Chapter 405 The Road to the West Sea (Updated today)
"Tea..." Fang Xuanling couldn't help but remain silent as she looked at the taxes sent by Yu Hang.
Generally speaking, the imperial court did not collect business taxes, but because Li Tai took the lead, people who traded with Li Tai generally had to pay two taxes, one to the Ministry of Household Affairs, and the other to the minor.
Supervisor.
Chu Suiliang also understood the truth behind it, so he took the initiative to report the money and grain he gained from trading with the King of Wei to the Ministry of Civil Affairs to pay taxes.
As for what the Shaofu Prison was, Chu Suiliang didn't know it.
Because for Chu Suiliang, his goal from beginning to end was to return to the court, and he did not return to the court as a flatterer, but as a capable minister.
Therefore, it was impossible for Chu Suiliang to pay a sum of money to the Shaofu Supervisor like the King of Wei.
After all, in the final analysis, Li Tai is Li Shimin's son. It is in line with filial piety to give a sum of money to his father after making money.
Although the courtiers were envious, they would not say anything more.
But Chu Suiliang's gift of a sum of money to Li Shimin was nothing. Could it be that he was planning to follow the line of "If you don't give up on your father's life, he will be your adoptive father"? Wouldn't that have become a joke both inside and outside the court?
Therefore, Chu Suiliang chose to hand over the money to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Fang Xuanling, who had recently been under pressure due to military reforms, especially the comprehensive improvement of food, naturally noticed Chu Suiliang.
After all, he got a huge sum of money from Li Tai by destroying Gaochang, but this money was just a windfall. You can't let people destroy a country every year.
Not to mention the cost of getting in, not even the population around Datang has a population of one million!
Now, looking at Chu Suiliang paying taxes, it is obvious that this will be a relatively stable income.
Fang Xuanling naturally had an impression of Chu Suiliang. After all, his father, Chu Liang, and he were among the earliest people in the Qin Palace.
Moreover, although Chu Liang was always in the court, his behavior was more of being outside the court, and his actions within the court only paved the way for Chu Suiliang.
To put it simply, if Chu Suiliang couldn't help him, Chu Liang could let Chu Suiliang inherit his position as Marquis of Yangdi County.
And if Chu Suiliang is really talented, then Chu Liang can guarantee that Chu Suiliang will have no resistance until at least the fourth rank.
As long as it belongs to Chu Suiliang, Chu Suiliang can definitely get it.
Basically, when an official reaches the fifth rank, he is in the emperor's eyes. The next step up depends on his personal ability.
For Fang Xuanling, it was only natural that his old friend's son should be promoted.
To a certain extent, Chu Suiliang can be regarded as the real second generation of the Qin Palace, and he is the direct descendant of Li Shimin.
However, this time Chu Suiliang came into his sight because of tea, which made Fang Xuanling curious about tea.
Because the tea I drank had vinegar added into it, it tasted sour and astringent and not very tasty, but it tasted better like wine.
To be honest, Fang Xuanling didn't really understand why this kind of thing was so popular.
After thinking about it, he asked a knowledgeable person to come over and ask. Soon, Fang Xuanling saw Wang Xuance arriving.
After all, the imperial court was not so inhumane. Wang Xuance finally rushed back at the end of the year, but within a few days of staying in Chang'an, he was kicked to Xihai County. Is this what humans do!
Since there is nothing going on in the border area, let Wang Xuance and other meritorious ministers spend the New Year in peace, and then let him go back to the border area.
Although there is no practical reward, allowing them to spend the New Year and experience the Lantern Festival in Chang'an together allows these frontier warriors to experience firsthand that it is precisely because of them garrisoning the frontier that the lights of thousands of homes of the people of Chang'an can be seen.
However, it was not easy to live in Chang'an, especially for a newly promoted general like Wang Xuance, so Li Tai lent Wang Xuance his residence in the Palace of Wei, and frankly expressed to the entire court that Wang Xuance was mine.
Wang Xuance did not refuse Li Tai's kindness. After all, in Wang Xuance's view, he was able to achieve his current achievements because of King Wei's consistent support.
If it were another lord, such as the prince, he would probably be gone if he failed the first time!
But the King of Wei ignored the past suspicions and built a platform for himself, so that he finally had the opportunity to prove his strength.
Thanks to such an acquaintance, it was natural for him to be considered a member of King Wei's party. Since he had no place to live in Chang'an, it was reasonable for him to hang out in the palace of King Wei.
The most important thing is that although the King of Wei is not in the Palace of Wei, the dishes in the Palace of Wei have not been left behind.
Then facing Fang Xuanling's summons, Wang Xuance quickly rushed to Fang Xuanling.
"Captain Wang, you're here!" Fang Xuanling watched Wang Xuance come in. Although he had been exposed to the wind and snow in Qinghai for several years, Wang Xuance's bookishness had not been wiped away by his life on the border.
Just by looking at him, it's hard to imagine that he is the commander-in-chief of an army.
"I've seen a servant shoot!" When Wang Xuance saw Fang Xuanling, he saluted Fang Xuanling immediately.
After Fang Xuanling returned the gift, she said to Wang Xuance, "I asked the king to supervise you this time because I found that a large amount of tea was flowing to Xihai Prefecture, so I was a little confused. Can Xihai consume so much tea?!"
"So it's because of this!" Wang Xuance nodded repeatedly after hearing Fang Xuanling's words,
"It's a good use. There is little water there, so we can't grow many vegetables. The soldiers don't eat tea, and they are exhausted even if they eat meat every day.
And even if we can't drink it all, we can exchange these teas to the local alien clan chiefs for a large number of cattle and horses!
The local cattle and sheep in Xihai County are not valuable, but the tea is very valuable. Even if half a pound of tea is exchanged for a yak, some foreigners are willing to exchange it."
"That's it!" Fang Xuanling thought thoughtfully after hearing Wang Xuance's words and nodded in understanding.
Like the seed system established by Wang Xuance in Xihai County, meat is basically unable to be transported.
The reason is very simple, because the transportation cost is too high.
If you ask the locals to kill cattle and sheep and send them out, you won't be able to pay for the transportation costs. But if you sell live sheep and cattle, the prices are higher than the prices of cattle and sheep established in Longyou area. Under normal circumstances, you can't sell them at all.
Generally speaking, what can be brought to Chang'an for sale are relatively high-quality horses and animal skins, as well as unique local medicines.
As for the mutton and beef, if they are killed, there will be no time to send them out even in winter, or the cost of sending them out is too high.
So here in Xihai County, although the grass seeding plan is being implemented very smoothly, the local purchasing power is really not strong.
Various things such as tea, pottery, silk, cane sugar in Chang'an are quite competitive locally.
Especially tea, as I said before, the local people did not know about tea, but since they drank tea, tea has become a necessary item for them to travel at home.
Fang Xuanling thanked Wang Xuance for helping him learn about the specialties of Xihai County.
Fang Xuanling asked Wang Xuance again, "Are the local foreigners still obedient?"
"It's not bad!" Wang Xuance nodded, "The local Qiang people, including Tuyuhun, are a bit fearful of power and unethical.
The battle with Tubo made the local people fully realize the gap between them and our Tang Dynasty, and it became much easier to manage.
Even when we implemented a seed project among the Qiang people and asked them to raise some gray geese, they were able to implement it obediently!"
"Grey goose?" Fang Xuanling heard this thing and was a little curious, "Did King Wei ask you to do it?"
"So be it!" Wang Xuance said thoughtfully, "At first we were asked to raise ducks on it, but later we found that the ducks were not acclimated to the climate in Xihai County and gradually turned into gray geese.
Moreover, the probability of these guys breaking out of the plague in Xihai County is also low. For the local people, it is more convenient to raise gray geese directly.
The most important thing is that from now on, there are more goose eggs in their daily food. During the Chinese New Year, a batch of gray geese will be slaughtered, and we will also purchase gray goose feathers from them.
Part of it is made into arrow feathers, and part of it is made into down. These are very important supplementary materials for Xihai where material transportation is difficult!"
"Yeah!" Fang Xuanling nodded after hearing Wang Xuance's words.
Because the imperial court implemented a government-armed system, basically everything except armor had to be provided by the soldiers themselves. The soldiers below and the generals above basically had considerable autonomy.
Especially for border fighters, it's not that they want to become a small government, but if they can't form a small government model, it's basically impossible to stay stationed in the border areas for a long time.
It is precisely because of such training that generals in every border area are more or less capable of becoming generals and ministers.
This is something they have honed little by little in practice.
Precisely because it was deeply influenced by the military system and land equalization system from top to bottom, the imperial court did not feel there was anything wrong with this policy.
In the end, the Tang Dynasty led to the end of the Jiedu envoys. To a certain extent, the equalized land system and the equalized land system on the surface have been forced to end due to various reasons, but in the heart, the equalized land system and the equalized land system have not been really cleaned up.
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Fang Xuanling asked Wang Xuance, "Is there any difficulty in Xihai County that requires the court's support?"
When Wang Xuance heard Fang Xuanling's words, his eyes couldn't help but gleam. This was what he was waiting for.
Wang Xuance decisively said to Wang Xuance with a smile on his face, "Can the imperial court allocate funds to Xihai Prefecture? We want to build a road leading to Hehuang Valley!"
"You are so rude!" Fang Xuanling muttered in her heart.
Fang Xuanling rolled his eyes and said calmly, "Didn't you intercept 60,000 Tubo slaves? Isn't it enough for this group of people to build roads for you?"
"What about the road improvements in Xihai County...the land under our feet is constantly changing!" Wang Xuance said with a headache:
“In winter, the land is like ice, and the upper pavement will be pushed up.
In summer, the land becomes wet and begins to melt, and the roadbed pavement laid in winter will sink and deform again.
It’s impossible to build roads normally!”
To be honest, Wang Xuance really didn't expect that building roads would be such a troublesome thing.
When I was following the King of Wei in Youzhou, one of the opportunities for King Wei to unite all the big and small families in Youzhou was to build roads.
So when I saw that Xihai County was promoted to Xihai Prefecture, and that I was also powerful in Qinghai, I wanted to follow suit and integrate these Qiang people through roads.
But after one year of my own plan to build a road, even the simplest gravel road fell apart after half a year of winter snow and half a year of exposure to the sun. The miserable condition of the road made me afraid to look directly at it.
If he hadn't been supervising the construction this year, Wang Xuance felt that someone must have embezzled the money for road construction.
However, it seems that King Wei can easily assist the administration by building roads even with a dog by his side.
For example, what Du Chuke did most in the Hehuang area was to build roads along the river, and he didn't see any problems with the roads cracking!
Why is it so difficult to build roads here? Wang Xuance didn't understand.
Thinking again about the seed plan that King Wei had entrusted to him, he was inexplicably kicked out of the plan by Xu Jingchong.
Now he wants to build roads but can't do it himself. Could it be that he is born with internal conflicts? Wang Xuance feels that he is really unlucky.
However, when Fang Xuanling heard Wang Xuance's complaint, she couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief, patted Wang Xuance on the shoulder and said,
“I haven’t seen the specific situation, but this kind of situation that will crack the road cannot be solved by simply throwing money.
Why don't I recommend some of your great craftsmen, and when you return to Xihai, let them follow you to repair the road and explore what's going on.
Only when the problems are found and solved can the road be successfully repaired!"
For Fang Xuanling, the imperial court has been spending a lot of money recently, so if you can save a little money, then save a little money.
In Wang Xuance's situation, at least in the short term, it is impossible to spend money to build roads.
It would be better to send a few master craftsmen to Wang Xuance to help him solve this problem.
After all, the imperial court is very supportive of your road construction and has sent master craftsmen to provide you with technical support. But if this technical problem is not solved, you cannot blame the imperial court!
Wang Xuance naturally didn't know what Fang Xuanling was thinking, so he thanked Fang Xuanling very much and said,
"Thank you Fang Pu She. I originally planned to second some master craftsmen from the King of Wei to come over and help find out the cause.
Now that the imperial court is willing to support Xihaizhou, it’s really great!”
Fang Xuanling looked at Wang Xuance and said to him solemnly: "Don't ask King Wei for everything.
You are now the governor of Xihai Prefecture in the imperial court. Keeping a certain distance from King Wei is good for both you and King Wei!"
"But I think if we tell King Wei about the supplies, they can basically be delivered within two months. Even the armor on our bodies was prepared for us by King Wei. If we tell the court..."
When Wang Xuance heard Fang Xuanling's words, he looked at Fang Xuanling with a bit of longing.
"But you are a side general. It will be better if you don't go back to Chang'an in the future. It will be better if you have a better relationship with King Wei!"
Fang Xuanling patted Wang Xuance on the shoulder and said, "Just stick to King Wei's grass seeding plan in Xihai County!"
Fang Xuanling decisively dismissed Wang Xuance, and couldn't help but sigh secretly in her heart. King Wei was too generous to the people of his own faction. Even the court couldn't afford it!
If King Wei was not the biological son of the saint, Fang Xuanling felt that King Wei should consider how to die now.
In contrast, the saint's other biological son, the older he grew, the more headaches he caused for these veterans.
We have a guest at home, we will update today, no need to wait any longer.