Cheng Kaikai's eyes lit up at that time.

I was worried about having no business just now, so I gave the Governor a house, and the business was there immediately.

Of course, he really didn't believe that Su Baiyi would talk to him about business because of a house.

A set of mansions in Guide Mansion, even if it is the residence of the former richest man in Guide Mansion, it is nothing in the eyes of the two!

In terms of the price of the Ming Dynasty, in the kind of land in Beijing, where every inch of land is valuable, and the closest place outside the imperial city to the inner city, a small courtyard house is only 580 taels of silver, and it will not exceed 200 taels at most.

Correspondingly, in a slightly more remote place, two thousand taels of silver can almost buy a super mansion.

In a place like Guide Mansion, an ordinary farmhouse is about three or five taels of silver, the courtyard house in Guide City is about twenty or thirty taels, and no matter how luxurious the Mu family's house is, it will not exceed two thousand taels.

Two thousand taels of silver, whether it is for the opening of Ju Shangcheng or for Su Baiyi, it is a trivial matter.

This time, when he returned home from Beijing, he was named Pingdongbo, and the Su family received six holy decrees in a row, and his reputation in Guide Mansion was unparalleled for a while, and those who came to give gifts and visit broke through the threshold. Su Baiyi remembered that the most generous was the old man Chen of the Chen family, it was the old man Chen who helped Su Baiyi deliver the two children, and when he came over, he gave a thousand taels of real silver.

A gift is a gift!

Whether it is in Su Baiyi's heart or Cheng Kai's heart, a mere set of mansions in Guide Mansion does not meet the standard of bribery.

"Li Qing, put the incense case on the table, please decree!" Su Baiyi shouted.

The courtyard was already small, and when Su Baiyi gave an order, Chunyan and Li Qing ran out, hurriedly put the incense case on the table, and took out the holy decree.

Cheng Kaikai was shocked and said, "Mr. Su, Cheng Mou went back to bathe and change clothes, and then asked for the holy decree again?" ”

"No!" Su Baiyi waved his hand: "Follow me outside, just clean your hands!" ”

took Cheng Kaikai to the courtyard outside, carefully washed his hands with Qing Shuizi, lit a handful of incense sticks on the table, and the two knelt on the ground and kowtowed a few times to the holy decree, and then opened the holy decree.

This holy decree was originally sealed by the Department of General Administration but was not successfully sealed because Su Baiyi encountered an accident on the sea, which clearly confirmed that Su Baiyi was appointed as the railway and the governor of the railway.

"What kind of big business is this?" Cheng Kaikai was a little dumbfounded after reading the holy decree.

Su Baiyi instructed Li Qing to put away the holy decree, and said with a smile: "Brother Cheng go and sit in the house, and I will talk to you slowly." After speaking, Cheng Kaikai returned to the hall and sat down on the chair just now.

"Brother Cheng!" Changing his title, Su Baiyi felt that this would make people feel closer, and it would be easier to talk: "The matter of the official building the railway, presumably Brother Cheng has known about it for a long time." ”

"I've heard a little!" Cheng Kaikai complimented: "Lord Su's earth-shattering handwriting, to be able to win His Majesty's favor, it is really a five-body throw that Cheng admires!" ”

Listening to these useless words, Su Baiyi smiled slightly and said, "Then Brother Cheng knows what a railway is?" ”

"This?" Cheng Kaikai could only tell the truth: "Cheng has never heard of it!" ”

"The big business I want to tell Brother Cheng is this railway!" Su Baiyi's face was respectful!

Cheng Kaikai was puzzled for a while!

Didn't the imperial court want to build a railway? What's the big business again? Moreover, what does it have to do with my opening?

To be honest, although he admired Su Baiyi's ability to make soap and glass, he maintained a respectful attitude towards the opening of such an unknown thing as the railway.

Of course, it's okay to listen to it.

"Cheng asks for advice!" Cheng Kai's face remained unchanged.

Su Baiyi said: "I asked Mr. Cheng a question. Take a sip of tea to moisten your throat, organize your thoughts by the way, and then say: "Brother Cheng has been in the grain business before, let's talk about grain." If 5,000 stone of grain were transported from the mouth of the Yellow River in the East China Sea to Xi'an, I don't know how much it would cost? ”

Cheng Kaikai is a big grain seller, and he has been doing this thing for I don't know how many years, so after a little contemplation, he can come up with the answer: "The best way to go from the mouth of the Yellow River to Xi'an Mansion is to use a boat and take the Yellow River channel against the current." However, a single waterway can not transport grain to Xi'an, at least half of the way to use cars and horses, so calculated, almost two to save one, to transport 5,000 stone of grain to Xi'an, then from the mouth of the Yellow River, need to bring 10,000 stone! ”

Luck two save one?

You're thinking too much!

Su Baiyi sneered: "What Brother Cheng said about luck two and one is one, I'm afraid it will have to be discounted." ”

"Hehe......" Cheng Kaikai smiled, not embarrassed at all, and said: "The villain just said that he is his own transportation caravan, in addition to the labor costs, the filial piety of each mountain along the way, according to the three savings of one, the actual loss of 10,000 stone grain, converted into cash is almost 5,000 taels!" ”

That's pretty much it!

Su Baiyi nodded, and asked again, "How much time will it take?" ”

Cheng Kaikai frowned slightly: "This trip is about more than 2,000 miles, and I am afraid it will take at least two months!" ”

"That's good!" Su Baiyi smiled lightly and said, "After my railway is completed, one car can carry 5,000 stone of grain, and it only takes two days to travel from the mouth of the Yellow River in the East China Sea to Xi'an. ”

"What?"

Cheng Kaikai suddenly stood up from the chair, with an incredulous expression: "This, how is this possible?" ”

"That's possible!" Su Baiyi smiled and said, "Two days is fast?" ”

From the mouth of the Yellow River to Xi'an, the distance after the construction of the railway is about 1,000 kilometers. Two days, two nights, 48 hours to drive 1,000 kilometers, which is converted into one hour to travel 20 kilometers!

How much?

Twenty kilometers in an hour by train!

This is already the speed of the turtle's travel, okay?

Cheng Kaikai's brain was dizzy, and he couldn't react for a long time.

As a businessman, his sensitivity to profit is far greater than that of Emperor Zhu Youzhen, and he sat in his chair in a daze, but his heart was thinking quickly.

If Su Baiyi can really make such a road, then the profit in it is simply not too much: "Mr. Su, if this is the case, the cost of transporting five thousand stone of grain to Xi'an Mansion?" ”

"What can I cost?" Su Baiyi smiled: "It's just a coal stone that burns ten taels of silver!" ”

It is possible that ten taels of coal will not be used.

If you don't count the cost of the entire railway and the cost of locomotives, as well as the cost of the salaries of various managers along the line, then this consumption is almost negligible.

"Amazing, you can transport five thousand stone of grain in two days, Mr. Su, this ......"

"Are you stupid for me?" Su Baiyi didn't wait for Cheng to finish speaking, and sneered: "There is only one car running on the road in your house?" To tell you the truth, my railroad can send a train every hour, which can transport not only food, but also medicinal herbs, ore, mules and horses, timber, cloth, soap, glass, and many other goods, and let me tell you the truth, I can also transport a thousand people per car. ”

"Can you still transport people?" Cheng Kaikai's brain is not enough.

"Of course!" Su Baiyi stood up, took a deep breath and looked full of ambition: "As long as the railway is built, what can't be transported, as long as you can transport it from land and water, my railway can transport it." By filling the wagons with seawater, I may be able to send live fish from the East China Sea to Xi'an Prefecture, and by filling the wagons with soil, I can transport fresh trees full of fruit to the East China Sea, and transporting people is only one of the basic functions of the railway! ”

"This ......" Cheng Kai was already shocked!

This is something I've never heard of before, can it really be repaired?

"Of course it's not all!" Su Baiyi looked at Cheng Kai Kai and continued to sell: "The railway passes through the state capitals, and sets up stations every fifty miles along the way, and the train can only stop when it is at the station. Of course, goods and guests from various state capitals can also be picked up at the station and transported to various places along the way.

Let me tell Brother Cheng the truth, according to my observations, there will be a severe drought in the west in the next ten years, and the reason why His Majesty agreed to build this railway was originally intended to better transport grain from the south of the Yangtze River. It was only when the treasury was empty and could not come up with more money to build the railway, so he ordered the official to recruit funds from the private sector and promised that the donors would own the entire railway according to the amount of donations.

The railway shares are no different from the country, and they can be passed down from generation to generation and rest with the country. Of course, the family that owns the shares can share a dividend from the profits of the railway every year! ”

If you want to make people pay for it, you must first draw a big, big pie!

Only after letting them see the benefits can people happily pay for it.

However, Cheng Kaikai is obviously not a person who is easy to fool, otherwise he would not have been able to mess around in the mall for so many years. After hearing that he was going to contribute, the shock and longing on his face disappeared in an instant.

The road repair at the national level is a big project that can be compared with Qin Chi Road. The cost of such a large project even the Ming Dynasty could not afford to recruit funds from the people, and naturally it was not something that a small businessman could afford.

He didn't doubt Su Baiyi's ability and means, and he was sure that Su Baiyi could indeed build such a road if he had enough silver, but he didn't believe in the imperial court. Cheng Kaikai didn't believe that the imperial court would really give him a stake in the railway that had been inherited from generation to generation.

The emperor of the old Zhu family is notoriously upshitful!

"Dare to ask Lord Su, how much silver will be needed to build this railway?" Cheng Kaikai asked calmly.

Su Baiyi found that he was so calm when he said this, and he was slightly disappointed, but he still had to answer people's questions, "From the mouth of the Yellow River to Xi'an Mansion, the total mileage is two thousand, and my preliminary budget is about ten thousand taels of silver in one mile, and a total of twenty million taels is needed!" ”

"Two, two, twenty million taels?" Cheng Kaikai gasped: No wonder even the imperial court can't come up with so much silver to raise funds from the people.

"Yes, twenty million taels!" Su Baiyi said: "The whole railway is divided into 100 shares, of which 60 belong to the imperial court, and the imperial court does not pay for it." The remaining 40 shares were sold to raise funds from the private sector, equivalent to 500,000 taels per share! ”

"Forehead......" Cheng Kaikai smiled a little unnaturally and said, "This is really a big deal!" ”