Spices, these things are useless compared to precious materials such as mahogany, pearls and jade!
After all, mahogany can be used for a long time. If it is properly maintained, it will not be a problem for decades or hundreds of years. The same is true for jade!
Sun Houpu wanted to enter the spice market, only to discover that there were two different concepts of spices on the market!
The Semu people in the desert set out from the distant Red Sea and crossed the endless ocean to the South Seas. They transported spices such as peppercorns and cinnamon. The characteristic of these spices is that most of them are used for food!
The number of spices of this type is the largest on the market! Because the climate in Nanyang is most suitable for the growth of such crops, most areas in Nanyang are already in the agricultural era. In addition to farming, these high-value spices are grown.
How much is a pound of grain worth? If it is turned into spices, the profit per pound will increase at least dozens of times. After all, there is no way to grow spices in the desert!
The spices that the people of the Song Dynasty liked were completely different from the spices that the Semu people needed! The fragrance that people in the Song Dynasty wanted was fragrance, for smelling it rather than eating it!
There were two ways to use spices in the Song Dynasty, one was to wear them and the other was to make soup and bathe! It turns out that when maritime transport was not very developed, the Song Dynasty used its own traditional spices, such as musk, fennel, huoxiang, etc. During the Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian opened up the trade routes in the Western Regions. From that time on, the Han people began to come into contact with incense varieties outside the Central Plains!
Spices that are not produced in the Central Plains, such as frankincense, agarwood, dipterocarp, ambergris, peppercorn, jinyanxiang, etc., began to enter the world of the Han people, and the number of species reached almost thirty or forty! This type of incense has a stronger aroma and longer lasting fragrance than the plant incense produced in the Central Plains itself, and has become a symbol of wealth and status!
With the development of the times, spices turned out to be precious resources that only nobles and royal families could afford. By the Song Dynasty, the wealth of the people was highly concentrated, and even people with similar family backgrounds wanted to use these high-end goods that could only be used by the upper class. !
But a normal person would know with just a little thought, what is the use of incense? It just smells good. If you smell it, you won’t be full and you won’t live longer. However, the cost is more expensive than gold!
It would be fine if it were spices such as cinnamon and pepper, but the people of the Song Dynasty liked these spices!
In the next few days, Sun Houpu spent a lot of effort investigating the entire spice market. Although the results were different from what he expected, he came to the same conclusion. If it is edible spices, there is still profit, but if it is If you use spices to smell, the profits will be even greater!
Because the Song Dynasty’s demand for spices was so great!
Before the Tang Dynasty, although trade routes were opened, the transportation capacity of land routes was limited after all. Moreover, the people of the Tang Dynasty valued Chinese clothing and food, and their pursuit of sensuality was not as high as the people of the Song Dynasty. In this dynasty, spices were used in official and private banquets, gatherings of colleagues, brothels and taverns, court affairs, and a large number of weddings and funerals among the people!
Where do the spices come from? It’s from places like Champa, Srivijaya, Dashi, and Jiaozhi in Nanyang. Although they themselves burned incense, they did not have as many tricks as the Song Dynasty. To put it bluntly, spices were considered dispensable to them. They were not valuable at all locally, but as long as they traveled across the ocean and traveled to the Song Dynasty, their value would immediately increase a hundred times. more than!
What is the difference between this and a white wolf with empty gloves? How did the Song Dynasty make money? Tea from the mountains, porcelain made from the soil in the ground, and silk made from the silk spun by silkworms. Extremely cheap things suddenly became sky-high prices. The products are then sold overseas, and the prices charged are sky-high! The two are exactly the same!
The Semu people did not purchase any of the spices used for smelling. They were all bought by the Song Dynasty people. The Song people who were thieves did not use them all for themselves. The Khitan people in the north, the Dangxiang people and other inland nomadic peoples They also need incense, and then change hands, and in the end they will pay for it! There is a consensus that they should follow whatever the people of the Song Dynasty played, and they should play even more brilliantly!
This is probably the earliest marketing, and countless wealth disappears in the smoke of nothingness!
Sun Houpu checked these things for several days, and when he told Liang Chuan, Liang Chuan also knew little about it. He only stayed on the concept of making money with spices. As for how to make money with spices and which spices can make money, he really didn't know!
Xia Xue was not physically ill to begin with, but she was so angry at Mrs. Xu that she didn't want to come out and be criticized again while lying on the bed. In the first few days, her husband, Sun Houpu, stayed in front of the bed, served tea, offered medicine, and asked for help, fearing that his wife would be wronged. After a long talk with Liang Chuan that night, Sun Houpu thought about starting to plan the next step in his life, and came to visit Xia Xue from time to time. , the main thing is to do your own thing!
As soon as Sun Houpu ignored Xia Xue, Xia Xue recovered from her illness. She became even more angry. Could it be that anyone could bully her once she came to Qingyuan? Even Sun Houpu, a guy with thick eyebrows and big eyes, changed his mind. No!
Xia Xue got out of bed and went to find Sun Houpu, preparing to have a big fight with him, otherwise the anger she was holding in her heart would drive her crazy!
But where to find Sun Houpu? At this time, Sun Houpu was visiting the city, and no one could be found. In the office, there was Yang Baxian, a rough guy who didn't know anything when asked. Su Wei, an old guy, pretended to be deaf when asked, and he was an old fox. , in the end Xia Xue could only go to Liang Chuan!
Liang Chuan asked Zhaodi to transport a batch of white coal to Taocheng today. Zhaodi wants to make iron tools. Now the coal consumption is increasing. The city has taken several prisoners to the prison in Taocheng. The carriage can carry a lot of coal. return.
Liang Chuan's coal hauling is roughly the same as the Sun family's tea smuggling, but Duan Peng now has Han Qi's instructions, and Liang Chuan's actions have been greatly facilitated in Quanzhou Prefecture. Local officials generally do not dare to embarrass Liang Chuan casually, and Weiyuan Tower even Use the state's decree to instruct local counties to take care of it!
The iron mine in Tingzhou sent a group of people out again. Cao Buxiu led the team. The mine had to be excavated again, and it would take some time to transport the iron ore back!
Once these two important industrial resources are in place, Liang Chuan will be able to equip a large number of troops. The equipment of many members of the Tianxiong Army was not returned after the battle in Penghu, and Liang Chuan did not intend to return it. Si Fangxing was all assigned. , what other equipment is there?
After Liang Chuan saw off the convoy that was recruiting his younger brother, he met Xia Xue who was coming out of the office.
Xia Xue's face was full of anger: "Where did Brother Pu go?"
"You finally woke up, then if you have a chance, come with me to the city!"
"What are you going for?"
"You'll know when you go!"
Where else could Liang Chuan take Xia Xue? Naturally, it would be to reconcile the conflict between her and the Xu family! Sun Houpu came back from the street and was a little surprised to see Xia Xue getting out of bed. Liang Chuan motioned to him not to talk too much, so as not to irritate Xia Xue again.
Poor Gao Chun once again acted as Liang Chuan's tool. However, this tool did his duty and his acting skills were always online. It can be said that he acted in his true colors!
Sun Houpu was afraid that his wife would not cooperate, so he hired a sedan to invite her into the sedan. He took her to the door of Sun's house before telling Xia Xue the truth. The ugly daughter-in-law was going to meet her parents-in-law!
Liang Chuan, Gao Chun and a group of government officials surrounded the gate of Sun's house, and they entered Sun's house in a big way.
The enemy was extremely jealous when they met. Xia Xue was still worried about Mrs. Xu's insults to her. Mrs. Xu and Mr. Sun were sitting in the middle hall with trepidation. Only at this moment did he realize how powerful this daughter-in-law was. The old couple could be made to kneel down and beg for mercy without any bloodshed!
Xia Xue only thought that Liang Chuan was taking her to some strange place in the city, but she never thought that it would be this tiger's den! But after eight large sedans were carried into Sun's house, she couldn't just throw away her face and leave! The elders of the Sun family were all present, even several brothers of the Xu family, Uncle Sun Houcai, were all smiling and accompanying them, as well as the shrews who fought Xia Xue for 300 rounds at the Zhenwu Temple that day!
As soon as I heard that Gao Chun was going to attack several of their families, how could these shrew owners sit still? Forget it in other places. In this three-acre land of Qingyuan, if you couldn't get along with Gao Chun, you would be asking for death. !
At worst, you will be beaten, at worst, scolded. If you want to have a better life, you have to make amends obediently!
The atmosphere in Sun's family hall was extremely awkward. A group of people with ulterior motives gathered together, even if they didn't laugh, it wouldn't matter!
Liang Chuan and Gao Chun were late, and they walked into the middle hall of Sun's house in a big way. There was a table in the middle, an Eight Immortals table in front of it, and a chair beside the Eight Immortals table. Mr. Sun had already sat on the upper left and upper right seats. Usually it is left to the elder of the Xia family, that is, Xia Song!
It was originally a party for the Sun family, but as soon as Gao Chun arrived, more and more people followed him!
There is no airtight wall in the world. Gao Chun withheld the tea leaves from the Sun family. This thing was wrong in the first place. Who are the Sun family? They are Xia Song's in-laws. If they dare to have trouble with the Sun family, they must have something else besides their brains. Have a picture!
Gao Chun withheld the tea leaves, and the news immediately spread in Weiyuan Tower when he returned! A group of officials in Weiyuan Tower were so anxious that they slapped Sun Houpu's legs. They had already heard about the conflict between Xia Xue and others at the Zhenwu Temple, but they did not have such sensitivity. Follow other people's example and go ahead!
To put it bluntly, everyone is still confused about this. Standing out is also an art. Who knows whether the Sun family is stumbling or really fighting. Whoever interferes with this kind of thing will die. Unlike Gao Chun, he has obtained accurate information. Precise strike!
As soon as this group of people heard that Xia Xue was going to join the Sun family, they all followed with licking their faces! You can't let Gao Chun take all the good things, you can also make money by drinking soup!
They still have the nerve to say that they are Sun Houpu's good brothers, here to support the scene! If you don’t reach out and hit the smiling person, they’ve already come, so naturally there’s no reason to hit them.
Liang Chuan was not polite and sat on the upper right corner as soon as he came up. This move was so shocking that everyone stood on the spot in shock! The officials in Weiyuan Tower cursed in their hearts, Liang Chuan was indeed a fox, hiding so deeply! Fortunately, we followed him this time, otherwise they would have been confused about many things!
As far as they knew, Liang Chuan visited Beijing and Bianjing twice. The first time he worked under Ding Wei, and the second time he worked under Xia Song. Ding Wei was investigated by the court while he was still in office, Liang Chuan was convicted and exiled to the northwest, and Xia Song has risen through the ranks and has not yet seen the end of his official position!
How did he get to the top of the list!
The people present did not dare to express their anger. They only thought that Liang Chuan was a domestic slave of Xia Song, grandma's. It turned out that this boy had deceived everyone in the world. He wanted to say that he had nothing to do with Xia Song, but he had the guts to take possession of Xia Song. Home is cheap!
Xia Xue and Sun Houpu were petrified on the spot. Xia Xue's eyes were about to burst into flames, and the anger in her heart was like, you damn Liang Chuan, you're like this, but you still haven't forgotten to take advantage of me! She knew best. If Liang Chuan had any relationship with his family, how could she not know about it?
Sun Houpu felt that Liang Chuan was not empty-handed in his position. If Liang Chuan had not been in charge of him in Bianjing, would he have been able to marry the daughter of the prime minister Xia Xue? That year, no family members were around him. Only this eldest brother kept encouraging him. If he didn't sit at the top, who would?
Gao Chun couldn't figure out what was going on inside, but he felt very excited when he saw Liang Chuan sitting in the upper seat. Doesn't this mean that the relationship between Liang Chuan and Xia Song is unusual? What he did this time was not wrong!
Liang Chuan dusted off the dust on his trouser legs, glanced around at everyone who was still immersed in shock, and said, "I said, why are you still standing there? Why don't you just sit there when someone comes to the house?"
