"Little four, I heard that you gave birth to a big fat boy last month, congratulations." Liangzhou, the capital of Hexi Province, is the location of Liangzhou in ancient Western China, after the development and continuous support of the hinterland over the years, Liangzhou has gradually gotten rid of the previous slow development situation, and the large factories and mining enterprises have also been established under the drive of the Yelu family. Moreover, Hexi has been the place where the Central Plains tribes have taken refuge since ancient times, and the cultural outlook and the education level of the local people are higher than those in other places.

Hu Xiaosi was a little embarrassed by Wan Yi's joking congratulations, and said with a smile: "I was sent to you by the emperor before I had time to make a full moon wine." It's going to be the end of the year if you don't do it well this time, and it's hard to be embarrassed by running around this year. ”

"The emperor asked you to come here to prepare for the end of the year? Winter in the northwest is not a good time to send troops, at least until March and April next year, otherwise I'm afraid that I will be put down by this damn weather before I fight. Wan Yi muttered a little: "For most of the past six months, I have planned and laid out the layout in Hexi according to next year's schedule, and if I send troops in advance, I am afraid that the road of the Hexi Corridor will be difficult to walk." ”

Hu Xiaosi patted Wan Yi's shoulder and said with a smile: "Don't worry, our emperor is more shrewd than anyone else, how could he not think of this?" I came to Hexi with the intention of going to the Guiyi Army to have a look, but I just received news from the grassland branch, and I am afraid that before we march into Anxi, we will have to fight another battle on the grassland. I don't know what is wrong with this Yaksians, assembling a large army on the Eastern Front, isn't this stirring our nerves? ”

"You mean that the emperor intends to start a war on the grassland first?" Wan Yi was a little shocked and said: "The empire has just ended the war on the southern front, and I'm afraid that the northern front will not be able to bear it again, right?" ”

"The operation on the northern front is mainly fast, and it will not be as protracted as the southern front, and our combat goal is not to fight city by city, but to attack the opponent's living targets, and the time should not be long. I heard that the General Staff has transferred Ge Cunzhou's corps and Gao Siji's corps to the west and is preparing to participate in the northern front. Hu Xiaosi paused and said: "And this matter did not disturb the interest of our emperor, I heard that he and Qiaoxi are inspecting the industrial development of the country together." ”

"Your Majesty, this is preparing for Anxi." Wan Yi nodded and said solemnly: "Before the war, rectify the interior and release the national strength, this is not relaxed for the Anxi side." ”

"Yes, I heard that the subsidy fund of the Ministry of Finance alone for the replacement of coke in the smelting industry this year has reached as much as 70 million Tang yuan, which is determined to use the war to accelerate economic development. Moreover, the procurement department of the logistics department has begun to send orders to several large domestic factories to reserve materials in winter. Hu Xiaosi knew much more than Wan Yi, but he was still very impressed by Wan Yi for seeing Li Xuanqing's purpose at a glance, and nodded: "And the industrial group mortgaged all the year's income to Qian Zhuang for the matter of the Fengzhou Railway before, if it weren't for the face of the captain of the navy and Xu Xingxia's voyage, I am afraid that the emperor will go bankrupt." ”

When the two of them discussed Li Xuanqing's actions in Liangzhou, Li Xuanqing had already brought Qiaoxi to Yantai Port in Shandong, which is currently the largest port city in Shandong and an important part of the Bohai Bay Economic Circle, and its importance even exceeds that of Qingzhou, the seat of governance in Shandong Province.

"Big brother, why did you change Laizhou to Yantai, it seems that these two places are not right, right?" Qiaoxi was also very helpless about Li Xuanqing's prank-like method, but he didn't say anything, the place names of the Tang Dynasty were really difficult to remember, they were all from what state and what state, and many of them were repeated, and they couldn't be remembered at all, or the place names of later generations were easy to remember.

"But Shandong's development is very good, Yantai now seems to be the country's largest salt industry base, right? Seafood is abundant. Qiaoxi nodded and said, "There is a smell of pickled products everywhere." ”

"Don't talk about this, I heard that Xingxia is even going to sell these overseas this time, and their trade object this time has added the Sanhan region, and Xuan Yingwei has also sent people over, and it is much faster to go by sea than from the northeast." Li Xuanqing didn't have much idea, and said with a smile: "I heard that Japan and Sanhan are still short of salt near the sea, which is strange." ”

"This should be due to the climate, and we can't dry salt directly, so although it is close to the sea, it can't be used." Qiaoxi remembered some sayings from later generations, and said with a smile: "Shandong seems to be a good place to build a large-scale refined salt processing base and develop by-products." ”

Li Xuanqing was noncommittal about Qiaoxi's statement, just a coal chemical industry, and it took several years to make a few simple products, and the deep processing of this salt industry may not be so difficult. However, this matter can be explained, and the laboratory can take the lead.

The two talked and laughed, transferred from Yantai to Dengzhou, and then turned back to Qingzhou, and found Chen Wenyuan, the political envoy of Shandong. In fact, the development of Shandong is still relatively rapid, its own foundation is also relatively good, in the two years in Shandong to establish a lot of large enterprises, but the lack of a heavy industry industry logo, the later generations of Shandong and the Central Plains are basically the development of heavy industry, now on the contrary, on the road of light industry. However, Li Xuanqing did not intend to correct it, with the gradual completion of the deployment of the Northeast Industrial Belt, it was basically able to support the development of the empire's economy. Therefore, when facing the large population province and embarking on the road of light industry, Li Xuanqing and Qiaoxi reacted indifferently. In fact, in the early days of the later industrial revolution, light industry, especially the cotton textile industry, was at the forefront of all industries.

However, in this life, the rise of the cotton textile industry advocated by Li Xuanqing and Qiaoxi was not long ago, and several large-scale cotton textile enterprises took root in the north last year, and the weaving industry in the south of the Yangtze River except for a few leading enterprises using the latest looms, the rest are still dominated by handicraft workshops, and a small number of water looms are used, but they have not yet formed a scale for a while. On the contrary, several silk merchants in the south of the Yangtze River and the new cotton textile giants in the north joined hands to invest in the development of the latest looms and spinning machines, which made Li Xuanqing and Qiaoxi see new hope.

After the two talked with Chen Wenyuan from Shandong, they put forward specific guidance on Shandong's economic development, and in view of the current light industry and agriculture in Shandong, Li Xuanqing asked Chen Wenyuan to try to negotiate with the five wealthy families on this basis, and find a way to open some mining enterprises in places with relatively rich mineral resources, so as to promote the economic development of the entire place at one time. As for Chen Wenyuan's current main focus on tourism, Li Xuanqing also expressed his support, but in a short period of time, because the country has just settled down, there are certainly not many people who have the ability to carry out this new type of consumption activities, but businessmen from the south to the north will pass by several major cities along the canal, and they will stop to consume, which is right.

"The population still can't keep up." On the way south from Shandong to the Central Plains, Li Xuanqing sighed, although the late Tang Dynasty let himself plow the court and sweep the holes to shorten the time of turmoil by more than half, but after the Anshi Rebellion and the Huangchao Uprising, the population of the Tang Empire plummeted by more than half from the peak of more than 200 million, according to the population statistics of the Ministry of Civil Affairs last year, the total population of the country is only about 60 million, not to mention the Central Plains region that has been broken, even the Jiangnan region, which has been prosperous, is much more depressed than the prosperous era, and there is no motivation without population. There is no consumer market.

"Big brother, don't worry, with the unification of the empire and the increase in the speed of economic development, the population will increase greatly." Qiaoxi knew Li Xuanqing's thoughts, and stood at the bow of the boat with him and comforted. In fact, if it weren't for the lack of population, Li Xuanqing would not have needed to open up ocean routes so early to find another market. In the early days, the development of light industry was very fast, and if we could not find the market in advance and open up sales channels, I was afraid that the future would soon lose its vitality because of the narrow market, which Li Xuanqing absolutely could not tolerate. It's just that everything else can be raised, but the population is not in a hurry.

"In a huge Central Plains Province, the population of last year was only more than 2 million, which is the most densely populated place in later generations." The Central Plains Province demarcated by Li Xuanqing was actually a part of Henan Province in later generations, but there is really no way to say that the total population is compared with later generations.

"Big brother, Bianzhou has arrived, let's go see Wang Yan and see how he is doing here. The Central Plains is closer to Guanzhong than Shandong, and it is connected by railway, so it should be better. Qiaoxi looked at Bianzhou City, which was already in front of him, and said with a smile: "The Central Plains region is the land of Longxing since ancient times, located in the plain, with convenient transportation, in addition to the canal and the railway, it will not be bad." After the two took the guards ashore, Wang Yan had already greeted them outside the city of Bianzhou, and after entering the city, Li Xuanqing inquired about the development of the Central Plains.

Because of the dredging of the canal in the first half of the year, the speed of the development of the transportation industry is indeed very fast, the towns on both sides of the canal have benefited a lot from the busy shipping traffic, each developing its own characteristic industries, and with the help of the canal to the north and south for sale, and because it is the first stop in the east of the Guandong, it also needs to carry a large number of materials to the west into the task of entering the Guanzhong, so basically the major wharves along the line are very large and perfect, and the merchant ships that come and go are also constantly unloading cargo in these ports.

However, Wang Yan's main energy is different from that of political envoys in other places, and the main direction of his development after taking charge of the Central Plains is agriculture, and it took more than a year for this guy to restore all the farmland in the Central Plains Province in the past, taking advantage of the fact that there are several large military camps in the Central Plains all the year round and some of the military are stationed here, in addition to the civilian reclamation plan, he also established 15 large farms at once, encouraging the common people to plant cash crops, and the farms are responsible for planting food crops. Even in order to inspect which cash crops are more profitable, Wang Yan even organized several groups of officials to go to Fengzhou and Jiangnan and other places to investigate, and came back to directly guide the people to plant, so that the people's income has increased a lot, and the large farms have adopted the latest mechanical farming and cattle ploughing measures at the same time, grain production has also entered the fast lane, and the surplus grain is not only supplied to Guanzhong and several northern provinces, but also encouraged the local wealthy to form the first grain deep processing enterprise cluster in the Tang Empire, in addition to the initial rice and noodlesIt also began to cooperate with enterprises in the Hanzhong area to produce bread and other flour products invented before Qiaoxi and sell them to other places. Among them, the exquisitely made bread even surpassed the Hezhong area and entered the upper consumer market of Chang'an and other big cities.

"Your Majesty, Niangniang, Weichen was also forced to come up with this solution in the Central Plains." Wang Yan also explained with a wry smile that he had made this plan at the beginning, the agricultural development in the Central Plains was originally very good, and Zhu Quanzhong vigorously developed agriculture when he was in power, so this foundation was still there after Tiance Army took over. After Wang Yan took office, he found that although land reform had been implemented in the Central Plains, most of the big families still had a great interest in land and agriculture, so he thought about how to channel these funds into economic development, and finally developed such an economic pattern.

"Even if it is crooked, it is rare for anyone to calm down and develop agriculture when industry and commerce are booming. Moreover, I thought of the industrial chain of deep processing of agricultural products. Li Xuanqing nodded, although it was a bit dangerous for the "collapse of the Central Plains" in his industrial map, but he still didn't say anything, after all, agriculture is the foundation, and without agriculture there would be no industry and commerce. Li Xuanqing still has a lot of ways to deal with the deep processing of agricultural products, and a few common methods in later generations are enough for Wang Yan to digest for a while. However, thinking that the Central Plains Province only had a population of more than two million, Li Xuanqing shook his head again, and did not have much hope for it. However, it is obvious that Wang Yan still has his own ideas, and a large part of the finished products processed by his agricultural products have been purchased by the army, and only some of them are exported to other provinces, so when he heard Li Xuanqing's method, Wang Yan secretly remembered it in his heart, and went back to figure out how to apply it to practice.

After separating from Wang Yan, Qiaoxi did not go to Luoyang, but continued to travel south by boat, after the canal was re-dredged, the current Grand Canal is naturally more than twice as wide as the previous generation, and the navigable capacity is definitely much stronger than that of later generations, and the more south the busier. When we arrived in Huainan Province, you could already see sporadic new freighters billowing black smoke.

It seems that the Tianjin shipyard should expand again, otherwise relying on the shipyards in Hangzhou and Guangzhou will not be able to cope with the replacement of this ship. The advantage of the new freighter in the inland river is actually greater than that of the sea, because the inland river water flow is gentle, and the sailboat can only rely on the oars to provide power when there is no wind, which is too far worse than the new freighter, especially the cargo ship, the general download weight is very large, and the oars alone can not go much waterway a day.

"As soon as I entered, I asked Brother Zhang to come to the south to investigate, but the south does not have the same good industrial conditions as Shenzhou and Tianjin, and if the materials needed for shipbuilding need to be transported here from Shenzhou, it is better to build them in Tianjin." Qiaoxi smiled: "Where is the southern industrial center in the big brother's plan?" ”

Qiaoxi's sentence turned Li Xuanqing down, the southern industrial center is a question he has been thinking about for a while, but there is no good place to think about it, at this time there are only a few big cities such as Hangzhou and Jinling in the south of the Yangtze River, and other places such as Yangzhou and other places have basically been beaten into ruins, and the south, especially this generation, is afraid that there may not be suitable coal and iron resources for mining.

"Qiaoxi, what do you think would be if a shipyard was built in the Chaohu area, that is, in the Luzhou area? Specializing in river vessels. Li Xuanqing pondered for a moment and said: "If it is set up in Luzhou, then I can basically find a way to solve the coal and iron resources, and the most important thing is that a real southern industrial center can be established near here." ”

"Big brother is talking about the Lianghuai Coal Mine and the iron mine in Ma'anshan?" Qiaoxi suddenly understood Li Xuanqing's thoughts, but frowned and said, "Is this too close to Ezhou?" We are not the next generation, and we can't consume too much steel, unless? After a pause, he was surprised: "Big brother means that he is ready to build Shanghai?" Qiaoxi's words were interrupted by Li Xuanqing before she finished speaking, but she still couldn't stop the excited look on her face.