Iron Dynasty

PS: There is another chapter below.

His Royal Highness, these few days, the lower official was almost eaten by the merchant.

In the main hall of Prince Qi's Mansion, Li Kaiyuan presented the account book of the Chamber of Commerce with both hands, complaining in his mouth.

Xiao Ming smiled. He had also heard about these two things. The merchants almost broke the threshold of the Chamber of Commerce because of the white sugar.

But for him, he was mentally prepared when he was about to release the white sugar technology. After all, the success of the soap shop made many businessmen very jealous.

Moreover, the white sugar chamber of commerce has not even sold it in Dayu Country this time, which means that white sugar will be a brand new commodity. Compared with the soaps that have already made a lot of money by the chamber of commerce, the profits of this white sugar must be higher. .

Because of this, businessmen are so eager to get the technology of white sugar production.

You won't be able to eat it. It's possible to give you tens of thousands of taels of silver notes and pick a few concubines for you. Xiao Ming smiled while taking the account book from Li Kaiyuan.

Li Kaiyuan said with a crying face: Your Highness, don't bury the lower officials, the lower officials have always been honest.

Of course, Xiao Ming was just joking. He paid Li Kaiyuan a high salary in order to keep him clean. If he was outside the Fengguo, Li Kaiyuan's position would probably be robbed.

With a teasing smile, Xiao Ming looked at the account book, which recorded the merchants who purchased white sugar production technology in the past few days.

Three hundred and seventy-eight people. Xiao Ming was a little shocked when he saw the number on the account book, So many.

No, Xiaguan has been reminding them not to buy technology too blindly, but they just don't believe it. Li Kaiyuan shook his head.

Now that I've reminded them, let them go. It's up to them whether they lose or make a profit, but even if there are more than 200 people, I'm afraid they will make a profit in the early stage.

Xiaguan also thought so. This white sugar has never appeared on the market. There will be a lot of sales in this market. Besides, now that the sea trade routes are opened up, merchants can still sell white sugar to Korea and Japan. Li Kaiyuan said.

Xiao Ming nodded when he heard the words, this number seems to be very large, just because the white sugar workshops are concentrated in Qingzhou, just like there is only one canteen in a modern town, but the whole country adds up to thousands.

In the same way, if these 300-odd white sugar workshops were evenly distributed throughout the Great Yu Kingdom, it would be nothing more than a drop of water into the sea, and now that he wants to open up private capital, he can't interfere too much with the behavior of these merchants.

Doing business is inherently profitable, he only needs to control the general business operation of the entire closed country, and the specific details will be managed by the government.

More than three million taels plus the sale of sulfites, this white sugar chamber of commerce is a net profit again, not bad, not bad.

The numbers on the account book made Xiao Ming smile happily. In fact, he was the most profitable one. He could sell both sugar cane and chemicals.

Except for the white sugar, this pendulum has not been sold. Once it is sold, it will be a huge income. The tight finances due to the crazy expansion of the army are now finally relaxed.

Li Kaiyuan's eyes narrowed with laughter, but he remembered something and suddenly said: His Royal Highness, there is something the official almost forgot, after these merchants bought the technology, they complained that they couldn't find enough craftsmen to be responsible for production, and the Qingzhou market The number of slaves on the board is also very tight, and there is simply not enough for the merchants to divide it, and the issue of the lower-level officials will cause some problems for the development of the business.

Well, you're right. Xiao Ming nodded, and he had to say that Li Kaiyuan saw this question very accurately.

In fact, he is also thinking about this issue. Now he obviously cannot compete with Europe for the slave trade, and it is very difficult to carry out the slave trade in Asia. After all, neither Japan nor Korea exists in a tribal form like Africa.

However, he already had a specific replacement plan in his mind, so he said: You can tell the businessmen to let them recruit craftsmen from outside the Fengguo.

Recruiting craftsmen from other places? Li Kaiyuan rolled his eyes and suddenly laughed, His Royal Highness's trick is really high, so whether these merchants buy from outside or cheat, this is all to increase the population of Qingzhou. .

There was a smirk on Xiao Ming's mouth. This was exactly what he wanted to achieve. After his on-demand broadcast, these businessmen would inevitably traffic people from outside the closed country to Qingzhou to meet the shortage of people in the industry in order to pursue profits.

In his view, this situation is the same as that of European businessmen who traffic African people for profit, but his method is more civilized, which is similar to modern labor export.

That's right, so you can secretly remind the businessman after you go back. Xiao Ming said.

Li Kaiyuan nodded, Yes, Your Highness, I will prepare for this when I go back.

After sending Li Kaiyuan away, Xiao Ming asked people to prepare a horse, and he was going to go to the military workshop.

Right now, the situation in the Great Yu Kingdom may take a turn for the worse at any time. He must prepare in advance, so he has not been idle these two days, but is thinking about changing the equipment for the troops of various states.

After discussing with Niu Ben, he felt that he should focus on changing equipment for the three armies now, and the Youzhou Army was naturally the first.

Relatively speaking, the Youzhou Army is now the largest in the Fengguo army, with 20,000 infantry and 20,000 cavalry, totaling 40,000. The second is the current Dengzhou Army.

After the position of Dengzhou became more and more important, he expanded the Dengzhou army from 10,000 people to 20,000 people, and the last one was the Yunzhou army, which currently has only 10,000 people.

This army was prepared for the resources of King Yong's fief. If there was a war in the Great Yu Kingdom, he said that this army should not be used.

As for the army of other states, Xiao Ming only left a standing army of 1,000 people. It is not that he does not want to expand the army, but that his fief has a population of 2 million. The army of Youzhou, Qingzhou, Yunzhou and Dengzhou combined is enough. Ninety thousand people, this is already the limit that the fief can bear. This is equal to one person in more than 20 people is a soldier, and the proportion is extremely high.

Even so, it is impossible for him to use the entire army of 90,000 people at one time. After all, the logistics of a 100,000-strong army will require 50,000 to 600,000 people to follow. If he continues to fight like this, he will be finished with the fief.

So after thinking about it, Xiao Ming felt that the only way to improve the level of the army's equipment was to compare the quality to the quantity. Because of this, he decided to go to the military workshop to check the equipment, urge production, and at the same time let Chen Qi hoard the equipment. Delivered to state armies.

Arriving at the military workshop, the sound of metal tapping sounded. Since the last time he went to sea, Xiao Ming hadn't come to the military workshop for two months.

Thinking of the rifled gun Song Changping had brought him, he first went to the firearms workshop.