When the crowd heard Li Bao say this, they immediately echoed: "Yes, yes, what the king said." After saying that, they didn't know what to say, and suddenly the scene calmed down.

Wang Jian was so embarrassed in the hall, he immediately said loudly: "Hehe, the king is interested in the preparation of tea and well salt in our Shu, why don't you talk about it first, so that the king and a certain person can also see and hear about it for a long time." ”

Immediately, a tall and fat businessman immediately said: "A certain Gao Tianlai is a local tea merchant, and has cooperated with the king's Shanhe Society for many years, and the most important tea-producing areas in our Shu are basically in our Xichuan, and the most important is Xiezhou, Yuzhou, Fuzhou, Zizhou, Jiazhou, Lizhou, Maozhou and other eight states, and a certain sends people to buy tea from all over the country every year, and then resells it after packaging it according to the requirements of Shanhe Society."

There are several types of tea, such as coarse tea, loose tea, and cake tea. Coarse tea is a kind of tea that is simply made by picking coarse old scriptures; Loose tea refers to fried green tea; Cake tea refers to the tea leaves are tanned and fermented to make tea cakes.

In the past, Datang tea was mainly used to produce cake tea, and there were very few coarse teas and loose teas. However, after the king created the method of drinking clear tea in Kyoto in the past year, the production of loose tea has increased year by year.

The tea picking season is mostly between February, March and April. Tea people advocate picking delicate "Ming Qian tea". ”

"Oh, can you still pick tea in April?" Li Bao asked curiously.

Gao Tianlai heard Li Bao's inquiry, and he laughed and said: "The king doesn't know that the tea picked in April refers to the wild tea planted in the deep mountains and mountains on the high mountains. ”

Gao Tianlai explained it like this, and Li Bao understood. The high altitude in the mountains and the low temperatures make it understandable to pick tea leaves in April.

Seeing that Li Bao was no problem, Gao Tianlai continued: "There are a lot of famous teas in the Tang Dynasty, after all, our Shuzhong is well-known as Jiannan Mengding Stone Flower, which was rated as the first by everyone who tasted tea, known as 'fairy tea'. Dongchuan has a small group of Shenquan, Changming beasts, etc."

Gao Tian said this, Li Bao and others have a basic understanding of the situation of the tea industry in Shuzhong. Yes, Li Bao nodded at Gao Tianlai and said, "Lord Gao seems to be very good at the tea industry!" ”

Gao Tianlai was praised by Li Bao, and he was very happy, and everyone looked at him with envy, which made him even more excited.

Wang Jian was very eager to learn, and he continued to ask: "How much tea can this tea industry produce every year, and what is the profit, it is better for the proprietor Gao to continue to give a certain point." ”

When Gao Tianlai heard Wang Jian's question, he was a little embarrassed in his heart, he naturally knew about this output, but the profit was not easy to share, after all, this was a trade secret, how could he tell others at will.

Li Bao understands Gao Tianlai's psychology best, and he said with a smile: "Wang Lvshuai, this is yours, this profit is all business secrets, how can you talk nonsense at will, but whether you make money or not, as long as you look at the clothes and posture of the proprietor Gao and the tea merchants, you can guess one or two." ”

Li Bao played a round like this, and everyone was naturally harmonious.

Wang Jian was even more responsive, and he hurriedly said to Gao Tian: "Forgive me, Lord Gao, it's a certain recklessness." ”

Gao Tianlai hurriedly said: "Don't dare." ”

Then he continued to answer the question of tea production in Shuzhong that Wang Jianfang had just asked. "The annual output of tea in Shu is about 400,000 quintals. In the past, most of the tea was transferred to Guanzhong and Saiwai, but now the tea purchased and sold to the Western Regions by the Dawang's Shanhe Society every year has accounted for more than half of the tea in Shuzhong. ”

Hearing this, Wang Jian continued to ask: "Do you all have tea gardens in your family?" If you rely solely on sales, you won't make much money. ”

"What Wang Lvshuai asked is the key, almost all of the large and small tea gardens in a certain family, but the output of a certain tea garden is limited, and the majority is still in the government-run tea garden."

Among the agricultural products of the Tang Dynasty, only tea was typically commercialized for the following reasons:

There are three kinds of tea garden ownership in the Tang Dynasty: the official tea garden, the Taoist temple or the temple tea garden, that is, the tea garden operated by the monks and nuns collectively in the temple and Taoist temple, which generally has a certain scale, and is well-made, excellent quality, mostly famous tea, enjoys a reputation in the market, and has a close relationship with the expansion of the temple economy. The third type is the tea plantations operated by self-employed people in rural areas, including those run by scholars, self-cultivators, and hired clothes.

The scale of the tea garden operated by the scholar doctor is large, and the workers are hired to make it, such as the "Taiping Guangji": "Jiulong people (now Peng County, Sichuan) Zhang Shouqi, the family is very rich, there is a garden in Xianju Mountain, more than 100 generations of tea pickers per year, and male and female helpers are mixed in the garden...... "This is obviously a tea garden of considerable scale.

Tea plantations run by white cultivators are absolutely dominant, the main source of commercial tea, and their main means of making a living. The poet Li Shangyin said, "The people of the five counties under the jurisdiction of Huzhou (now Sichuan)...... The homework is mostly dependent on tea, and the practice is different from Xiumai" ("Quantang Wen", vol. 772).

Hired farmers, on the other hand, did not have their own tea plantations and rented them to make a living. Tortoise Meng once lived in seclusion in Gu Zhuzhi Mountain, and "placed the garden Gu Zhujie under the mountain, took the tea rent every year, and judged the first product." "The New Tang Dynasty Book, Yinyi: The Biography of Tortoise Meng" shows that the Lu family gave the ancestors of the tea garden to the farmers.

The tea plantations rented by the hired farmers are paid to the tea plantation owners in kind (cake tea), and the rest is put into the market to exchange for the goods they need, which is also a kind of commercial production. Therefore, in the Tang Dynasty, in addition to the official tea garden, the collective tea garden and the individual tea garden owned by Siguan were commercialized for profit, thus promoting the rapid development of the commodity economy of the tea industry.

It can also be seen from Gao Tianlai's account that the tea plantations and tea business in Shuzhong are very large-scale, and there are many tenants employed, and they are also more concerned about tea affairs.

Now that he understands almost everything, Li Bao doesn't sell Guan Zi anymore, he said: "I called everyone here today, first, I plan to implement the Tea Industry Mutual Aid Association in Shuzhong. The so-called mutual aid association is to unite the tea merchants in Shuzhong to work together, coupled with the unique conditions of our Shuzhong, and work together to make the scale of our tea industry in Shuzhong bigger and stronger. ”

Li Bao's tone was very loud, but Gao Tianlai and other tea merchants were very unimpressed. After all, the conditions in Shu are good, but there is an extremely strong constraint in Shu, that is, the traffic problem.

The difficulty of Shu Dao is not a day or two, but a problem that has existed for nearly a thousand years. In this period of poor natural conditions and lack of human resources, if you want to transport a large amount of tea, the manpower and transportation capacity required are very large.

And Li Bao said this, of course, he didn't fool everyone, he had his own plans.

"Everyone knows that the tea planting in Shuzhong is very developed, and the official tea garden is better than the private tea garden not only in terms of planting scale but also in the tea garden land, so I want to take this opportunity to release a news, that is, the official tea garden in Shuzhong is rented by individuals."

As soon as Li Bao's words came out, Gao Tianlai and the tea merchant immediately became excited, "Is what the king said true?" ”

"This is naturally true, the king's words are the golden rule in our Xichuan." Wang Jian said.

At this moment, the tea merchants were boiling, they knew that His Royal Highness King Ji liked to do business the most, and they didn't want such an official tea garden to be rented by individuals. Everyone was excited for a while, and gradually calmed down.

Gao Tianlai said to Li Baogong: "I don't know what kind of lease law the king said?" Some people have the heart to rent the official tea garden, but they don't know if they can afford it. ”

Yes, private individuals can rent, but if the tax is too high, wouldn't it be worth the loss in the end?

Wang Jian saw that these tea merchants were really treacherous, and he thought about the problem and finally thought about money. "Don't worry, our king is famous for his virtue and wisdom, and the king has already talked about this matter with a certain and Zhang Junenvoy before you came. The tax on the lease is 30% of the annual harvest. ”

"Sancheng?" Gao Tianlai couldn't believe his ears, in this era when the harsh government was fiercer than the tiger, King Ji actually set such a low tax on the privately leased tea plantation, which was really cost-effective. So he immediately said to Li Bao: "A certain person is willing to lease the official tea garden." ”

"Don't worry, Lord Gao, let's set the charter for the lease of this tea garden first, and you can talk about the specific matters after the new Chengdu Mansion Yin arrives."

"What the king said is that he is in a hurry."

"But there is one more thing, I want to explain, the businessmen who have contracted the official tea garden must pay the commercial tax to Shuzhong at the end of the year, and the commercial tax is one percent, and there is no other tax."

There is a reason why Li Bao said this, Datang's commercial tax has always existed, and the tax collected on tea is about 6 to 8 percent. During the Xiantong period, the Tang treasury collected nearly 800,000 yuan in commercial taxes on tea every year.

Li Bao's commercial tax was two percentage points higher than usual, which was not too much for these tea merchants. Moreover, there are many towns in the Tang Dynasty, and the circulation of goods costs a huge amount of commercial taxes.

Moreover, Li Bao promised to collect taxes only once and not increase them, which is more effective than any guarantee. After all, King Ji's territory is already so large, and this one-time tax payment still greatly reduces the burden on merchants.

And they levy 60% or 70% of the rent tax on the tenants, and then the tenants have to be responsible for the state endowment alone, and nearly 20% of the income is very limited in the end.

Li Bao levied a small amount of land rent, which reduced the persecution of farmers and tenants by the merchants and reduced their exploitation. In addition, after the big businessmen grew up, they were able to provide more funds and political cohesion for the government under Li Bao.

Of course, such a policy will inevitably cultivate many big businessmen, but under today's political and economic conditions, it is the only way to do so, but the protection of the people at the bottom also needs to be done now.

Seeing that everyone nodded, Li Bao was very happy, and he continued: "The opening and leasing of this official tea garden is only part of our discussion today, and the next thing to discuss is the mutual assistance of colleagues in the tea industry." Presumably, everyone hopes to be able to do better and better, and to be stronger and stronger, but now the Tang Dynasty wars are frequent, and the commercial circulation is very poor, especially the road from our Shuzhong to the outside world is very difficult, so there is still a task to give you, and next year Shuzhong will issue road construction bonds, and I hope you can be generous. Support the Chengdu government government. ”

Speaking of which, Li Bao's goal has basically been achieved, these businessmen are not fools, of course they understand what King Ji is planning, but they are the most welcome to repair the road to the outside world in Shuzhong.

But what this King Ji said doesn't count, after all, the war is in chaos, in case King Ji is defeated one day later, wouldn't the money they have to buy bonds be wasted.

However, if they don't buy King Ji's account, they are afraid that it will be difficult to lease the official tea garden, this is a gamble, and Gao Tianlai and other tea merchants are very entangled. However, the salt merchants who sat in the lobby for a long time couldn't sit still, how did His Royal Highness King Ji open the salt industry in Shuzhong?