Wu Huaiyu was lying under the coconut tree by the beach, with a newly opened coconut in his hand. There were also lychees, mangoes, pineapples, bananas and other southern fruits on the tables under the pavilion.
“I fell in love with it the first time I saw it.”
Next to him, Cheng Chumo, the governor of Lianzhou, was also lying on a bamboo lounge chair, looking at the blue sea under the blue sky and the shining silver beach, taking a sip of coconut juice and letting out a pleasant compliment.
The beaches of the North Sea are very beautiful and unique. They are made of high-grade quartz sand. Under the sunlight, the white and delicate beaches will glow with silver.
The beach is long and flat, the sand is fine and white, the water is warm and clean, and the waves are soft.
"Then you can stay here all your life." Huaiyu said with a smile, and a young beauty with wheat complexion next to him held a coconut and brought it to his mouth.
Huaiyu shook his head and said, "Peel a lychee for me."
The taste of fresh coconut milk is actually quite average. Huaiyu actually misses the coconut milk with added ingredients that he drank before. It was indeed more fragrant and sweeter.
The beauty immediately put down the coconut, picked a big red lychee, peeled it and gave it to Wu Huaiyu.
It’s already the lychee season, and we won’t be able to eat them soon. If you want to eat them, you’ll have to wait another year.
Cheng Chumo doesn’t eat lychees, however. “When I first came here, I ate them every day, but ended up getting injured. Unexpectedly, I also got very angry.”
"Hahaha, you really need to eat less."
"Then I can't blame you. I read a poem of yours when I was in Chang'an. It's spring at all times under the Luofu Mountain. The oranges and bayberries are fresh every day. I eat 300 lychees every day. I live a long life as a Lingnan native."
Speaking of lychees from Chang'an, you couldn't eat fresh lychees from Lingnan in the past. Generally, the small amount of fresh lychees offered as tribute were from Sichuan.
Later, Wu Huaiyi became the governor of Shaozhou. Huaiyu followed the development of Shaozhou and specially built a special line for Lingnan lychees to Chang'an. He organized a fleet of cavalry and fleets thousands of miles away to deliver the lychees day and night. Fast horses and lychees were delivered.
Yi, once again removed the lychee branches and fruits and packed them in double-layered jars to keep them as fresh as possible.
The Lychee Express cost thousands of dollars to deliver Lingnan lychees to Chang'an. At first, each lychee could be discounted for several thousand dollars. Even now, every link has become more mature and the cost has been reduced. But every lychee that comes to Beijing
, can be discounted to hundreds or thousands of dollars.
In Chang'an, eating lychees, fresh lychees from Lingnan, is definitely a status symbol, because you can't eat them even if you have money, the supply exceeds demand, and you have to have status if you want to eat them.
Even if there is no Yinfei below the fifth grade, it is difficult to taste.
It's even better than the cherry feast held in Chang'an every spring.
Of course Cheng Chumo had access to fresh lychees from Lingnan in the past when he was in Chang'an. Given his status as an elder, he only had a taste of them.
After coming to Lingnan, I discovered that there are various varieties of lychees everywhere, especially the ones that are extremely cheap and cheap.
In Chang'an, one can be sold for a thousand yuan.
In Lingnan, several lychees from several trees can be sold for less than one thousand yuan.
In the summer, the lychees from Lingnan are indeed not valuable, that is, only some good varieties are worth more money, and fresh fruits are not easy to sell.
More fruits are still used to make dried fruits, dried lychees, dried longans, etc. Dried fruits are easy to store and transport.
"A lychee in Chang'an costs a thousand cents, but in Lingnan no one wants a cent."
"Well, everything in Lingnan is cheap."
Cheng Chumo smiled and said, "Except for Hepu pearls, those things are really expensive, but I've seen them too, and they're really hard to find."
In fact, not only is Hepu Nanzhu difficult to harvest, but it is not something you can just pick if you want to.
In the Han Dynasty, there were officials responsible for fishing for pearls, jade, gold and silver. At the beginning, the officials were not involved in the pearl fishing industry and were solely responsible for purchasing pearls.
Starting from the establishment of Zhuguan County by Sun Quan of the Three Kingdoms, in order to expand the scale and harvest of pearl fishing, by the time of Emperor Wu of Jin Dynasty, the imperial court sent troops to guard the Pearl Pond in Hepu and prohibited people from entering the sea to fish for pearls.
During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Hepu's pearl fishing industry had begun to be included in the government's management.
Now that the Tang Dynasty has entered Lingnan, its control over Hepu's southern pearls has been further strengthened, and a series of rules and regulations supporting pearl fishing have been formed.
For example, a pearl fishing and lifting department was set up at Hepu Port in Lianzhou, eunuchs were sent as pearl fishing envoys, and there was even a pearl fishing city, etc.
In the final analysis, the imperial court now wants to fully monopolize and control Nanpu Pearl.
Pearl households were strictly established, and only those registered with the government were allowed to fish for pearls.
Although the imperial court also allowed private individuals to collect and sell pearls, the imperial court had to assess taxes and impose taxes on pearls and even purchase pearls.
Cheng Chumo was a little excited when he talked about pearl fishing in Hepu, because the benefits were huge. Although the emperor directly set up a pearl fishing promotion department and sent pearl fishing envoys, there were still huge benefits to be gained from it.
There are many steps from pearl fishing to selling.
In particular, southern pearls have always been precious, and there has always been a market for them.
Cheng Chumo is now the governor of Lianzhou. On the public side, he has to protect the pearl pool, assist the pearl fishing and lifting department to manage the pearl households, collect taxes, and buy pearls, etc. On the private side, he also has many places to get involved.
In the past, the pearl mining industry in Hepu was naturally controlled by the Ning family.
But now, the dragon has crossed the river, and the Ning family has also lost control of pearl fishing.
Cheng Chumo is not the kind of person who eats alone. He also knows that hundreds of thousands of athletes have traveled to Lingnan, and countless nobles have traveled to the sea. There are many people watching the Hepu Pearl. He is willing to take care of all parties and have wine and meat together.
Of course, his distribution plan must first obtain the support of Wu Huaiyu, and he must also take care of Wu Huaiyu.
"The profits here are really huge,"
Cheng Chumo sighed, "You know that in the past, the control over the pearl people was very strict, business travel was prohibited, and people were not allowed to scatter good pearls privately. Even though the pearl people worked hard to collect pearls, they were still very poor."
Exchange pearls for rice.
Zhuhu worked hard to fish for pearls in the sea, but the pearls he picked could only be exchanged for rice, not much.
But apart from exchanging rice, their pearls are no different from sand because they cannot be cashed in.
In the Jin Dynasty, it was also stipulated that the one who went up to the top of the pearl lost three points and lost two, and the second lost one, and the tax was very high.
Therefore, for thousands of years, the reputation of Hepu Pearl has spread all over the world, but countless pearl farmers are still poor and hungry.
There are very few people who can make money from the Hepu pearl industry, and they all have to be well-connected and powerful.
It has been more than ten years since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, but in fact, except for some pearls from the Ning family, they have not received any pearl tax.
Now someone in the imperial court proposes to implement a customized curriculum system for Hepu Zhuchi.
Fixed a bead tax.
But the tax set is too low.
"I have found out that there are more than ten pearl fishing ponds in Hepu. The big ones include Wu Ni Pond, Haizhu Sand, etc. If there are enough pearl households, the number of pearls that can be collected from these pearl ponds in a year is very large.
Astonishing,
An old bead farmer told me that it would be no problem to harvest one hundred thousand taels a year."
One hundred thousand taels of southern pearls. Even if the quality is high, medium or low, the value is astonishing.
However, deep-sea pearl fishing is also very difficult and dangerous. Pearl fishing in Hepu has always been carried out by boating on the surface of the Pearl Pond, and then hanging down to the seabed with a thick cable. The pearl divers tie a small rope around their waist and dive into the seabed along the thick cable to fish for pearls.
When the clam felt it was too much, he shook the rope and asked the people on the boat to pull him up.
If it's too late, you'll drown or bleed to death.
It is often easy to encounter sharks in the sea. If they are accidentally eaten, they will be left with stumps and broken arms.
Pearl fishing is actually collecting pearls and clams from the sea. There is no equipment and it is pure diving.
The Hepu Nan pearls extracted are divided into nine grades. The best pearls are worth a thousand gold each. The lowest grade is Suiji pearls, which are also very valuable.
In addition to being easily drowned, eaten by sharks, and attacked by big fish when fishing for pearls, the biggest fear is typhoons. Encountering typhoons and big waves, even boats can be overturned and swallowed.
Moreover, dry pearl fishing will have many sequelae.
