Cao Qian had a heavy responsibility and had no intention of staying in Yingchun Tower to drink and listen to music, so he left soon.
There was a thin figure sitting in the private room next door. Hearing the sound of Cao Qian leaving, he asked Feng Liao:
"If we really decide on the trade between the two countries through the Qianjiang River in this peace negotiation according to this list, will Xuzhou suffer too much?"
"If you can't suffer losses, you can't take advantage," Feng Liao said. "The casting of armor and weapons under the supervision of General Da Chu has returned to a considerable scale. The shipbuilding yards in Yueyang, Jinling, and Jiangzhou will all be opened in the next year. Even if
Under the auspices of Marquis Yang En of Liyang, the warships, armor and war equipment manufactured were slightly inferior to those of Xuzhou, but they also got rid of their dependence on Xuzhou - in the future, only Yuzhou will purchase large quantities from Xuzhou.
The only way to buy and sell these iron products is to save this piece first."
The common people today have lower quality requirements for iron products and are quite sensitive to price.
In addition, the art of iron casting has been popularized among the people since the previous dynasty. Therefore, Xuzhou's civilian iron products need a long period of management and preparation to open up sales in an era when communication methods are relatively backward.
However, the requirements for iron tools are high and high-priced weapons and armor can be obtained, but the sales channels are limited and fixed.
Even if Emperor Yanyou and the princes in the court had no suspicion of Xuzhou, soldiers, armor and weapons were the country's sharp weapons. From the traditional thinking, all the ministers in the court would hope that government agencies would directly control their smelting and casting, rather than rely on
Chongfanzhou.
At present, Feng Liao rushed to Jinling to persuade Cao Qian to join in the low-price purchase of Xuzhou's armor and war machines and other iron products during the peace talks between the two countries. This was to first secure a market that could continue to ship goods and maintain production.
Only with continuous production can we say that we can continuously innovate technology in practice, and can we maintain the scale of craftsmen engaged in this aspect of production.
Yuzhou's low-price purchase seems unprofitable compared to the current casting technology, but Xuzhou's smelting and casting level is comparable to other places in the world?
Qianyang cloth, marine canvas, etc., the cost of all materials that Xuzhou can produce on a large scale has been continuously declining.
According to the list, it seems that Xuzhou suffered a big loss, but in fact it was just more conducive to Xuzhou's low-price dumping. Changxiang Marquis only acted as a tooth dealer or comprador in Yuzhou.
It is also true that Xuzhou doesn't care much about the new buying rules of the Salt and Iron Commissioner. As long as the market is big enough, Xuzhou is actually more willing to dump at low prices.
In Han Qian's view, expanding production and improving productivity levels are much more important than simply pursuing ultra-high profits.
As for asking Cao Gan to represent Shu and significantly increase the price of well salt exported south via the Qianjiang River, the reason is simpler.
The current technology for mining well salt is backward, and usually only the shallow underground salt water after melting the salt mine can be mined for exposure or cooking. But in fact, as long as salt mines are found underground and large-scale mining is carried out, the production capacity of a salt mine will theoretically be
It can satisfy the food of millions or even tens of millions of livestock.
What is more difficult today is the lack of effective methods for surveying underground salt mines.
According to the current technological level, the cost of digging a small deep well is too high. It is impossible to just find a place and dig a deep well to explore whether there are salt deposits underground.
However, once there is a salty spring and it is confirmed that there is a salt mine underground, it is relatively easy to carry out certain technical transformations and increase production.
Therefore, even if no new salt springs are discovered in Wuchuan, the existing two salt wells can increase production ten to twenty times. In Han Qian's view, there are no substantial obstacles at this stage.
across.
The simplest is to inject a large amount of stream water into existing salt wells to accelerate the melting of underground salt deposits and greatly increase production capacity.
From the beginning to the end, Han Qian never thought about profiting from the transportation of salt from Yuzhou. What he wanted was to send people to the Wuchuan Valley to directly organize production through the supervision of the Wuchuan County Salt and Iron Academy, which is currently under the direct control of Xuzhou.
The salt is mixed with Sichuan salt, and then transported by salt merchants to various Jizhou prefectures in central Guizhou for sale and profit...
Feng Liao briefly explained Xuzhou's confidence in these matters. After hearing this, the thin figure still sighed with emotion: "The Marquis of Changxiang is really taking advantage of this."
"Although the Lord of Shu, Wang Jian, is willing to weaken the power of the crown prince Wang Hongyi, he has not yet changed his mind. The foundation of the Marquis of Changxiang is still weak, so he has to take advantage." Feng Liao said.
Speaking of this, Feng Liao asked another thing: "How far is the assassination case currently going? There shouldn't be much trouble surging in Guangde Mansion now, right?"
The thin figure said: "Chen Jingzhou came to Guangde Mansion and quickly took some appeasement measures, which stabilized the Guangde Mansion slightly. However, the original Guangde army retreated and was assigned to the subordinate officials of the prefecture and county defense forces.
, Yamen servants, and military attachés were expelled earlier. There were nearly 200 people innocently involved in assassination cases here before and after, more than 20 people died in prison, and more than 40 people were disabled..."
Feng Liao was also filled with sadness when he heard the details of the fierce counterattack of the family clan against Guangde Mansion.
The thin figure continued: "... Han Donghu, Su Lie and others should have fled deep into Fuyu Mountain and were not caught by the officers and soldiers; and some retired military attachés of the original Guangde Army were unwilling to be persecuted by the family and also brought their families with them.
Xiao fled into the mountains and should have joined forces with Han Donghu, Su Lie and the others - Xuzhou should deploy more informants in Jinling to collect information, pass on news, and send people to contact them. It might be more appropriate to use these people."
"It is not appropriate to alert the enemy too early," Feng Liao said. "When I come here this time, I still have to find a way to uncover the truth about Shang Zhongjie's massacre of refugees and Shang Wensheng's destruction of corpses and traces..."
Feng Liao had discussed these issues with Han Qian before coming to Jinling.
Reactivating the intelligence network here in Jinling is far from as simple as sending seven or eight people to lurk here.
First of all, ordinary people in the market, even merchants, were of low status and had no source of information about what happened in the imperial city of Chu Palace, above the court, within the imperial army, and within the bodyguards.
Even the lower-level subordinates, generals, and soldiers have very little information.
In addition to collecting information, timely and effective transmission of information is also an important organizational part of building an intelligence network.
Starting from Guangde Prefecture, take the Yishan Post Road, pass through Raozhou, Hongyuan Zhuzhou, enter Hunan, and then take the Xuefeng Mountain Post Road into Xuzhou. It is more than 2,000 miles of land. In theory, it can be completed in seven or eight days at the fastest.
.
However, the five-hundred-mile express postal transmission speed can only reach the record after relying on a series of complete systems such as post roads and post stations to ensure it.
In other words, Xuzhou needs to set up at least twenty or thirty transit points with horses along the way to keep information quickly transmitted between Jinling and Guangde; at the same time, it also needs to be hidden from the eyes and ears of Jinyun Division and local prefectures and counties.
.
The speed of taking the waterway does not seem to be slow, but the Xuzhou merchant ship has to go through multiple checkpoints along the way. More importantly, it is a large merchant ship. It is impossible to just leave, right?
To ensure the rapid transmission of news, the manpower and material resources required are not a small number, and the selection of personnel is also a big issue.
When he was in Xuzhou, Han Qian ordered the selection of suitable personnel. Of course, Feng Liao also considered recruiting Han Donghu and others to serve again.
Although Xuzhou had no direct contact with Jinling before, some of the situations that occurred in Guangde Mansion could be known from the Yi Chuan residence records that were open to local officials and the gentry group.
With Han Qian's reputation, he could recruit these retired military attachés of the Guangde Army who would flee into the mountains after persecution and possibly join Han Donghu and Su Lie. This would not only enable them to penetrate the Guangde Mansion, the Forbidden Army and the Guards, but also
It has directly reached a very high level, and at the same time there is a group of experienced manpower to build this information transmission network.
However, the problem is that no one in this world is really willing to be someone else's pawn.
They could send people to contact Han Donghu and Su Lie, the escaped slaves of the Shang family, but they couldn't provide enough support after contacting them, but they still asked these people to obey Xuzhou's orders in everything. Do they really think these people are fools?
What support can Xuzhou give them?
What kind of support do they want?
This was the issue that Feng Liao discussed most with Han Qian during his last few days in Xuzhou.
But the problem is that these people are rebels who were quickly eliminated by the imperial court and local prefectures and counties. Their families may be wiped out and massacred by officers and soldiers at any time. Why should Han Qian ask them to serve Xuzhou with peace of mind?
Nowadays, many passes have strengthened the inspection of entering and leaving Xuzhou. It is difficult for so many women and children with small families to quietly come out of the deep mountains and old forests and move into Xuzhou.
Han Qian recruited refugees in Xuzhou in the early days. To put it bluntly, it was Tanzhou who deliberately mixed his troops among the refugees and infiltrated into Xuzhou before letting them go.
Otherwise, with all the checkpoints on all sides, how could ordinary people without strict training avoid the government's eyes and ears and cross the mountains to enter Xuzhou? Not to mention the frail women and children who are old and sick.
Han Donghu, Su Lie and others were involved in the assassination case, causing public outrage. If they want to cancel the suppression by local officers and soldiers in the name of appeasement, they must first reverse the case and uncover the truth about Shang Zhongjie's massacre of refugees and Shang Wensheng's destruction of corpses and traces.
.
It's just that it's too difficult to find the right person to investigate this case at this stage.
Who among the civil and military officials of the entire dynasty is willing to take the risk of offending the family members, and stand up to investigate this case despite being suspected by others of secretly colluding with Xuzhou?
This is something that may cost your life and fortune.
"Will Prime Minister Shen turn over this case?" the thin figure asked.
"It's probably impossible. Shen Yang is not that ignorant of current affairs..." Feng Liao shook his head and said.
As Shen Yang was in the position of prime minister, his only concern was the overall safety of the Chu State, and he would not involve himself in such trouble out of momentary righteous indignation.
"Where's Xue Ruogu?" The thin figure thought of a suitable candidate and asked.
"My lord, I have thought about it, but people from Xuzhou cannot contact Xue Ruogu. Xue Ruogu is upright, but he will not be led by the nose easily by Xuzhou - besides, I don't want Xue Ruogu to dare to be so old so early.
For risks to stand up, just relying on some rumors and rhetoric is not enough." Feng Liao said.
"Please ask the old man to come forward and help Xue Ruogu be demoted to Lishui to serve as county magistrate - Wei Zhen has done too many things in this case. As long as Xue Ruogu replaces Wei Zhen and takes charge of Lishui, we should be able to find some clues." The thin figure.
said.
"Your Excellency, you don't want to involve the old lady." Feng Liao said.
"When you come to Jinling, you should assess the situation and decide some things on your own." The thin figure suggested that Feng Liao make his own decision on this matter.