Qin Official

Heifu asked Zhang Ping to go back and prepare for the arrival of the imperial appointment letter. He went straight into the inner room of his home. A man dressed as a businessman was warming himself by the charcoal basin. There was still frost and snow on his body. When he saw Heifu come in, He quickly bowed to him:

"Brother, I've seen Young Shangzao!"

It's Heifu's cousin Yan who helps him run the brown sugar business in Nan County and whom he hasn't seen for a long time...

Well, he should be called "Tang Yan" now.

Ever since Hei Fu had a clan, relatives no matter how far away they were wanted to come and have a visit. For example, Yan's mother is the sister of Heifu's cheap father. Logically speaking, Yan would never have the same family name as him, but these rural people in Jingchu are not so particular and insist on letting Yan get married to Heifu. Light.

Heifu's mother was still wise and declined the matter, but she accepted Yan as a pretender and said to him:

"Since others call me Tang Nuo, you can just call me Tang Yan from now on. It's just a name, and you don't need to be a naturalized person."

The Ceng family incident was over, and the brown sugar workshop of Heifu's family naturally took the name "Tang family".

Heifu also helped them think of the slogan for the workshop: "Nothing sweet, no joy!"

Heifu looked at Yan's attire and saw that he was wearing a fur coat and had a strong aura of nouveau riche. Looking at what he was wearing underneath, he was not so carried away that he wore silk clothes and embroidered shoes. This was illegal in Qin. Even if merchants were rich, they had to wear Gema clothes to show their low status.

Hei Fu didn't say much about breaking the law. On the surface, Yan was also a businessman with a net worth of millions. If he wore too shabby clothes, he would lose face.

Heifu was not polite and asked Yan to sit down and tell him everything he couldn't say in the letter.

"Let's start and explain everything clearly."

Yan began to report at length on the expansion of sugar cane plantations in the South last year.

It has been nine years since Heifu moved the first wild sugar cane to his field. Thanks to the improvement of sweet sugar cane in the old palace of King Chu, although the sweetness is still not as good as that of later generations, the taste can be chewed, and it is not as bland as water at the beginning.

In addition to the gradual improvement of varieties, the planting area of ​​sugarcane is also rapidly expanding. The Qin Dynasty did not allow land annexation, and Heifu, now a young man with a title, only has 84 hectares of land scattered in Anlu and Nanchang counties. Of course, this land alone cannot produce enough sugarcane for sugar production.

So Heifu asked Yan to give a lot of sugar cane seeds to the villagers for free a few years ago. Hearing that sugarcane could be sold to brown sugar workshops for money, the Anlu Township Party and Nanchang immigrants began to follow suit. After several years of development, sugarcane fields have now spread throughout Nanjun and Yuzhang counties.

Yan Zizihui reported: “Nowadays, sugarcane fields can be seen throughout Yunmengze and along the river in Nan County. Almost every county has hundreds of hectares of sugarcane fields. Sugar mills opened in various places can provide endless supplies of sugar cane fields. raw material."

"Didn't the local government stop it?"

Heifu is most concerned about this. After all, the land in each county is limited. If a large amount of fertile land is used to grow cash crops such as sugar cane, it will inevitably affect food production. This is related to the plan of the local government. Even if the sugar mill will pay a large amount of taxes to the local government, and even if Heifu has a strong local background, they will not sit idly by.

Yan said matter-of-factly: "Who dares to cause trouble for the young master?"

Heifu frowned: "Isn't it so that you can't bully others?"

Yan quickly said: "How dare I do this? In accordance with the instructions of my superior, I sent people to tell the sugarcane farmers in Nanjun counties that sugarcane should be planted in low-lying areas that cannot produce food, or on the edge of ditches in grain fields, and try not to crowd out millet and rice... …”

As long as it does not affect food production and can increase taxes, why not do it? So the county officials treated sugar cane like orange trees common in Hanshui and Jiangling to collect taxes, and planting fruit trees was also an industry greatly encouraged by the imperial court.

Not to mention Yuzhang, the terrain is low and the climate is humid. The main source of local income was originally bamboo and gold, but bamboo is too common to be sold at a high price, and mineral reserves are limited and transportation is inconvenient, so the income from mining is not enough to cover the expenses.

Therefore, planting sugar cane, boiling brown sugar, and transporting it to Jiujiang and other places for sale have become Yuzhang County’s largest source of financial resources. Not only can they not be suppressed, but they must be strongly supported.

Not to mention, Yin Tong, the newly appointed captain of Yuzhang County, worked together with Heifu in Beidi County.

Yan Shi ran between Nanjun and Yuzhang all year round and said:

"Yin County Lieutenant paid great attention to Jing and recommended him to be the Nanchang Yuguan, specializing in the mountains, rivers and forests. He also urged the Yuzhang County Governor, saying that one does not sell woodcutters for hundreds of miles, and does not sell grain for thousands of miles. When you are ten years old, you plant grains; when you are ten years old, you plant trees. If Yuzhang does not want to be in poverty and have the lowest income in the country every year, it must plant sugarcane trees vigorously!"

This is how Yin Tong incited the governor of Yuzhang: "There are thousands of jujube trees in Anyi; thousands of chestnut trees in Yan; thousands of orange trees in Shu, Han, and Jiangling; thousands of hagi trees between Heji; and thousands of acres in Chen and Xia. lacquer; there are thousands of acres of mulberry and hemp in Qi and Lu; thousands of acres of bamboo in Weichuan... Every place is rich with this, why can't thousands of hectares of sugar cane be planted in the land south of the Yangtze River in Yuzhang?"

After being persuaded by Yin Tong, the governor of Yuzhang County decided to make sugar cane and brown sugar the main business of Yuzhang County in the next ten years!

Firstly, this thing is not like grain, which requires too much energy to be cultivated intensively. Secondly, Yuzhang has plenty of open space, and there is no fear of it occupying the grain fields!

The only problem is that due to the serious shortage of local population, they can only use the Chu people captured in the war as foremen and the Yangyue people captured from the mountains and forests as ministers. They cut off the big toes and specialize in tending the sugarcane fields.

Therefore, the main job of Heifu's old subordinates in Yuzhang every year was to lead people into the mountains to suppress the Yue people, plunder their population, and bring them back to the city. A unique plantation economy had sprouted in Yuzhang. And Heifu's brother, Wu Rui, the nominal chief of Ganyue, also took advantage of Yugan's geographical advantages to transport Yue slaves from Ouyue and Minyue in the east to Yuzhang...

Therefore, the sugarcane fields and brown sugar industry in Yuzhang County are different from the people in Nanjun County who spontaneously plant the sugarcane fields and then hand over the raw materials to the Heifu family workshop for production.

Speaking of this, Yan took a peek at Heifu's face and asked a question that had been bothering him for a long time.

"Young Shangzao, I have been doing business for more than ten years. I have seen that merchants in this world hide rare goods tightly, but Young Shangzao is different."

"In the second year after arriving in Xianyang, Shaoshangzao presented the formula for making brown sugar to the Shaofu. However, it was cold in the north and sugarcane could not be grown, so the Shaofu didn't pay attention."

"After that, Shaoshangzao gave the recipe and a lot of sugarcane seeds to Ba Zhong of Ba Shi, so that he could also start growing sugar cane along the river in Bashu. Yuzhang County was first established last year, and he wanted to change my workshop into a government-run one. The young master could clearly refuse, but he readily sold them all to the government, why is this?"

In Yan's opinion, Heifu is too "selfless"!

If Heifu hadn't been so generous, their brown sugar business would have already spread throughout the entire middle and upper reaches of the river. From Bashu to Yuzhang, there were all merchant ships and workshops under the banner of "Tang Family"! How can the annual profit be only the millions sold in Nanjun and Xianyang? It should be tens of millions!

Although Yan was just a hawker selling candy in the past, he followed Heifu to Xianyang several times and gradually became more ambitious.

He hopes that the "Tang Family" can compete with the Ba and Wu families and become the three most successful merchants in the world!

Unexpectedly, Yan's ambition was extinguished just a little bit by Hei Fu with a basin of cold water!

Heifu said: "You are right. Wushi Luobi was granted the title of king and was in the same dynasty as the ministers, while the widow Qing of Ba was honored as a guest by your majesty. One is the shepherd chief, and the other is a widow from a poor village in Qing. Resisting thousands of vehicles, becoming famous all over the world, it does look very majestic...but are they able to obtain all this just because of their wealth?"

Yan didn't know how to answer, could it be... no?

Heifu glared at Yan: "Qin has always underestimated merchants and regarded them as one of the five idiots in the country. You have been a small merchant and you should know that you can't even wear beautiful clothes on weekdays. When there is a war, you are the first to be drafted."

"Even if Ba and Wu seem to be honored, they are actually in danger. With just a word from His Majesty, Ba's Widow Qing was moved to Xianyang and put under house arrest. Most of her tens of thousands of servants were disbanded, and the well salt business they had previously done was also obediently surrendered. Give it to the government. Because the world is unified, Ba Shi has no other use except to offer cinnabar to your Majesty to make mercury! Your Majesty does not need him to dominate Bazhong, and his words are more effective than the governor and lieutenant of Ba County!"

"As for Wu Shiluo, I have seen him many times. The richest businessman in the world always has a grimace on his face, because he knows that how long and how big his business can be depends on whether His Majesty still needs him... "

"When Your Majesty wanted to attack the Xiongnu and Yuezhi, the Wuzhi were in fear and wanted to die. If both kingdoms were destroyed, would it be necessary for him, the merchant in the middle, to exist? Until it was discovered that there were countless city-states to the west of the Yuezhi, until the third After a woolen garment belonging to Wushi was woven, Wushi had a new reason to be used by the court, so he laughed heartily and said to me, 'Wushi will have nothing to worry about until I die'!"

Heifu has been in Guanzhong for so many years, and he has understood Qin Shihuang's attitude towards merchants and commerce: if they are useful to me, I will support them, and if they are no longer useful, I will discard them as if they were worthless!

The Qin Dynasty and the Legalists practiced big government. They wished that all economic activities such as salt, copper, iron, wine, and grain would be handled by the government. They would never allow any market freedom. Once a big businessman like Li Si Qian Cheng appeared, he would either be included in the government. Under the banner, or hit to death.

The Tao Zhu family of Dingtao in Guandong, the Kong family of Wei state, and the Guo family of Handan were also wealthy businessmen who could resist the courtesy of their feudal lords. Didn't they wither away after the Qin Dynasty ruled those places? Either business shrinks or they are forced to relocate.

Under this situation, what kind of industry monopoly do you want to create, and what kind of business world do you want to create? I'm afraid it's because I ate too much brown sugar and that I don't have enough black spots on my body!

Heifu was sure that even if he didn't let his cousin present the formula and didn't voluntarily abandon Yuzhang's workshop, sooner or later Qin Shihuang would call him to question him: "I heard that the Qing family's property has spread across the entire river, and they are as rich as any country." Already?"

He didn't want to receive such a proposition one day while Zhao Gao was still chuckling beside him.

"The world's business is so big, can one family monopolize it?"

Heifu said to his trembling cousin: "Don't even think about expanding outwards. You can draw the land as a prison and occupy Nanjun. It's enough to make a profit. Although the brown sugar in the sugarcane field in Yuzhang is an official business, my brother Wei Jing and others Who among the old township party members doesn’t profit from this industry?”

"As for Ba Shi, I have an agreement with Ba Zhong that he will only sell sugar in Bashu and Guizhou, and will not go beyond Wushan! And the price will never be lower than mine."

"Brother, I understand." Yan was sweating and did not dare to mention this matter again.

"You understand, how could you possibly understand."

Heifu smiled. He wanted to spread sugar over the world... No, he wanted to plan for the overall situation. How could Yan know? Compared with the money, it is more interesting to watch the times change more and more due to his influence.

Yan also has a worry: "It is not difficult to boil brown sugar. Since this year, not only some county and village tycoons in Nanjun have secretly made sugar. Even in distant Huainan and Kuaiji, old Chu nobles have begun to follow suit, planting sugarcane fields and boiling sugar." Brown sugar. If things go on like this, the sales of my brown sugar will probably get worse and worse."

"oh?"

Heifu thought this was a very interesting change and said with a smile: "Let them go! If one day brown sugar stops making money, you can start selling the produced brown sugar!"

After several years of hard work, Yan has evolved the process of making large pieces of brown sugar to the point where he can make brown sugar. He is still far away from the more mature white sugar and rock sugar, but Hei Fu is not worried. When white sugar becomes popular all over the world in the future, "Sugar's" slogan will be able to add "sugar plus three spoons".

Yan Wei only agreed, and Hei Fu said again: "I have something I want you to do. Now the 'Tang's' shops are only in Jiangling, Wancheng and Xianyang. You can send someone to Pei County, Sishui County." Also open a place to verify the talisman and the government's permission, and I will have someone do it for you."

"Pei County, Surabaya County?"

Yan was a little dumbfounded, not to mention that Sishui County is thousands of miles away from Nan County. Besides, not many people in a small place like Peixian County can afford brown sugar. I'm afraid the profit is not enough to cover the cost and freight, right?

“Don’t worry about the cost.”

Heifu looked like he was coming back after losing all his money. Since the system and environment of the Qin Dynasty meant that it was impossible for him to use the money earned from brown sugar to expand reproduction, he might as well use it for useful things.

"You only need to send a few smart people over, take root in the market, and guide Pei County from the county magistrate and county magistrate to the various officials, and even the pavilion chiefs everywhere... Well, especially the pavilion chiefs! Bring these people Just find out your name, place of origin, and hobbies!"