Spices are a kind of luxury product - the reason is simple, this is still an agricultural society after all.
In an agricultural society, any good land must be used for farming, even today's Datang is no exception!
Although the current level of grain production in the Tang Dynasty has reached a new high, in the eyes of historians, this is a prosperous situation that surpasses all previous dynasties.
but……
Are the people full of rice, flour, oil, meat, and vegetables?...
Obviously, this has put forward new demands for farming. This is also the reason why although the Tang Dynasty has engaged in industry and the profits from industry are very rich, farmers have not left the land in droves. This is because
Farming can still bring good profits.
Of course, another more important factor is that the Tang Dynasty is still a country with a small population and a small population. Calculated in terms of the ratio of population to land, it is almost the same as that of the North American continent later.
And because the most popular agricultural project at present is mainly the breeding of pigs and sheep... and because the imperial court has not yet lifted the ban on slaughtering cattle, there are many skilled and bold farmers who secretly raise beef cattle to make profits.
The existence of this kind of gray industry...the profits can be imagined, and it is almost no worse than engaging in sea trade.
You can imagine the rarity of spices... Although this is also an economic crop, it is different from the feed crops used to raise livestock. Feed crops are just raw materials, but the end product is meat, and meat is a kind of food that can be used everywhere.
Anything that can be sold to any common people, even those from poor families, as the saying goes, who doesn’t eat dumplings during the Chinese New Year? Therefore, there is always a market for meat... and the raw materials and feeds of meat.
This is not the case with spices. Generally, they are only consumed by large households. But today’s Datang...
On the one hand, because Li Er's policy is partly coercion, now all the wealthy and powerful people in the world know that their farming is going to be targeted by His Majesty, and they no longer dare to be attached to the land. Even those who are still farming are trying every possible means to find another place.
There are other ways; on the other hand, the profits from trade are also really attractive.
Wealth news from the two general directions of Hangzhou and Lingzhou is spread everywhere through the increasingly developed newspapers and magazines. In the eyes of the local landowners who are gradually opening up, it seems that there are people visiting those places for trade every day.
Extremely rich...
The amount is so large that sometimes it can't even keep up with the salary issued by the imperial court.
And now... the customs in China are gradually changing. People who live as merchants, open factories, and go to sea to conquer the world are no longer despised cowards. They also have something more meaningful than money: meaning.
Factories can produce various goods for people to use on weekdays, and can make weapons to defend the country during wartime.
As for the maritime merchants who went out to sea to conquer the world, although their ships were not like factories that could produce goods that everyone could use, they expanded based on their ability and occupied territories that belonged to people from the Tang Dynasty. In the long run, it would also be beneficial to the Yanhuang bloodline.
It does no harm to the people of China and is aboveboard and aboveboard, so how can it be called a silverfish?
Therefore, people's hearts are surging. Although the people at the grassroots level are usually mainly worried about the fact that there is still a good piece of wasteland near their homes that is not cultivated, so that they can eat a few more meals of meat every month in the coming year, or sell it to save money so that their children can go to school.
... Generally speaking, it is relatively stable, but wealthy households have become more active.
What kind of situation does this lead to? It is very likely that the employee with the largest and most luxurious house in the county has harvested a lot of spices from farmers this year, at a high price. You make money, I am Fengya, you are good, I am good, everyone is good, but next year? Farmers
Expanded production and planted more than ten acres of spices. But when I turned around, I saw that Yuan Wai's family had long disappeared. The clerk from the county came to talk to you cordially and told Yuan Wai that his family had gone to Suzhou to develop, and that this house had been given to him.
I contacted the county government official. My fellow villager, your land has been very good recently and the harvest has been good. Do you want to consider it...
In short, this is what population mobility is all about, and population mobility... it is not like the almost comprehensive movement in later generations. The commercial value of a building in any location can be estimated using statistics.
After all, the main customers of shops in later generations are ordinary people, and if farmers want to sell spices, only big households can buy them.
So here comes the problem. When the flow of people in future generations is unstable, shops will be closed. So... the big players are disappearing now, and a big business from other places pops up every now and then to start the breeding industry - maybe he even grows spices, directly
constitute a competitive relationship with you.
In anticipation of such risks, farmers are of course unwilling to grow spices. Although people in China are getting richer and richer, the unexpected spice business has never been popular and is relatively unpopular.
But... after all, we are getting richer day by day. Although large households in various places are gradually transforming into maritime trade and industry, due to the construction of steam train lines, many merchants are slowly traveling around to purchase crops grown from farmers.
Spices, so it can’t be said that this thing has declined.
Just because there is no immediate direct sales channel, growing spices is not as stable as growing other things that can be exchanged for money in the market, so this business still has little reputation.
At this moment, Li Er and others heard Li Sheng mention this... their brains didn't even react.
Occasionally, I had a flash of inspiration and thought that what Li Sheng was talking about was the word "spice". I also felt that I might have heard it wrong...
When sea trade encounters pirates, can it be solved with spices? This spice...
Li Erben was born as a warrior and was the greatest military genius in ancient Chinese history. He did not like to engage in incense. Although Wei Zheng and others were civil servants, they also came from troubled times and had no fondness for things like incense.
——Speaking of aromatherapy, people can't help but think of the scholar-officials in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and the scholar-officials in the Wei and Jin Dynasties... When talking about this thing, Wei Zheng and others just felt like gnashing their teeth. When that group of people were in charge of the government, they themselves
The gang's peers at the time - such as Zhuge Liang and capable ministers and officials like Jiang Tong - were quite ostracized.
So here comes the question, think about the style of painting of the scholar-bureaucrats in the Wei and Jin Dynasties? Can these thieves... be able to stand up to overseas pirates?
The pirate equipment that has emerged recently, the training is excellent, the planning, and the orderly advance and retreat when carrying out plundering operations are clearly from the regular army. How could it be possible... Although Li Sheng didn't say so, after thinking about it, this spice
It seems like this is the relationship with the pirates?
Everyone looked puzzled and looked at Li Sheng with great confusion...
But when Li Sheng saw that everyone was confused, he... was confused himself.
"You guys...is what I just said so difficult to understand? Spices are indeed very powerful..."