Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

It was already the last day of April, and the secretary supervisor sent a briefing on this month's major events, as well as various affairs that needed to be dealt with next month.

In fact, there is nothing special to pay attention to.

Because the general direction has been set, someone is perfecting the details, someone is promoting the progress, and someone is implementing the policy.

The prime ministers are very professional and diligent, and they deal with it very quickly—more importantly, they are reliable.

Shao Shude only needs to be a supervisor, spot checks and patrols from time to time to see if there is anyone who is obedient and violating, and whether there is anyone who is passive and sabotage.

Overall, he is relatively comfortable as the emperor.

I have time to enjoy singing and dancing, have time to go hunting, and have time to write and write books.

May is almost a reprint of April, and Shao Shude can fully predict that June will be a remake of May.

After the end of the war and the end of the system reform, there are not many tricks in this world.What needs to be done now is actually the so-called re-engraving.Every time it is reproduced, the world will become more peaceful.

The biggest event in May was probably the "transfer" of the Tianwei army collectively.

This is another miscellaneous army that surrendered to Shao's despotic power.In other words, he couldn't stand being boiled by the eagle, so he agreed to go to Liaodong as a soldier.

A total of 5000 people, the old rules, first recruit soldiers to get paid, and slowly wait for land distribution and division.

The Liaodong Daofu soldiers who had just paid off their historical debts are now short of another song.

The second is related to the town soldiers.

After several years of hard work, all the families of the [-] town soldiers in Shule Town have been relocated, and more than half of the [-] town soldiers and their families stationed in Khotan have arrived. Considering that the development of Gumo Prefecture has gradually improved , So it was proposed to set up Gumo town soldiers.

The town's army has a staff of [-], recruited from the four armies of Hengye, Pinglu, Guangjie, and Luoyan, and the whole family moved away.

After the formation of the Gumo Town Army, there will also be the Kucha Town Army, but this will most likely be two years later.

After careful calculation, there are actually quite a few town troops in the Western Regions.

Forget about the five thousand in Khotan, it is entirely dependent on local support.

In addition to them, there are 2000 Shule Town Army and 6000 Gaochang Town Army.

After four or five years of hard work in Tongguang, the Shuanghe town army has gradually increased to nine thousand.This year will not continue to increase. The North Court needs to lay a solid foundation. Next year, we will continue to open up wasteland and transform farmland. Rated number of troops.

The third thing that can arouse a little bit of interest is related to shipping.

As the saying goes, demand breeds technology.When you have enough market demand, technology is very likely to iteratively improve.After more than 20 years of development, Daxia's shipping industry has flourished, and the ships have undergone two iterative improvements. The two most important indicators, maneuverability and reliability, have been greatly improved.

It is also this kind of progress that rescued Bohai Trading Company from the terrible high shipwreck rate in the early stage, the cost was gradually reduced, and more people were willing to engage in the shipping industry.

Being a sailor at sea is not just as simple as high wages.In fact, when a ship pulls anchor, every sailor is legally allowed to carry a small suitcase of a specified size, in which they can store a specified type of cargo, and sell it freely after arriving at the port of destination without paying taxes.

Well, it doesn't really matter whether it's taxed or not, the key is the goods.This can be sold for a lot of money, ranging from twice to several times, and the income from a trip to the sea is enough for them to squander for a long time-an unwritten rule during the great voyage, otherwise even if it is a desperate beggar, he will cherish life, He would not easily board a ship to live the days of danger and living conditions that were not as good as pigs and dogs.

The abundance of sailors made it possible to launch larger-scale shipping.

Du Xiao, the tax supervisor, and Zheng Jue, the secretary of the household department, suggested that after the north wind blows in autumn, try to transport a batch of grain from Muzhou to Hebei by sea, and then transport it to Luoyang through the Yellow River.

This is just a "trial operation" and the scale is not large. The two ships are loaded with about [-] hu of Liaodong millet and wheat. In terms of quantity, it can be said to be insignificant.

The prime ministers of Zhengshitang agreed, and Shao Shude had no reason to object, not to mention that this matter was particularly in line with his wishes.

So, with a swipe of his pen, he wrote on it: "After arriving in Hong Kong, additional rewards will be given as appropriate."

The development of Liaodong is very fast. Although the continuous resettlement of immigrants, government soldiers, and tribes consumes a lot of food, after all, after more than 20 years, the foundation of the counties of Liaodong Province has been very solid, and the food accumulated in various warehouses has continued to increase. , the snowball effect is very obvious.

In view of this, the Ministry of Household Affairs intends to collect a batch of grain and store it in Hanjiacang City.

The cost of long-distance land transshipment is too high, and ten truckloads of grain may not be able to reach two truckloads.But if it is transported by water, the cost will be reduced to a few tenths—provided that the ship does not sink.

But then again, so what if the ship sinks?Can it all sink to the bottom of the sea?As long as more than half of the ships can be returned, it will be a huge profit.What's more, after so many years of development, the route is mature, and the hydrological conditions along the way are relatively familiar. When sailing offshore, they can temporarily call at the ports of Taepong, Baekje, and Silla to avoid bad weather. The safety is actually relatively high.

Excluding the part that may be wet and lost by the waves during transportation, this is a sure-fire business.Furthermore, if you want to use Liaodong's grain, what else can you do besides shipping?
After approving the memorials, Shao Shude came to the map again, thinking about the long east coastline.

Has anyone in history shipped grain on a large scale?
Yes, it was a dynasty that had to resort to sea transportation after the water transportation was abolished: the Yuan Dynasty.

Beijing was the capital of the Yuan Dynasty. Because of the many wars in the north, and a lot of land was designated as pastures by the Mongols, and the Yellow River was violent, it was really withered, and grain had to be transported from the south.

The first sea transportation was in the 19th year of the Yuan Dynasty (1282). This was an exploration. Under the background of blind eyes and no knowledge of any hydrological conditions, the adventure transported 4.6 shijiangnan grains to the north, and the whole journey was more than 1.3 miles. .

Since then, it has been out of control.

In the Yuan Dynasty, shipping routes were continuously explored, and there were 2-3 routes in total, which were very mature.It's surprising that you can reach Dadu from Zhejiang in the fastest ten days.

The timing is also very scientific.After the summer solstice, the typhoon had not yet come, but the south wind was already blowing hard, so we hurriedly loaded food onto the boat, and took as many boats as possible at a time, so as not to encounter a typhoon when we set off late, and the boat was destroyed and people died.

In the most year, about 350 million shi of grain was transported from the south to the north, usually more than 200 million shi.

The ship damage rate is also not high.

At first, I was not very familiar with it. The shipwreck rate was about a quarter, and then gradually decreased. In the Yuan Dynasty, the overall average shipping loss was less than 5%, and it was reduced to about 1% in the later period.

Compared with the water transportation in Ming and Qing Dynasties, [-]% of them "drifted" at every turn, which is really conscientious.

But why do you say that it is "worthy" of the Yuan Dynasty?Their management level is really bad and unscrupulous.Since the discovery of the shortcut to shipping, they have been squeezing Jiangnan desperately.Shipwrecks transported by sea must also be replaced by "sea boat households" (a kind of household registration) themselves. As a result, many sea boat households have been destroyed, and eventually the people in the south of the Yangtze River are afraid of sea transportation.

The Yuan Dynasty also realized this problem. It is not a solution to squeeze Jiangnan like this all the time. The north must have some productivity!So I started to control the Yellow River, but ended up killing myself...

It is a pity that the Ming Dynasty, which made its fortune in the south of the Yangtze River, inherited the hatred of the people in the south of the Yangtze River for sea transportation, and began to change water transportation.

Shao Shude felt that he was afraid of going to extremes in everything.

Why are water transport and sea transport either one or the other?Is it bad to have both?

Like the grain in Liaodong, you can neither transport it by land nor by water, and there is no other way except by sea.

Where there are many tidal flats along the coast and there is no good port, water transport is used.

There are good ports along the coast, and those suitable for sea transportation can save some money by sea transportation. Not only is the loss low, but the transportation cost is also low-the water transportation in the Tang Dynasty, because there are hundreds of miles more land than the Ming and Qing Dynasties, so only 70-80% of them arrived on average. The goods rate, but at this level, it is still a little higher than that of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

"Sea shipping!" Shao Shude's finger swiped down from the ports of Muzhou and Lizhou in Liaodong, circled a half circle, and landed on Wudi Port in Cangzhou.

There is a canal leading to Yongji Canal, which can connect the Yellow River to Luoyang.

"Luoyang doesn't need food from the south now, but people don't have long-term considerations, so they must have near-term worries." Shao Shude took out the materials of Bohai Trading Company and Annan Trading Company after sitting in the case.

Bohai Trading Company has the most data.

For more than ten years, an average of more than 20 ships have been transshipping various materials in Liaodong every year.

Only one of the last three years sank two ships.

Zoomed out to ten years, the loss rate is about 10%.

Looking back at the beginning, uh, it was a bit high.

But it is clear that the attrition rate decreases gradually over time.

The sailors are becoming more and more proficient, the management level is gradually catching up, and all aspects are improving. Of course, the attrition rate will decrease.

As long as you do everything and practice, after a long time, there will always be results.

Nowadays, shipbuilding technology is slowly improving, and the loss will only get lower and lower in the future, and it will be stable within 5% for a long time, and even in a few decades, it can move towards 1%.

The only thing to worry about is that shipping of this scale will attract pirates.

This is inevitable, but it can also be attacked or even eliminated.

To be honest, the pirates are not fools, robbing a ship of food, angering the government, and dying, why bother?If I really want to grab something, I might as well grab a ship full of goods like silk and porcelain. The benefits of the two are not at the same level.

"It is not advisable to give up eating because of choking." Shao Shude closed the information of Bohai Trading Company and made up his mind.

Even if it is robbed by pirates, it is actually acceptable.After all, the cost of shipping is too low to fully cover these losses.

A Hu regime in the Yuan Dynasty was able to transport 200-300 million shi of grain from the south of the Yangtze River to Dadu every year—the annual water transportation volume of the Ming Dynasty was only 400 million shi, but it had to mobilize 10,000+ people—there would be no "hundreds of grains" in Daxia. "Wancaogong" vested interest groups are troubled, so why hesitate?

Water transportation and sea transportation are parallel, and the two are the backup of each other, and both hands must be hard.

Thinking of this, he wanted to go to the east to have a look.