Chapter 8 The end of the road
He Xi said: "Let's talk about it. Please report next year's expenses from all aspects. See how much is missing?"
"Sir," Ye Wang said, "the military rations must not be touched. Three hundred and fifty thousand dan, not even a grain of grain, must be touched. This will last until the autumn harvest. Last year's harvest was not good because a large number of people were transferred. . But if we farm well this year and have a lot of iron farm tools, we will definitely have a good harvest."
"Sir." Huang Zicheng said: "There is no need to spend much money on resettlement. The Korean side has taken care of everything. But, the Korean spoils------"
He Xi said: "This matter should be rough rather than detailed. Lan Yu didn't ask me for money or food. He just asked for some weapons, which has relieved me a lot of burden. And this is also a stereotype, and I can't say anything. As long as he It would be good if you can give me people and food for a few months. By the way, you must pay close attention to this matter. Next fall, you must be self-sufficient."
Huang Zicheng said: "Is it just that I still have a shortage of food rations here?"
He Xi said: "How much?"
Huang Zicheng said: "We haven't calculated the details yet. But we still have more than 300,000 stones. In addition, we also need a lot of wood and iron tools, but these are not problems. The most important thing is food."
He Xi only felt a headache.
In fact, Lan Yu made a lot of money on the battlefield of Goryeo.
The loot is taken with a soft hand. Send the Korean people on board the ship and give them some food rations. Just a drop in the ocean.
Goryeo is very poor. It depends on who is poor. You can say that the people of Goryeo are not rich, and you can also say that the country of Goryeo is not rich, but you cannot say that the wealthy families in Goryeo are not rich. Their five hundred years of accumulation are much richer than that of the Ming Dynasty.
Although there are only a few hundred, it is enough for Lan Yu to eat.
However, there are unspoken rules on the battlefield, and the spoils of war are the rights of the victor. Every general should keep some secrets, as long as they are not excessive. Don't be like the blue jade in history who got the queen of the Yuan Dynasty into bed.
Then nothing happens.
He Xi knocked on the table and said, "Let me think about it."
"Teacher," Yang Shiqi said, "I just came from Nanyang. There are some things that you probably don't know. The price of wood in Nanyang has begun to drop."
He Xi was stunned and said, "Is this true?"
Yang Shiqi said: "Since the establishment of the Nanyang Governor's Mansion, a large amount of Central Plains goods have entered Nanyang. The nobles of Nanyang countries have rushed to buy it. It didn't take long for the gold and silver to be exhausted. The princes of Lu held a conference to exchange their supplies with the Nanyang countries. A large amount of Nanyang wood entered. Central Plains. Especially Nanyang mahogany. It has replaced Liaodong big wood and become the first choice for Jiangnan furniture. There are other woods from Nanyang that are also used in shipbuilding. In short, the price of lumber is likely to drop significantly next year."
He Xi said: "This is not the time."
He Xi knew this very well. Timber is a bulk commodity, and it is normal for its price to fluctuate cyclically. Since He Xi promoted the opening of the sea in the 16th year of Hongwu. The originally declining shipbuilding industry has seen a dawn. I don’t know how many places started building ships at that time.
The price of wood began to rise sharply.
It has been rising for four consecutive years.
It has more than quadrupled.
It's already an exaggeration.
In fact, if you don't follow the ocean currents, like Liaodong does, transporting wood by ship is a loss-making business. Unless it is high-grade wood. Such as South Sea rosewood. The Ming Dynasty furniture created by this thing is a favorite of collectors even in later generations during the glorious era.
Their price is completely different from that of shipbuilding wood.
But if the ordinary wood used to build ships is transported by ship, it will lose money if anything happens.
Now, the reason why it can be like this.
It was because the maritime industry, which had been in decline for decades, suddenly revived. There are plenty of ship gaps. If there are few ships, the transportation capacity will be tight. If the transportation capacity is tight, the price of lumber will be higher and higher. These wood have transportation value.
But it also marks that maritime transport capacity has been enriched.
After all, wood used in shipbuilding is not a high-value target anyway, if maritime shipping capacity is tight. They won't transport this stuff. They will transport more profitable cargo. And these timbers poured into the Central Plains on a large scale.
More ships were built, and shipping capacity further increased.
Now that the shipping capacity has increased, the price of ships will definitely fall. As a result, the price of lumber could not be maintained. Start walking downhill.
When will these lumber yards with high mining costs be gradually closed down and no longer be mined? The supply of wood on the market has decreased. The price of lumber will rise again. But at that time, there would not be such a fierce rise today.
After all, this time the lumber market is superimposed on the sea market.
This further shows that after the Ming Dynasty opened the sea, the profiteering phase of maritime trade was coming to an end. This is not to say that sea trade is no longer profitable. Sea trade is risky after all, and there will be profit margins that exceed those of ordinary industries, but it is definitely not as crazy as before.
He Xi secretly felt that she was unlucky.
But I also vaguely felt an opportunity.
Now that the era of huge profits is over and maritime transport capacity has increased, commodity costs have become sensitive. Under the current situation. That is to say, He Xi can best reduce the cost of goods. In large-scale industrial production, even the use of machines is not large. But in terms of cost, it is also difficult to match traditional handicrafts.
He Xi secretly thought: "In a crisis, there is an opportunity. It seems that Yang Zhen should come to Liaodong."
In fact, Yang Zhen had reported this situation before. He Xi felt that Yang Zhen was a talent that could be developed, and he was fighting on the front line of the business world. There must be some ways to bring sales to Liaodong's products.
Ge Tiangong said: "Teacher, I have a lot of gaps here. Although His Majesty has given two hundred thousand taels of funding, it is only enough for technology development. In addition, you have to wait for the paper mill, and there are already various factories and mines. , I made some budget. I need about one million taels. Or two million stones of grain."
"One million taels." Yang Shiqi said, "This is impossible."
Ge Tiangong said: "I also thought I made a mistake. But we really need so much."
He Xi said: "Bring me the list and let me take a look."
Ge Tiangong took out the list from his arms and handed it to He Xi.
He Xi took it over and took a closer look, sighing, Ge Tiangong was right. Even less. Industrial development requires costs. Or capital. Normal industrial development follows the primitive accumulation of capital and then expands production. From there, the relationship progresses layer by layer.
But the path He Xi took was not.
Instead, it seems to be a late-developing country that develops industry through administrative investment. The cost is much higher.
He Xi had never thought about this problem before. But now we have to face this problem again.
Technology is not a problem. The technical team created by He Xi is a bit exaggerated to say how excellent they are. Most of them are ordinary people. They are not even the elites of this era, but they can at least be step-by-step scientific research dogs.
Realize what He Xi wants.
This is enough.
In addition to the funds for experiments, the biggest expenses are to provide water, roads, and land leveling. It can be called two connections and one level. This requires a lot of manpower and material resources. Especially many of them are mining industries, which consume a lot of food.
There is a problem to be explained here.
The so-called "tens of thousands taels" before was more of a unit of measurement. It does not mean that there must be so much silver, or that so much silver is needed. Materials with equal silver value can actually be negotiated.
It is impossible to recruit people for free all the time. First, the enthusiasm is not enough. Secondly, it is easy to cause problems. People's power cannot be overstretched.
Not everyone has the prestige of a leader in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, allowing people to work for free without much complaint.
He Xi pondered for a moment and said, "You are thinking about a question. Is there really not enough food in Liaodong?"
Ye Wang reacted first and said: "Yes. Millions of stones of grain have poured in from Liaodong. Although most of them have been consumed, there are still surpluses. Furthermore, the grain output in Liaodong is not high. But the gap is not big. So Do the math. The food in Liaodong should be enough for most people."
He Xi said: "Yes. I think the biggest problem is that food in Liaodong is not food, but currency. The first thing we have to do is to solve this problem."
