Late Tang

(Updated early in the morning, ask for a monthly pass!)

Li Jing got up early in the morning, jogged for half an hour as usual, then practiced swordsmanship again, punched a set, and went out for a walk.After almost half an hour of activities like this, the whole person's energy was suddenly invigorated.

He stayed late last night reviewing official documents, so he rested in the marshal's mansion, and Dayue'er stayed overnight.

After defeating Goguryeo, the Li Jing envoy shifted his focus to Liaodong and began to be stationed in Liaodong City.The whole family in Dengzhou wanted to move here immediately, but Li Jing thought that Liaodong City was still in chaos and a lot of waste was waiting to be done. In addition, it was almost Chinese New Year and Liaodong was cold, so he let them stay in Dengzhou.However, after thinking about it for a long time, Li's mother, Han, still sent Xiao Yulou, Dayue'er, and Zhang Hui to Liaodong.

Among the wives and concubines, Wang Wanjun had just given birth to his third son, and Wan'er and Pei's sisters were also pregnant.The two bearded women, Megan and Julie, have always been disliked by the old lady, and they are far away in the Southeast Army.The few remaining, Xiao Yulou and Zhang Hui are not pregnant yet, although they have a daughter after a month, they are still two years old.The old lady was also worried that Li Jing was out alone and had no one to take care of her.They sent the three of them to Liaodong, and Guiniang was not pregnant, but she was the main wife, with so many children and several pregnant concubines, she had to stay in Dengzhou to preside over the affairs of the mansion.

Originally, Li Jing was not unattended in Liaodong City, and Gongsun Lan and Li Huier were both in Liaodong City during this time.Zhang Yingying also came to Liaodong City a few days ago, and asked for a large amount of supplies from Li Jing, and sent a large number of Silla and Japanese slaves.

When Li Jing returned to the backyard of the commander-in-chief's mansion, Dayue'er had already woken up, and ordered the maid to prepare hot water for Li Jing to take a bath.After following Li Jing for three years, her daughter is already two years old, and Da Yue'er has already followed Li Jing wholeheartedly.No matter what, in fact, being with Li Jing is much better than being with Gao Zhaokang.Although the majestic Princess Bohai has now become one of Li Jing's seventh wives, she doesn't care too much.

In the bathroom, Da Yue'er was wearing a gauze dress, and personally wiped Li Jing's body with a loofah bag.To say that after following Li Jing, she has always felt a little regretful, that she still gathers less and leaves more all the year round.Even when Li Jing was in Dengzhou, he was often busy with official duties, and when he returned to the mansion, a large group of women at home had already allocated their time.It was very difficult, she only had one chance to be alone with Li Jing, sharing the same bed.

"Your Majesty, I just read the morning newspaper delivered today. Many people called her husband a prostitute." Last night was nourished all night, and Da Yue'er was in a particularly good spirit this morning. Some conservative literati in the newspaper criticized Li Jing for giving a businessman an award. Joke about the matter of Jue.

Li Jing's issuance of bonds this time did cause quite a stir.A bond of 3000 million yuan was issued at one time. Many people thought that if there was no strong buying and selling, so many bonds would definitely not be sold out.

But the result was completely opposite. After Li Jing personally wrote an article in the newspaper to introduce the nature of the bond, he promised tax cuts, an annual interest rate of 5.00%, and news of the top ten honors. The day before yesterday, the bank officially issued bonds. , As a result, the people who came to buy directly crowded the lobby of the bank.

Li Jing's bond was issued by the Marshal's Mansion of Northeast Road, and the six towns and 21 counties in 5.00 states of Northeast Road were debtors, and their credit was extremely high.Besides, the interest rate of [-]% per year for five years is already good.What's more, there are tax breaks.Everyone knows that this is a bond issued by King Andong, whether it is a businessman or a commoner, they are now living a good life with Li Jing, with food and clothing.

Seeing Li Jingfa borrowing money, of course they have to give their full support.Needless to say, officials in Dengzhou are treated well anyway, so most of them are willing to use money to buy bonds.And businessmen, farmers, and workers are also quite enthusiastic.

Among them, workers and farmers value the 5.00% annual interest rate more.In the old days of the bank, there was no interest on saving money, and there was a storage fee.Now everyone has enough food and clothing, puts the money they earn in the bank for five years, and saves ten pennies, and there will be five hundred coins in interest a year, and two thousand five hundred coins in five years.This money is also put at home, and it is put in the bank of the old man of the county king. After five years, it is equivalent to a quarter of the money.Where can I find such a good thing!

And those businessmen, especially the big businessmen, they are not so fancy about the 5.00% interest rate. After all, for businessmen, the turnover of funds is very important.However, they came here enthusiastically, the most important thing was the preferential tax reduction measures, and the top ten honors that everyone was very enthusiastic about.

The 3000 million registered medium-term interest rate Northeast bonds were sold out in just one day.The bonds issued this time have a minimum denomination of ten guan and a maximum of one thousand guan.

As a result, among them, Liu Shouye, a well-known ocean-going merchant in Dengzhou, bought 500 million bonds as soon as he made a move, 500 bonds per bond, a total of [-] bonds, and packed several large boxes.Liu Shouye's move of [-] million yuan shocked the whole bank at that time.Moreover, this incident quickly spread throughout Dengzhou at the speed of light. Liu Shouye's move made everyone know this sea merchant again and know his wealth.

Not everyone's surprise, after Liu Shouye bought 500 million bonds, he was directly promoted to the person who bought the most bonds this time.

Of the remaining nine, the highest is 200 million and the lowest is 100 million.

Of the 3000 million bonds, the top ten bought 800 million.Among them, five are maritime merchants, and the rest are coal owners who operate coal mines, ship owners who build ships, and the three major families of Han, Xiao, and Cui.

Many people who wanted to buy bonds even waited in line for half a day, and they were still outside the bank, and the bonds had already been issued.

Liu Shouye suddenly became the most famous person in Dengzhou and even Northeast Province. Many people even rumored that he had tens of millions or hundreds of millions of property.

Even Li Jing was surprised when he heard the news in Liaodong City. He didn't expect these sea merchants to have so much money. 500 million, although it is not a free gift to Li Jing, it is possible to use 500 million to buy bonds, because they are registered bonds and cannot be directly circulated, so for a businessman, this money will be dead money within five years.This completely shows that Liu Shouye's family property is at least not less than 1000 million.

Li Jing had no intention of killing pigs towards Liu Shouye. As long as they obeyed the rules, it would actually be a good thing that there were more wealthy businessmen in the territory.

Li Jing did not break his promise, and immediately invited the top ten to Liaodong City, and then held a grand award ceremony.

For the honors awarded to these non-soldiers, the medals awarded by Li Jing are the Medal of Benevolence, Loyalty, Courtesy, Wisdom, and Integrity.The recipients became lords, the lowest rank of nobility.Owning [-] acres of land exempted from taxes, awarded with medals, given a set of nine-rank official uniforms, exempted from worshiping officials, and enjoying the political treatment of the county magistrate, which is not hereditary.

The biggest thing about the title of a knight is not the actual reward, which is not much, only twenty acres of land.But it allows them to enjoy the same political treatment as the county magistrate. For example, even if the honored one is originally a businessman or a professional musician, their sons can also enjoy the treatment of a good family, such as enlisting in the army, enrolling in school, taking exams, etc. They are all recorded according to Liangjiazi.

Because Liu Shouye bought 500 million guan, Li Jing specially awarded his eldest son a medal of benevolence, and the Liu family suddenly produced two honorable men.This was not only a great surprise to Liu Shouye, but also a great shock to everyone in Dengzhou and Dongbei Province.

As a result, in the past few days, conservative scholars have begun to write articles in the newspapers criticizing Li Jing for selling his official title.

"These businessmen have made great contributions to the government, and they are fully worthy of being respected knights." Li Jing laughed.In fact, Li Jing also intends to take this opportunity to start improving the people's perception of merchants under his rule and improve the status of merchants.No business, no wealth, no work, no life, no agriculture, no stability, industry, commerce and agriculture are equally important.Although it is still an agricultural society at the moment, it is extremely important to strengthen the status of industry and commerce in today's era.

In particular, the road that Northeast Road is taking today needs to strengthen the status of industry and commerce. Li Jing also hopes to attract more industry and commerce.

"Husband issued this bond and borrowed 3000 million yuan at once. Is the Shuai Mansion out of money? I heard that the Shuai Mansion asked merchants to move people from various places, and then the Shuai Mansion would give them a large sum of money?" Dayue'er asked with some concern.

Li Jing chuckled softly: "Issuing bonds is not because the Shuai Mansion has no money, on the contrary, the Shuai Mansion still has a lot of money now."

"Then why do we need to borrow so much money? Also, if we are short of money, can't we print money?"

Hearing Da Yue'er's obviously layman's words, Li Jing didn't find it funny.In fact, most of the officials in the Northeast Province now have this kind of concept. Everyone's concept of financial management is the same as that of family management. They think that they should be frugal and do as much as they have.Borrowing money is not a good thing in the eyes of many people.

But for future generations like Li Jing, issuing bonds is something that many countries do.Just like doing business, when the product sales are booming, it is quite normal to borrow some funds to expand the production scale.The same is true for companies going public.

It's not that Li Jing has no money, but Li Jing can't really spend all the money.Li Jing had to prepare a sum of money, but he needed to spend money.Therefore, it is reasonable for Li Jing to issue a bond after calculating the future income.

As for printing money when there is no money, this is even more a layman's word.Li Jing has not completely canceled the currency status of gold, silver, copper and cotton until now, and he has considered it in detail.All currencies require a deposit. Without a deposit, printing money indiscriminately can only lead to inflation. Li Jing has seen too many such things.The currencies of many countries have collapsed. To buy a piece of bread, you have to directly weigh tens of catties for the transaction.

If Li Jing's banknotes are like this, it will be a real disaster. All the economic order that we are trying to build now will collapse, and the Northeast Road will be difficult to stabilize.

Li Jing briefly explained how the deposit and the Northeast Road's gold, silver, copper and grain standards are combined, but seeing Dayue'er's confused appearance, Li Jing laughed at himself and stopped talking.He, a descendant of the generation, can't understand this, how can a princess of Bohai State understand all this in a few words.

Although she didn't understand why more money couldn't be printed, Da Yue'er also knew that Li Jing wasn't really short of money, so she felt relieved.

"Clang clang clang..."

Suddenly a loud bell rings outside, Da Yueer is startled, and soon realizes that it is the sound of the big clock in the commander's mansion.He smiled blushingly at Li Jing, "I'm still not quite used to this big clock, it rings the clock every half an hour to tell the time, it's always frightening."

Li Jing laughed, this clock is the freshest thing.The production technology of the table clock is not too complicated. When the manual manufacturing and material industries reach a certain level, the production conditions are fully satisfied.Li Jing just found a group of mechanical craftsmen, and then pointed them in the direction of the clock.

These professional craftsmen studied according to Li Jing's direction, and it took more than half a year to find the direction, and then continued to improve. Now, after more than a year, the first table clock has finally been finalized and produced.

The one in Marshal Li Jing's mansion is the first formally produced clock.Inlaid with gold and jade, and glass mirror, it is beautiful, beautiful and luxurious.This clock is more than three feet high, and it also rings every half hour according to the twelve hour mark.

People in the clock factory are not used to Li Jing's new time notation that one hour is equal to two hours, one hour is sixty minutes, and one minute is 60 seconds.But Li Jing insisted on using the hour.Anyway, the clock rings every half hour.It takes six hours to make a full circle, and a full twelve hours to make another full turn.Units of time such as hours, quarters, and minutes are indeed much more precise than the previous sticks of incense and a cup of tea.

As soon as it is produced, everyone has already decided that it will be a commodity that will be sold at a high price after glass.

Although the clock is destined to be only a luxury item, if it is trafficked to the West, it is extremely promising.

Li Jing was very business-minded and asked the clock factory to develop several models, which were divided into collector's edition, collector's edition, deluxe edition, ordinary edition and other models.The internal structures of the clocks are actually similar. Li Jing just asked them to replace the external materials with pearls, jade, coral agate, gold, silver, copper, iron and wood, etc., so that they can be sold to different customers.

"This is a treasure. Do you know how much our clock is worth?" Li Jing asked with a smile.

Da Yue'er shook her head, but she also knew that a magical timekeeping tool like a clock would definitely not be cheap.What's more, this is not just a timing tool, but also a collectible and luxury item.

"For the time being, there is only this kind of three-foot-high grand clock. The price of the ordinary version is 100 bells, the luxury brand is [-] bells, the collector's edition is [-] bells, and the collector's edition is [-] bells! Of course, the temporary workshop has just been established, and the standard The parts production line is still being perfected, and the workers are also being trained. Therefore, in a short period of time, this magical timing tool can only be produced in small quantities, and each clock will be auctioned. At least for a year, ordinary clocks will not be produced. .According to my estimate, the first clock to be auctioned must be auctioned for [-] million clocks, and it will be sold exclusively to those cannibals to make a fortune from them.”

"100 million?" Dayue'er took a deep breath.

Li Jing smiled. Rare things are more expensive. In history, the queen of France once spent 30 gold francs to buy a mirror. 30 gold francs are equivalent to at least one billion yuan in later generations.

The desk clock was originally intended for the rich.Royal family, royal family, giant merchants, nobles, if you have good things, are you afraid that no one will buy them?When the profit is almost enough, you can launch multiple versions, even the regular version. At that time, the regular version will sell for a hundred bucks. I believe most of the big businessmen and officials will be able to afford it.

When the price of the table clock dropped, Li Jing might have already researched the technology of pocket watches and watches at that time, and he could make another round of money.

New technologies, new products, and those who make the first fortune will always be huge profits. (To be continued.)