Chapter 259: Big Wedding (Part 1)

Although Huaidefang belongs to the west side of Chang'an, the terrain is never remote and is only next to the west market. It is not too far from Tai Chi Palace, so many officials chose their residence here.

The southeast corner is the mansion of the giant merchant Zou Fengchi. Because of the many taboos, the mansion did not dare to build it very high. However, Feilou Lianyu is no less than the mansion in Luoyang where Xu Jingzong saw. The decoration inside was extremely luxurious. Even the floor of the living room was covered with exquisite white marble, and many furniture was made of rare mahogany. This is real mahogany furniture, not "mahogany furniture" that was painted with red paint later. In the room where he lived, dozens of night pearls were inlaid on the walls, and when night came, it emitted a faint green light. Other rooms were also covered with smooth oil wax, and one or two pieces of gold and jade or ivory ornaments appeared from time to time.

Luxury, even the interior decoration of the palace is not as good as that.

At this time, Zou Fengchi was sitting under the grape rack in the yard, and the tea he drank was also Xiazhou old tree tea, which Li Wei was reluctant to drink, that kind of precious tribute tea.

It cannot be said that he has a low status. For the court, he is still an ant that can be trampled to death at any time, but after all, it is an ant, which can make the ministers in the court see it. In the eyes of ordinary people and other businessmen, in the eyes of officials, are not even ants, but unknown gravel.

At this time, he was talking to the butler. The butler looked at the master respectfully. Because Zou Fengchi's shoulders and bent back, people also called him Zou Luotuo. The camel was big and could carry heavy loads. There were many camels. Zou Fengchi was not ashamed of it, but was proud of this nickname.

Zou Fengchi said, "Give me 30,000 yuan in money."

"Alang, what do you want so much money to do?" The housekeeper was puzzled. Thirty thousand yuan was not 30,000 yuan, and it didn't take so much money to do business. With Zou Fengchi's wealth, 30,000 yuan was not a small amount.

"I'm going to go to sea."

That is to say, the 100 places that the prince mentioned, the housekeeper was even more puzzled and said, "Alang, although your property is spread all over the country, the focus is still in Guanzhong, not in the southeast. Moreover, Alang, your wealth is in silk weaving, and it has nothing to do with shipping."

There are many wealthy businessmen in Chang'an City. Some rely on shipping, some rely on smuggling, some rely on usury, some also operate real estate, own countless shops to collect rent, some are very strange to get rich, and some are actually making money by selling porridge, or collecting waste, and some are making money by digging horse manure. However, Zou Fengchi is very orthodox to get rich, and he has opened countless silk workshops and made money by mainstream silk industry. There are also other industries, or fields, but the share of his wealth is not large.

Zou Fengchi shook his head and said, "The new canal of the prince is mainly finance. He does not want to hurt the people, and does not use labor force to make the people open canals, but the government is even less financially. Therefore, he came up with a way to allow merchants to go out to sea and raise funds. It is not that merchants are not enthusiastic, but that the new canal is the difficulty of opening canals. In the past, the Sui Dynasty could not solve the dangers of the three gates. In addition to the Danshui Canal, I don't know how much money it needs. Everyone is worried that it has become a bottomless pit. Now it has donated, and the Ming Dynasty still has it. He has taken the name of a good merchant, but has emptied his own family."

"Alang, that's right."

"The indignation of the masses made everyone very worried." Encouraging wealthy businessmen to donate money to the court was not the beginning of Li Wei. Wu Zetian's father, Wu Shishi Teng, did not count. He had a good relationship with Li Yuan before Li Yuan was uprising and made many contributions to the founding and governing the Tang Dynasty. However, in the hands of Li Shimin, Anzhou businessman Peng Tong offered 5,000 yuan of Bu for military expenses in Liaodong, and asked Li Shimin to give the title of Yilang (from the seventh rank) to Wensan. When Li Zhi conquered the east, Anzhou businessman Peng Zhijun contributed another 30,000 yuan of Bu to sponsor military expenses and granted the Royal Court (from the sixth rank), which in a sense was equivalent to awarding an official title.

However, some counselors believed that merchants were not good at being officials. After all, they had great power to get money, and it would be even more powerful to obtain official positions, which would be beneficial to exploitation. Regular merchants are better, such as some merchants who had accumulated a loan by relying on bad wealth, smuggling, or loan sharing. Obtaining official positions is even more harmful. But as merchants themselves, they also had their ideas. I cut meat, which was somewhat beneficial. Even if I went to sea, I also set up many frames and restrictions, and coupled with opposition from the government and the country, the merchants were timid.

The two talked, but they never talked about the island owner from beginning to end. The island main frame is more, and they are overseas. Who is interested? If it is clearly stipulated that the first-class island owner is the seventh-class island owner, the second-class island owner is the eighth-class island owner, and the third-class island owner is the ninth-class, merchants will immediately flock to it. There is no rank, and after decades of operation, it will be handed over to the court, so none of them take it seriously. Of course, it is not like that. If a great voyage really appears, these island owners are also very noble, and even one-tenth of the eternal regent can recreate a family. But Li Wei is not sure, who has the eyesight?

But Zou Fengchi changed the topic and said, "But with the quarrying technology, Xinqu is not impossible. The prince sent the censor to visit the three gates, which shows the prince's determination. Once the new quota is completed, the prince's succession is no longer able to stop him. Even if Xu Jingzong was alive in the past, it would not be hindered. We are just inferior to the merchants, one king and one minister, and one who is rich, the top of the capital. If we do not express our opinions here, it is likely that the disaster will come to the future. Let's talk about going to sea, so let's try it."

"But Liang and Lu only took out 20,000 yuan."

"We can't say that. They have given out 20,000 yuan this time and have donated many times to the court, far more than this. Although their business has been booming in recent years and has benefited from the prince's fortune, so no one dares to touch their interests, in general, their property is still less than one tenth of me. If they donate too little, it's better not to donate."

If you can't describe it as donation, in fact, the benefits may be far more than their efforts today. But you don't know about navigation and don't even know the specific situation of Dashi and the countries in the South China Sea, so you have no idea. If you take out the money, you will treat it as a donation. (Note, the Tang Shangren Lingfang was fined and confiscated for harsh loans, and more than 600,000 yuan of property was seized. The most donation was probably Wang Jiuhu, a merchant from the late Tang Dynasty, who built the Zhuque Gate and Anguo Temple for the court. The two donations reached 400,000 yuan)

After saying that, I was envious. If I could climb the clue of the prince, it would be worth it even if I donated 100,000 yuan. But Zou Fengchi did not expect that Li Wei had considered him. He was not too bad and the richest man in Chang'an. However, he was timid and cautious, so he spent money everywhere and kept it for friendship. Although his path became wider, in a bad way, he used a pair of jade arms, a thousand people pillows, and a little red lips paid for. The path was too complicated, which was not conducive to keeping his mouth tight and eventually missing.

...

Some censors came back from the Sanmen. Some were soft-mouthed, but some were still very hard-mouthed. The memorial said that water conservancy can be obtained for several years, but Wanghua is the foundation of governing the country. You cannot abandon Wanghua and not defend it just because of some money raised.

But seeing that there were two new methods of quarry making it possible to control Sanmen and Kaidanshui canal transportation, the voices of opposition eventually became weaker. These censors were the heads of opposing voices. Once they were weak, they became much quieter with the court and the country.

After careful exploration, there was a small platform in the area where the north bank of Sanmen was 16 or 7 miles east, surrounded by mountains on three sides and water on the south. The terrain was relatively low and flat. When we arrived here, the water flow was not fast, and we could build warehouses and moor boats. In the area where the Sanmen was 4 or 5 miles west, there was a relatively gentle river beach. The two places were straightened, but the roads of ten miles were built. The land route for transportation was not very far, and the freight was saved.

And when it is built, it can only take a section of the land route that Yuan Chulang failed to do. But in general, there are also a few mountain roads to open, and the project is not big or small. After all, simple methods of opening stones are still very necessary. There is a simple method to open this road, which will save costs, and save people's strength.

At the same time, Zou Fengchi participated in the voyage of Jingdan, which led many merchants in the two capitals. Liang and Lu did not count, but they made a lot of shouting, but they hated each other very much among the merchant group. After all, they were the leader of the business tax. Zou Fengchi's reputation is very good. At least now, there will be no miserable consequences of 100 places being vacant in the end.

Li Wei was not anxious about this, this was the beginning. If he didn't check it, he would be shocked. The project volume was extremely huge, far exceeding his imagination. If he could not do anything like Yang Guang, three or two years would be just a dream. Even if he had black gunpowder, it would probably take five or six years, or even longer.

This year, we mainly focus on digging the open channel, which is not expensive. When we open mountains and ridges, the cost is expensive. When we dig mountain roads on a large scale, it is at least possible until the year after tomorrow. When we see the profits brought by the navigation, the merchants participating will be truly enthusiastic.

As October is coming, the Guangtong Channel omnichannel project has been measured. Li Wei and Yan Liben's recommendations used Wei Hongji to supervise the work, and involved demolition of houses, demolition of farmland, etc., and Zhu Jingze supervises the project. With this direct official supervision, there will be no forced demolition teams or greed, even if there is, there will be very few. It is probably Yan Liben's last advice. After the advice, Yan Liben's condition began to worsen and he was bedridden. For an old man in his seventies, he suffered such a serious illness, and the result can be imagined.

Then, the recruitment of civil servants and recruitment began to be collected. The canal water began to fall, and it was a good time to start construction. After a while, the water level was lower, but the weather became colder, which was inconvenient. Even in the twelfth lunar month, all the river mud formed into thick ice and had to be stopped.

However, good news came again. Li Wei gave Xiong Jiaoyan two thousand pieces of money, which may not be nothing to some people. The world does not know how much Zou Fengchi spent on a sensation in the capital. Some people say that 200,000 pieces of money, and some say that 300,000 pieces of money is definitely more than 100,000 pieces of money. Later, Li Guer spent 100,000 pieces of money on a skirt. But for ordinary people or officials, it means that today's bumper harvest year, you can buy 40,000 stones of grain. Even the average grain price of the previous year, you can buy more than 3,000 stones of grain for seven or eight hundred people to eat in a year. Or change the algorithm, you can buy more than 5,000 pieces of cotton, or a decent house in the capital, or a hundred strong troops, or more than 100 acres of good land. Therefore, many people and low-level officials felt jealous and thought hard at home.

A ninth-rank official Hequcheng, a ninth-rank official named Du Shuilin, came up with a solution. It was not a new method, but an improvement was made in the original method of burning stones and opening stones.

First, the whole stone was chiseled out of a tic toe shape, leaving three fire outlets at one end of the tic toe. The tic toe trench was covered with soil, and two tall chimneys were erected at the other end. The fire outlet was made into a furnace when smelting iron, and a bellows were used to cool the wind to make the fire flow in the trench. This principle was what Zhu Qucheng remembered when he saw his wife cooking. The previous various burning stones were just placed outside the air to burn, and the charcoal was used, and the fire was not gathered. Using this method would have a higher temperature and would save a lot of charcoal.

Then, while burning, some tubes are used to spray white vinegar, which is the method of burning stones and fertilizing vinegar. Especially with the gun hammer, Xiong Jiaoyan invented it very primitive and later placed it in the military weapon supervisor for modification. Because of its power, some people love to call it a gun hammer. The difficulty of digging stone ditches is reduced, making this method easy to implement. After burning white vinegar, the stone is soft. The other end of the tic toe is connected to the water source. After the stone is burned red, the charcoal is destroyed, the water valve is opened, the water is put into the trench, and the cold water is sprayed immediately. The stone not only becomes soft, but also explodes. Then the gunpowder is used to blow it up, making the difficulty of opening stones easier.

As he said that, he handed over a drawing.

Li Wei looked at the drawings and pondered that the woxi method is actually a chemical reaction. It is very cost-effective to use and does not have much effect. Of course, it also has some effects. The main thing is thermal expansion and contraction. Water conservancy construction is generally from late autumn to early spring. The water potential is small, which is convenient for construction. At this time, the temperature of the water is very low. When the cold and the potential are intensified, the stone bursts.
Chapter completed!