Elegy of Tang Dynasty

Chapter 726: The merchants in Bianzhou are very rich
The "monster" on the ferry bank was very large. Its sturdy body was like a watchtower, and an iron chain was stretched diagonally above its outstretched arm.

At this moment, the iron chains were clanging in the cold wind. Under the three-meter-high "blockhouse", Fang Chongyong was drawing on the blueprint with charcoal and debating with the craftsman in charge of the construction.

A sweaty craftsman knelt at his feet, his fingers holding the abacus red from the cold, and he anxiously explained: "Sir, according to the module of the Construction Code, the diameter of this wheel is still two inches short..."

"Look, I'm not wrong, am I?

Humph, don't think Fang doesn't know anything. I'm more familiar with this than you are. Go and fix it, and then start the construction.

If this happens again, I won't be as easy to talk to as I am now."

Fang Zhongyong put his hands on his hips and laughed loudly twice, feeling a little proud. Then his face darkened again, and he looked at the "contractor" in charge of the construction and continued:
"The draft of the Tongji Canal's boats is five feet. If your crane arm breaks during the spring flood and falls into the river, it won't matter. But if it hits some flowers or plants, that would be bad!
Am I right? "

"Please rest assured, sir. If you make a mistake again, I will pay with my life."

The supervisor patted his chest and made a solemn promise, sweating profusely with fear.

Everyone knows that the official Fang Qing is not tyrannical at all.

What is considered "tyranny"? Are only "nice guys" who don't care about anything not tyrannical?

Actually, it is not. The ancients have already summed it up: punishing without teaching is cruelty.

To impose capital punishment without warning is tyranny.

In other words, if he had given a heads-up and given a warning in advance, and still caused a bunch of trouble, then Fang Qing's methods would have been very "cruel".

When he is talking to you, even if you are an ordinary citizen, he will not do anything to you. After he has talked to you, if you still don't listen, then there is only one sentence left: the dead can't feel pain.

Shi Chaoqing looked at this "official" who had a somewhat rough appearance but polite words, and felt that he was very different from the "hero in troubled times" he had imagined.

The kind of carnivore he imagined should be like his father, with a leopard head and round eyes, a fierce look on his face, and his smile would scare people around him.

But the man in front of him was only in his early thirties, his grey cloth robe was covered in dust, and he looked no different from a farmer in the fields, but he had an indescribable aura about him, and he was intimidating without even getting angry!
However, Yuan Zai had already trotted and knelt in the mud, shouting, "Please calm down, Your Majesty! I will have people arrest the families of all the craftsmen. If they fail to do this job well, the whole family will be killed."

The saying that a minister dies when his lord is humiliated is not necessarily an exaggeration in many cases, because ministers who are good at showing loyalty are always the ones who are promoted the fastest.

Fang Zhongyong glanced at Yuan Zai, who understood and immediately shut up, then stood up, crossed his arms and saluted, and reported, "Your Majesty, Shi Chaoqing and his mother, Madam Xin, are here to thank you for your kindness."

At this moment, Shi Chaoqing finally saw clearly that what was hanging around Fang Zhongyong's waist was not a jade belt, but a series of bronze keys. Those were the keys to the doors of Bianzhou's four major granaries, two armament depots and a gunpowder depot.

As Fang Zhongyong moved around, these keys made bursts of pleasant sounds, and that was the sweet taste of power filling the air!
These government warehouses open and close every day, and there are special people who come to Fang Chongyong to "punch in" and report on the day's situation.

Things like the rebel army opening the government treasury and quietly robbing Emperor Fang are all legends. Don't even think about it, at least you can't do it without the other party noticing.

Shi Chaoqing seemed to understand something. Although the official in front of him seemed to speak in a friendly manner, he was actually extremely wary of the people around him.

Is this the quality of a powerful official?
Thinking of Shi Siming, who was completely unguarded against the people around him and was a cruel person, Shi Chaoqing immediately felt the gap.

"Does County Lord Shi know the wonders of this crane?"

Fang Zhongyong suddenly raised his hand and pointed to the other side of the canal. A grain ship loaded with rice from the south of Jianghuai was slowly approaching the shore. The same type of crane that had been built on the other side began to operate.

As the winch turned, the thick crane arm lifted the entire cabin of sacks into the air, then the sacks moved horizontally for several feet and then slowly lowered them, landing steadily on the grain cart that was waiting there.

The porters no longer had to hunch their backs and carry the rice like ants moving house. Instead, they smiled strangely and pointed while placing the sacks of rice on the cart.

It has to be said that this big guy on the river bank has reduced their workload a lot.

"Return to the official house. I don't see it clearly."

Shi Chaoqing said in a low voice. In fact, it was not that he did not understand, but he was so shocked in his heart that he did not know how to describe his feelings at the moment.

"Humph!"

Fang Zhongyong's expression suddenly changed and he snorted twice.

"Mr. Heyin, your father, Shi Siming, is truly a great hero."

Fang Qing pulled out a yellowed letter from his sleeve, unfolded it, handed it to the bewildered Shi Chaoqing, and continued, "Take a look, is this your father's handwriting?"

Shi Chaoqing took the letter without knowing what it meant, and read it for a few seconds, then his face turned pale. He couldn't help but wipe the cold sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, groaned for a long time, but didn't say a word.

He didn't say anything, but Fang Zhongyong didn't indulge him.

"This is a handwritten letter Shi Siming wrote to Li Guiren last year, asking Li Guiren to send people to the south bank of the Yellow River and dig up 17 dikes on the south bank. Unfortunately, man proposes, God disposes. Li Guiren was afraid of his own safety and actually sent civilians to do this, but it failed miserably."

Fang Zhongyong suddenly chuckled, with a look of deep contempt on his face.

"The lower official is guilty, guilty..."

Shi Chaoqing was so frightened that he immediately knelt down and kowtowed to beg for mercy.

He also didn't expect that his father Shi Siming would do something so beastly!

"Well, there is an old saying that if a son is unfilial, it is the fault of his father, but there is no saying that if a father is unfilial, it is the fault of his son.

Go back. I have punished all those who should be punished, including your father.

Needless to say, living well is the real thing. "

Fang Zhongyong waved his hand and turned around to return to Kaifeng Prefecture with Yuan Zai. He still had a lot of things to do, so he had no time to play the game of "showing off in front of others" with Shi Chaoqing.

After Fang Zhongyong and his group had gone far away, Madam Xin stepped forward and brushed the dust off Shi Chaoqing, then asked in a low voice with trepidation, "What happened?"

"It should be fine."

Shi Chaoqing sighed as if a heavy burden had been lifted off his shoulders.

……

The proper resettlement of Shi Siming's descendants is a "model project" undertaken by Fang Chongyong.

Because in this era, the system of collective responsibility has been deeply rooted in people's minds. If one person rebels, the whole family will have to rebel together, whether they are willing or not. In other words, if the rebellion fails, if one person dies, the whole family will die. It is too cruel and violent.

In order to bring peace to the world as soon as possible, the principle that rulers should adopt is to strive to ease conflicts rather than intensify them.

Allowing those who are caught up in the chaos but not deeply involved to get out of the vortex will help to pacify the troubled times.

In this regard, Fang Chongyong is very magnanimous. He will destroy those who deserve to be killed and will never let those who deserve to be let go.

Shi Chaoqing's entry into Bianzhou and his settlement there were like sound waves with a fixed frequency. Only "specific" people could understand the information contained therein. The rest of the world paid no attention to this matter.

They are already busy with their daily food, clothing, housing and transportation, so they have no time to care about people like Shi Chaoqing.

On this day, Fang Chongyong was discussing with Liu Yan and others in the study of the government office about speeding up the dredging of the Yongji Canal.

The northern section of the Grand Canal of the Sui and Tang Dynasties was not in very good condition. In the middle and late Tang Dynasty after the An-Shi Rebellion, the river was already in an intermittent state of dying.

By the time of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the navigation was simply suspended. The ineffectiveness of the Yongji Canal was actually closely related to the destruction of the Yellow River ecology.

However, in Fang Zhongyong's opinion, this river is the main road leading directly to Youzhou and must not be abandoned. If it is abandoned, Youzhou will be completely separated from the Central Plains.

So now that the condition of the Yongji Canal has not deteriorated to that extent, it becomes an urgent matter to dredge the river, repair the river embankment, and speed up the construction of official warehouses along the river.

"Your Majesty, the court is spending too much right now and it's really hard to bear. Can the development of the Yongji Canal be temporarily suspended?"

Liu Yan asked softly, a little embarrassed.

He claimed to be good at managing money, but Fang Chongyong lived a simple life and spent very little money on himself. Most of the government's income was used for construction, so he really didn't know where to save money.

This was completely different from Brother Ji's situation back then. That was why Liu Yan felt embarrassed.

"The imperial court exempted taxes for three years. During these three years, we had absolute prestige and authority in Hebei, and the people were happy to perform corvee labor. If we miss this window of opportunity, it will be difficult to organize the people again."

Fang Zhongyong waved his hand and disagreed with Liu Yan's opinion. Currently, there are only three routes leading to Youzhou.

The land route, from Yecheng to the north, takes the official road to Youzhou, which is a tortuous road. The disadvantages are that the distance is long, the road conditions are poor, the walking speed is slow, and it is not safe.

The only advantage is that at least you can still walk.

The water route is to take the Yongji Canal from Liyang through Weizhou, Bozhou, Cangzhou and other places, and directly reach the city of Youzhou.

This road has many advantages, but its disadvantage is that the canal is an artificial waterway and will quickly become silted up over time if not maintained.

Another route is by sea, starting from Dengzhou on the Jiaodong Peninsula, landing at the mouth of the Haihe River, and then taking a short ride by horse carriage to Youzhou.

The advantage of this road is its speed, even faster than Yongji Canal!

But the disadvantages are also obvious. Mainly affected by the sea monsoon, this route is actually a "one-way street" that changes with the seasons.

For example, if the monsoon blew from the south, the ships could only go from Dengzhou to Youzhou. It was fast and there was no risk of sailing along the coast, but they could not go directly to Youzhou and return directly. This situation greatly affected the shipping routes and trade routes.

It now seems that as long as the draft of the ship does not exceed the limit of the Yongji Canal, this route is the optimal solution to Youzhou.

In the face of the grand strategy, issues like lack of money and lack of manpower should all be put aside, and we must ensure the realization of the strategic intentions!
"Sir, if that's the case, then I have a plan. I wonder if it can be used."

Liu Yan took out a memorial from his sleeve and handed it to Fang Zhongyong. In fact, he had thought of this a long time ago, and it just depended on how Fang Zhongyong chose. If the other party didn't ask, he wouldn't take it out.

"Buy Park?"

Fang Chongyong muttered to himself after reading the memorial.

Liu Yan spoke a lot in his memorial, but in fact his meaning was only one: to transfer the share of commercial taxes of Yongji Canal for the next ten years (not all of it), and let the big merchants in Bianzhou and other states under his jurisdiction to contribute money and organize manpower to repair the canal.

Tendering, bidding, acceptance and determination of canal commercial tax will be carried out in sections.

The commercial tax currently collected by the court in Bianzhou is the "landing tax". The tax is collected at the ferry port where the merchant ship docks to unload goods, rather than collecting it once at each checkpoint.

This is the secret behind the rapid prosperity of Bianzhou’s business.

Now the "landing tax" of the Yongji Canal is subcontracted out, which means the court is borrowing chickens to lay eggs. Anyway, there is no time to set up checkpoints on the Yongji Canal to collect the landing tax. Subcontracting it out and sorting out the river channel first is the real thing.

The big merchants finally received dividends from the docking tax. When they contracted the canal dredging project, they must work hard to repair it. Not only that, they also had to build supporting business facilities for the contracted port.

Otherwise, if the river channel is repaired but no one comes to the shore to unload the cargo, wouldn’t it be a waste of time? Having the right to collect taxes but not being able to collect them is like holding a golden bowl and begging for food.

This method was quite common in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and there was a professional name for it, called "Buying Pu". I didn't expect Liu Yan to have proposed it now, but he just didn't call it by this name.

"This is a very good idea. The government has recently issued a notice saying that we will set up a site at the largest ferry in Bianzhou and hold a bidding meeting.

Set a time, no waiting after the time is up, the first phase is limited to five people, divided into five sections, each person will share one section! "

Fang Zhongyong stroked the short beard on his chin and chuckled.

Liu Yan was curious and asked doubtfully, "Sir, aren't five people too few? Where do they have so much financial resources?"

"It's not a small amount at all. This is a huge sum of money to buy bones, and a noble person can't use them cheaply. There's no shortage of people to take this kind of work. If we put too much, those big merchants will think we're in a hurry."

Fang Chongyong explained patiently and poured Liu Yan a glass of wine. Now that a consensus has been reached, Liu Yan can take the lead in bidding and use the power of the people to develop the Yongji Canal.

Otherwise, taxes will have to be increased on the people, which will cause a lot of unnecessary trouble.

At this moment, Da Congming pushed open the study door and led in a dusty general with a dusty face. It turned out to be Li Guangbi's deputy general Hao Tingyu!
"Isn't General Hao in Huaixi? Why is he in Bianzhou?"

Fang Chongyong asked in confusion, Li Guangbi didn't tell him about this either?
"Your Majesty, something terrible has happened. The army from Jingxiang is training the navy and building warships on the west bank of Poyang Lake. It seems that they have some ill intentions.

General Li Jie suspected that they had the intention of capturing Jiangzhou, and had already stationed his troops on the east bank of Poyang Lake.

Please let the government decide!"

Hao Tingyu reported anxiously that several horses had died on the way here because they didn't take the water route.

(End of this chapter)