Crossing town house man and wife

Perhaps it was a coincidence that the place Yan Heng chose to dry the salt was the later Yingkou, a seaside fishing village called Liaokou today.

If we go back to the 21st century, even taking the slowest and cheapest train, it would only take two hours from Xiangping to Liaokou—that is, Liaoyang to Yingkou—but in the ancient Qin Dynasty, Yan Heng The group of people walked on the road for nearly four days before they saw the seaside.

This was the speed that Yan Heng used the carriage at the risk of violating the regulations, and most of the team members were riding horses.If it was replaced by a slow ox cart, Wu Ming estimated that they might not be able to arrive after another half a month.

Not to mention the hard work on the road, even if Yan Heng brought a few followers and many servants, and did not travel day and night in the way of marching, it still could not change the bumpy road without asphalt roads and rubber tires in these years. bitter.

After a lot of difficulty, the group finally arrived at their destination, and Wu Ming immediately jumped out of the carriage, not wanting to stay in it for a while.

The days that followed were happier.

After arriving at the beach, Yan Heng did not force Wu Ming to stay by his side all the time.

Wu Ming was also happy and leisurely, and started looking for seafood with the tortoise shell.

This is the best time to eat seafood. From the night when he got off the carriage, Wu Ming has been desperately trying to eat seafood.Sea crabs, prawns, clams, mantis shrimps, sea cucumbers, scallops, squid... He ate almost everything in the sea, and the local fishermen Yan Heng specially recruited as his guide were dumbfounded.

The tortoise shell also had enough mouth addiction, and even Yan Heng had to follow Wu Ming to taste seafood in different ways every day.It wasn't until Wu Ming finally noticed that Yan Heng didn't like this kind of food, and he liked vegetables and meat with a strong taste, then he gave up the futile act of continuing to recommend seafood delicacies to him.

But Wu Ming's eating and drinking left Yan Heng with the impression that the seaside is actually very rich, and he felt that more people could be moved here.

One night, the two were lying on the same bed chatting, Yan Heng mentioned this matter casually, and Wu Ming was speechless.

"Brother, do you know that there are four seasons in a year?" Wu Ming turned over, supported his head with one hand, and looked at Yan Heng helplessly.

Yan Heng is not an idiot and ignorant young master. When Wu Ming asked, he understood, "You mean, only summer can be so rich?"

"To be exact, you can only eat when you can go to sea...probably." Wu Ming replied uncertainly.

These days, life is hard for the rich, let alone the poor.No matter how many good things there are in the sea, you have to fish them out to fill your stomach. Moreover, the sea is more dangerous than the land. Every time you go to sea, it is like a life-and-death expedition.

The local fisherman who served as his guide these days and helped him buy seafood is still the son of the head of the fishing village. He is considered to be a relatively wealthy family in the village. He still doesn't even have neat clothes, and he hasn't worn shoes since he was a child.The tortoiseshell still couldn't see it, so I asked for a set of old clothes from the guards, so that the boy covered his whole body. Of course, if it was changed to later generations, big pants would be the standard equipment for summer beaches. Wearing clothes tightly is simply torturing people.

According to the kid, they only had two meals when they went to sea in summer, and only one meal in winter, and even this one meal didn't even make them feel full.

Wu Ming relayed what he heard from the village head's son to Yan Heng, and then said: "Fisherman's life is more difficult than that of farmers. Farmers still have the possibility of being self-sufficient, but fishermen have too many things that need to be supplied by others. .If you want them to live a good life, you must first start with the circulation, so that they can sell fish and buy things.”

"This is what the first emperor said about commercial circulation." Yan Heng said with emotion.

"Commercial circulation alone is not enough." Wu Ming sighed, and unconsciously said a few more words, "You have to take care of this matter yourself, arranging caravans to travel around in the name of the prefect's mansion, just like collecting taxes , to gather local products from all over the country and distribute turnover.”

"Can you be more detailed?" Yan Heng looked at Wu Ming with a piercing look.

"I'm just talking on paper, just listen to it, don't take it too seriously." Wu Ming inoculated Yan Heng, "For example, the fishing village here needs cheap linen to cut clothes, but for specialized For cloth merchants, it is not profitable to sell cheap goods in such a small place that does not shit, and naturally they will not take the risk of losing money like a saint. By the way, a saint also wants to Eating and drinking, the so-called Sage Confucius has always sold himself as gold, and has never done any business at a loss."

"...don't digress."

"Okay, okay." Wu Ming curled his lips and turned the topic back, "This business is destined to lose money for a businessman, but it's different for you. You control the entire Liaodong, and the soldiers under your command There are countless, many industries, unlike ordinary businessmen who can only do one kind of business at a time. You can collect the fish and shrimp here and send them to Xiangping City to sell - don't worry about keeping fresh, you know how to make ice, Even if it’s hard to keep it fresh, at least it won’t kill people. Many seafood can also be dried into dried goods, such as dried fish and shrimp, which can be preserved for a longer period of time and can be used as a dish or as a snack—well, this year It's too extravagant for Yue to treat these things as snacks."

"Did you digress again?" Yan Heng said helplessly.

"Uh..." Wu Ming blinked, "Where did I say it before? By the way, harvesting seafood - you can let these people who collect seafood bring a batch of cheap daily necessities on the road, so as to save the truck from being empty, or even directly here Open two shops, one is in charge of collecting seafood, the other is in charge of selling daily sundries such as needles, threads and brains, and the two shops share a caravan between Liaokou and Xiangping. In this case, the shop selling daily sundries may make money You don’t have much money, but the seafood stores must be very profitable, and if you add the two together, you’re still making money.”

"But if I don't open that day sale... shop, I will earn more." Yan Heng said.

"Yes, but the problem is that you are a sheriff and not a businessman." Wu Ming raised his eyebrows and said, "Your primary goal is not to make yourself more money, but to make the people under your rule live better. They live a better life." Well, you will have more tax revenues, a more healthy population, and you will naturally have more confidence in fighting. More importantly, you don’t have to only open the trade route from Xiangping to Liaokou. You can do this in every place—by the way, just follow the location of the military settlements. Where there are military settlements, you can open such small shops that are convenient for the people and collect local products. In this case, both It can ensure the safety of the store, and it can also make people associate this convenience with you, the sheriff, and then...you understand."

Yan Heng thought for a while, nodded and said, "It's possible."

"Of course it's feasible, but the biggest problem in this layout is actually people." Wu Ming changed his posture and rested his head on his arm, "It's fine to carry private goods or something, and even ordinary greedy ink is not the worst. of."

"Being greedy for ink isn't the worst thing?" Yan Heng was a little surprised.

"Not counting." Wu Ming nodded, "The worst thing is to give an IOU and then not honor it."

"What IOU?" Yan Heng didn't understand.

"It's just an empty-handed white wolf. First take the goods, then give the money, and then renege on the debt." Wu Ming said indifferently, "In this way, the repudiator will have a full belly, but you will bear all the bad reputation."

Yan Heng frowned, but then asked, "What solution do you have?"

"The best solution is to let the people know how to read and count, to understand the rules you announced, and to know the value of their own things, so that they will not be deceived, less deceived, and even if they are deceived, they will not be deceived and help others Count the money."

"..."

"That's why I told you before that the common people should be able to read and write." Wu Ming sighed after finishing speaking, "Of course, this is very difficult, and it is difficult to reach the sky, so the real method that can be adopted is probably... a high salary , torture."

"I can understand torture, but what is Gaoxin?" Yan Heng asked puzzled.

"Salary is the salary." Wu Ming explained, "If you want the horse to run, you have to let the horse eat grass. If your officials and servants can't even fill their own stomachs, why should they watch it like this? Food and drink slip away from one’s eyes and enter into other people’s belly? You must know that there are always only two kinds of things in the world, one is caused by lack of food and hunger, and the other is caused by eating too much. Every time a farmer in history has..."

By the way, Qin Er Shi was put under house arrest by the time-traveling man before he messed up. Naturally, the Qin Dynasty here will not have the story of Daze Township, nor will there be the first peasant uprising in Chinese history.

Wu Ming immediately shut up, not wanting to say any more.

"What's wrong?" Yan Heng noticed his strangeness.

"It's nothing." Wu Ming turned over and lay down with his back to Yan Heng, "I'm sleepy, go to sleep."

Yan Heng was confused, but thinking back on the topics discussed before, it seemed that there was nothing that would make Wu Ming unhappy, so he could only pretend that he was really sleepy.

After hesitating for a while, Yan Heng stretched out his hand and took Wu Ming into his arms.

Seeing that although Wu Ming didn't turn his head, he didn't resist his hug either, Yan Heng secretly heaved a sigh of relief.

Yan Heng stayed in Liaokou for nearly a month, until the salt field took shape, the first batch of coarse salt was successfully dried, reliable soldiers drawn from various places were already in place, and the entire salt field was closely guarded. Then I packed up and set off to return to Xiangping.

Two diners who participated in the construction of the salt field voluntarily stayed and assisted the military officers in the management of the salt field. By the way, they studied how to improve the process of drying salt to further increase the monthly salt output.

In addition to Yantian, Yan Heng also ordered people to open a dock in Liaokou, and sent people to search for craftsmen who could build ships.Once the craftsmen are in place, immediately start building huge ships that can go to sea.On the surface, this is to sell salt by sea in the future, but in fact, when Yan Heng was chatting with Wu Ming, he was moved by his suggestion to attack the counties near the sea from the sea, and he planned to build an army that could be used as a surprise soldier. navy.

Of course, this cannot be achieved in January, two months, or even a year and a half. Shipbuilding alone will consume a lot of time.

But no matter how many useful ideas Wu Ming came up with during this trip to the seaside, Yan Heng still had to go back to be his Liaodong County Guard after all, and it was not easy to wander outside for a long time.

So, after being away from Xiangping City for more than a month, Yan Heng and his party finally returned with a full load.

However, as soon as he returned to the county guard's mansion, at the behest of Aunt Lao, Tortoise sent a message to Wu Ming: Mrs. Tai has invited two charming guests, one is the daughter of the Ying family and the other is the daughter of the Ying family.According to the theory of relationship, they are both cousins ​​of Yan Heng.

This Mrs. Tai is really Sima Zhaozhi's heart, and everyone knows it.

Wu Ming curled his lips and didn't bother to pay attention.