On the north wall, Zhao Bin and Cao Li looked at the retreating figures of everyone while feeling the cold wind blowing from the north. Linger put a cloak on Zhao Bin from behind.
"Your Majesty, we are just making farm tools, is it worth spending so much manpower and material resources?" Cao Li suddenly said something incomprehensible.
"Be prepared," Zhao Bin said leisurely. Cao Li didn't know that Zhao Bin wanted to make iron not only for farm tools, but also to prepare for the future.
"Your Majesty, the progress at the factory may have to slow down a bit. The brick kiln is currently unable to supply new custom-made bricks." Cao Li pointed to the factory area in the northeast corner not far away and said.
"Spend part of the money from the palace and lend it to the brick kilns so that they can build more kilns. If there is not enough manpower, let them hire people, which can also solve the employment problem of the people.
The loan money should be deducted with bricks. In the future, the palace will still have many places to use bricks, so just let them bake them. "Zhao Bin said helplessly.
This matter cannot be blamed on others. The project was started directly without any preparation. The new factory building will definitely use a large amount of bricks and tiles, and these were not arranged in advance.
"Yes, Your Majesty." Cao Li replied.
"How's it going at the salt workshop?" Zhao Bin continued to ask.
"Captain Xu Ling brought back twenty carts of coarse salt from the sea two days ago. Now there is no room for it at the palace, so the official can only have some salt stored in an empty room in the new factory." Cao Li followed Zhao Bin He continued behind him.
"Ling'er, send someone to deliver a message to Xu Ling and the others, asking them to come back. Winter is about to begin, and the salt drying will be slower, and the Xianbei people may not come to exchange salt on a large scale this year." Zhao Bin rushed to the side. Linger said.
"Okay, Your Majesty, I will write a letter when I get back." Ling'er replied obediently.
"Your Majesty, I have something unclear, please give me some advice?" Cao Li on the other side said.
"What's the matter?"
"Your Majesty, this salt is easier to transport than cattle and sheep. Why don't we transport the fine salt to the capital for sale? If we can transport the fine salt to the capital, we will surely be able to open up the market in a short time."
"That's true, but the salt mines in Daxia are all in the hands of those powerful families, and even the salt market in the capital is controlled by the Dai family, the Zhang family, and the Xue family.
There is no one in the court who can speak for us. If we rush in now and seize the market, it will inevitably lead to a joint attack by several families. We do not have the strength to fight against several big families now. "
"What if we sell the salt to the court?"
"Sold to the court?"
"Yes, Your Majesty, we sell the fine salt directly to the court, and the court is responsible for the sales. Not to mention the capital city, the entire Henan Province is within the court's sphere of influence.
Presumably those families did not dare to confront the imperial court. Moreover, seeing that all the wealth was flowing to the aristocratic families, I am afraid that the emperor was already dissatisfied with these aristocratic families. "
"Go on." Zhao Bin looked at Cao Li and said.
“It’s been so long, I’m afraid the prince, the eldest prince, and even the emperor must have known about our exchange of salt and Xianbei people for livestock.
The court has regulations that prohibit barbarians from selling salt, but so far the court has not sent anyone to hold them accountable. The official boldly guessed that His Majesty may have been planning to sell salt.
The subordinate is thinking, instead of waiting for the emperor to come up and ask for it, we should take the initiative, so that we can get the upper hand and have the conditions to negotiate with the emperor. "
"In your opinion, how much should we sell it to the court?" Zhao Bin asked.
"The lower official thinks that we can sell it to the court at 30% of the market price. The price should not be too high, otherwise the emperor may not allow it."
At present, the price of coarse salt on the market is about 300 Wen per catty, and the price of better quality salt is 500 Wen per catty.
Our fine salt is much better than the coarse salt sold in the market. It can be sold to the court for 150 Wen. As for how the court sells it, we don't need to worry about it.
Captain Xu can now transport twenty carts of coarse salt at a time. Each cart of salt is about 1,000 kilograms, and the total is about 30,000 kilograms.
If it is 150 Wen per catty, it can be sold for about 4,500 taels at a time. Excluding the expenses of eating horse chews and other expenses, the remaining should be no less than 4,000 taels. In one month, the income should be no less than 10,000 taels. . "
Zhao Bin listened to Cao Li's narration one by one, and felt inexplicably sighing in his heart, what a damn world.
Ordinary people can't afford salt. More than a thousand people can only earn ten thousand taels of silver after working hard for a month.
And what falls into their hands is only a hundred cents per month. This is for those who have work to do. Those who have no work to do may not be able to afford a pound of salt throughout the year.
And those aristocratic families taxed the people violently, and a lot of wealth flowed into their hands.
"Let's just deal with this matter. If it continues to be delayed, I'm afraid that as you said, the emperor will personally send someone to ask for salt, and I'm afraid there will be accountability at that time.
In addition, the emperor likes horses, so we should also allocate two to five thousand of the horses we exchanged to the court. Since the favor has to be given, let's give a big one. Let's go back and prepare a memorial about this matter.
Xu Ling should not come back for the time being. If drying salt is not possible, then boil salt in a pot. When the iron ore is brought back, hundreds of pots will be built and sent to Xu Ling. "
"It's the prince, but I think it's better for you to write a family letter in person about this matter. It's not appropriate for the six ministries to know about it first," Cao Li replied.
Zhao Bin thought about it and found that it was indeed true. Almost all the main officials in the six departments were controlled by people from aristocratic families.
The Minister of Hubu is Xue Qing, the eldest prince’s maternal grandfather, and the Minister of War is the uncle of the eighth prince, Shandong Fangjia.
Although the Shangshu of the Ministry of Personnel is not the prince's biological uncle, he is also the Meng family in Guanzhong. The Zhang family and the Meng family in Guanzhong have been married for almost generations, and they are just a pair of trousers. What's more, Zhang Zhi, the right minister of the Ministry of official affairs, is the uncle of the prince.
Dai Yan, the Minister of the Ministry of Justice, is the representative of the Dai family in the court, the Liu family of the Ministry of Industry is from Jiangnan, and only the Ministry of Rites is from the royal family. The aristocratic family and the royal family jointly rule the world, and at the same time they also check and balance each other.
In addition, aristocratic families may not necessarily support their own prince. When they think that their own prince is unlikely to succeed, they will also choose to support other princes.
After that prince ascends the throne, he will also give great recognition to the family, and even retain some kindness towards hostile families in order to win local recognition and thereby maintain his rule.
If they were to be exterminated, it would probably cause resistance from the aristocratic family and shake their own rule.
When the current emperor first competed for the throne, he won the support of the Zhang family, the Xue family, and the Qin family, and finally won the throne.
However, for hostile families like the Dai family that occupy the land of Tianfu, they also adopt a soft policy to recruit them, marry the children of the Dai family to regain support, and sign a new alliance treaty.
Of course, the three winning families will expand to a certain extent, both in terms of court status and family power. The Dai family ceded some areas at the junction of Bashu and Chu lands, while the Fang family expanded from Shandong Road to Jiangnan Road.
As for the Zhang family in Guanzhong, although their power has not expanded, the prince is the nephew of the Zhang family, which is enough.
Back at the palace, Zhao Bin wrote three letters, one to Xing'er asking about their progress there, and the other to Concubine Ding, who was Zhao Bin's biological mother.
The main content is actually to report that you are safe, to express your feelings of missing you, and to say that there is no need to worry about it.
In addition, he confessed another letter, asking his mother and concubine to hand it over to the emperor on his behalf.
At first, the content of the letter expressed affectionate respect and longing for the emperor, and then described the tragic situation of Yancheng with added fuel and jealousy. The shameless invasion of the Jie people made the people in Hebei Province miserable and hungry, and the people of Yancheng were even more miserable. Especially.
In order to change the current situation in Yancheng, restore people's livelihood, and protect the border for his father, he had to think hard. After losing a lot of hair, he finally came up with a way to make salt from seawater.
As a prince, he knew that the court was in urgent need of horses, so he took the initiative without reporting the matter. He used salt to buy a large number of horses for the court, and now he presented all the horses to his father.
In addition, I wanted to submit the salt-making method to my father, but considering that there were no salt mines and sea farms within the royal sphere of influence, I couldn't practice salt, and I was afraid that the salt-making method would be copied by others.
Therefore, after much thought, the refined salt can only be contributed to the father. The father can send people to sell it within the royal sphere of influence, which will definitely increase a lot of income for the court.
It's just that the method of refining salt is complicated and consumes a lot of manpower and material resources. Each kilogram of fine salt costs 150 Wen.....
