "It shouldn't be discovered by the governor. We also asked him whether he would become a corvee teacher according to the procedures, but Gao Changshi still refused, and there was no additional care for him."
"Yes!" Li Tai nodded when he heard Wang Zhenru's words and said, "As long as you don't cause us trouble.
In comparison, it’s almost the Chinese New Year. Can the road built along the canal be repaired before the Chinese New Year!”
"I'm afraid it can't be done." Wang Zhenru shook his head when he heard Li Tai's words, "The King of Yan's request is to build a road that can run side by side with eight carriages. It's still a little tighter in just one winter!"
"I know!" Li Tai took a deep breath and said,
“But by next spring, a large part of the corvee service will go back to plow the fields because of spring plowing.
Except for some tenant farmers who were willing to stay, many other people with acres of land would leave.
At that time, we will be afraid that there will be a lot of people missing in our hands, so you must be prepared."
"I think some alien races can come and give it a try!" Wang Zhenru thought for a moment and said to Li Tai.
"Do you think the current corvee system can withstand the impact of alien races again?" Li Tai asked Wang Zhenru.
Wang Zhenru said seriously: "After this winter's tempering, the number of corvee workers in our hands has reached 100,000.
However, there were less than 5,000 of them selected by us as the corvee service in Tianjin.
Including the original population of our Tianjin town, there is only about ten thousand people in the scale of corvee labor.
Theoretically, nothing should happen if you control less than 50,000 alien races!"
Wang Zhenru knew that Li Tai was worried and was very worried that if the proportion of alien population was too large, the proportion of alien population would be too large, causing alien culture to retaliate against Han culture.
Even if the Han people are blessed by culture, but the population ratio is too small, it is not very easy to assimilate foreign races.
Especially in this border area, once turmoil occurs, there may be chaos.
"There are still too many 50,000 people..." Li Tai thought for a moment and said,
"First see how many people are willing to stay next year, and then decide how many aliens you want to recruit."
"No!" Wang Zhenru didn't care when he heard that Li Tai wanted to suppress this matter.
After all, although Tianjin's corvee service is relatively neat, in fact, Li Tai's corvee service model can be said to be like flowing money.
You should know that the most important reason why Li Tai can support such consumption is the silk that Li Tai brought to Youzhou.
Wang Zhenru didn’t know how much money Li Tai had in his hands, but Wang Zhenru still understood how much food Li Tai had in his hands.
You know, the money Li Tai took out was saved by him in Chang'an. Now he has consumed so much. No one knows whether King Yan can support such a thing if he continues to work like this this year.
Food consumption!
"By the way, since this road cannot be repaired before the New Year this year, we will organize horses and vehicles to send these corvee labor back to Youzhou in batches, and then send them before the 25th day of the twelfth day.
!” Li Tai talked to Wang Zhen Confucianism and Taoism.
"Uh?" Hearing Li Tai's words suddenly made Wang Zhenru stunned and said:
"Although there are horses and carriages, do you need to do this? This winter is quite a consuming horsepower!"
"Just try to send them to the village, but you can do it if you send them to the county level!"
When Li Tai heard Wang Zhenru's words, he asked Wang Zhenru back.
"Yes!" Wang Zhenru nodded repeatedly.
Li Tai continued to talk to Wang Zhenru and Taoism, "Have you ever thought about what will be done in the next corvee service when all the Grand Canals in Youzhou are repaired?"
Wang Zhenru was stunned when he heard Li Tai's words, but soon smiled bitterly and said, "The King of Yan is afraid that he still wants me to build the road!"
"Well, so let the grooms and postmen below help you make a simple selection. I know that the roads in those places in Youzhou in the future should be built first, and which roads in which places can be slowed down, laying a little foundation for doing things in the future.
.”
When Wang Zhenru heard Li Tai's words, he couldn't help but smile.
He had been working in labor service for so long, and he also knew clearly what kind of work Li Tai asked him to do.
I just feel that this matter seems to be in a long way. Will I lose half my life?
But in the face of Li Tai's expectations, what else can I do? I can only answer with a respectful answer: "Abide by the order."
At this time, Lu Anshou, who was guarding the door, spoke, "King of Yan, Du Pushe, is now using tea in the side hall!"
"Hmm?" Li Tai was stunned and said to Wang Zhenru, "Zhenru, you go back first.
In addition, the New Year is approaching, and those corvee labor that had stored a lot of food coupons would probably exchange all the food coupons for food before leaving.
You have to prepare all their food.
Of course, they can also exchange grain coupons for other pots, pans, salted fish and bacon, so that the corvee workers can have a good New Year this year!”
"As for the order!" Wang Zhenru heard Li Tai's order, bowed out and began to deal with the matter.
Li Tai looked at Bai He who was shorthanding, and said to Lu Anshou, "Go and invite Du Xiang over!"
Bai He quickly completed his shorthand, followed Li Tai obediently and waited at the entrance of the main hall.
Seeing Lu Anshou leading Du Ruhui over, Li Tai hurriedly came up and welcomed Du Ruhui into the house.
When Du Ruhui took his seat, Li Tai said to Du Ruhui: "Secret Du, if you talk to me about official affairs, I usually ask Bai He to take charge of recording on the side, so as to facilitate time arrangements and avoid misleading things. If there is a private matter, let Bai He avoid it!
”
"It's okay. It's true that the King of Yan can get used to this kind of virtue!" Du Ruhui sighed.
Du Ruhui didn't expect that Li Tai had this habit and reorganized his words for a while:
"King Yan, the room is steaming hot, not like the temperature that Youzhou should have in winter, and it is still very humid and hot, as if it is in the south."
"Because there are several iron urns around the house, filled with water, and then boiled with charcoal fire.
The steam swelled up, which naturally heated up the house." Li Tai began to explain to Du Ruhui.
Du Ruhui looked at Li Tai deeply. In addition to sincerity, only the eyes were left!
"Oh!" Du Ruhui sighed, "The life of King Yan is still so extravagant! I don't know how much water is used or how charcoal is used!"
"This water is worth the Jinghang Canal, and this charcoal comes from Taihang Mountain. However, this water is the water of the canal, and this coal is the coal of the coal factory. It's not too much for me to use it myself!"
Li Tai reacted immediately as he listened to Du Ruhui's words.
There is no way. These ministers persuaded themselves to be more frugal all day long, but the problem is that this is spending my own money, why are you talking here?
As a prince, can’t I enjoy it anymore?!
Du Ruhui opened his mouth and finally closed it.
After all, this is not the first time that Li Tai has known about it. When he was in Gaoling, Li Tai's life was not luxurious!
Li Shimin didn't say much. Now that he came to this bitter and cold place, he just added a few stoves and added charcoal to barbecue. Isn't this a common thing for wealthy families in winter...
Although I can understand it, Du Ruhui still feels that Li Tai is a little extravagant, so can the King of Yan be more thrifty?
Of course, there is something here. The King of Yan is already very good at abilities, so why can't he have better emotions in character? Although perfect people are rare, if one can appear, Du Ruhui is still willing to promote it.
"King Yan, I came here this time because I heard that King Yan seems to be building a road next to the canal in recent days?" Du Ruhui said.
"I remember it seemed like I gave you a related road construction report!" Li Tai was stunned when he heard Du Ruhui's question.
Because I originally thought Du Ruhui came here because of Gao Jifu, but I didn’t expect it to be for this road?
But he had complete procedures and discussed it with Du Ruhui. Li Tai said with some doubts.
"Secret Du, I remember that I said in the report that because the Youzhou canal lake surface freezes this winter, unless large-scale corvee is organized to chisel ice, it will consume too much labor.
Instead of this, this year, it is better to organize the people to build roads along the canal and several small port water villages to prepare for logistics distribution and first use manpower on the repair of the road.
First, it can facilitate next year's material dispatch, and second, it will not waste labor.
What? What's wrong with this path?"
"Of course there is no problem with this road!" Hearing the doubts in Li Tai's mouth, Du Ruhui waved his hand,
"I'm here this time for another thing, let's take a look!"
At this time, Du Ruhui took out a small paper bag from his sleeve. After opening it, he saw white crystals appearing in the paper bag.
Although it was a little rough, Li Tai could tell at a glance that this thing was salt!
"I understand how to build roads and sweep snow, but I don't know that the King of Yan was so extravagant that he used salt to sprinkle snow!" Du Ruhui said.
"This is because the fusion of salt and snow can accelerate the melting of snow, reducing the workload of labor service in the next day to a certain extent!"
Li Tai looked at Du Ruhui's appearance and explained it decisively to Du Ruhui.
"I know this purpose!" Du Ruhui said, "But I was curious that where did the King of Yan get so much salt!
Since ancient times, salt and iron have been the country's importance. Although our dynasty does not conduct salt specialization, it also attaches importance to the price of salt."
When Li Tai heard Du Ruhui's words, he also understood that the salt in the Zhenguan period was not a specialty for the court, at most, only every prefecture and county had its own private channels, so the price of salt was not high.
Even in the "New Book of Tang: Food and Memorials" record that "Tianbao, Shide, was ten coins per bucket of salt", it can be said that before the birth of the Salt Method, the people basically did not worry about eating salt.
In addition, the so-called salt tax method is more appropriate than salt tax.
Because at that time the Tang Dynasty's control over local areas further decreased, which led to basically not being able to collect taxes.
This makes the place like salt fixed and everyone needs as a tax source.
Therefore, many areas that cannot be collected are collected and taxed through these high-priced salt.
After all, compared to the cost of paying taxes to the people of the whole world, it is better to collect them directly from salt.
But no matter how cheap the salt is now, it is still not as low as it can be poured on the ground anywhere, allowing the salt to melt the snow. Many ordinary people even take some utensils to hold the coarse salt during labor service.
After all, in their opinion, at worst, it is worth more than the white salt poured directly on the ground, just to make the snow melt faster.
To be honest, such an exciting thing seems really heartbreaking to the lower-level corvee workers.
Especially after I couldn't hold my own vessel, I could only watch the sack of salt, which was poured on the ground and turned into snow. It really felt like my values were torn and trampled on.
Of course, compared to the fact that corvee service was just heartbroken by these salts, Du Ruhui understood that Li Tai must have obtained a lot of cheap salt, otherwise Li Tai would not have done this.
Because Du Ruhui and Ma Zhou worked with him, he also knew that Li Tai seemed very extravagant to outsiders, but he had an account book in his own heart.
If the operation cost of using salt to melt snow is too high, Li Tai would never do this.
At least in Li Tai's opinion, the cost of letting the people sweep snow directly is lower than the cost of sprinkling the floor with salt first and then letting the people sweep snow.
So Du Ruhui came here as soon as possible!
"..." Li Tai was silent for a while when he heard Du Ruhui's words, and said,
"Because I have improved the process technology based on the principles of the sun and the water, and improved the salt cooking method to the salt drying method!
This method is only a preliminary experiment now, but the cost of the traditional salt cooking method is much lower.
After that, we should be able to make further improvements and produce more salt!”
"So that's it!" Du Ruhui nodded in understanding and said, "But even if it is so, it's a waste to use it!"
"I know what Du Xiang means, but the salt made by the salt drying method is just coarse salt. If you eat it for a long time, various problems will inevitably arise.
Therefore, we still need to find a way to further refine the coarse salt into fine salt.
It is precisely because of this that although I have developed the method of salt drying, I have not put this salt directly on the market.
The price of salt in Datang will not be affected too much for a while, and the more coarse salt is stored in the warehouse, the more it will be.
So I used this sea salt to repair the road through melting snow.
Of course, the research on how to turn these coarse salts into fine salts will continue.
My purpose is naturally to hope that the people can eat cheap and fine salt. In the end, the people can eat whatever salt they can eat!”
Li Tai faced Du Ruhui, but did not retreat at all, because Li Tai knew that he was doing the right thing.
When Du Ruhui heard Li Tai's words, he was silent for a while and said, "Can you give this method to the court?"
"..." Li Tai shook his head when he heard this, "I can tell you the principle, but if you want to restore it, please ask the court to do it yourself."