Meng Yiyong, who was the "commercial representative" of Jinyang in Chengdu, soon became a landlord.

His father, Meng Zhixiang, got him a big manor in Lingquanyi on the edge of Chengdu. The manor is next to Longquan Mountain, including several tea mountains.

In another time and space, under a series of stupid operations and persecution by An Chongzhi, Meng Zhixiang and Dong Zhang, both of whom had to survive in the end, joined forces to boycott and openly rebelled. As a result, under the attack of the two, not only the Later Tang Army was defeated, but also the cavalry general Xia Luqi was trapped in Suizhou between the two rivers, and finally committed suicide in defeat.

After that, Shu had in fact formed a trend of separation.

However, in this time and space, due to Li Qi's intervention, Meng Zhixiang and Dong Zhang have always been on good terms, and although there is no big fight between these two forces, they are also filthy. And Li Qi was not in a hurry to meddle in the affairs of Shuzhong, these two people maintained a relationship with the imperial court at least on the surface, and each handed over 100,000 yuan of "annual gifts" to Jinyang every year.

With the financial and tax income of Shudi, it is not an exaggeration for the two to pay 500,000 yuan a year, and now doing so is just a meaning. Li Qi doesn't expect the two of them to be alive, and now that they can have this kind of expression, it's good that everyone doesn't tear their faces.

After the Northern Army took control of Hanzhong, commerce between the north and Shu developed rapidly, and the Shu road was difficult, and the bulk goods of Shu actually relied mainly on water transportation. Wooden boats loaded with goods were towed by mules, horses, and slender men and sailed up the Jialing River until they reached the river pools of Fengzhou.

The main commodities of Shu's trade with the north were silk and tea, as well as grain.

Li Qi's most important thing was the tea trade, and the requirements for the three imperial merchants were newly developed black tea.

The production process of black tea is just one more fermentation process than green tea, but the taste is by no means the same, because most of the tea polyphenols in the tea are converted into theaflavins and thearubigins after oxidation. Compared with green tea, black tea is more suitable for cooking and has a stronger ability to decompose fats, which means that it is more suitable for the eating habits of grassland peoples. The shepherds on the grassland, drinking a cup of boiled black tea after a full meal, really helps digestion.

Now Meng Yiyong is sitting in the study, tasting this kind of tea soup made with new technology and bright red color, while thinking about this new business that the Son of Heaven has confessed.

He has been going back and forth between Jinyang and Yunzhou for a long time, so he naturally knows that this tea, cloth, salt and iron are several major businesses in Jinyang and the grassland. Now that this new tea variety has been developed, Meng Yiyong, who has always been very sharp-minded in the business field, saw the business opportunity at once - if this thing is very popular in the grassland, the three imperial merchants of Jinyang may compete for nearly half of the share of the tea trade in the northern grassland!

What does this mean? The annual trade volume of millions of guan, even if it is only a profit of 20%, is nearly a million.

Thinking of this, Meng Yiyong suddenly became excited.

Because Li Qixu gave him a share of the profits.

As the saying goes, wrap 100,000 yuan around your waist and ride a crane down to Yangzhou.

In the previous dynasties, Yangzhou City, which had 100,000 yuan and was the richest in the world, could be regarded as a wealthy family.

In terms of means of making money, the two brothers of the Meng family really admired the emperor's cousin, and they have made a lot of benefits by doing business with the royal business in the past few years.

Meng Yifan walked in from outside, saw the red tea soup in the porcelain cup and asked, "What kind of black tea is this that the Son of Heaven made out?" ”

Meng Yiyong nodded, drank a cup of tea for his eldest brother and said, "You taste it first, the taste is not the same." ”

Meng Yifan took a big sip of the teacup, and then said: "It's really different, it seems to lack the original unique bitterness, but I don't know if people like it when they are transported to the grassland." ”

Meng Yiyong said: "Your face is not very good-looking, why, are you deflated by the old man again?" ”

"Hmph, since his mother died, he was encouraged by the gang below him to start his mind and want to unify the two rivers. He didn't listen to the persuasion, and now he is becoming more and more stubborn. Meng Yifan said.

"Those generals naturally want to fight, and only by fighting can there be more benefits and rewards to be gained. They had never seen the strength of the Jinyang army, and they didn't know that even the Tuntian army was no worse than the soldiers under them. Meng Yiyong said, "When they really see the equipment and training of the Northern Army, they will die of this thought." The Son of Heaven just wants to maintain the current pattern of Shudi, otherwise the army will come over, don't look at the old man and Dong Zhang, who each have 50,000 or 60,000 soldiers and horses, but it is not enough. ”

Because the two of them were high-ranking officials in the Jinyang Imperial Court, they were able to come into contact with many things that outsiders did not know, and they knew better than most people about the situation in the Northern Army. It seems that the Tuntian Army does not have the establishment of the army at all, but in fact, military training is carried out every year during the agricultural slack. Mainly because they can be fed and clothed, in terms of physical strength alone, they are stronger than most soldiers in other places, but the actual combat experience is much worse.

In this era, when the soldiers arrived on the battlefield, most of the time, they fought for individual strength.

Therefore, the strength of Jinyang is definitely much stronger than what people see, the year before last in the north-south war in Hebei, the northern army only used one-third of the troops, easily defeated the south, captured four military towns in Hebei, including Wei Bo, and expanded its power to the north bank of the Yellow River.

Although the Meng brothers did not understand why the Son of Heaven did not take advantage of the victory to pursue, but ordered a truce, they knew very well that if the Jinyang side attacked with all its might, the Luoyang side would not be able to withstand it at all.

And because the officials and generals in Shu are far away from the Central Plains, the news is relatively closed, and the vast majority of people do not know this.

Since the pre-Qin period, after Li Bing and his son, the Taishou of Shu County of Qin State, dug Dujiangyan, the ability of the Chengdu Plain to resist natural disasters such as floods and droughts has been greatly enhanced. Chengdu Plain is fertile for thousands of miles, "water and drought from people, do not know famine, there is no famine year, called Tianfu", so it is called the country of abundance.

Compared with the war in the world for many years, Shu is relatively stable, rich in products, and the annual financial income is much more than that of the entire Hedong, which is also the confidence of these towns in the Later Tang Dynasty to enter Shu.

Meng Yifan picked up the cup and took a sip of tea and said, "Don't care about them first, how much can you earn from this trip?" ”

"I didn't calculate it carefully, I only knew that a silk cloth could be exchanged for a good horse in the north, and a horse sold to Shu could be exchanged for five silk cloths or three fine Shu brocades. This piece of brick tea can be exchanged for two sheep on the grassland, and if a sheep is rushed to Shuzhong, it can be exchanged for three pieces of tea. Our brothers are not materials for leading the army to fight, and now if we follow the Son of Heaven and get light, we can seal our wives and sons, and leave a few generations of wealth for future generations. If this is such a dangerous thing in the military town, let others fight for it. ”

Poverty is the norm in this era, even in the rich Shu land, unclothed homeless people can be seen everywhere. Shu is densely populated, and Li Qi wants to start from Qinzhou to open up to Hehuang, and the most lacking thing is manpower. Several Jindi businesses that went to Shu were also tasked with recruiting displaced people from Shu and going to Qinzhou for resettlement......

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