The Dongfeng that Li Shen said was the monopoly license issued by the imperial court.

This made Li Shen sigh that it was really important to have a certificate throughout the ages.

Wang Xuance nodded in agreement.

"What the prince said makes sense, if our Ji Wangfu does steel trading in the Central Plains, there will be great resistance, and Goguryeo is currently our best choice.

Moreover, Goguryeo should be regarded as a pure land, which has not been excavated much, and Goguryeo's iron-making technology is very backward and slow.

So this is an opportunity for us in the Ji Wangfu. ”

"Well, in the spring of next year, Lao Wang, you will find someone to deal with this matter, the materials for building the blast furnace have been shipped a lot this year, and they will continue to be shipped next year.

The king's plan is to build at least two blast furnaces next year and transfer the steelmakers from the workshop to Goguryeo.

There are many mining workers, and the last thing that Goguryeo lacks now is cheap labor.

By the way, next year a brick factory and a cement workshop will be built there, and I am going to build a few more bridges to facilitate the transportation of our steel.

The carriage workshop should also step up its efforts to improve and try to make large transport carriages out of light steel, so that our transportation costs will also be reduced. ”

Li Shen makes this series of arrangements, and the rest needs to be done by his subordinates.

Wang Hongfu nodded and took the order, and Li Shen continued:

"Now we are discussing the matter of salt, and you will be responsible for this matter, didn't we buy a lot of land by the sea in Fuzhou?

Leave aside the not very good place by the sea and transform it into salt pans, and we dry the salt ourselves.

Today's salt prices fluctuate between 20 and 30 wen per bucket, which the king thinks is too high.

To press below 20 yuan, don't think about making too much money on this thing of salt, and accumulate some virtue for our children and grandchildren. ”

After hearing Li Shen's words, everyone agreed, Datang is actually not short of salt, and the former Sui has already made improvements to salt production.

At present, there are many ways to make salt in various places, and the most common is the five-step salt production method, which collects brine evaporation, removes impurities, stores brine, crystallizes, and shovels out.

Moreover, Li Shen, a person who came from later generations, was poisoned by various TV series and novels in later generations, and felt that eating salt in ancient times must be very luxurious, and salt must be bitter and mixed with strange taste.

But when Li Shen came, he found that it was not the case at all, a bucket of salt was only 20 yuan and less than 30 yuan, and basically the people could eat it.

And there's no bitter taste, but the weird taste is a little bit.

As long as there are merchants with a little money, the salt they buy will not have any taste, let alone a rich man like Li Shen.

"Lord Wang, if that's the case, the minister has an idea, and our pirate group has captured a lot of Japanese people and prisoners.

We can have them make us salt on Pirate Island, and they won't be able to leave it for the rest of their lives, and they won't leak anything.

The main thing is that it does not pay for it yet. ”

At this time, Wang Xuance proposed a clever plan that was very in line with Li Shen's principles.

"Huh?? Yes, that's it, of course you have to use free labor, otherwise you can feed them for nothing? ”

Li Shen clapped his hands and applauded. Free of his favorite.

Wang Hongfu spoke a little worriedly at this time,

"Lord Wang, if we lower the price of salt, the villain is afraid that someone will target us. Salt For the nobles of the great family, at least three or four or even fifty percent of their annual income comes from salt.

If we do this, the villain is worried that they will jump off the wall. ”

This is indeed a problem, it is easy to dodge the open gun and difficult to defend against the dark arrow, but Li Shen is not afraid of it, after all, the identity of the prince is here,

But if they come to the yin, it won't be easy to do, so you can't always be on guard against this.

"Actually, Lord Wang, sometimes we don't necessarily have to reduce the price first, we can force them to lower the price themselves." Wang Xuance thought for a moment and then said to Li Shen.

"Oh, Xuan Ce, what a clever plan do you." Before Li Shen could figure it out, Wang Xuance came up with it.

"Lord, we can completely follow His Royal Highness's method of gold, ship a large number of them in the market, and we will not reduce the price, we will sell as much as they sell.

And our advantage lies in our Datang First Chamber of Commerce. Although the people of the Chamber of Commerce are not allowed to sell salt, they can buy salt.

We have so many merchants, and there are many people who are also well-known in the local area, let them go and publicize it to us, and they eat the salt of our Jiwang Mansion.

Lord, the people will follow suit, you said that the things used by King Ji's mansion can be bought by the people, will the people also buy them? ”

After Wang Xuance finished speaking, Li Shen praised:

"Wonderful, we have members in every place in the entire Datang, not bad. When the market share is occupied, and their salt wants to compete with us, then they can only reduce the price.

When the time comes, the king will go to the court to impeach them, bid indiscriminately, compete with the people for profit, and hurt my money bag. ”

Li Shen was excited, he was always impeached for malicious bidding before, but this time he finally had a chance to get back on the field.

"Okay, then it's decided, Huaiying will cooperate with Xuan Ce, we will do everything in the early stage, and we will start to act in the spring of next year."

Li Shen immediately gave instructions.

"Lord Wang, there is one more thing," Wang Hongfu said just as Li Shen was about to end the meeting.

"What's the matter?" Li Shen was curious.

"The current members of the Chamber of Commerce have accounted for almost seventy percent of the entire Datang, and more than 100,000 merchants have joined us in Chang'an alone, and Datang now has nearly 400 states, more than 2,000 counties, as well as foreign merchants from the Western Regions and Fanbang. We now have five or six hundred thousand members.

This year, we have collected more than 8 million yuan in license fees, membership guarantee fees, and information release fees. I don't know what to do with it. ”

"How much?" Li Shen exclaimed.

"Say it again, this king just didn't hear clearly." Li Shen asked again in disbelief, and picked his ears with his fingers.

"Back to the prince, more than eight million." Wang Hongfu repeated it again.

"No way, it's absolutely impossible, the license fee is only a few dollars a year. You must have miscalculated, I said Lao Wang, why are you old and confused after only a few years? Li Shen shook his head, it couldn't be so much.

"Lord Wang, the villain has checked many times, and the license fee is indeed not much, but because I have been maintaining business in the Ji Wangfu, there are many businessmen who earn more than 1,000 yuan a year.

The main source of this money is the transaction guarantee fee, because there have been several fraud cases, some of which are still committed by other people.

If we can't find anyone, our chamber of commerce will pay for those who have made a guarantee, and if we don't have a guarantee, we have no choice but to promise to help them find someone.

So this year, we have charged a 10% guarantee fee for all transactions above 500 yuan. ”

After listening to Wang Hongfu's explanation, Li Shen's eyes widened even more, his mouth opened wide, and even Wang Xuance and Di Renjie were full of incredulity.

"Now the transaction volume of our chamber of commerce can reach 80 million yuan a year???"

(Class: Stand.)

According to records, since the Sui and Tang dynasties, the technology of salt production has been greatly improved, especially the birth of the five-step salt production method, which has been extended to the production of sea salt.

The salt produced by this five-step salt production method has large particles, pure white color, and a bitter taste.

The "Five-Step Salt Production Method" has also been included in the national intangible cultural heritage list.

From this point of view, the salt eaten by the people of the early Tang Dynasty was not as bitter and difficult to swallow as in the TV series, and the salt-making method was not so backward.

The salt in the Zhenguan period was 20 wen per bucket, and in the Tianbao period of Tang Xuanzong, it was only 10 wen per bucket. It was only during the later Tang Suzong period that the imperial court monopolized the sale, and each bucket of salt rose to 110 yuan.

As an aside, many people were talking about salt when I wrote about pickled locusts before, why didn't I find this at the time, I regret not being at the beginning. Stinge them to death.

Class. ）