Datang Nongsheng

Chapter 439 The Copper Mine Problem

In Li Shimin's opinion, Bai Ziguo's problem is not a trivial matter. He decided to ask everyone's wishes first, and then make a decision after summoning Zhang Le Qiujin in the court tomorrow. After that, Sun Xiangfu, Fang Xuanling, Li Jing and others will not Unsurprisingly, Li Shimin invited him to the imperial study for afternoon tea.

When he got here, Sun Xiangfu didn't have so many taboos anymore. He also showed the letter Wang Hao wrote to Li Shimin for Li Shimin to read. A very cool expression.

"If Wang Hao's son can enter the court, I will definitely treat him as a prime minister."

"Uh, Your Majesty, I feel that Fang Xiang and Li Xiang are more talented than Wang Hao, why do you say that!"

When Sun Xiangfu answered the words like this, Li Shimin was a little embarrassed. He looked at Fang Xuanling and Li Jing with apologetic eyes, and explained, "I'm not talking about shooting from left to right. Anyone who can enter the political affairs hall in Tang Dynasty can do so." Call it phase."

The reason was far-fetched, but Sun Xiangfu knew that Fang Xuanling and Li Jing would not be entangled in such a matter, so he did not continue to entangle on such a topic. If he talked too much, he would be suspected of provoking the relationship between the monarch and his ministers.

"Your Majesty, it was Goguryeo before, but now, in various tribes in Yunnan, Wang Hao is following his own thoughts and leading Tang to the path he designed. I feel that this is inappropriate."

Li Shimin smiled and said, "I think that in some matters, this Wang Hao and my Tang Dynasty's goals are consistent, and although we are driven by him, we don't necessarily follow what he thinks in his heart." He thought that the people of Tang Dynasty would always hate Goguryeo. I would like to slaughter all the people of Goguryeo to avenge the soldiers who died in Goguryeo before. In general, they treat everyone equally and implement an assimilation policy, tell me, did this Wang Hao help us destroy Goguryeo for nothing?"

It was said that even if Sun Xiangfu could find some good words to refute for a while, Li Shimin still wanted to wipe out all dissatisfaction around him and achieve true dominance, especially after Datang became powerful.

Therefore, he now has a happy attitude towards Wang Hao's operation. He even thinks that Wang Hao will go to Tubo for a while after he solves the problem in Yunnan. Maybe under his operation, Tubo can also destroyed by oneself.

In the era when Sun Xiangfu was born, more than [-]% of Goguryeo's current territory belonged to the three eastern provinces of our country. Therefore, he has never regarded that place as a foreign country. Naturally, he hopes that it will be naturalized and unified earlier to avoid internal conflicts. War consumes the population of the country.

But based on his understanding of Wang Hao, he doesn't think that Li Shimin can easily get what he wants, including the current Goguryeo. Don't look at Zhang Gongjin who took Gao De to Goguryeo, the war progressed very smoothly, and even overfulfilled the strategy The trend of the target, it is because in those battles, the dead are all Goguryeo people, which is what Wang Hao likes to see.

If the Tang army continued to adopt a gentle policy towards the people of Goguryeo after the war started, Wang Hao might use tricks to provoke Li Shimin to do irrational things. His goal was always to push the Tang Dynasty to eliminate the surrounding alien races, not to merge and merge. Because, he thinks in his heart that if he is not of my race, his heart must be different.

Seeing that Sun Xiangfu stopped talking, Fang Xuanling said, "Xiao Gong's handwriting described the situation in Yunnan in great detail. It has a large population, but it is surrounded by deep mountains and old forests, so it is not for those who are used to living there. It is difficult for the locals to adapt to the living conditions there. However, there are a lot of products there, such as Baiyao, which has a miraculous effect on sword wounds. It is said that it grows all over the mountains and plains. After stockpiling materials for the strategy, the price is very high. For example, tea trees are also calculated according to the top of the mountain. When these things reach our Datang, they are money. And they lack almost all the goods produced by our Datang. If they can be traded, The benefits to us are huge.

The minister also suggested to agree to Zhang Le's request for abdication, and to give Shelong more generous conditions, and let Mengshe's edict be responsible for the trade between central Shu and Yunnan. In this way, our products will start to increase Flowing into the land of Yunnan will definitely increase the strength of the Bai people who love my Tang Dynasty. Even if the other tribes rebel, when we send troops to quell the rebellion, we will have the strong support of the Bai people. "

Li Shimin very much agrees with Fang Xuanling's analysis, including Li Jing, a strategist, who has nothing to say, and Sun Xiangfu can't find any faults in his suggestions, but the more flawless the proposal, the more Sun Xiangfu feels, here There are some lingering clouds, this is Wang Hao!If he doesn't make trouble, is he still Wang Hao?

However, he couldn't deny a good suggestion just because of some doubts, and before that, he also thought in his heart that he should agree with Zhang Le's abdication. The surroundings of Tang Dynasty are already chaotic enough, at least, we must stabilize first, and it will not be too late to be chaotic after the Goguryeo incident is over.

Seeing that although Sun Xiangfu did not express any objection, but frowned worriedly, Li Shimin said with a chuckle, "There is no need to worry about Zhengming. In this Eastern Expedition, in order to prevent changes in Tubo, I will send Chai Shao to lead an army of [-] troops to station in Shu." Among them, after half a year of intensive training, these are elite soldiers with new equipment, even if there is any change in Yunnan, with this [-] troops, they will be able to keep Sichuan safe."

There are about 15 soldiers from various places in Guanzhong for training. Li Ji and Niu Jinda each brought 10 soldiers to Yaozhou and Shanzhou. The expeditionary army independently trained by Li Jing, etc., Chang'an's current total strength is a little over [-], which is the [-] people Li Shimin assigned to Sun Xiangfu to help with spring plowing.

If 1 of these people are divided into the middle of Shu, and the soldiers and horses that Li Shimin wants to take to Shanyang are removed, then there may be only 2 to [-] soldiers and horses left in Chang'an. The huge Chang'an City needs to be defended. There are more than a dozen gates in the city, and the imperial city, which usually requires more than [-] people on duty, only needs [-] people to defend it, which is almost completely empty.

However, in the eyes of the two strategists Li Shimin and Li Jing, Chang'an is impenetrable, not to mention the tall city walls of Chang'an, which are also equipped with new-style defensive equipment. .When these people are threatened in Chang'an, they should all come out to defend the city. Unless there is another situation like cattle and sheep and 20 cavalry rushing into the pass, otherwise, when the external defense line is neatly arranged, a riot of 5 or [-] people, Chang'an garrison can be easily suppressed.

People like them who are proficient in strategy feel that there is no problem. Sun Xiangfu, who doesn't know much about strategy, naturally can't say anything, so the transfer of military affairs is settled like this.

After that, it was time to agree on what kind of rewards and preferential conditions to give to Shelong at the court tomorrow. In this regard, Sun Xiangfu was naturally the keynote speaker, because no one in the Tang Dynasty could compare with Sun Xiangfu in doing business. This is already recognized by everyone.

In later generations, Sun Xiangfu has traveled to Yunnan. He has many agricultural ideas for the land of Yunnan, which is like spring all the year round. However, it is very difficult to realize these ideas in this era. Then, As the second best thing, Sun Xiangfu tried his best to recall the special products related to Yunnan. It was strange that the copper mine was the first thing he thought of.

Copper mines have always been one of the most scarce minerals in the Tang Dynasty, because the coins of the Tang Dynasty were made of copper, and the main reason why there was such a huge gap between the business of the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty was that the amount of money was too small Well, during the Northern Song Dynasty, the minting of coins alone could reach millions of coins a year, which is not worse than the national tax balance of the Tang Dynasty. The actual situation of the Tang Dynasty is that, except for Guanzhong and Shanyang, most of the country There is still a large area of ​​bartering in localities, and ordinary people will suffer a lot of losses because of the conversion problem.

Sun Xiangfu once thought about issuing banknotes after the paper mill and printing factory were built, but he felt that the time was not yet ripe. First of all, it was a matter of people's trust in it. The reason why people in later generations accepted banknotes was also due to experience. After a lot of historical precipitation, it was slowly formed.

The Jiaozi of the Song Dynasty and the Baochao of the Ming Dynasty are examples of the failure of paper currency trials, which deeply poisoned the common people of the two dynasties. After the deposit model is gradually accepted by everyone, and then paper money is introduced, everyone's acceptance will be much higher. The current situation is that the people in most areas don't even know what deposit is. Believe that a piece of paper you give can be used as money!
Of course, the demand for copper in the Tang Dynasty is not limited to coins. Many other equipment and appliances require copper parts and non-ferrous metals, but they are the most important thing to promote the development of a country. However, Yunnan is the country with the richest copper reserves. one of the regions.

"Your Majesty, as far as I know, in addition to medicine, tea trees, spices and other crops in Yunnan, there are also a lot of mines. I plan to pass the new mineral mining technology of our Tang Dynasty to Yunnan, so that The Bai people organize mining and even preliminary smelting, we use food, cloth and other goods to produce and exchange with them..."

"You said, there are a lot of copper mines in Yunnan? Are you sure about this?"

Li Shimin couldn't wait for Sun Xiangfu to finish talking about the specific business methods. He believed in Sun Xiangfu's business methods very much. Now his mind is full of the word "copper mine", because when those things are mined, they are directly money. You can't let so much money be out of your control.

"Uh, sure!"

Sun Xiangfu was a little stunned.Now he regretted that he said the word "copper mine". Seeing Li Shimin's urgent expression, Sun Xiangfu suspected that he had fallen into Wang Hao's trap.

"In this case, all business affairs will be decided by you, Zhengming. After tomorrow's court meeting, I will hold a banquet in the palace to entertain Zhang Leqiujin and Shelong..."

The attitude of entertaining the rich is really different from that of the poor. The world’s copper mines come from Chile, which alone accounts for more than [-]% of the world’s copper resources. It’s a pity that Chile is far away in South America near the Antarctic. Where do you want to mine? , is currently impossible.

In Asia, Jiangxi has the most reserves of copper mines, which is also an important source of copper mines for the imperial court. In addition, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which ranks second, is difficult to get up in this period, let alone mining. , belongs to Yunnan, where the four seasons are like spring, and the population is large. It is the best place to import copper mines for the Tang Dynasty, so Li Shimin can't help but be tempted.

"No, I will send a letter to Prime Minister Xiao later to inform you of some specific trade methods. In addition, please ask Your Majesty to persuade Shelong to cooperate tomorrow so that this matter can be implemented."

"Well, I know."

(End of this chapter)