When Fujiwara Tadamichi led the Japanese envoys back to Jiangnan again, it was already a bright spring March.

On the north bank of the Yangtze River, in Guazhoudu, a group of short little devils looked at the two banks of the Yangtze River that had changed greatly when they came, and smacked their tongues one by one.

Although they have long heard that the Song people are good at using water power, regardless of whether they are public or private, they all start waterwheels. But it was winter when I came before, and the watermills by the river had already stopped. Helplessly, the Xiaoice River period was cold, even the wide rapids of the Yangtze River could not avoid the end of ice, let alone others.

The waterwheel is all standing on the shore, where the ice is the thickest, and it is also the earliest to freeze, not to mention that the little devil came late, that is, two months earlier, there was no way to see the waterwheel turning, and the workshops and workshops on the riverside were boiling in the sky.

But now, these people went all the way down the official road to Huainan in the southeast, when the ice and snow melted, the waterwheel was reactivated, and the once deserted workshops were now lively again.

This is a power that Japanese people have not seen.

They also have all kinds of workshops there, of different sizes and sizes. But they had never seen so many workshops so dense.

Hidden in the manor, no matter how powerful the force is, it is invisibly divided into pieces. It was impossible for Japan in the era of feudal agriculture to give birth to 'industry'.

Even if this 'industry' is rudimentary, it can't be more rudimentary.

In the Great Song Dynasty, although the workshop cannot be seen at the eye, the equipment driven by water, wind and animal power has already blossomed everywhere.

When the Japanese mission passed through Xuzhou, it was also the place where the Li Guojian was located. What they saw was a picture that was completely beyond the horizon of their brains - puffs of smoke rushed into the sky, and when they looked at it from afar, the Japanese thought that a demon had descended into the world.

Li Guojian, one of the several iron smelting bases in Zhao and Song Dynasty. Now there are more than fifty smelting pits here.

Even if the technology is still very backward. But the quality is not enough to make up the quantity. It is definitely one of the top iron smelting and forging centers in the world today.

There are more than 50 smelting pits, each smelting pit is facing 100 people, more than half of them are controlled by large households, and the iron produced is handed over to one out of three.

This tax rate is indeed much higher than before, because the transportation and distribution of iron materials produced in the smelting pit are arranged by the government. But now the rest of the iron is sold by the mine owners themselves, and the profits have increased significantly. So the tax rate is rising, and they have nothing to say.

But the tax rate can be set to the limit, which itself is the old tradition of Zhao and Song.

Li Guojian can earn more than five million catties of iron every year, far exceeding the previous peak of the Shenzong Dynasty.

This is because the Li Guojian is now strictly supervised, and the unspoken rule of the past - concealment of tax evasion - is gone. The government's relaxation of surplus iron materials has also greatly increased the production motivation of smelting pit households.

The number of employees in the smelting pits of the entire Liguojian has generally increased, and the number of people mining and cutting charcoal in some of the smelting pits directly controlled by the government can exceed 500 people.

This was originally one of the four major iron-making bases in Zhao and Song, and now its actual status is declining, but its scale is getting bigger and bigger.

It is because of Zhao Gou's promotion. Although he was unable to develop minerals by leaps and bounds, it was easy to promote the iron smelting industry in the Song Dynasty.

After all, this thing is profitable, and it only needs the imperial court to loosen its mouth, and some people are willing to spend huge sums of money to operate iron mines.

The rise of the iron market in Xuzhou has directly triggered the vigorous development of its forging industry.

Not to mention anything else, after having iron materials, just to build iron pots, kitchen knives, and iron scissors, and you can sell as many as you want.

Ships of iron were sent along the canal to the north and south of the river, or sold in the Central Plains, or exported to Japan, the South Seas, and even the distant Tianzhu and Tianfang, iron pots and other utensils are definitely the hot goods in the current trade.

This makes the forging workshops in Xuzhou crowded, and the two sides of its limited river section (Surabaya) are gathered one after another, and waterwheels are towering. With the craftsmen of these workshops, the constant flow of merchants and the cargo of those ships, there is a great force that is silent and forbidden to the whole of Japan.

What if these workshops are Japanese ......?

On the way from Xuzhou to Guazhoudu, Fujiwara Tadashi thought this way more than once, and more than one person in the entire Japanese mission thought about it.

It would be nice if these workshops were Japanese.

The Song people were just a mere Li Guojian's iron production, and they threw off ten streets in Japan.

This shows the huge difference in the national strength of the two countries.

"The prosperity of the Song people's industry and commerce is far greater than that of our country, and the huge wealth is also better than our country. Fujiwara Tadashi wrote like a god, and wrote again and again in a booklet that he carried with him: "There is a saying in the Song newspaper: business travel is not good, goods cannot pass through the north and south, things cannot be used to the fullest, and the people cannot get their benefits. If the people are not profitable, they will not be rich, if the people are not rich, the country will not be taxed, if the country is not taxed, the army will not be strong, and if the army is not strong, the world will be in danger. ……

The foundation of the country is first and foremost in the payment of taxes, money and food. However, in today's Japan, half of the land is turned into manors, and although the rest belongs to the country of Zhixing, most of them are acquired by the imperial family and courtiers. ”

The taxes of the imperial court have been decreasing year after year, and the situation has become dangerous, Fujiwara Tadamichi, as the Taisei, knows very well.

Now that half of the country's land has been converted into manor, Japan's manor lord system has been thoroughly established.

A large number of peasants became the exclusive farmers of the estate, and the villagers produced grain, agricultural and sideline products, mountain and forest products, and cottage industry products, and these products were used to meet the needs of the farmers themselves, and the rest was the wealth of the estate owners. They are either used for pleasure and luxury, or for the maintenance of the manor's force.

As an official of the imperial court or a monk of a temple, the lord of the manor usually had the power to protect the manor from outside interference. It's like the local power of the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty in China. I want to know how much money they can come up with to pay taxes, and how much wealth and people are hidden in the manor.

Moreover, each manor is a layer of estrangement, and the manor economy, as a kind of self-sufficient economy closely integrated with agriculture and cottage industry, is an economic whole with little contact with the outside world.

As a result, Japanese folk commerce is still quite primitive, and it is a place where nobles such as Heiankyo and Nara gather, and there are few regular markets and small shops outside the regular market. In a way, the port of Hirado, which has frequent exchanges with China, is one of the most prosperous places for business in Japan.

Japan's trade with China, it seems that a lot of goods have flowed into Japan, but it goes directly into the hands of the nobility and into the estates.

Private business is really limited.

Fujiwara Tadashi was conceited and didn't dare to touch the manor, it was too hot. Don't look at him as one of the leading figures of the Fujiwara clan, or Toba's henchman, the Taizheng of the current dynasty, but if you really can't think of risking the world's condemnation, you will only end up with death and annihilation.

But what if it's a commercial one?

Don't touch the old interests, but open up new interests, that is, to take a hard bite, presumably it should be!

Thinking of this, Fujiwara Tadamichi flashed with joy on his face. The idea in my head is completely connected.

"I didn't go in vain!"

Although it was a great pity that he could not find out Emperor Zhao's intentions. It is possible to find a feasible way from it, and find another way, which is a great good!