The morning is cold and clear, the early birds are singing, the squirrels are waving their fluffy tails and sniffing around, and the woodpeckers are making continuous beeping sounds, like a series of greetings.
Li Si stood in the yard, holding the knife in his hand and cutting off piece after piece of mutton.
A large group of Hu businessmen from the Western Regions moved in today. They are spending a lot of money. They have to entertain them well and make some money back.
The inn of the imperial dynasty is really a love-hate relationship for the government.
Needless to say, there are many advantages to it. The inn is indispensable for conveying military information, official documents, officials, and generals traveling on official business.
The disadvantage is that it costs too much!
During the Xuanzong Dynasty, there were more than 1,600 water and land stations across the country, and the imperial court allocated more than 1.5 million yuan every year, but this amount of money was simply not enough.
In addition to court funding, inns generally have three sources of funding.
The first is state and county allocations. This amount is not comparable to the imperial allocation and can only be used as a small supplement.
The second is to close the land at the post station. In principle, each horse is given 40 acres of land. If there is pasture land nearby, then each horse will be given 5 acres less.
A horse definitely does not need thirty or forty acres of land to raise. This is actually for the post station to rent it to others to earn income. The highest level post station has more than twenty postmen and sixty or seventy horses, and the small one has only
Two or three people, less than ten horses.
The third income is from external operations.
The inns of the imperial dynasty were generally in good repair. They had pavilions, halls, stables and warehouses, and some even had ponds and woods. There were also many rooms for accommodation. Because they were located on a major traffic road, the scenery inside the inn was quiet and you could lean on the railings to admire the moon.
There are banquets at the lake and so on, and the operating income is still very good.
To be fair, starting from the Song Dynasty, the construction of post stations has become smaller and simpler. The post stations in the Tang Dynasty should be the most luxurious and the most expensive. Now you know why generals like to stay in inns when they are marching out, right?
After the Anshi Rebellion, the imperial court gradually could no longer afford this expense, so the post station system became increasingly dilapidated.
Take Baocheng Station on Shannan West Road as an example. During the Kaiyuan period, there were several halls and corridors, which were very grand. There was a pond outside the hall where you could go boating and fishing, and you could lean on the railings to admire the moon at night. It was almost a garden.
Later, "the swamps were regarded as shallow and dirty, the boats were broken and glued, the courtyards were barren, and the verandas were in ruins."
Nowadays, many of the post stations in various places have reverted to the methods of the early Tang Dynasty, and were left to local wealthy households to operate them. As long as they ensure the accommodation and transportation needs of messengers and officials, they don't care about anything else.
These wealthy contractors were both merchants and court officials. It was also a characteristic of the Tang Dynasty that merchants could also be officials.
Nationwide, the density of post stations in Shuofang Town is not high. It is far from the stipulated level of one post for thirty miles. It would be good to have one post for a hundred miles. The land is vast and sparsely populated, and building too many would be a waste.
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As a relatively large Cangcheng in Lingzhou, Qianjinbao had a large reserve of military supplies. It was also nearby a good agricultural area and had a large population, so a post station was set up east of Cangcheng less than ten miles away from the Yellow River.
This inn is run by the inn general.
There are no more or less post fields. In addition to growing pasture, some of them can be rented out to party members. The shogunate allocates some symbolic money and silk every year. When the Jie Yang comes down, they can run it themselves. For the ten people in the post,
Life is pretty decent.
After "Ping Ping Pong Pong" chopped a pile of meat, Li Si asked a young postman to light a fire and boil water to prepare the meat.
The dilapidated house in the inn was repaired by the Zhengfa Minli of Lingzhou and Huaiyuan counties, and it has slightly restored some of its glory more than a hundred years ago.
The Hu merchants were also very satisfied after seeing it.
It's the kind of private hotel with poor housing, small space, and poor food. It's not comparable to a hotel.
"A hundred pieces of Hu cakes, are they ready?" Li Si wiped his sweat and shouted in the backyard.
"Postmaster, there are still the last twenty, they are almost ready." A postmaster replied.
"Uyghurs have five altars, send them over quickly." Someone shouted again.
Uighur **, no one in the inn knows how to do it. However, there are thousands of Uighur families living near Huaiyuan City, all of whom are family members of Yinqiangdu sergeants, and many of them have started their own small businesses.
Post stations are often the backbone of such small businesses. With this as their core, they provide various services that intern stations cannot provide.
The water boiled quickly.
Li Si skillfully added pepper, onions, garlic, salted black bean, wild leeks and other condiments into the pot, and then added large pieces of mutton.
A postman brought a wine jar.
The popular wines in Shuofang include ale wine, millet wine, Xiaoqu wine, fermented wine, kumiss, wine, etc. There are quite a lot of varieties.
In recent years, grain production has increased significantly, and ale and millet wine have gradually become more and more popular. Unlike in the past, the main products were kumiss and wine, which did not consume grains.
The Hu merchants ordered several jars of wine. For the inn, the profit was not small.
Li Si asked a young postman to come over and look at the pot for cooking mutton, while he took a plate of milk dregs, carried a piece of matza, and went to sit under the willow tree at the door of the post station to rest.
To the east is the highway leading from Lingzhou to Tiande Army, which is being repaired.
It won't work if we don't repair it, the road condition is indeed a bit bad.
Especially now that the rain and snow have melted away, the road has overlapping ruts and is filled with potholes of all sizes.
Lingzhou and Huaiyuan counties had to recruit a large number of people to build roads. While smoothing the roads, they also spread a large amount of burned carbon dioxide residue to improve the road conditions.
But the problem is that the carbon residue is not enough, it can only alleviate the road problem, but it cannot be said to completely solve it.
Li Si was very much in favor of building roads because it concerned his business.
But how can I put it, people everywhere are not very active in this, as if the quality of the roads has no impact on them.
After all, relying on the shogunate to allocate funds is not a long-term solution!
But it is more difficult to rely on local gentry.
Except for a few frontier tycoons, there are almost no gentry in Gein Shuofang Town. Most of the people are either Dangxiang, Uighur, Tubo, or Han Chinese who immigrated to the country, and their clans have not even sprouted yet.
A few old counties and towns do have some famous surnames, but their power is ridiculous compared to the powerful families in the interior.
Although this situation has brought stability to the rule, it has disadvantages when it comes to sharing local construction costs.
We can only take our time, pave the road with charcoal residue, and do it section by section.
Land post roads are no less important than water transportation on the Yellow River. Not to mention that the Yellow River is still frozen every year. At this time, it has just begun to thaw. Didn't we have to rely on post roads before?
After eating the milk residue, Li Si returned to the front yard and went to the stables again.
All the camels and horses of Hu merchants from the Western Regions are fostered here.
The goods are mainly silk and silk. I heard that they were purchased in Lingzhou, which has become the distribution center for silk and silk in the south.
Damask, Yizhou single silk silk, Zigao cloth, Banan cloth with head and head, etc.
There are so many silk fabrics from every town in the Tang Dynasty. It seems that the expo is not in vain.
War was raging everywhere, and Hu merchants did not dare to go far. If they could buy it in Lingzhou, everything was fine. Anyway, the profit of shipping this thing back was extremely high, so I didn't care that much if it was expensive.
Li Si sincerely hopes that the expo can continue to be held. It is best to open it every month and every day.
With the increase in business travel, not only could the shogunate levy taxes, but business for their post stations would also become more prosperous.
War? That’s the last thing he wants to see!
If we really want to fight, we should go to other Fang towns to fight. Don't affect Shuofang and don't affect his business.
The King of Lingwu County worked hard for ten years to create the current situation. Anyone who dares to destroy it will be beaten up by everyone.
There was the sound of rapid horse hooves outside the door.
A postman rushed out, and after a few words of negotiation, he led a messenger in with a flag of recognition on his back.
Li Si did not dare to neglect and went forward to greet him personally.
Although he has been doing business, he has not forgotten his other identity: Qianjin Station Commander.
"This brother came from the north..." He ordered the postman to lead the horse in, brought a bowl of gunpowder over and handed it to the messenger.
The messenger spoke very tightly and said nothing, only nodded slightly.
"Prepare some water and bring a fast horse. Someone has something urgent." The messenger ordered.
Li Si nodded repeatedly, while feeling secretly in his heart.
Who doesn't know? It must be Hexi Dangxiang who is recruiting Shaqi. The messenger who went north had rested here before. There was a large group of people at that time. I already knew it.
But it’s also a good thing to be able to caress!
The remnants of the Tuoba gang in Shaqi were all poor and impoverished, and they had actually invaded the army twice in three years.
Although they were all repulsed by the Shannan patrol envoy Ge Shu, the Yuan Yuquan patrol envoy Zhuang Lang, and the Yamen who stayed in Lingzhou, they were always watching from the side and giving you a cold blow. After a long time, it was not
What a way.
If you can, you can do it, but if you really can't - then you have to send troops to conquer.
The messenger sat on the horse, devoured a bowl of physalis, took some steamed cakes and cheese, and then marked down the expenditure account.
After finishing the painting, he changed to a stagecoach horse, got on it, and galloped towards the south again.
"Don't fight anymore! I can earn more than a thousand yuan in one month. I still want to keep this job." Li Si muttered a few words in a low voice, and went to the backyard to become a butcher and butcher.