The greed of human nature!

Li Mu sighed and continued: "Datang now has two major ports, Guangzhou Port and Yangzhou Port, Guangzhou Port is external, Yangzhou Port is sold domestically, but only these two ports, Ben Hou thinks that it is far from enough, so Ben Hou has asked His Majesty to allow two more ports. ”

Two more ports!

Everyone's eyes lit up! They all understand what this means and how much benefit can a port bring? That's an astronomical amount.

In fact, the construction of a port does not require much investment, as long as there are people, there is nothing that cannot be done. However, the amount of work involved in building a port is very large, and if it were not for the action of the state, it would be taboo for a private person to build a port, and no emperor would allow a private huge port to appear without his permission.

Someone couldn't help but ask: "Master Hou, I don't know the location of the two newly built ports, ...... location?"

Li Mu smiled faintly, pointed at the bamboo in his hand, and said, "Here!" ”

"Master Hou, this is not Lin Yi'......"

"Yes, it's Lin Yi, but under the conquest of my righteous brother, Lin Yi has long been part of my Tang territory." Li Mu slid the bamboo up a little and said, "This is Jiaozhou, and the port is set up in Jiaozhou, but Jiaozhou, together with Linyi, will become a trade area in Datang." ”

What does the trade zone mean, although the people present have not heard of it, but there is no need for Li Mu to explain. The bamboo in Li Mu's hand continued to slide up: "Through the bridge of Lingling and Guiyang, Jiaozhou not only has a sea route to Fujian and Guangzhou, but also a land route to the north of the South Ridge Mountains, in the next three years, the imperial court will increase investment in this land route and build a land road, after the completion of the road, the throughput of this road will be increased by three times." ”

Everyone's eyes slid as the bamboo in Li Mu's hand slided, and their hearts were quickly calculating.

What is the most important thing about a port? Whether the transportation is convenient.

The convenience of transportation here not only refers to whether the water depth here is suitable as a safe haven, but more importantly, whether the goods transported to the port can be quickly collected and distributed.

Yangzhou Port has become the largest port in China by virtue of its rapid distribution.

This place in Jiaozhou is known to everyone. As early as the Qin and Han dynasties, there were ships in Jiaozhou, and during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the port of Jiaozhou was already very prosperous, and the Nanyang Fanbang that came and went to the Central Plains tributary was mostly transited in Jiaozhou. History has recorded that this place is 'treasured in all directions, don't take this as the first, hide the hidden mountains, be dazzling, business and Bo are far away, and the commission loses Nanzhou', although it is not comparable to Guangzhou Port, but it is also very good.

However, why did the big clans of the Central Plains not operate in Jiaozhou? The reason is very simple, Jiaozhou is adjacent to Linyi, in the late Sui Dynasty chaos, Jiaozhou was eroded by Linyi, turmoil, businessmen profit-seeking, an unstable environment, it is impossible to operate.

But now the imperial court, with the power of thunder, pacified Jiaozhou and Linyi, and incorporated them into the territory of the Tang Dynasty. If you want to develop this place into a trade zone, then the situation will be different.

Now the Tang Dynasty soldiers are invincible. There is nothing that can be shaken by the countries of the South Seas. If the imperial court is really willing to operate, the prosperity of Jiaozhou is just around the corner. But the question is, what is there in Jiaozhou that is worth investing a lot in the imperial court?

In case it was a blank check written by Li Mu, wouldn't everyone have folded it all in?

Everyone glanced at each other, and Gu Sizhi asked: "Master Hou, please forgive me for being shallow, the investment in the construction of the port is very large, Jiaozhou is remote, and the imperial court is not rich now, how can you be willing to invest such a huge amount of manpower and material resources, this ......" The implication is that you won't be lying to me, right!

Li Mu was not surprised that someone would ask such a question, but he would not tell Gu Sizhi that the imperial court did not plan to invest money, but wanted to empty the white wolf. He smiled faintly and said: "The imperial court will invest such huge financial and material resources, naturally there is a reason why the imperial court must do this, there are many, it is inconvenient to disclose, but there is one thing, you know, I might as well mention it." Next to Linyi, there is a kind of rice in Zhenla, which can reach three or four crops a year, and once Jiaozhou Port is completed, the rice of Zhenla will continue to be imported into the Tang Dynasty, now understand? ”

"I see!" Everyone was stunned!

Food, the country's capital also. If the food crisis can be solved, it is not cost-effective to invest as much as possible. Although the matter of real wax rice is little known in Datang, for these people who often deal with them by sea, they actually know for a long time that it is just a maritime trade, and it is obviously not suitable for those who do not pick expensive transportation and transport rice.

But if there is a port, the situation is different. It can be transported through the bridges of Lingling and Guiyang, or it can be transported to Guangzhou Port first, because the cost has been reduced, and there is no loss of money in transporting rice.

What's more, if there is a famine, money is worthless. Grain is the hardest hard currency, and at that time, no matter how high the cost of transportation is, it still has to be transported when it is time to be transported.

Everyone accepted Li Mu's statement, so that all doubts were dispelled. I thought about it again in my heart, first of all, the current situation of Yangzhou Port is probably a state of more than a dozen separate forces and joint management. A piece of meatloaf can be eaten by twelve families, and even if the meatloaf is large, each family will have a limited amount of food in their mouths.

If you let out the meatloaf in your mouth, you can change it to a bigger meatloaf in the future. Obviously, it is more appropriate, and there is that in this way, the family can go out, instead of staying in Jiangnan, which is far away from the political center, cutting meat with a soft knife, and facing a gradually lonely situation.

What's more, they vaguely expected that when the fortunes of the Tang Dynasty declined, they would become independent in Linyi, Jiaozhou...... Of course, this is all for later, and it is never dared to be imagined now.

Comparatively speaking, this choice is not necessarily more profitable than cement plants and iron mines, but relatively speaking, it is more free. It was a better choice, but everyone still didn't jump to conclusions, and they decided to wait for Li Mu to finish speaking.

"The second port, set up here." The bamboo in Li Mu's hand was clicked on the map, and everyone looked over, not far below Yangzhou, which belonged to the jurisdiction of Huiji, and was called Juzhang County in the Sui Dynasty, and changed to Mingzhou in the early Tang Dynasty. In fact, it is the Ningbo of later generations.

This choice made everyone even more confused. Because of the Yangzhou Port, such a close distance, it seems that it is a bit redundant to set up another port.

"Do you think that with Yangzhou Port and Mingzhou Port, there is some redundancy?"

Everyone looked at each other and said in unison; "Please also ask Master Hou to solve your doubts."

"It seems so, but it's not!" Li Mu pointed to the location of Yangzhou and said: "Although Yangzhou Port is good, he has a drawback, that is, if you want to reach Yangzhou, you must come in through this estuary, in terms of the current port throughput, there is not much of a problem, but if the throughput increases in the future, it will cause congestion." ”

"In addition, the place where Yangzhou Port is located indicates that it is an internal distribution port, while Mingzhou Port is mainly external."