The sea breeze mixed with the moist and salty smell blew slowly towards Chishan Port.

In the summer of the third year of Xianqing, a fleet of ships was entering port.

On the dock, countless people are looking forward to it, lining up to welcome.

"It's coming, it's coming, the blue nine-headed Jiaoqi is here!"

Dengzhou Thorn Shi took Chishan County Ling and other officials, as well as the treasurers of the thirteen lines of Chishan Port, all got up.

Together with the laborers loading and unloading the goods on the wharf, the captains and sailors on the ships in the harbor all stopped their movements and greeted the ship slowly entering the port wharf.

The blue nine-headed Jiaoqi represents a person.

That is Lanxi Li Xi, he also has a name on this coast, and everyone privately calls him King Anton and King of the Sea.

This man came here from Chang'an and set up a flagpole in this desolate little Haipu, and three years later, it has become the most emerging and lively harbor in Datang.

Countless merchant ships gathered, covering almost the entire trade between Haidong and the Tang Dynasty, slaves from Goguryeo, handmaidens from Silla, grain from Baekje, silver and copper from the Wa Kingdom, and leather goods from the Shoji Kingdom.

The auction hall of the port is full every day, and the transaction volume of slaves in this port city alone is around 100,000 a year, and now not only the Goguryeo slaves in Haidong, the slaves of the Young, the slaves of Baekje, the slaves of Silla, the slaves of the Wa Kingdom, the slaves of Ezo, and even the northern barbarians of the Rogue Kingdom and other places in the more distant northeast land also appear on the exchange.

And there are many slaves from the South China Sea, many merchant ships sail from the South Seas, full of all kinds of swarthy slaves, there are barbarians from Jiaozhou, Linyi and other places, there are also barbarians from the islands of the South China Sea, anyway, no matter where the barbarians are, in the eyes of those slave hunters and slave traders, it is valuable.

And Chishan Port has now become the largest slave port in Datang.

Every year, 100,000 slaves were bought and sold here, and some of these slaves were transported to Chang'an, some were sold to Zhudao to mine and farm, many were relegated to various parts of the frontier to reclaim the fields, and some were even transported to Andong Province in the former Baekje and Silla to plant, mine, and work.

The huge trade has driven this port, and the rapid development of Haidong Andong Road in recent years has made this Andong-Zhongtu transshipment port pointed out by Li Xiao change with each passing day.

The rise of Chishan Port is also inseparable from the support of many Chang'an magnates, in fact, Chishan Port has long become the interests of various magnates.

There are thirteen lines in Chishan, not ordinary guilds, but trading houses, thirteen super huge trading houses, each of which has the union of several or even dozens of powerful families behind it.

Basically, all the industries in Chishan Port are now monopolized in the hands of these thirteen commercial banks.

Chishan Port starts from Li Xiao and becomes in the Thirteen Lines.

The thirteen lines pay more than 100,000 commercial taxes to the imperial court every year, and each commercial bank pays as much as 10,000 guan a year, and this is only the commercial tax.

In the past three years, the Thirteen Lines have donated a total of one million taels of silver to the imperial court and the royal family in the name of the emperor's ten thousand saints, the queen's birthday, the prince's birthday, the expedition to the Western Turks, the town of Andong, and the Tuguhun.

This is a donation of silver, not money.

Chishan Port is mainly traded, the transaction volume is large, so it is mainly based on silver trading, they use the silver dollar minted by Anton Money Zhuang, a silver dollar is one or two, the actual silver contains eight money eight, this silver dollar casting standard, not easy to forge, do not need to weigh can be directly traded according to the face value, easy to use, and there are Anton Money Zhuang's silver tickets as an auxiliary, the use of silver tickets is even more convenient, which leads to the Chishan Port now only see silver dollars and silver ticket transactions, do not see the Central Plains money and silk transactions, only in small transactions will use money and silk.

A silver dollar is worth one tael, but because of its good fineness, casting standards, and high credit, it can still be exchanged for five copper coins.

Contributing one million taels of silver to the imperial court in three years is actually a tribute of five million yuan.

This amount of money is huge, even more than the traditional four ports of the imperial court, Dengzhou Port, Yangzhou Port, Mingzhou Port, Guangzhou Port, the four major ports pay taxes to the imperial court every year, which is far less than Chishan Port, and even the tax revenue of Hangzhou Port and Quanzhou Port, which have emerged in recent years, is even more out of reach.

It is precisely because of this huge contribution that the imperial court favored Chishan Port and gave full support.

There are thirteen lines in Chishan, each row occupies one block, so Chishan Port now has thirteen streets. Behind every commercial house is a background to the sky, but even if it is these thirteen lines that go through the sky, the shopkeepers of each bank have personally come to the dock to greet Li Xiao.

The shopkeepers of the Thirteen Banks and the Chang'an magnates behind them all know that the prosperity of Chishan Port and the huge profits of the Thirteen Banks today are inseparable from Li Xiao.

Li Xiao is the founder of Chishan Port, and the development of Chishan in the past three years has relied on Li Xiao as a guide.

What's more, Li Xiao himself is also the owner behind the Thirteen Lines, and there are a lot of profitable transactions in Chishan Port, and there are all members of the Lanxi Li family behind it.

The ship enters the harbor and docks.

"Dashuai, the Dengzhou Thorn History and the Shopkeeper of the Thirteen Lines of Chishan have all come to the dock to greet you."

Li Xiao stood on the deck and looked at Chishan Port carefully, he knew that Chishan was developing very well, but he had been staying in Andong for the past few years and had no time to come back. This was the first time he had seen Chishan Port again in three years, and when he left, it was still in its infancy, but now, it is really prosperous.

The huge wharf, the tall city walls, the hundreds of ships moored in the port, and the countless ant-like laborers on the wharf all fully illustrate the great vitality of this port.

And all this, he, Li Xiao, is the initiator.

"I've officially stepped down as the envoy of Andong Dao, so don't call me handsome." Li Xiao was holding a scroll in his hand.

"Doctor Jin Ziguanglu, Shangzhu Guo, Prince Young Master, Prince Zhan Shi, Secretary and Supervisor, Zhou Guogong."

This is now Li Xiao's latest official rank, originally from Chang'an, the emperor wanted Li Xiao to return to Beijing to be the secretary of the military department, and it was even rumored that he was going to pay homage to the prime minister in the political hall.

But in the end, the edict to him was given to him, and the official ministry was the secretary and supervisor and the prince Zhan Shi, two third-grade positions, but it was still far worse than the military department and the prime minister.

Li Xiao had long known that it was impossible for him to worship the prime minister.

But in the end, he didn't even give the military department a book, which was still a bit unexpected, he originally wanted to wait for the emperor to give him the military department book before he resigned, which saved trouble.

The secretary and the prince Zhan Shi are not really important positions, but they are relatively noble. The secretary and supervisor are the attendants of Emperor Zanxiang, and the crown prince Zhan Shi is an official of the East Palace, it is obvious that the court has also taken a lot of trouble to arrange for him to return to Beijing, and he is not willing to step into the core center in this step, and it is not easy to send a too casual position, so in the end two noble and clear three-grade posts were arranged.

Maybe he felt a little indebted, so the original Wen Shan Guanglu Doctor's Wen Shan rank was changed to Jin Zi Guanglu Da Doctor, which is the fourth level of the Wen Shan Rank, which is the third grade.

As for Shangzhuguo, it is a meritorious officer, similar to the Military Merit Medal, which is his meritorious service in guarding Anton.

In addition, his title was promoted to another level, originally as the Duke of Lelang, but this time he was directly promoted to the Duke of the Kingdom.

The food has been added by three hundred, and now it is 1,300 households with real food seals, the Tang Dynasty's Guogong is not unusual, there are no 1,800 Guogong in the court, but there are still 100 or so, if you add the county duke, the county duke, there are really 1,800.

However, there are fewer true feudal princes, and there are even fewer true feudal ones with more than 1,000 households, and even several prime ministers in the current court are not really feudal princes, that is, Li Ji and Li Daozong, the two feudal lords of a country with county kings, are higher than Li Xiao, and the rest such as Li Yifu and Xu Jingzong are not even fictitious feudal princes.

I have to say that Datang does still attach great importance to military exploits, and it is not false that military merits are knighted.