After quelling the storm of the Qingxu Prefecture, the chaotic northern situation temporarily entered a period of relative calm.

The imperial court did not say hello to Zhao Xing, so it banned the snowflake salt sold in the market by the Jin State, and also instigated many states to arrest the merchants of the Jin State and seal up the shops of the Jin State.

Snowflake salt is actually still sold in Qingzhou and Xuzhou, and merchants in Yanzhou, Yuzhou, and Yangzhou, which are close to Qingxu, secretly buy snowflake salt produced in the Jin Kingdom from Linzi and Xiapi, and then quietly ship it back to Benzhou for sale.

As mentioned earlier, Cao Heizi was very cunning, and when the states wantonly executed the merchants of the Jin Kingdom, he let the death row prisoners in the prison be beheaded instead of the merchants of the Jin Kingdom, and did not offend Zhao Xing to death. Later, he quietly asked people to send a message to Zhao Xing, saying that he had sent someone to secretly send the arrested Jin merchants to Qingzhou, and asked the Jin State to transfer the right to sell snowflake salt in Yanzhou to the Yanzhou Pastoral Government in the future, and not to send people to sell salt blatantly.

Zhao Xingming knew that Cao Cao wanted to peel off a layer of skin in the sales process of snowflake salt and make a profit, but he still happily agreed to Cao Heizi's request. Although Lao Cao will become the actual agent of Xuehua Salt in Yanzhou in the future, Xianyang Salt Farm will lose half of its income because of this, but after all, it is better than not even earning a penny from Yanzhou because of the blockage of trade routes.

Although Cao Cao's strength will go further if he makes money, the Jin Kingdom is also making money and his strength is also increasing. Jin and Yanzhou secretly did business, and it was the central court that suffered in the end, and Zhao Xing and Cao Cao each calculated this account very clearly.

Similarly, for example, the secret trade between the Jin State and Wuzhou has not been interrupted, and the beef and mutton, high-quality agricultural tools, wool fabrics, books and other commodities produced by the Jin State are loaded on ships through the Quanzhou wharf, and transported all the way south along the coastline to the port of Yuzhou Mountain in the East China Sea, some of which are sold in Xuzhou, and some of which are transported to Wuzhou by water. Iron ore, grain, and goods such as silk, tea, and porcelain produced locally in Wuzhou were transported to Quanzhou by water, and then sold overland to Youzhou, Jin, and Liang.

The four major families of Sun, Zhang, Zhu, and Lu in Wuzhou have made a lot of money in the past two years by relying on the opening of water trade routes, and they are willing to completely sever their relations with the Jin State. Although they knew that the Jin Kingdom would become more and more powerful in the process of trade, and that it would become a threat to Wuzhou sooner or later in the future, how many people would really be worried and scared when the danger had not really come?

Sun Jian still didn't dare to think about such a rebellious thing as usurping the Han Dynasty and establishing himself, he was calculating how to hold Wuzhou, ensure that the Sun family could prosper, and be the emperor.

Although some states caused irreparable damage to the merchants of the Jin Kingdom, the Jin Kingdom, in the spirit of the contract, still sent business letters to the merchants of all states in the world after the beginning of spring, inviting merchants from all over the world who had signed commodity agency rights with the Jin State to go to Crouching Tiger City to participate in the annual order fair. At the meeting, the merchants and manufacturers of Jinguo will inform the merchants of this year's commodity output, varieties and factory guidance prices, and then accept the deposits of merchants around the country to provide all kinds of commodities as scheduled.

According to their opinion, for those states and counties that dare to offend the Jin State, they should completely sever ties with these states and counties, refuse to provide all kinds of goods to the merchants of these states and counties, and the agency agreement reached last year should also be invalidated, only in this way can the strength of the Jin State be demonstrated.

Regarding the extreme understanding of the common people, Zhao Xing just smiled a few bitterly. Zhao Xing explained to the people around him: "Even if we let the Jin Kingdom fight with the states of the world now, we will not be afraid. But if we are not allowed to do business with the states of the world, it will not be long before we will have to finish the game! It is financial, material, and manpower that fights for war, and the Jin State now has money, so it can feed an army of two or three hundred thousand, and the imperial court and the states of the world will be helpless against us. But if the last run storm swept through the Jin Kingdom, and our wealth was swept away, what can we do now to compete with the coalition forces on the Jizhou Plain and the army that invaded Wudu in Yizhou?"

Not long after Zhao Xing's words landed, the quartermasters who went to Crouching Tiger City from Jizhou and Liangguo to urge food and money arrived.

Liu Jili and Qin Yilu had carefully calculated that since the war on the Eastern Front and the Western Front, the expenses of the Protector Army had tripled compared with usual, and just to maintain the daily expenses of the Dragoon Army, the Xiongwu Army, the Xiong Zhen Army, the Black Mountain Army, the Blue Wolf Army, the Xiliang Army, the Dingyuan Army, and the Vanguard Army, the Jin State Treasury would provide two million taels of military expenses to the Protector Army every month.

Since December last year, in just three months, Qin Yilu has gritted his teeth and removed more than six million taels of silver from the treasury, which makes the chief manager always feel a toothache recently. Qin Yilu often complained to Zhao Xing: "Lord, you have to fight a war quickly, every extra day, it burns all the silver in vain!"

Zhao Xing looked at Qin Yilu, who was born early and gray-haired, who was in charge of his money, with a sigh and replied: "Do you think I like to fight? Now that the Jizhou battlefield and the Wudu battlefield have fallen into a confrontation, the two sides are fighting for financial resources, and after a long time, there will always be people who will retreat first after they can't hold back." But the retreating side will definitely not be our Jin Kingdom, don't you say?"

Qin Yilu then came to his senses, patted his chest vigorously and said: "That's natural! Although the cost of attacking Jizhou this time is amazing, we have grabbed two-thirds of Yuan Shao's territory, which is a full six counties, which is enough to make up for our losses! These six counties have a population of almost two million, of which there are at least 600,000 young and strong laborers, according to the minimum standard that each person can create ten taels of wealth for the Jin State every year, it will be six million taels in one year, and sixty million taels in ten years......

Zhao Xing was too lazy to listen to Qin Yilu's broken thoughts, and turned his head to Liu Jili, who was listening attentively on the side, and said: "Contact the officials of Huang Xuan, Yan Sheng and Yaoxing who are responsible for managing finances, and say that I will take the time to organize personnel to audit their income and expenditure accounts recently, and don't give me those false numbers to deal with errands when the time comes, who dares to ambush me on this account, Lao Tzu unscrewed his head and kicked it as a ball!"