Steel Dynasty - Chapter 225

[Chapter 225 Steel City Wall]

“Your Highness, the taxation of Dayu State is mainly agricultural tax. Now Your Highness has exempted the fiefdom from taxes for three years, which is equivalent to cutting off the government’s income.”

Pang Yukun saw Xiao Ming frowning at the accounts. Explain it.

“As for the business tax, only Qingzhou has more merchants, but it is only concentrated on handicrafts such as brewing and soap. The amount of silver collected is only tens of thousands of taels, which is really insignificant compared to today’s expenses. “

Pang Yukun is engaged in logistics. His attention is on the money, and he doesn’t care about what Xiao Ming is doing. However, in his opinion, the Galen ship is not much necessary. It is just a waste of people and money.

Xiao Ming knew what Pang Yukun meant. It was nothing more than to remind Xiao Ming not to engage in big projects that would waste people and money.

This is a heavy burden on the six-state economy, which has just started to improve.

But for Xiao Ming, each of his plans has its own purpose. If you invest without spending money, you will not get a big return. This is something Pang Yukun probably can’t see yet.

After Pang Yukun finished speaking, Xiao Ming looked at Li Kaiyuan.

Managing a fiefdom is like managing a company. The army, people’s livelihood, and government agencies are all big money spenders, and the chamber of commerce represented by Li Kaiyuan is a big money maker.

So every time he saw Li Kaiyuan, Xiao Ming was always much happier than when he saw Pang Yukun.

Because Li Kaiyuan showed how much money he earned as soon as he opened his mouth, and Pang Yukun showed how much money he spent as soon as he opened his mouth, and then he reached out to ask for money.

“Your Highness, in the past year or so, the domestic market in Dayu has not been as hot as it was at the beginning. Moreover, the soap and perfume can be used for a long time after buying them once. Since this time, the demand has dropped greatly. As for Zui Qingzhou Although it has declined, it is still stable. Adding these things together, the chamber of commerce can earn about three hundred thousand taels of silver a month,” Li Kaiyuan said.

“Three hundred thousand taels?” Xiao Ming’s face looked a little ugly, “So few?”

“A lot, Your Highness, you auctioned off all the sales rights. Now we can only make a small profit. But after the wealthy family was wiped out, Chang’an This market is in the hands of the Chamber of Commerce, and I have been planning to open a store in Chang’an during this period,” Li Kaiyuan said.

Xiao Ming was speechless for a while. He made a lot of money by auctioning the sales rights at first, but now the sequelae are showing up.

After spending a lot of money, he can no longer live in poverty. Although the monthly income of three hundred thousand taels from the Chamber of Commerce is already a huge amount of money, it is not enough for the big things he wants to do.

“Now that the market in Chongqing is saturated, the market in the Golden Horde seems to be still huge.”

Xiao Ming’s words almost made Li Kaiyuan spit out the water as he was about to drink it.

He panicked and said: “Your Highness, do you want the Chamber of Commerce to do business with the barbarians? Now this Beishan hates us so much. When the caravan arrives on the grassland, isn’t it beheaded directly? Besides, this barbarian stinks all over. I never take a shower. Will they like this soap and perfume? “

“But the barbarians like wine. It’s bitterly cold in the north, and this white wine is an excellent way to keep out the cold.” Niu Ben said slowly.

Xiao Ming looked at Niu Ben and then at Li Kaiyuan, “Now you understand, even if two people are fighting, it is a war, and business does not need to involve war. Besides, we are making money from the barbarians, so why not do it? ” I’m afraid this liquor can only be exchanged for cattle and sheep skins on the grassland.” Li Kaiyuan said, “Barbarians

rarely

use silver and other things.”

Sheepskin is also a commodity that is in short supply in the Chongqing Kingdom, and it will be the same if you resell it.” Xiao Ming’s eyes flashed.

Lu Fei slapped the table and laughed, “Your Highness, I, Lu Fei, really admire you. Li Kaiyuan, try your best to get the horses, and I’ll treat you to a drink when the time comes.”

“I’m not interested.” Li Kaiyuan shrank his neck, “When the time comes, Don’t you know whether you are alive or not?”

Pang Yukun was no longer principled for the sake of money. He said: “There are still many businessmen in Qingzhou and the grassland. When the time comes, we will turn a blind eye and take care of these businessmen. After a while, they will naturally understand what you do, and now that there is money everywhere, we can count on you.”

Pang Yukun’s words of praise made Li Kaiyuan feel proud, and he felt that his status was still important.

Although Xiao Ming raised the status of businessmen, the traditional thinking among the people could not be changed for a while, because he still felt inferior everywhere in the government office. Now he finally straightened his back.

“In that case, I will try my best.” Li Kaiyuan said with a smile.

Xiao Ming nodded, “By the way, how is the Qin family’s water transport fleet receiving it now?”

Qin Chuanyun was hanged in Cangzhou City, leaving behind thirty merchant ships of the Qin family. These merchant ships Xiao Ming Let Pang Yukun take it over to Li Kaiyuan.

Speaking of this matter, Pang Yukun looked ashamed and said: “Your Highness, after the news of Qin Chuanyun’s arrest spread, the merchant ships in Qingzhou were put under control. However, after the merchant ships outside learned the news, many merchant ships’ The boatman directly took the merchant ships as his own and sold them. Now there are only twelve merchant

ships actually handed over to the Chamber of Commerce. “Including those purchased by the Chamber of Commerce from Jinling City, the Chamber of Commerce now has forty-five merchant ships,” Li Kaiyuan added. .

“Well, these merchant ships should be enough in Chongqing.”

Xiao Ming sighed. His financial resources are still a bit thin. The workshop area seems to be in full swing, but in fact it is just a few workshops.

If you really want to make Qingzhou rich, you have to do business with the world.

The meeting said that basically everything that should be reported has been reported. As for Bowen College and the newspaper, there are not many problems, and Xiao Ming can only arrange it.

After a while, Xiao Ming asked Zhan Xingchang to stay while the others went back.

“Your Highness, what is the new city wall mentioned at this meeting?” Zhan Xingchang asked.

“Reinforced concrete city wall.” Xiao Ming said, this is another big project for Qingzhou.

Without waiting for Zhan Xingchang to ask, Xiao Ming picked up a pen and paper and started talking to Zhan Xingchang.

Reinforced concrete structures are the strongest building structures in contemporary architecture. This structure is used in many large-scale projects, such as the Three Gorges Dam and nuclear power plants.

Later, this structure was used in residential buildings. This structure can generally withstand earthquakes of magnitude 7 or 8.

The reason why this type of structure is so popular is that concrete resists compression while steel resists tension, making the two materials perfect together.

The side of Cangzhou City facing the grassland is a long and narrow valley. The city wall is 500 meters long. Building a reinforced concrete city wall at a distance of 500 meters is basically equivalent to building a community of ten 50-meter-long residential buildings.

If this project was just a small project in modern times, it would take a construction team of several hundred people half a year to complete it, but here it is a big project.

But even so, Xiao Ming was determined to build it, because even if the barbarian city wall would no longer have to worry about the barbarian gunpowder blasting.

(End of chapter)