After the renovation of the official road began, the first stop Li Rupei went to was Guangzhou Mansion in Lingnan.

A thousand years later, Guangzhou is such an important existence, it can be said that it is rich and flowing oil, but it is a pity that the current Guangzhou Mansion is completely different from before, and its status is far from being comparable.

When Cui Shenyou served as the envoy of the Lingnan Festival, he had the idea of burying a handful of old bones in Guangzhou Mansion.

However, the development speed of Lingnan Road far exceeded Cui Shenyou's expectations, which is mainly due to the huge role played by overseas commerce, so that Guangzhou Prefecture has developed rapidly in just a few years after suffering from the poison of Huangchao.

It is rumored that the overseas businessmen who stayed in Guangzhou Mansion to engage in commerce and trade, as many as 100,000 people, most of them were slaughtered, and the wealth was plundered by Huangchao, which made Guangzhou Mansion become a hell on earth in just a few months, a large number of gentry and wealthy families fled, and overseas merchants disappeared without a trace, and the local economy suffered an extinction blow.

Huang Chao doesn't care about these things, and he doesn't understand the truth, but Li Rupei understands the destructiveness.

This is also one of the main reasons why Li Rupei has not taken control of Lingnan Road for a long time.

After taking control of Lingnan Dao, the first thing Li Rupei did was to restore the role of Guangzhou Prefecture as the main channel for overseas commerce and trade, and took this matter as the main task.

Li Rupei also made an exception and gave the most powerful Zou Shiming, He Yugui and other big businessmen a task, that is, to set up a special overseas trading shop in Guangzhou Prefecture, and the Daxing Taiwan Mansion invested a lot of money to re-cultivate the wharf and re-prosper overseas commerce.

Whether commerce and trade are prosperous and developed has a great relationship with local strength, and a weak Tang Dynasty cannot guarantee the prosperity of commerce and trade. It's like a defenseless child walking down the street with a gold ingot, unable to hold on to his wealth at all.

The strong strength of the Southern Province and the strong combat effectiveness of the Iron and Blood Army ensured the stability of the south and provided the strongest backing for the development of commerce and trade.

When business opportunities appear, overseas businessmen will naturally not miss it, from the small-scale operation after the heavy blow, to the subsequent substantial development, even more than ever. That's about two years.

As of June of the first year of Guangqi, there were more than 200,000 overseas business personnel in Guangzhou, and many of their families moved to Guangzhou, which also made the housing in Guangzhou significantly increased, and the city covered a larger area, and Guangzhou was divided into the inner city and the outer city, and the outer city was because of the rapid expansion. It was too late to repair the walls, and it was impossible to build them.

The greatest benefit of the development of overseas commerce and trade to the Yamen is the exponential increase in trade taxes.

Of course, the life of having money is good. The development speed of Lingnan Road is even faster than that of Huainan Road, which makes Cui Shenyou very happy, and he always said that he would throw old bones in Guangzhou. It will never be seen again.

Because of the rapid development of commerce and trade, especially the rapid expansion of overseas trade, the official road to Guangzhou Prefecture from all over the country. It is extremely important, and the wharf to Hainan Island is also within the jurisdiction of Lingnan Road, and the official roads in these places must be guaranteed to be smooth, so the renovation of the official road is of great significance to Lingnan Road.

It is precisely for this reason that the first stop of Li Rupei's inspection was Lingnan Road.

Li Rupei's inspection has always been light and simple, there is no pomp, and the entourage will not exceed 20 people, this time because of the distance, under the direct request of Cui Anqian, Li Rupei's entourage has increased to 50 people, but these people are all pro-soldiers, responsible for protecting Li Rupei's safety.

So Li Rupei's itinerary is very fast.

The focus of Li Rupei's inspection was the official road from Hongzhou to Guangzhou in Jiangnan West Road, and as for the official road from Xiangyang to Hongzhou, it had been almost renovated, and the quality was very high, exceeding the requirements put forward by the government.

Li Rupei and his entourage soon arrived in Hongzhou, until Li Rupei came to the outside of the Yamen of the Jiedu Envoy, and Yu Chenghui, the Jiedu envoy of Jiangnan West Province, knew that Li Rupei was coming, and he was greatly surprised, and hurriedly arranged a guard, but Li Rupei did not pay so much attention to it, and the first thing he asked about was the tax income and the situation of the handover, as well as the situation of the renovation of the official road, of course, including people's livelihood matters and so on.

Yu Chenghui is one of the first officials to follow Li Rupei, to say that the court officials around Li Rupei, Yu Chenghui's qualifications are the oldest, and the feelings are the most, especially Li Rupei's idea of putting people's livelihood first and letting the people live a good life, which Yu Chenghui has a deep experience in the bone marrow, so in Jiangnan West Road, Yu Chenghui's requirements for people's livelihood matters are also very strict, especially in terms of prison breaking, all criminals who want to be beheaded, he is personally audited, and no mistakes are allowed, until all the details are implemented, will be reported to the Daxing Taiwan Government.

Li Rupei is also the most satisfied with Chenghui.

In fact, when appointing the Jiedu envoys, Li Rupei was strictly controlled, almost all the Jiedu envoys had the strength to be officials in the imperial court, and almost all of them were Jinshi from the imperial examination, the difference was that the Huainan Jiedu made Qian Shiqu and the Dongchuan Jiedu made Yan Fu, but one of the two was born as a staff member, and he followed Li Rupei's side for a long time, and the other served as a waiter in the imperial court for many years, and he has long been familiar with people's livelihood matters.

As for the generals in the iron-blooded army, in principle, they cannot serve as jiedu envoys, such as Gao Chibang, Huang Biao, Song Hu and Zhu Wen, these people can fight, but it is still not very reassuring to serve as magistrates.

Li Rupei only stayed in Hongzhou for a day before leaving.

Yu Chenghui did not stay, he knew Li Rupei's style, and saw that Li Rupei was accompanied by only fifty people, Yu Chenghui made a suggestion, saying that Lingnan Road was still slightly desolate, which was a little different from the mainland, and hoped that Li Rupei would have more guards around him.

Li Rupei accepted Yu Chenghui's suggestion and sent thirty people from the special forces of the Iron and Blood Army stationed in Hongzhou to follow.

In this way, the number of guards around him has increased to eighty, and the scale is not small.

The reason why Li Rupei agreed to Yu Chenghui's request is also to respect Chenghui, which is a way for superiors and subordinates to get along.

Leaving Hongzhou, walking along the official road, you can see a lot of people are repairing the official road, the main purpose of the renovation is to widen and repair the official road, the task of repairing the road is not too heavy, and the government has long put forward a requirement that the official road must be guaranteed to be smooth, so Li Rupei and his entourage although they see a lot of people building the road, but the traffic has not been greatly affected.

The situation of Jiangnan West Road is indeed good, there are no homeless people along the road, the order of villages and towns is in good order, many merchants are running around on the official road, are transporting grain, the autumn harvest has just ended, the merchants are busy buying grain, so the official road seems to be very lively.

After entering Lingnan Road, the official road is even more lively.

You can see a lot of blonde and blue-eyed businessmen, or high-nosed businessmen, are busy buying autumn tea, grain, etc., these overseas businessmen, have long learned smart, they will transport overseas goods to Guangzhou, for sale, and then personally go to the villages and towns to buy tea, grain and other goods, walking the streets and alleys for them, are familiar with the road, such hard work, in exchange for earning more goods.

The people and farmers of Lingnan Province are probably used to all this, and they don't feel much curiosity.

Of course, there are a lot of overseas people gathered in Xiangyang, among them are not only businessmen, there are many scholars, scholars and royal nobles who come from the direction of the capital, these people are basically reluctant to leave after coming to Xiangyang, and few of them return to the capital, and the prosperity of Xiangyang attracts them.

The formation of Li Rupei and his entourage was a little large, and more than 80 people rode horses, which still looked a little shocking.

At this time, Li Rupei regretted it a little, there were still too many people around him, at least the formation was not small, but he didn't have to worry, the team composed of some businessmen was much larger, so that the more than 80 people made them look shabby.

The situation on the official road made Li Rupei very relieved, and the road was being widened and renovated.

Li Rupei and the people who built the road also talked from time to time, the main question was whether their wages were received on time, and the answers they got were all satisfied, all the people who built the roads, the wages were received on time, and there were also those who did not take it for the time being, that was afraid of delaying the time of road repair, so that the wages earned were less, so they chose to do more work, and waited until the time of the month was up, and then received the wages, and there were even some road builders who thought that it was difficult to keep the wages once every ten days, so they simply waited until the month was over, and then went to receive the wages.

Li Rupei will not interfere in these aspects, as long as the businessman can pay the wages on time and as required, and what form to take, it is the result of discussion between the two parties.

Along the way, Li Rupei also saw a lot of women, most of these women are responsible for cooking, probably specially invited by businessmen, and they also have to pay wages, the construction period is so tight, being able to arrange life in a unified way will greatly shorten the construction period.

Shangjia is businessman, Li Rupei secretly sighed, no need for the government to emphasize, businessmen know how to do, in this regard officials really have to follow the study, although the ultimate goal of businessmen is to earn more silver, but the way people think of it is indeed commendable, you must know that cooking seems to be a simple thing, but it makes the people who build the road feel the relationship, so that the businessmen save time, the people who build the road work harder, and the businessmen earn more silver, which is a win-win situation. (To be continued......)