"Where, where!" Yang He said with a smile: "This official is already in the age of ear shun, and now the official residence is second-class, so he is afraid of blocking the virtuous road and misleading the major affairs of the imperial court." This time, relying on the Son of Heaven Hongfu, the soldiers used their lives, and luckily pacified the Western Rebellion, so they had to tell the old man to return to his hometown and retire to Linquan, how to dare to hope to ascend to the pavilion and worship the prime minister, absolutely not, never! ”

"Hey!" The staff member smiled: "My husband's ancestor is bad, Guo Fenyang is over sixty years old, and he can still lead the troops to quell the rebellion of Fugu Huaien and recover Chang'an." What's more, my father-in-law doesn't need to put on armor to go into battle now, it is the heyday of Spring and Autumn. Now that the court is in an eventful time, if the old man returns to his hometown and retires, what will happen to the court? What is the life of the world? ”

The compliment of the staff aroused the echo of the other staff, and for a while, there was a flood of rumors, almost lifting Yang He's whole person to the sky. Yang He was proud, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zhao Wende sitting aside, his brows furrowed, and he looked like he had something on his mind. At this time, he was not yet confused by the ecstasy soup under his hands, so he asked, "Jiansheng, what do you think about this god seeking care?" “

Seeing Yang He asking in person, all the staff cast envious and jealous glances at Zhao Wende, Zhao Wende didn't seem to feel everyone's gaze, lowered his head and thought for a while, and then replied in a deep voice: "According to what I can see, there are still three joints that must be grasped firmly in this matter of God and a king, and the northwest military affairs are over." “

"Jiansheng, please speak!" Yang He has now reached the point of obedience to Zhao Wende, and his title is no longer called his official position, but affectionately commensurate with words.

"First, we must send a shrewd and capable person to Shen Yikui to confirm with his own eyes that this is not a delaying tactic but a sincere request for appeasement."

"What Jiansheng said is very true!" Yang He nodded.

"Second, if God Yikui really asks for plausion, let him go and pacify the scattered thieves one by one, this is a thief attacking thieves, without hurting the officers and soldiers, and many thieves can be pacified one by one."

"Good plan!" Yang He clapped his hands and smiled: "I also thought of this strategy, I didn't expect to let Jiansheng say it first, it was really the same as the hero." ”

"The third is the most important thing!" Zhao Wende's face became solemn: "Of course, this northwest military incident is a group of strong Liang villains who do not care about the great favor of the three hundred years of this dynasty, and they raise troops to commit crimes. But the reason why it has become so big is because of the successive disasters and the levy of salaries, which have made the people miserable and displaced. After all, it is easy to get these thieves to lay down their weapons and be appeased, but if they are not allowed to farm and feed themselves, this chaos will still resume, and at that time, it will be even more difficult to suppress them. My third rule is that after pacifying the thieves, I will check their strength as soldiers, add them to the army, eliminate the old and weak, and issue them with ox seed farming tools, so that they can return to their hometowns to work as farmers and support themselves, which is a good deed once and for all. ”

"Hmmm! Jiansheng's last article is really Lao Chengmouguo! Yang He nodded: "But this should require a lot of money, I guess you also have an idea, right?" “

"Not bad." Zhao Wende nodded: "My lord, I waited for the auction of salt in the past, and it can be said that the military situation is urgent, but this matter cannot be used for this reason." As you can see below, your lord should ask the court for salary in the recital, and if you can calm down the military affairs in the northwest so quickly, how much money will be saved in hundreds of thousands of taels alone? After the people return to their hometowns, they can still pay taxes after completing their grains, presumably the court is still willing to pay this money. “

"Hmm!" Yang He nodded, but his heart was not as sure as Zhao Wende. Because of his identity and status, Yang He has a much deeper understanding of the character of the Son of Heaven himself than Zhao Wende. Although many historians in later generations have different evaluations of Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen, there is one thing in common, that is, he is mean and mean, especially for the feudal officials who are outside. However, Yang He still suppressed the worry in his heart: "Then who do you think is good to send to Shen Yikui?" ”

"My lord, as the saying goes, 'it's better to use raw than cooked'."

"Huh!" Yang He laughed: "You mean to use that Liu Cheng, or not, he did a good job in the first few errands, and he can be regarded as a lucky general, so let's use him this time." ”

Liu Cheng didn't know that his fate had been decided again, and at this time he was receiving an old acquaintance at his residence, and that was Yu He. The Red Sun Sect's sacrificial wine had come to Yan'an as the leader of a caravan - there were bound to be many business opportunities in a city that had just been liberated. As an uninvited guest, he first expressed his congratulations on Liu Cheng's promotion, conveyed Xu Hecheng's greetings, and finally took out a generous gift - 300 fine sheepskins.

"Toji-sama!" Yu He called Liu Cheng's new official position: "In a hurry, you can't prepare a generous courtesy, it is not a tribute, and you hope to accept it!" ”

"Thank you!" Liu Cheng knew very well in his heart that this gift should be taken out of the goods by Yu He at his own initiative, otherwise it would be silver taels instead of goods. However, it was also a very practical gift, and many of his soldiers were dressed in shabby, so they were able to make leather jackets from these sheepskins and distribute them. He picked up a sample casually, weighed it twice in his hand, found that it was very thick, and asked casually: "Your sheepskin seems to be very thick, I think it will be very comfortable to wear on your body." “

"Good eyes, adults!" Yu He gave a thumbs up: "The villain's sheepskin is an authentic Tan sheepskin, although it is not the best second fur, but it is still a hundred times stronger than the goatskin in the mainland." Speaking of this, Yu He saw Liu Cheng's confused look on his face, so he explained carefully. It turns out that the Tan sheep in his mouth is a kind of Mongolian sheep produced in the semi-desert and semi-grassland area north of Ningxia, which is known for its light and warm, firm and beautiful coat color, and has always been used to make the best material for fur, and the Ermao fur in his mouth is the fur that the lamb slaughtered and stripped one month after birth, and the texture is the best.

"I see, then your skins were originally going to be sold in Yan'an?"

"My lord is laughing!" Yu He laughed: "Although this sheepskin is not the best second fur, nor is it something that the poor soldiers here in Yan'an can afford to wear, I went to Ningxia this time, and I came back with a lot of skins, and I plan to sell some worse skins here, and the good skins can only be sold at a price in Xi'an." “

"Sure enough, the interlacing is like a mountain!" Liu Cheng laughed: "Mr. Yu is really knowledgeable in this business, please give me a lot of advice." “

"Where, where." Yu He was modest, and when he saw that Liu Cheng's attitude of asking for advice was quite sincere, he explained carefully. It turned out that by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the trade between the Mongolian border areas and the interior had been very prosperous, and due to the particularity of nomadic production, the Mongolian tribes had to come from the interior with many necessities of life, such as salt, tea, iron and various daily necessities. There are usually two ways to obtain these commodities - commerce or looting. But from an economic point of view, it is not sustainable to simply obtain these necessities through commercial means, for the simple reason that the goods exchanged in the nomadic areas are nothing more than primary products such as furs, livestock, and horns, and their production efficiency is far lower than that of commodities such as salt, poor, iron, etc., and if the herders can only obtain these goods through exchange, the result must be that all the herders will become debt slaves of the Han merchants (in fact, the history of the Qing Dynasty also proves this, although the Mongol nobility was politically Manchu aristocracy).

The political status was higher than that of the Han land, but because the Manchu Qing Dynasty completely unified the entire Mongolian Plateau, the whole of Mongolia and the interior formed a unified market, and the result was that by the end of the Qing Dynasty, Mongolia had become the debt slaves of the Han merchants with the Jin merchants as the main body) and since the fall of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, the Mongolian Plateau has never had a unified steppe hero, unable to break the Great Wall to conquer the unified Ming Dynasty. Therefore, throughout the history of the Ming Dynasty, there was a strange phenomenon that the purpose of a powerful steppe regime's war against the Ming Dynasty was to "trade with each other" -- that is, to trade at a price that was more favorable to the nomadic side than the price generated by the free market. The nomadic rulers may not have understood modern economics, but they can still feel ignorantly that if they trade directly with Han Chinese merchants, the result must be that their people will become poorer and weaker, and become debt slaves of Han merchants. Whenever the Ming Dynasty achieved military superiority, it abolished the "mutual market", because this kind of "mutual market" was premised on paying a huge economic price, and the absence of the "mutual market" did not mean that the commercial trade between the interior and the grassland was cut off, but that this kind of trade was carried out in accordance with the normal market law, and it was undoubtedly extremely beneficial to the inland merchants whose productivity was much higher than that of the grassland herdsmen. Therefore, the profits of engaging in this kind of long-distance trade between the grassland and the interior are extremely rich, taking the Tan sheepskin in Liu Cheng's hand as an example, a piece of Tan sheepskin in the grassland costs no more than half a catty of salt or even a few taels of salt, and when it is trafficked to Xi'an and other inland cities, a beach sheepskin can be sold for a high price of three or four taels of silver, and the price difference between them is often more than ten times or even dozens of times; And that's not all the profits of business. Due to the instability of nomadic production, there are often snow disasters and droughts, a large number of livestock die, and the herdsmen also lack copper coins, silver and other currencies, so merchants can obtain higher profits by lowering the purchase price, raising the selling price, issuing usury, delaying the payment of goods, etc., so if a trip to the merchant goes down normally, deducting the salary of employees, travel expenses, commercial bribes, etc., it is commonplace to obtain a profit of several hundred percent.

Although Liu Cheng had read some books on the Northwest Frontier Trade in his previous life, after listening to Xu Hecheng's vivid explanation, he still felt eye-opening and asked casually: "In this way, how much profit did you make this trip?" ”

Yu He showed a mysterious smile: "If someone else asks, the villain will naturally want to play some tricks, but Lord Liu is the friend of life and death of my family leader, so it is naturally different." Speaking of this, he stretched out five fingers of his right hand and said, "Remove all kinds of miscellaneous expenses, there should be this number." ”

"Five-fold?" Liu Cheng couldn't help but open his mouth wide, he had just heard from the other party that this kind of long-distance trafficking trade was lucrative, but he didn't expect it to come to such a point, and at this time, deep down in his heart, he couldn't help but have a trace of regret for his previous decision to refuse Xu Hecheng's invitation.

"Adults don't know, the trade outside the mouth is a trip back to a small half a year, plus all kinds of risks along the way, a little carelessness is the end of people and livestock, and the loss of money is lost. We were also lucky this time, we encountered a large number of bandits several times, and we survived with both soft and hard measures. After a few years, the profit will not be tripled. “

"Mr. Yu, what you said is also that your business is also risking your life." Liu Cheng nodded, he only understood why Xu Hecheng valued his training ability so much, for others, he was at best the head of the family, and he was an important business partner, if he could train a small team of elite guards in each caravan, the annual loss would be reduced by thousands of snowflakes.

"yes, but it's going to be much better from next year!" Speaking of this, Yu He looked relieved.

"Next year? Why? “

"Your Excellency, you should know that my lord has already taken the line and intervened in the sale of salt goods, and with this large amount of salt trading, you can catch up with the noble chieftains of the Tartars, and the business will be different." When Yu He said this, he found that Liu Cheng still looked confused, and hurriedly explained in a low voice. Originally, although there were a small amount of salt production places in the grassland (mainly saltwater lakes), after all, the nomads lacked the technology and manpower to extract and transport it, so the main source of salt for the herders was the Han land. As a necessity of life, salt export control naturally became a tool in the Ming Dynasty's struggle against the nomadic tribes on the grassland. Generally speaking, the Ming Dynasty would only allow the export of salt to those tribes that were friendly with it, and for other tribes with hostile relations, it was forbidden to export large quantities of salt to them in order to weaken the other party's strength. Merchants who can bring a stable and large supply of salt to the tribe will naturally be valued by the noble chiefs of the steppe, and they will be given various preferential terms and protection.

When Liu Cheng heard this, he immediately discovered the problem: "Mr. Yu, if you say so, then your salt business has not been approved by the imperial court." ”

"Lord Liu!" Yu He's voice dragged on slightly, and there was a look on his face, "You don't even know this, do you!" The surprised expression: "The biggest business in this business is those Shanxi Yankees, not to mention a few ministers in the court, even the high father-in-law of the palace horse supervisor is also involved." Speaking of this, Yu He arched his hand towards the east: "When today's Zhuangzi is in charge of Gonggong Gao, and the officials of this business are all sitting, why can't we do some profit-seeking business?" “