Chapter 457: The Road

Like the two cities of Chang'an, today's Ningyuan City Business District is extremely prosperous, and it is a paradise for caravans from all over the world, and it is more lively than one day. It is inevitable that dragons and snakes will be mixed when there are many people, and the business zone has become the best hiding place for various inconvenient identity forces.

In the back room of a newly opened rouge shop, a 'woman' and a young lady are talking in a low voice.

"Did you find anything?" The woman asked.

The little lady blushed and said, "That person is not an old man, he is actually a young man." ”

The 'woman' was angry and anxious: "I'm not talking about this, has the heaven-sent artifact been found?" ”

Xiao Niang said embarrassedly: "Not yet, I have turned over all his houses, but there is no object on the master's picture, but I guess he carries it with him." ”

"Then why don't you commit yourself to him and deceive him into trust? Once this kind of person gets on the 'bed', he will definitely not find the direction and don't know why, you just start! The woman's tone was reproachful and complaining.

"I," the little lady seemed to be in trouble, and her unwilling look was written all over her face. Once she was ready to dedicate herself, when Li Huaitang transformed from a bad old man in her impression into a mighty young man, for some reason, she began to resist in her heart, which she herself never expected.

The 'woman' sighed, his tone softened, and said: "Little mercy, I know that this matter is difficult for you, but you also know the importance of the divine object to your master on this day, even I can't persuade him, for the sake of it, even at the expense of giving you away, it is really a sin." That's it, you just bear with it, make some sacrifices, and when your master gets his wish, I will let your master accept you through the 'door', as for your family feud, your master has this thing to help, and there should be no difficulty in hating you for you. ”

The little pity in the mouth of the 'woman' is Pei Xiaoniang's newly accepted 'waiter' and 'girl', and she took the opportunity to go out to buy rouge gouache, and she connected with the black hand who controlled her behind the scenes. The persuasion of the 'woman' was very effective, and Xiao Pian, who was still a little angry just now, nodded and acquiesced, which was regarded as a surrender to fate.

The 'woman' breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Go back, make a move as soon as possible, find me when you succeed, and I will take you out of the city and back to Datang." ”

Xiao Lian left, left the Rouge Workshop, and returned to the back 'door' of the General's Mansion in a trance.

"Huh? Is it a little pity? A carriage passed by, and there was a surprise in the carriage, and the carriage stopped with the surprise. Xiao Lian followed the prestige, only to see a person walking down from the carriage, this person was a little familiar.

"Forgot me? I'm Shang Qi, I was there when the princess rescued you that day. Shang Qi was a little disappointed, and his favorite little beauty had no impression of him.

Just like the first time they met, Xiao Lian glared at Shang Qi again in disgust. Because he was in a bad mood, he didn't even give him a handout, and just walked away.

"Wait for me," Shang Qi caught up from behind, "Where is Xiao Lian going?" Why don't you get in my carriage and I'll give you a ride. ”

"Thanks, I'll go back to the General's Mansion." Xiao Lian angrily rejected Shang Qi's kindness. Although the attitude was cold, the deadlock was broken after all.

Shang Qi was as enthusiastic as ever, and said with a smile: "Just on the same road!" I'm also going to the General's Palace, and I'm going out of the city with the General to do something. Well, it's a bit stuffy in the carriage, and it's not bad to walk, it's almost there anyway. ”

Xiao Lian didn't answer, and continued walking, suddenly stopping and staring blankly at the tall stone statue in the central square.

Shang Qi couldn't help but wonder and asked, "What's so nice about this, old man!" ”

"Tell me, what are the three big gold lacquer characters written under the stone statue?" Xiao Pian's question was very strange in Shang Qi's ears, isn't it just three words, worthy of such a dignified look?

"Lu Wancheng." Shang Qi's tone was very disdainful: "We usually call him Master Lu, and he supervises the repair of this city...... Ouch! ”

The gushing is truncated by pain, and the little beauty leaves a footprint on his instep for no reason. And the domineering little beauty suddenly trotted away, and Shang Qi faintly heard the evil words left by the little beauty: Why didn't you say it earlier......

The farm is in the east of Ningyuan City, across the Yeji River and Ningyuan City, covering an area of hundreds of acres, after more than half a year of intensive construction has been completed.

The entire farm is surrounded by a stone wall, which is used to defend against wild predators from harming the birds in the farm. The farm is divided into two pieces, with the east and west as the boundary, the east two-thirds is maggot breeding, and the west piece is the 'chicken' duck pen.

Accompanying Li Huaitang to the site were partners such as Shang Qi and the two brothers of the Kang family. Kang Shalai is very 'shrewd', and Li Huaitang's optimistic projects have always been indispensable to him, and he has to squeeze in to smash pots and sell iron. There is a sentence from the mouth of Li Huaitang, which he firmly cites as his motto: There are no eternal friends, only eternal interests. This very philosophical sentence, Kansarai not only remembered, but also took it as a code of conduct, that is, to intertwine his own interests with Li Huaitang's interests as much as possible. In fact, his actions are a bit redundant, even if he doesn't take the initiative to move closer to Li Huaitang, Li Huaitang will tie him to the same chariot of interests.

The visit starts with a 'chicken' coop.

"In normal times, outsiders should be strictly prohibited from entering and leaving to reduce the possibility of the spread of the plague."

"This 'chicken' coop had better spread more lime on the ground floor!"

Li Huaitang suddenly turned into a breeding expert, and made unfathomable guidance, and no one could refute it for a while.

"Lime?" Shang Qi was puzzled, he admitted that the general was very good at fighting, well, the beautiful little lady who was 'confused' and 'confused' was also an expert, but when should he become an expert in raising 'chickens'?

Li Huaitang said vaguely: "Lime can prevent the plague. ”

"Really? Strange, how did I not know? Shang Qi scratched his head, for this farm, he consulted a lot of people and read a lot of books, what Li Huaitang said was not within the scope of his knowledge, it was very fresh.

"Hehe, this is what the experts said, and I don't tell him in general." Li Huaitang pretended to be mysterious and winked at Shang Qi.

Shang Qi seemed to understand, and nodded resolutely and solemnly, although he didn't understand what the expert meant.

The farm constitutes a semi-closed food chain, and the bottom of its energy pyramid is sand sugar, from which a large number of maggots live, and then the maggots pass on to poultry such as chickens and ducks, and finally put them on the dining table of the military and civilians in Ningyuan City in the form of eggs and meat.

Without sugar, the farm cannot function. Therefore, Li Huaitang is most concerned about the source and acquisition of sand sugar.

What is worrying is that the sugar comes from the distant Tianzhu, Da Bolu and Datang Jiannan Road, not to mention the long distance, but also easy to be controlled by others, even if the trade route is unblocked, in case of any unexpected fork in the critical moment resulting in no supply, the farm will be abandoned, not to mention the heavy losses, there will be a serious food shortage.

In this regard, Li Huaitang expressed concern, although Shang Qi had pre-filled the warehouse area with more than a dozen warehouses of sugar as an emergency reserve before the farm was put into operation.

"Don't worry, General, we can build our own sugar mill." The accompanying Kang Mozi seemed to rain in time and gave advice.

Kang Mozi is a typical old fox who is only cautious all his life. At the beginning of Li Huaitang's fortune, he was unwilling to take risks, but let his younger brother Kang Shalai follow Li Huaitang, who had good potential, and now seeing that the overall situation was about to be decided, he did not hesitate to abandon the foundation of Shi Guo, and moved his family to Ningyuan City, completing the gorgeous transformation of the original shareholder status and obtaining huge "investment" returns.

For this speculator, Li Huaitang did not refuse, showing a broad 'mind' that embraces all rivers. However, Boss Kang's idea did not surprise him, the fundamental problem of sand sugar is not in the workshop, but in the raw materials, sugar cane is needed to squeeze sugarcane, and sugarcane is only planted in Tianzhu and other places in the tropics, Ningyuan City is located in the temperate zone, although the temperature difference between winter and summer is large enough, but the accumulated temperature throughout the year is insufficient.

"Listen to me, the general tells me that we don't need sugar cane in our sugar mill, we can use sugar beet, and we can grow sugar beet in large quantities here." The key to Konsalai is that he didn't dare to sell the guanzi, and poured the beans directly into the bamboo tube.

After being reminded by Boss Kang, Li Huaitang's eyes lit up, and he remembered the second child of sugar crops, nature was unpredictable, and gave sugarcane to the tropics, and quickly 'made' a beet to compensate for the temperate zone.

"We have beets here?" Li Huaitang slapped his hand on Kang Mosa's shoulder in surprise, like an executioner who was 'forced' to confess.

The answer is yes. Sugar beet originated on the Mediterranean coast and spread to Central Asia hundreds of years ago, and was cultivated in both Kang and Shiguo, which is not only edible, but also used as feed for cattle and horses, and is extremely nutritious.

"Well, very good, I will let Wu 'Meng' take charge of the cultivation of this sugar beet, and for the time being, I will use Yi Wei's farm to experiment, as for the sugar mill, as usual! We jointly fund the construction, the long-term capacity planning can be designed to be large, divided into phases to build, the scale of the first phase does not need to be too large, the right to experiment, accumulate experience and then expand, and at the same time guide the planting scale of sugar beet, do not swarm beet. ”

Today, Li Huaitang has almost become a weather vane for all walks of life in Ningyuan City, and he is worried that his actions will cause a 'tide' of sugar beet planting, which will affect the production of staple grains and bring 'waves' to the regime under his rule.

Moreover, large-scale cultivation of a crop is not a one-time thing, there is no good seed, there is no mastery of its growth laws and characteristics, and if you want to succeed, unless you encounter a miracle, myths can do. For example, rice, from the red belt to the three provinces of Northeast China is not the beginning of the layout, is a process of development and accumulation, the rice planted in the Northeast is different from the tropics, even in the Tang Dynasty, rice is only introduced to the Yellow River Basin, the rice planted in Liaodong and the Great Northern Wilderness in later generations are slowly cultivated.

Of course, if it's just for food, it's easy to grow sugar beets, and you don't need to pay attention to it. First of all, sugar beet is a biennial plant, unlike rice and wheat that are harvested when they are ripe, sugar beet in the first year of biological maturity period is to be judged by artificial experience, estimated. Touch the sugar content of the highest time to harvest, otherwise, the difference of a millimeter, a thousand miles, the sugar rate directly determines its value, just imagine, a certain year under the rule of Li Huaitang, half of all sugar beets are defective, then the impact on Ningyuan's economy is not ordinary, vegetable farmers are damaged, sugar mills are at a loss, and the farm is unsustainable......

It is precisely for this reason that the role of the farm as a test plot is based on this, and it is only after the best planting techniques have been discovered that the scale of the farm is gradually expanded, and the sugar mill is also the same, step by step.

Li Huaitang's explanation was reasonable, beyond everyone's horizon, and aroused a voice of sincere admiration.

In addition to this farm, Li Huaitang's cooperation with Shang Qi and the Kang family can be seen everywhere, the heaviest weight is the mine, and the capture of Shiguo means that the largest silver mine in the Hezhong region has become Ningyuan's asset, which means that they have another common interest.

Turning to the mine, Shang Qi began to complain: "There is no problem with operation, let alone capital, but the number of slaves is a bit troublesome." ”

"Not enough? How much is missing? Li Huaitang frowned, in the first battle of Shi Guo, the Tuqi prisoners and Shi Guo prisoners he captured were 50,000 at least, how big is this Shang Qi's appetite?

Shang Qi smiled bitterly: "It's not less, on the contrary, it's too much!" Yesterday, Lu joined the army and asked me to go through the acceptance procedures, my head is big, and I can't afford to raise too many strong slaves. ”

Theoretically, there is great power in numbers, but the production capacity depends on the face of the market, and no matter how much production cannot be sold, it is equivalent to a 'waste' of expenses, and slaves just do not have to pay wages, and food cannot be saved. The output of the coal mine has far filled the stomachs of the two cities of Ningyuan, even if the newly developed Shi Guomi and others are added, it cannot be digested, so Shang Qi also plans to discuss with Li Huaitang to reduce the number of strong slaves.

Li Huaitang laughed and said: "This is simple, try to be as simple as possible, the surplus strong slaves in the four mines will be returned to me, and I will let Master Lu take them to build roads!" ”

"Build roads?!" The crowd seemed to smell something.

"Yes, if you want to get rich, you must first build roads. The road is open, and the gold is ten thousand taels! "Pirated the classics of later generations, Li Huaitang had no shameless consciousness, and he still looked complacent.

In Li Huaitang's concept, first build a road from the mines near Ningyuan City to Ningyuan City, and then connect Ningyuan City, Xijian City and Zhezhi City with a main road, and this main road will eventually continue to the east, cross the Alai Mountain Pass, to Huangshi, to the Gelu Mountain Pass, and go straight to the Tang Dynasty. The so-called avenue is all made of gravel and sandwich cement, which is not muddy and does not sink the wheels in rainy days, and is suitable for horse-drawn carriages to move quickly, similar to the highways of later generations.

"Datang?!" Everyone was surprised again, Li Huaitang gave them the road blueprint let them see unlimited business opportunities, at present, Ningyuan's largest trading country is Datang, once such a road is built, it will greatly shorten the time on the trade road, originally the caravan can only run three times a year, because of the existence of the avenue, maybe two more round-trips, the speed of turnover means that profits will increase significantly.

Shang Qi and Kang Shalai glanced at each other, and the expressions of the two of them appeared at the same time. The surplus capacity that had been feared would soon be no problem, and the clear roads would take away more product, and the workshops in the city would certainly consume more coal to satisfy the appetite of the caravans...... Please keep in mind the URL, if you like "War Owl in Tang" written by the wolf under the moon