Northern Dynasties Imperial Industry

Long before Xu Ling came to Chang'an, Douluning, the general manager of Yingzhou who was in charge of the war, had already sent a report to Beijing, and Li Tai was quite satisfied with the results.

Needless to say, the generals who grew up in poverty in the Western Wei Dynasty were very reliable. They perfectly seized the opportunity of the battle between Northern Qi and Nanliang, and achieved the greatest results at the smallest cost.

In addition to fully fulfilling Li Tai's instructions to seize Liyang, bypassing the main battlefield and attacking Beiqi's Jiangbei base camp was a big surprise. To be honest, even if Li Tai personally directed this battle, there was no guarantee that he would be able to do better than Doulu Ning.

If the Wei army hadn't captured the Qi army's camp first and moved away all the materials stored in the camp, Chen Baxian would not have been so eager to start trade with the Western Wei Dynasty, and the two sides would have to go through the same thing. A lot of back and forth.

This has nothing to do with keeping one's word, but the real threat to Jiang defense posed by the Western Wei Dynasty to Nanliang has far exceeded that of the Northern Qi Dynasty. If possible, Chen Baxian certainly hopes to reverse the situation and avoid it from getting worse.

But now, although Nanliang has also won the victory in the Battle of Jiankang, it is only a pure war victory. The overall Jiang defense situation has not been greatly improved. Moreover, the country is short of materials and people's livelihood is depressed. The actual objective The situation is even worse than before.

According to Li Tai's instructions, part of the supplies seized in the Guabu Qi Army camp have been transported back to the upper reaches of the Yangtze River to supplement the deficit caused by Shannan Road's funding of Guanzhong in the past period, while the other part has been stored locally. In Liyang, it will be used for subsequent trade with Jiangdong.

Li Tai also believed in Chen Baxian's personal abilities. Furthermore, the current Western Wei Dynasty does not have the ability to launch further attacks on the Jiangdong mainland, but as a result, the pace of other aspects of affairs and development will slow down or even come to a standstill.

But even if the Jiangdong area is directly captured now, it will not bring a leap-forward increase to the national power of the Western Wei Dynasty. On the contrary, the cost of governance and border defense costs will surge as a result. Not to mention that the Northern Qi Dynasty did not allow the Western Wei Dynasty to achieve this situation, but the current depressed people's livelihood and complex conflicts in Jiangdong made it difficult for the Western Wei Dynasty to establish an effective rule.

Chen Baxian has the courage and ability to clean up the current mess in Jiangdong, but some congenital flaws are already irreparable. Li Tai was happy to see Chen Baxian be able to effectively govern Jiangdong, but the premise was that the upper limit of Nanchen's national power would be directly locked in the future. From this perspective, Jiangdong is far better in the hands of Chen Baxian than in the hands of a corrupt and aggressive military leader like Wang Lin.

Therefore, when discussing the details of the mutual trade with Xu Ling and other Southern Dynasty envoys, Li Tai did not act too aggressively, and even took the initiative to add some auxiliary clauses.

The biggest dispute between the two sides is the issue of Jiang defense in Nanliang. From Li Tai's point of view, Chen Baxian and his Bafu regime should not pay too much attention to military issues such as Jiang defense. You can just deal with it honestly. As long as the people's livelihood in Jiangdong is good, people's livelihood and various productions can be restored as soon as possible. As for reviving the glory of the Southern Dynasties, there is no need to think about it.

Therefore, Li Tai's plan for the Southern Dynasties was to completely abandon the development of river defense and naval forces along the Hengjiang River, so as to provide a more peaceful and relaxed atmosphere for mutual trade between the two sides.

As for the safety of this section of the Nanliang border crossing, it is up to the Western Wei Dynasty to do more work and carry out a series of land defense construction along the north of the Yangtze River with Liyang as the center. In short, the Northern Qi army will not have the opportunity to drink horses again. Yangtze.

However, such a plan is nonsense. It is equivalent to Qi Lord Gao Yang's proposal to the Western Wei Dynasty that you should stop wasting money and food in the Hetao. I will isolate Monan from the whole of Monan with the Great Wall and protect our two families in the northern frontier.

Of course, it is impossible for Nanliang to hand over its Jiang defense security to the Western Wei Dynasty, not to mention that after the defeat of the Northern Qi Dynasty at this stage, their main defense is the Western Wei Dynasty. If they really want to implement the plan proposed by Li Tai, they will be really ambitious if they can sleep!

Nanliang wanted to move the business location to Wuhu, which was further upstream, because the location of Gushu was related to a series of important river defense places such as Caishi and Liangshan. If there is no defense here, then the entire western border of Jiankang will be in great danger and may be attacked by Western Wei cavalry at any time.

After all, Wuhu is still upstream, and from a purely commercial perspective, it is actually more convenient for the distribution and transportation of goods. There are water networks within its territory directly connected to Xuancheng, Yixing and other large areas. During the flood season, you can even reach Taihu Lake through water and land transportation. Touching the core Sanwu area.

In the north of the Yangtze River, there are Zhakou, Ruxu and other important Jiangjin roads that connect to the Huaixi area controlled by the Western Wei Dynasty. Moreover, the flow of the Yangtze River in this section is gentle and the river surface is wide, making it safer to navigate than the turbulent Hengjiang River.

But as a passive party, their opinions are of little significance after all. Li Tai rejected the proposal with only one word: Jiangzhou was not in peace and the upper reaches were uneasy. After hearing this, Xu Ling wanted to give him a geography lesson with a map and point out the location between Jiangzhou and Wuhu. But then I thought about the fact that Wang Lin, who was entrenched in Jiangzhou, had been supported by the Western Wei Dynasty, and then I realized that this really didn't make much sense.

The final agreement reached between the two parties was that Liyang and Gushu would still be used as the places for mutual trade, but they would only be open to each other for trade in the last ten days of each month, and the places for trade could only be in designated areas. . When it comes to the purchase and sale of bulk commodities, it must be submitted to the other party for review a month in advance and then stored in a dedicated warehouse before the transaction can be completed.

Although such a process is a bit more cumbersome, it also provides an additional layer of protection for both parties. Otherwise, no matter which party is really going to be stolen by someone crossing the river in white, it will indeed be a headache. Even though the situation in the Western Wei Dynasty is now advantageous, crossing the river in white clothes is an old skill of the Wu people, and they still have to guard against a wave.

After the mutual market trading model is agreed upon, another topic comes next, that is, what currency should the two parties use for transactions?

In the Western Wei Dynasty, although Li Tai established a currency reform policy and began to establish money supervision and minting coins, the currency has not yet been officially implemented, and there is no stable currency supply and circulation.

As for Nanliang, let alone that. As early as the Xiao Bodhisattva period, the currency system of Nanliang was sparse. Now that Chen Baxian came to power, he had no time to deal with these internal affairs issues. He simply ordered that all coins of the past dynasties can be used for transactions, basically in a state of no supervision. No matter how crazy Li Tai was, he would never be able to exchange his own real supplies for the scraps of iron and steel that had been passed down for countless generations in Jiangdong.

Therefore, the most primitive method of bartering is still fair to both parties. Each party provides its own goods and then formulates an exchange ratio according to its own needs to complete the transaction.

However, after the officials of Nanliang heard that the Western Wei Dynasty had plans to mint and issue coins, they also showed great interest and directly expressed their hope that coins would be included in the mutual market between the two parties.

The commercial atmosphere in the Southern Dynasties was very strong, and the circulation and supply of coins in the market was always a big problem. Even the iron coins in circulation were always in short supply, so that they had to use insufficient coins for transactions. , eighty coins, ninety coins, etc. are used as one hundred coins.

Of course Li Tai would not agree to this. His basic purpose of minting new currency was not to make profits, and he was not prepared to release it to the outside world before meeting domestic business needs.

However, Tongzhi Wanguo Qian, a currency originally used for foreign trade, can also participate in transactions. It just needs Nanliang to trade special commodities. Other ordinary bulk goods can still be bartered directly.

After the discussion on the basic mutual market framework was completed, other specific details would be discussed by subordinates. Li Tai did not need to personally intervene, so he chatted with Xu Ling about Jiangdong's current personnel affairs.

After official business, Xu Ling also took the opportunity to tell Li Tai about Chen Baxian's personal request. When he heard that Chen Baxian actually revealed his intention to marry their Longxi Li family, Li Tai couldn't help but frowned.

The Chen family is not a famous family in Jiangdong, and Chen Baxian's rise can be regarded as a late bloomer. He does not even have a Beifu team like Liu Yu. Although in the process of suppressing the rebellion in Lingnan, he also gathered a group of capable generals such as Hou Andu and Zhou Wenyu around him, but his overall background was still shallow.

Of course, Li Tai does not look down on Chen Baxian because of this, but from a normal perspective, Chen Baxian wants to consolidate his position in Jiangdong. In fact, choosing a famous Jiangdong family or a close general for marriage for his legitimate son can better integrate the internal affairs. It also makes it easier for his son to obtain internal support and inherit his achievements.

But now Chen Baxian actually wants to marry a woman from the Li Tai family for his son. Is he greedy for the high status of the Li family in Longxi? Or is Li Tai more powerful now? But what does this have to do with Chen Baxian? Isn't he worried that Li Tai will use this to interfere in the personnel politics of the Southern Dynasties? Or maybe this is exactly what he needs?

Li Tai really couldn't understand Chen Baxian's intention for a while, but from his own point of view, if he really married a woman of the same race to his son Chen Chang, it would indeed have a greater control over the personnel of the Southern Dynasty. space.

Previously, the Northern Qi Dynasty used Xiao Yuanming to force Wang Sengbian to bow down. If Chen Chang becomes the son-in-law of the Li family, then after Chen Baxian dies, the Western Wei Dynasty will have a motive to support Chen Xinjun of the South, both emotionally and rationally. Of course, Chen Baxian may not know the length of his lifespan, but from Li Tai's perspective, he can probably start preparations from now on.

"Chen Situ is a hero of Jiangdong, and his descendants must also be rare young talents. If we can get married, I will be happy to see it happen."

After pondering for a while, he said with a smile. Although he did not directly confirm the matter, he also expressed his attitude a little bit.

After Xu Ling heard the words, he ordered a servant to bring a sword, and then bowed again: "Before leaving, the prime minister said that he would presumptuously seek friendship. The Duke of Tang was like his father to all his children. Now they are far apart, but only Please ask Duke Tang to teach you a lesson. Punish him for small mistakes and kill him for serious crimes. I will give you an old knife as a tool of torture. Whether your children are successful or not, they will all look up to Duke Tang. If they succeed, they will be happy. If they fail, they will have no regrets."