The Zhang family's business has not been taken care of by Zhang Siwei himself, but Zhang Sijiao is responsible for it, so Zhang Siwei did not talk too much with Gao Shiwei about how the Zhang family's business should be transferred from the salt industry to the entire forest.

However, Zhang Siwei still mentioned some development trends of Changlu Salt Field to Gao Pragmatic in recent years, and one of them particularly attracted Gao Pragmatic's attention.

In recent years, the Changlu salt field has seen an obvious trend of "decline in the south and prosperity in the north".

When Zhang Siwei mentioned this situation at that time, he didn't seem to be very clearly aware of the reasons, but Gao Shishi was different, and he was very keen to find the root cause.

The root cause lies in Tianjin Port, or the development of Tianjin Port has affected the development of Changlu Salt Farm.

Changlu Salt Farm is not a separate salt field, the reason why it is called "Changlu Salt Field" is because the Ming Dynasty set up a capital transfer envoy in Changlu, Cangzhou, so Changlu Salt Farm got its name.

As mentioned earlier, there were a total of 24 salt farms in Changlu Salt Farm in the early Ming Dynasty, which were later cut and merged into four, forming a complex composed of 20 salt farms now, of which the Zhang family actually controlled 17.

Among the 17 salt farms controlled by the Zhang family, it is now clear that the salt farms closer to the port of Tianjin are developing better, while the ones farther away from the port are showing signs of decline.

This situation can be summed up in the simplest terms: transportation conditions are crucial to the development of the salt works.

After that, Gao Shishi began to collect some information about the traffic conditions in the Changlu Yanchang area, and after summarizing it, he was convinced of this.

Historically, Nanchang, which was originally located in Cangzhou, has benefited from the superior geographical environment of sea and river transportation, and has made great progress. The southern material shipping port is in Cangzhou's Huanghua Qikou and Dahekou (later Huanghua Port), and is unloaded and transported to all parts of the north through the inland river channel, of which the inland river channel in Cangzhou is mainly the Wudi River and the Maji River in the south, and the Liuhe River in the north.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the shipping bypassed and changed to Dazhigu (that is, Tianjin Port), and since then the Cangzhou River and Sea have only been transported by river. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Yellow River was diverted and migrated southward to the Huai, resulting in the depletion of the water sources of the two rivers of Wudi and Maji, and the river gradually silted up. The Liuhe River, which has become the only important river, connects the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal with the salt fields in Cangzhou, supporting the continued development of Cangzhou's salt industry.

Earlier, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, after the dredging of the Huitong River, the Grand Canal, which had always been running east-west, turned to a north-south trend. As a result, all eastbound rivers in Cangzhou lost their transportation function. "(Huimin) the river runs longitudinally, and the river east of the bank is abandoned."

As a result, "the southern transportation road is cut off, and the northern field has thistle transportation and southern transportation of rivers, and the line is declining." The salt industry in Nanchang is in decline, and all the stove households have returned to their homes and changed their businesses, not only are the beaches deserted and the stoves are wasted, but there are also many stove classes that cannot be called? ”

Therefore, Cangzhou salt industry has changed from inland shipping to land transportation, and land transportation is higher than river transportation and has lost its competitiveness. Since then, most of the salt farm stove households in Cangzhou have "abandoned the beach and changed their business" and returned to their original prefectures and counties.

However, at this time, the development of the South Field was weak, but it was barely maintained, until Gao Pragmatic built Tianjin Port, the radiation capacity of Tianjin Port was greatly improved, and the part of Changlu Salt Field located near Tianjin began to show a huge advantage in transportation costs.

It's all the same salt, and the cost of transporting goods in Tianjin in the north is two to three percent lower than that in Cangzhou in the south, so only fools and businessmen who can't get the goods in Tianjin will continue to knock on the south field.

As a result, Gao Pragmatic found a trump card in his hand - even if it is a big salt merchant like the Zhang family, if Gao Pragmatic refuses to cooperate, their costs will increase greatly and their profits will be greatly reduced.

Moreover, the reason why Tianjin Port can bring cost reduction, in addition to the advantages of the port itself, is that the transport fleet of Tianjin Port is very strong, and the transport fleet of Tianjin Port, the Beijing Beiyang Fleet (transport fleet part) in the hands of Gao Shishi will occupy about half of the capacity.

This situation has brought a reflection to Gao Pragmatism: should we gradually transfer the past salt works and gradually move the salt works of the whole country closer to the big ports?

His idea was not to target Zhang Siwei or the Changlu Salt Farm alone, in fact, his focus was mainly on the salt merchants of Yangzhou.

It is not convenient for Gao Pragmatism to attack the Zhang family, but it does not mean that it is inconvenient for him to crack down on Yangzhou salt merchants.

Of course, some of the current Yangzhou salt merchants are Shanxi businessmen, such as Zhang Sijiao, who went to Yangzhou more than ten years ago, with the purpose of developing business in Yangzhou - after all, Changlu is almost surrounded by the Zhang family, and there is no room for development.

However, Shanxi merchants were not the strongest in Yangzhou, and Nanjing's noble forces had many agents among the salt merchants in Yangzhou, such as Hui merchants, Zhejiang merchants, and local salt merchants in Yangzhou, and so on. These people, Gao Shi will not feel distressed when he moves.

It's just that Gao Pragmatic doesn't really want to use political means to do this, because political means are more likely to be counterattacked, and he has been thinking about using economic means to solve this trouble.

Producing salt in Liaodong was the first step for him to cautiously explore the salt industry.

What he just said to Zhu Yijun about selling to North Korea, Jurchen and even Mongolia is not a lie, but it is not complete, in fact, Zhu Yijun is worried about Gao Pragmatic offending people, but he is not very worried about offending people, at least after leaving aside the Jin Party, he is not worried about offending the salt merchants in the south.

These people are almost all behind-the-scenes financiers of the Donglin Party in history, and in Gao Pragmatic's view, if they are offended, they will be offended, and it will be sooner or later anyway.

Gao Shishi has been quietly hoarding land in Shanghai for a long time because the market around Nanjing is not easy to penetrate, the purpose is to suddenly launch the port of Shanghai when the time is ripe, so as to leave Nanjing and even Suzhou alone, and grasp the commercial initiative of Nanzhili.

Now the land in Shanghai Port is almost ready, and the staffing may be poor, but Gao Pragmatic is not worried - he now has several large ports on hand, and it is not a problem to transfer some people. With the advantage of the port, Yangzhou salt merchants have to worry about the pressure of high pragmatism.

In this case, if you want to continue to increase the pressure, there is only one thing left: goods.

Make a worst-case scenario: Gao Pragmatic has the most advantageous transportation conditions in the future, but the Yangzhou salt merchants and the Nanjing nobles and Jiangnan Shilin behind them are unwilling to compromise, and the final result may be that the Yangzhou salt merchants would rather cost two or three percent more than go to the port of Shanghai - this is a lose-lose.

Therefore, if you want to choke the throat of Yangzhou salt merchants, Gao Pragmatic also needs to have a supply of goods, which must be strong enough to force Yangzhou salt merchants to completely bankrupt!

Is the Changlu Salt Farm okay? Not very good, even if Zhang Siweiken fights head-on with Yangzhou salt merchants, it is estimated that the output is not enough, after all, the Changlu salt field supplies most of the north, if you take these goods to the south to start a price war, will the north eat light food?

Therefore, Gao Pragmatic almost recommended himself to Zhu Yijun today to express his willingness to go to Liaodong Yuanma Temple to be the secretary of this temple, and what he values is not only a military road, but the scope under the jurisdiction of Liaodong Yuanma Temple - Liaodong Peninsula.

As we all know, the four major salt areas in China in later generations include the Liaodong Bay salt area, and Gao Pragmatic, as a traverser, still knows a little bit of improvement ideas for salt drying technology.

Of course, the idea does not represent direct technology, but as long as the position of Ma Siqing in Liaodong falls to Gao Shishi, he will have enough capital to carry out experiments, not to mention that he can also ask Changlu Salt Farm to help - just use the "whole forest" in exchange.

Anyway, Gao pragmatic has long hoped to bring the Zhang family and even more northern "chaebols" into the new channel, instead of sticking to those old businesses that have been around for thousands of years.