Approaching the New Year, the people of the entire Tang Dynasty began to prepare to celebrate the New Year, and the festive atmosphere of the New Year was also spread across the land of China. *Unlike the cold weather in Guanzhong, the climate in Lingnan is milder, even slightly hot. Last night there was a light rain in Quanzhou overnight, but today's temperature is not low at all, and the dry land seems to be announcing the arrival of spring.

Because it rained yesterday, Mr. Zhang slept late yesterday, and only had breakfast when the sun came out, and walked out of the hall with a toothpick and a fat belly, looking up at the big sun, and feeling anxious and happy.

Mr. Zhang's real name is Zhang Kaiquan, he was originally a wealthy family outside Quanzhou City, his family employs dozens of long-term fishing, plus some other industries, he can also have a lot of income every year, although he is not as good as those top rich businessmen, but he is also a moderately rich family. However, a few days ago, from the Nanshan Academy in Chang'an to promote the new method of drying salt, he was stained with the light of a nephew who went to school in the academy, and was the first to see the benefits of this salt, so he took out half of the family property in one go, bought a lot of beaches, and made salt pans with cement, at that time many people thought he was crazy, but when his salt fields produced the first batch of salt, everyone was dumbfounded, these low-cost dried salt had just been transported to the salt market, and was immediately snatched up, and he also took advantage of the salt to become one of the famous wealthy businessmen in Quanzhou.

Today's Quanzhou is not what it used to be, it was just a small harbor, docking some fishing boats, Mr. Zhang had wanted to leave here more than once, to Chang'an or Luoyang and other places to develop, but the ancestral industry is in Quanzhou, it is not good to leave the hometown, so I have to stay here.

But now. Master Zhang sincerely thanked his ancestors for their blessing. Thankfully, I didn't leave. Nowadays, Quanzhou has become a cornucopia, merchants from all directions are like locusts, overwhelmingly spread along the coast, the pioneers in Lingnan have heard that they have gone to the South Pole, and began to plant crops on the island named Hainan Island in the academy, Master Zhang's eyes are sharp, he clearly sees that the land of Lingnan will grow into an incomparably prosperous place in the future.

The imperial court's ocean-going ships docked at the busy Quanzhou wharf every day. Then he turned to Ryukyu Island, entered the sea, and went out empty, and when he returned, he was full of a large ship full of spices, gold, silver, and slaves.

This made the eyes of those profit-seeking merchants red and bloody, so some wealthy merchants in Quanzhou began to spontaneously unite and organize some overseas merchant ships, saying that they were going to overseas trade, but in fact, they were to plunder those treasures.

Mr. Zhang also joined an organization called the "Tongfu Society". Most of them are wealthy businessmen and friends in Quanzhou, and everyone invests together. A fleet of ships was formed, and the looted treasure was divided according to the number of shares.

Go to sea to make a lot of money, but the salt makes a lot of money, Master Zhang got up today, is to go to the slave market in Quanzhou, buy some slaves in the salt field, now Quanzhou is too short of manpower, from Silla and the Turks to capture the strong men have been pulled by the eldest grandson to dig iron ore, and there are many slaves in the country are also under the jurisdiction of the government to dig coal, so the slaves assigned to ordinary merchants are very few, plus the population of Quanzhou is not much, so there is a slave market in Quanzhou.

"Master, the carriages and horses are ready, do you want to go now?" I saw the obese old man Zuo come out. The old and shrewd Steward Zhang hurriedly stepped forward and bowed down to ask for instructions.

"Nonsense, naturally I'm going to go soon, and there won't be a good strong man when it's late!" Master Zhang reprimanded, he was fat, but his voice was very high-pitched, coupled with his dark eyes and white lips. Those who are familiar with Chinese medicine can easily tell that this is an overweight of wine.

Hearing the master's reprimand, Steward Zhang was slandered. I wonder if you hadn't tossed too late with that Silla concubine last night, and you didn't get up until now, we would have arrived at the place a long time ago. Although dissatisfied. But Steward Zhang didn't dare to delay on the surface, and hurriedly carried his master into the newly bought carriage, and there were several big ox carts behind him, driven by the coachman, all the way to Quanzhou City.

Quanzhou City is now no longer the original fishing village general town, Niu Jinda has been managing here for more than a year, not only built a magnificent Quanzhou City, but also pioneered in accordance with the east and west cities of Chang'an, built a commercial street in Quanzhou, for Quanzhou merchants to buy and sell.

I have to say that Niu Jinda is a military general, but it is indeed quite like Li Er's praise of him, there is a "style of literary generals", after following Xu Yang's construction, Niu Jinda will manage Quanzhou, a coastal city, in an orderly manner, and the commercial share is also doubled every month, here, Niu Jinda Shen Xu Yang told him that "do not discriminate against merchants, do not bind merchants, do not indulge merchants" This "three no principles", soon made Quanzhou known as a world-famous seaport, it can be said, The reason why Quanzhou can attract so many businessmen from Datang to invest and do business is that Niu Jinda has made great contributions.

Although it is winter now, in the land of Lingnan, there has never been any concept of winter, at most it is only one or two profane clothes to pass. Mr. Zhang sat in the carriage, and at the same time opened the curtains on the carriage, while enjoying the oncoming wind, while looking at the pedestrians on the road with pride, his carriage was ordered for a lot of money, and the gold leaf on the top alone cost a lot of money. The horses pulling the cart in front are also good horses from Hui dealers, and there are few people in Quanzhou who can sit on this kind of luxury carriage.

The carriage ran fast, and the loess compacted land was not bumpy at all, and in half an hour, the carriage drove into the magnificent Quanzhou City.

After getting off the carriage, Mr. Zhang took Steward Zhang into the trading market, and walked towards the north of the market, where it was the slave market, although it was winter, but there was still a heat wave everywhere in the trading market, the people inside rubbed shoulders, people came and went, all kinds of buyers and sellers bargained loudly, and the slaves to be sold were tied into strings of ropes, sitting behind the seller with a numb face, allowing the buyers to look themselves up and down with a critical gaze, and then give a reasonable price.

Quanzhou's current slave bazaar is different from other places, the sellers here are agents of various families, slaves captured from overseas, generally given priority to the supply of the eldest grandson's family, the slaves are sent to the iron mine as miners, and the rest will be handled by the family themselves, as a result, the slave trade in Quanzhou City fell sharply some time ago, and some traffickers can not survive, fortunately, during this period of time, because of the construction of various local wharves in Quanzhou, the shortage of manpower is getting bigger and bigger, so Niu Jinda only reported this matter to the court, Li Er also discussed this matter at a court meeting, and finally decided to reduce the slave quota on the iron ore side, and Datang needed a large amount of iron smelting, but it also needed the development of other resource industries, which made the slave trade in Quanzhou revitalized again.

Master Zhang's master and servant went all the way north, crowding around the market, and Steward Zhang looked curiously at some of the new goods sold on both sides of the street from time to time.

When it came to the slave market, the number of people here had obviously increased a lot, and there were also a few wealthy merchants who were known to Master Zhang, and they also said hello a few times, but obviously Master Zhang came late today, and those overseas slaves looked older, and their bodies did not look very strong.

"This brother, how can you sell this slave?" Master Zhang picked around and found that there were only a few more male slaves in this place, so he had to come up and ask.

The slave buyer was a little old man, who lazily stretched out a hand and said, "Ten dollars a piece."

When Master Zhang heard this, like a cat that had been stepped on by its tail, he jumped up and shouted, "Black-hearted ghost! Why don't you grab it! "Actually, it's also, ten guan money is a slave, this kind of thing can only occur in Chang'an and very prosperous places, and in Quanzhou, a top beauty of Silla only needs four or five guan, and ten guan money is indeed too black-hearted.

"Hey~ You don't buy it, some people buy it, you go and ask, there are still a few families that can find so many male slaves in Quanzhou City now, if it weren't for the fact that the eldest grandson's family doesn't accept slaves now, these are at least fifteen yuan each." The little old man said proudly.

Master Zhang had a black face, as a businessman, he would never tolerate being slaughtered.

And the housekeeper Zhang beside him was also a master who knew his own house very well, and whispered a few words in Master Zhang's ear, and then smiled at what Master Zhang said, and laughed loudly: "Haha, that's what I said, the work in Yantian is not tiring, why does Master Ben want to buy male slaves, buy a few female slaves and go back to work!" Haha, let's go, go buy a slave girl~"

And the black-hearted little old man was stunned to watch the back of Master Zhang in the distance...... (To be continued......) R527