The problem of money was solved, and Wang Qiang finally went to a heart disease. With the money, the Yamen of the Special Administrative Region once again recruited migrant workers on a large scale, and the construction of the market was launched in an all-round way. Wang Qiang entrusted Shang Dayong and Tian Jingming with the construction of the special zone, and he himself led a team of men and horses to Yanzhou in Shandong, the purpose of which was to inspect the condition of the canal along the way and make arrangements for dredging the canal.

Due to the financial constraints of the imperial court, the canal fell into disrepair year after year, and the embankments collapsed in many places and were blocked by silt. Wang Qiang carried a lot of silver, walked along the canal all the way to investigate, encountered a disrepaired section of the river, and arranged dredging construction on the spot. Because of the grain release at the beginning, Wang Qiang was quite popular in Zhili and Shandong, and he now held heavy power and was in the limelight, and the local officials and river yamen did not dare to touch his moldy head, and they all supported him, so the recruitment of migrant workers, dredging the river, and repairing the embankment and dams were arranged very smoothly.

In mid-July, Wang Qiang and his entourage finally arrived in Yanzhou before the rainy season. On July 20, a rainstorm came as scheduled, the water level of the canal soared, Wang Qiang gave an order, opened the gate to release, and the cargo ship Yang Fan set sail and went north along the Grand Canal, so far the canal dredging was completed!

The navigation of the canal can greatly shorten the journey of freight transportation between the north and the south, reduce the cost of cargo reversal, and greatly facilitate the circulation of materials and the development of commerce and trade between the north and the south. Just a few months ago, Wang Qiang killed Yang Lichang, the prefect of Yanzhou, here and used military rations to help the victims, and became famous, but this time it was in just over a month that he dredged the canal channel and completed this "impossible" huge project, and his reputation was even greater for a while.

As soon as the canal was opened, Wang Qiang and his entourage returned to the north non-stop, and it was already early August when they returned to the Tongzhou Special Economic Zone. When Wang Qiang returned to the Special Economic Zone, the troika was all in place, and the construction process of the Special Economic Zone was accelerated again. Wang Qiang convened the people to discuss and revise the plan for the construction of the market, and according to the current process, the opening of the market was advanced by two months, because of the abundance of funds and manpower, they planned to pay for the renovation of the official road from Tongzhou to the capital, and at the same time decided to dig a canal between the canal and the brick river to connect the canal water system with the water system of the capital, so that the goods of the special zone could be transported directly to the capital through the waterway.

Wang Qiang was favored by Emperor Chongzhen, full of thoughts of repaying the favor of the monarch and being a famous minister, and devoted himself to the construction of the Special Economic Zone.

Now Wang Qiang's calligraphy is almost practiced, and he writes letters to Chongzhen every once in a while, from the strategy of governing the country to the trivial matters at work. That Chongzhen is not too difficult, almost every letter must be replied, and most of them are in favor of words of encouragement, and when there are different opinions, they also write down the reasons in detail, as if they were discussed. He also picked out the white characters and typos in Wang Qiang's letter one by one, drew circles, and marked the correct writing on the side. The two gentlemen and ministers communicate smoothly and complement each other, whenever Wang Qiang encounters difficulties and resistance, Chongzhen will help him solve it with a will, and no one in the six cabinets dares to hinder him. Wang Qiang has the full support of Chongzhen and the cabinet, there are no taboos in doing things, it is inevitable that there are violations and transgressions, Li Yifang, the chief eunuch of the East Factory, has reported these situations to Chongzhen several times, but found that Chongzhen has known these things for a long time, many of them are Chongzhen's own ideas, and after touching a few noses, he was deflated, and no longer dared to touch Wang Qiang's moldy head. The two of them work together, and the construction of this special zone will not be able to be achieved soon!

On October 1, the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the special zone trade market was officially opened for business!

Today, the market infrastructure of the Special Economic Zone has been fully constructed, and the planning is reasonable and the functions are complete. At the entrance to the border of the Special Administrative Region from the official road of the capital, there is a tall and wide archway, and the left and right couplets read: "Nantong Prefecture North Tongzhou, North and South Tongzhou Tong North; The East Canal and the West Canal, the East and West Canal transport things! "Horizontal batch:" fair trade. "It was mentioned by Emperor Chongzhen's imperial pen. The streets inside the zone are wide and smooth, and the zone is divided into several functional areas by two horizontal and six vertical, and signs are set up at all crossings to indicate the functions of the zone.

The rules for trading in the SEZs were formulated by Wang Qiang with reference to the experience of modern society, and bulk goods related to the national economy and the people's livelihood, such as grain, coal, iron ore, and timber, were purchased and underwritten by the SEZ market, which was in fact a wholesale business, while goods such as vegetables, medicinal herbs, jewelry, farm tools, silk, and regional specialties were freely traded by merchants renting stalls.

China has a vast territory and abundant products, and there are great differences in production between regions, and the demand for material exchanges is strong, and the price difference between regions is also very high. In the late Ming Dynasty, there were already a large number of businessmen specializing in trade, and inter-regional trade also had a certain scale, and gradually formed a non-governmental chamber of commerce organization represented by the region, such as Jin merchants, Hui merchants, and Zhejiang merchants. However, due to the inconvenient transportation and backward means of information communication, coupled with the chaos of the world, the cost of private trade is very high, the risk is extremely high, the transportation of goods from the north and south takes several months, often when it goes is the goods that are urgently needed locally, and when the goods are transported back after a few months, there are already many that cannot be sold, coupled with the government taxes and robbers along the way, it is very difficult to make money through trade.

The establishment of this special zone trade market has effectively solved many problems in the trade between the north and the south. Tongzhou is located between the north and the south, relying on the canal, close to the capital, and the transportation is convenient, which greatly shortens the route and time of the north-south goods trade; The special zone is duty-free, which can save the cost of trade; The SEZ market is a large-scale operation, with a complete range of goods and well-informed information, and businessmen can trade in the SEZ with simple procedures and high efficiency.

As soon as the SEZ market opened, merchants from all over the world flocked to the market, and in less than a month, all the stalls in the market were sold out. Tongzhou was originally a transportation artery connecting the north and the south, and now this large market has been built, and it has soon become a distribution center for material exchanges between the north and the south. On the official roads leading to Tongzhou, pedestrians, carriages, and sedan chairs are flowing endlessly every day; The section of the waterway leading to the canal in the brick river is also full of sails, shuttling back and forth; On the docks of the SAR, all the yards and warehouses are full of goods; In the trading hall, the merchants who came to trade were bustling and lively.

In addition to the income from renting and selling stalls, the wholesale business of bulk goods is also the main source of profits, and the bulk goods are purchased by the trade market in a unified manner, and then wholesaled after a reasonable profit. Tian Jingming is the general ledger of the Special Administrative Region, and every day he takes a group of clerks to crack and calculate the accounts, and at the end of the month, he takes stock and gouges all kinds of expenses, and the trade market actually makes a profit of more than 300,000 taels of silver! Looking at the large amount of silver tickets and white silver handed over by the tent, Wang Qiang was so happy that he didn't sleep all night.