"This is the finest second-fur skin. It is the skin of a white lamb on the salt flats. It is about thirty days old and slaughtered. It is the best light fur!"
Yanzhou, outside Baicheng, Yanchi County.
The Wubaek Salt Pond began to produce salt again, and the salt road leading to Yeongju and Gyeongju was once again smooth. As Yeonju gradually recovered, barbarians began to come to trade.
They drove cattle and sheep, carried furs, felts, medicinal materials, and even chained slaves to exchange for salt, grain, cloth, pots, bowls, tea, wine, etc. from the Tang Dynasty.
An old Dangxiang Qiang man with a shaved head was holding a piece of fur in his hand and showing it to the Han merchants in the market.
The two furs are as thin as thick paper, tough in texture, yet soft and plump, and very light. What is even more valuable is the shiny and translucent ears of the two furs, which are uniquely curved and folded, like undulating waves.
Zhao Xin picked up a piece and looked at it carefully, and said to Huaiyu, "This is the finest second-fur fur, known as the Nine Curves. If you lift the leather plate vertically and horizontally, you can see the white hair spikes, hanging down naturally in sequence.
It's like ice picks colliding and falling over. If it shakes gently, it's even more like jade baskets falling and pear blossoms flying. It's light and moving."
"Leather jackets made from these two furs are comfortable to wear and extremely warm. They can also be used to make trimmings for high-end clothes, making them elegant and chic."
Huaiyu also picked up a piece and watched it shake off.
"Your mouth is as smart as ever. You haven't forgotten your dental skills in the two cities of Chang'an."
"The skills of playing elementary school are more than 20 years old. How can I forget it so easily." Zhao Xin smiled, and then asked the old man, "You have a good piece of fur. What's the price?"
The old man was wearing a sheepskin coat and his eyes were shrewd.
As the first wave of Qiang and Hu who came after the Tang army occupied Yanzhou, they were quite courageous. Previously, the Liang division forcibly moved away the people of Yanzhou and also moved away those Qiang and Hu.
But these Qiang and Hu were unwilling. After being moved to Xiazhou by Liang Jun, they soon found that life was difficult. Those who herded cattle and sheep found that there was not enough pasture, and those who farmed had no land to plant. After arriving in Xiazhou, many people became
Refugees, no one cares about them.
Ever since, those Qiang and Hu were the first to sneak away.
Anyway, they are mainly nomadic.
Yanzhou Yamen posted notices everywhere and sent people to announce and appease the people.
The Qiang and Hu first came back in small groups to test, and found that the Yanzhou governor's Yamen had a very good attitude, so they slowly began to run back in large groups, and even the Qiang and Hu who were originally from Xiazhou began to sneak over
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"Two big horses." The old man gestured with two fingers.
"It's expensive," Zhao Xin said bluntly. Although such high-quality second-hand fur is very valuable in Chang'an City, this is Yanzhou, and this old man is not the owner of the first-hand goods, but only second-hand ones at most.
Nowadays, a piece of silk costs at least 200 yuan, and two pieces of silk cost 400 yuan. This is too expensive in Yanzhou.
Xin Zhao raised a finger and said, "I'll take whatever you have from Da Lian."
Old man Dang Xiangqiang shook his head quickly, "This is a fine second fur, not an ordinary fur. Better ordinary wool needs to be trained twice."
Zhao Xin said, "If I buy a Dun horse here, it only costs twenty horses. If I buy a grass horse, it is even cheaper. You need two horses for one piece of wool. How can there be such a thing?"
The two bargained and refused to give in to each other.
Wu Huaiyu watched with interest. After the opening of the Baicheng border market, people came to trade one after another, but now the merchants did not have much goods. Wu Huaiyu was not in a hurry. After all, he relied on salt. New salt farms were started every day, and there was a lot of salt.
The merchant came with people.
They need food, drink, and daily necessities, which can promote consumption.
What's more, these Qiang people and Shanhu people are coming over one after another, and they have to buy most of their daily necessities from the Tang people. Their tribe does not have much hand-made manufacturing capabilities.
In today's market, Qianghu still rely more on the Tang people. The skins of cattle and sheep are not very valuable, but a pony can be bought for as cheap as a thousand dollars.
The goods of the Han merchants in Baicheng Market were mainly salt, then cloth, grain, then porcelain, pots and pans, ropes and needlework, then medicinal materials, and finally tea.
Tea has now become a necessity for herdsmen, and they gradually cannot live without it.
As a result of the war, these barbarians were in urgent need of daily necessities from the Tang Dynasty, but they only had cattle and sheep furs on hand, and they had accumulated a lot. They were eager to exchange for things, so the prices would naturally be reduced.
Liu Xu led a group of scribes and government officials to patrol the simple market. The goods entering the market must be registered and taxed according to the transaction points. The merchants living in the market also have to pay taxes.
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There are two main types of tax: pass tax and residence tax. The tax collection method is relatively simple and the tax rate is not high.
Basically, the tax rate is 1 in 20.
The transactions were basically barter, and these fanhus didn't have much copper coins or silk in their hands, so they would trade animals or furs for whatever they liked.
You can also sell it to the warehouse and exchange it for money before buying it, but usually these people find it troublesome and just barter.
"More people and goods came today than yesterday," Liu Xu, who joined the army, told Huaiyu.
"As long as they are willing to come, more and more people will come in the future. However, one thing should be noted. Since this is a mutual market, we must maintain the fairness and justice of market transactions. There must be no deception or fraud.
If something is short of a pound or a few cents, it is not allowed to pass it off as a good one.
Trade freely, but you must also trade fairly. Anyone who dares to break this rule will not be tolerated."
Like the two cities in Chang'an, Wu Huaiyu also has a city order and relevant managers here, who are not only responsible for collecting taxes, but also for maintaining order, such as evaluating prices, etc., and even some valuable and large transactions must be carried out.
An official deed must be established to avoid disputes.
If a dispute does arise, there will be specialized personnel responsible for trial and mediation.
Nowadays, the livestock and medicinal materials of the Fanhu people here are relatively cheap. Horses are divided into Dun horses, grass horses, young horses, etc. Each type is priced in three grades. Basically, the top-grade Dun horses only cost 6,000 to 7,000 yuan, and grass horses
The number waiting immediately is only about 4,000.
This is less than half or even one-third of the horse price in Chang'an, which is very different. However, considering the long-distance horse selling, the cost is not low.
As for sheep, the best Yanzhoutan sheep, also called white sheep, only cost a few hundred dollars each.
As for furs, the prices are also relatively low. Horse hides, cattle and sheep skins, and sheepskins all range from one or two hundred to three or four hundred. The price is really several times different from the price in Chang'an.
When engaging in this kind of trade these days, especially if it can be done directly from the source, the profit margin is indeed very high.
There are only two or three oxen here, and only ten or so camels.
One camel can be exchanged for about two or three horses, one horse can be exchanged for two cows, and one cow can be exchanged for about five or six sheep.
But the handmade goods shipped from the mainland are not cheap.
Two tea bricks can be exchanged for a sheep, and a horse can be exchanged for about 20 tea bricks.
As for gadgets like needlework and thread, they are also very expensive, and pots are even more expensive.
As for weapons, swords, guns, bows and arrows, those are banned, not to mention armor, shields, crossbows and arrows.
Even the extremely expensive iron pot is cast using a relatively special process. The iron of this kind of iron pot cannot be re-melted to make weapons and armor.
The thing to guard against is that they collect iron tools to make weapons.
Generally speaking, Wu Huaiyu felt that due to the war, Shuofang was relatively short of supplies, especially handmade goods made in the Tang Dynasty, and their livestock furs were severely overpriced and devalued.
But the current situation is like this. Basically only the Tang Dynasty can supply the commercial goods they need, but for their livestock furs, the Tang Dynasty has many trading partners.
The market went around in a circle, it was quite lively, and many shops were under construction and decoration. In fact, the mutual market was not open every day, but Wu Huaiyu ignored the old tricks and turned the market outside Baicheng into a regular market.
The market is open for business every day, and there are fixed street shops inside.
He intends to turn this place into an industrial and commercial town outside the Great Wall of Yanyan, a goods distribution center, instead of a large market that only happens once every ten and a half months.
The Wu family has also opened a store here, Qianjintang Pharmacy, Changshengtang Pawnshop, and Baoyutang's Salt Shop. There will also be groceries and other shops opened one after another. Those who are close to the water, first come first.
"How is the construction of Fanfang going?"
"We are still recruiting people. The salary we offer is half a month's work, which is equivalent to one and a half bushels of grain per day."
This is short-term work. If you work for half a month at a time, the wages are millet, not money and silk. One and a half bushels a day. If you work for half a month, you will get two shi and more than millet.
It can be said that this salary is not low.
Liu Xu told Huaiyu that the wages set were actually the price for Lingzhou to hire people to serve on the beacon forts. Lingzhou was located in the border area and had many beacon forts. The court recruited local people to serve as soldiers, and their turn was
Fifteen days.
Because guarding the beacon is relatively hard work, those with better conditions are generally reluctant to do so, so they pay for someone to do it for them, and the price is one and a half bushels of millet a day.
Although the price of food has gone up and down, it has always been the same.
If according to the price of grain here in Lingzhou, a bushel of millet is now worth about fifty or sixty cents, then a bushel and a half can be converted into about eighty cents.
Of course, this was a time when food prices were high. During the Kaihuang period of the Sui Dynasty, a bushel of millet in Lingzhou cost about twenty or thirty yuan, and a day's wages was equivalent to forty.
However, the grain earned is generally used as rations, and the price does not have much impact. After all, it is eaten but not cashed out.
Building cities and roads is actually similar to guarding beacons. They are both very hard work.
If you do a general job, you may only have half or even one-third of this amount.
Just earn some food to support the family.
The Fanfang that Huaiyu wants to build is to build another area specifically for the Fan people to live together on the edge of Baicheng Town, so as to facilitate the unified management of the Fanhu. The Fanhu who come to trade can live here temporarily, or in the future.
You can open a shop or something here, and you can also live in Fanfang.
Even if some Fan barbarians are called in to serve as Fan soldiers in the city in the future, their families can also live in it.
Separate management is necessary.
Wu Huaiyu's ambitions are not small. The planning layout of the border city of Baicheng is very far away. The border city is next to Baichi, next to Baicheng, the county seat of Yanchi County, and not far to the north are Wucheng and Wuchi.
This border city of Yanzhou is located between these two ponds and two cities, and there is also a border fortress of the Great Wall to the south.
Although the border market is now only surrounded by simple fences and some straw huts, they will soon be upgraded little by little. The wooden fences will be upgraded to rammed earth walls, and the hay huts will be replaced by shops with rammed earth walls.
Streets, city offices, and warehouses will all have them.
There will even be workshop areas, fanfang areas, industrial and commercial residential areas, where salt, horses, slaves, grain, cloth and other commodities are distributed and traded. At that time, this will be a golden nest to raise golden roosters, and there will be a steady stream of golden eggs.
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"Your Majesty, some of the original Han people are starting to come back one after another," Liu Xu told Huaiyu. Although many of these people are poor, some of them were also farmers or landlords. Now that they have come back, then
What should I do with the fields, pastures, woods, and homesteads that have been taken over by the government as official property?
After all, many of them have been directly sold or designated as military, official, and public farmland.
"There is nothing to worry about. We welcome them back and tell them that because Liang Shuo destroyed their home inhumanely, now that they come back, we will help them rebuild their home.
We will resettle them and re-distribute their fields. As long as they come back, even if they were landless Han people before, we will grant them a hundred acres of land each.
As for those who had land before, no matter how much land they have, we will resettle them in other places and resupply their fields."
"Yanzhou is not short of land now, but it is short of people. As long as they can come back, we will give them equal land. Remember to tell them that they welcome the Duoding family and can apply for the Yanzhou United Army. As long as they can be selected, they will be given priority.
Give them fields."
Families elected as united soldiers can be given priority in granting land at a rate of 100 acres per ding. If ordinary people return to the common people, each household will be granted 100 acres first. If there are more than 2 ding families, it will be considered based on the situation, such as a 2 ding family.
Those who are three ding will first be granted 40 acres of permanent property, plus one hundred acres of farmland. Those of three ding will be granted 60 acres of permanent property, and one hundred acres of land will be allocated.
The acres are filled.”
"Tell them, first come, first served, until all teaching is finished."
There are more than 50,000 hectares of land in Yanzhou. We sold 10,000 hectares before, and later sold thousands of hectares. There are also tens of thousands of hectares of land for military, official, public, and other fields. The Yamen now actually has a lot of land in its hands, but the high-quality land has been reduced a lot.
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One hundred acres, ten thousand hectares, is only ten thousand hectares. It is very difficult for a border area like Yanzhou to accommodate ten thousand households in a short period of time.
"As long as those Fanhu come to vote and are willing to register as households, we will also grant them pasture and forest land and demarcate boundaries for them to graze.
As the saying goes, whoever accepts the system of household registration and uniforming the people first, the yamen will grant land and boundaries to the tribe first."
Liu Xu admired Wu Huaiyu's policy.
At present, only a few relocated Han peasant households have returned, but once this policy is introduced, I believe it will attract more people.
In particular, many poor border residents have the opportunity to allocate their fields and grant land, so how can they miss it?
At Liang Shidu's place, he didn't care whether they were living well or not, he only thought about how to squeeze them and pay for his dream of being emperor.
The Liang divisions have been separatist and have ruled Shuofang for many years. It can be said that Shuofang has completely collapsed. The population is so large, but they have to maintain an army of 100,000 and fight at every turn. Where can they get the money and food to support it?
When even the soldiers are hungry and the military families have no enough to eat, can ordinary people, even those tenant slaves, still have enough to eat?
"It is estimated that many refugees will come from Xiazhou soon."
"Don't be afraid of that. We now have money and food on hand, so we can directly use work as relief, and drag them to the salt ponds to produce salt, or to farm in the fields. Not only can they eat, but they can also earn wages and rations to stabilize this wave.
, when the time comes to divide the fields and lease them cattle seeds, they will be able to settle down."
