Chapter 337 Sitting on a Treasure Waiting for an Opportunity
Cao Cao took more than 500 people and drove 200 carts south to Liyang, where he wanted to cross the Yellow River to Chenliu.
One hundred and fifty of the two hundred carts were loaded with copper coins, twenty million five baht coins.
Copper coins are very heavy. Eighty coins are equivalent to one catty, and twenty million coins are equivalent to two hundred and fifty thousand catties.
Lao Cao was both a scoundrel and a fastidious person. He scoundrelly used Liu Xiang's money to buy Liu Xiang's things. What was fastidious was that he bought weapons at twice the price. Those weapons, even if they were new, were just
It was worth 5 million yuan, and Lao Cao left 10 million yuan.
After hearing the answer given to him, he still insisted on paying.
And not a word was mentioned about the war horses.
Greedy and measured, impressive.
So Liu Xiang gave him another 200 carriages and 200 fine packhorses that could serve as scouts. These were worth no less than five million yuan.
In fact, there is another question that he has never asked. Does Yanzhou not even have enough equipment for 5,000 men?
How many tens of thousands of people did they recruit, so they were so short of weapons?
The coalition forces in Yanzhou are almost ready, but I don't know what the situation is in Yuzhou. And when Yuan Shao is about to go to Langya County in Xuzhou to take office, what kind of story will happen with Tao Qian, the governor of Xuzhou?
Tao Gongzu was not a gentle and honest man. He followed Huangfu Song and Zhang Wen to conquer the rebels. He was appointed as the governor of Xuzhou last year. At the beginning of this year, he drove the Yellow Turban Army out of the territory under his rule.
Unlike Han Fu, he was not that cowardly in character, nor was he a disciple of the Yuan family, nor did he participate in the crusade against Dong Zhuo in history.
When Yuan Shao went to Langya this time, the Yuan family spent a lot of effort to forcibly remove the Langya Kingdom and change it into a county.
Langya Kingdom is the fiefdom of Liu Jing, the son of Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu. It has been established for more than 150 years. It has jurisdiction over 13 counties. It has a vast territory, very high taxes, gorgeous palaces, and a strong capital city.
Located in the southern hilly area of Shandong Peninsula, it is the northern barrier of Xuzhou. Facing the sea to the east, it can cut off the peninsula to the north and seize most of Qingzhou, enter Yanzhou to the west, and capture the Xuzhou Plain if it goes south. Its strategic position is extremely important.
Langya has a large family that aspires to the Yuan family, and Tao Qian has deployed an army there, led by Zang Ba and Sun Guan, both of whom are not of high origin and may not be able to urinate in the same pot as Yuan Shao.
A fight is inevitable.
Yuan Benchu, I guess, is a man who is always clever in adversity, but is both promiscuous and dishonest in good times.
It's a pity that we can't watch at close range. Even if we send spies, it will be difficult to get back the news in time in Yanzhou, let alone the details.
Pity!
After bidding farewell to Cao Cao, I thought about it for a while on the way back to the city, but I could only think that the Kwantung gentry coalition would not provoke them. The main reason was that they could not defeat it and could not afford to spend it. They just watched the show at the Yellow River defense line.
Let's wait until next year's autumn harvest, then we'll have enough food to do things.
The most important thing is to protect the more than 9 million people and 700,000 hectares of farmland under our control first. This is the foundation for our own development.
As soon as I returned to the office, I received the good news that Magnet Mountain had been found.
Liu Xiang didn't want to be a magnet, he wanted to determine the location of Cizhou.
Mainly because I am covetous of Cizhou kiln.
Just like coveting Xing kiln.
These are some of the most valuable porcelain producing areas in history.
He knew that there were high-quality ceramic clays in these two places, but the specific veins were unclear, so he had already ordered people to investigate.
Xingtai is located near Xiangguo County in the Eastern Han Dynasty, within the territory of Zhao State. Cizhou is between Liangqi County and Ye County, named after Cishi Mountain, and is within the territory of Wei County.
He wanted to find a porcelain clay mine, and then build a nearby city to make porcelain.
In recent years, Youzhou white porcelain has been sought after by the powerful in the Han Dynasty and is expensive. However, Yuyang does not have high-quality ceramic clay. The selection of materials when firing porcelain is extremely cumbersome. You have to select it in advance, sift it many times, and then wash it like rice.
Wash with water.
Moreover, the quality is not very good, and the output is extremely low. It cannot be described as rare and expensive. This is a level that I have heard of and have never seen before. Hungry marketing is not so hungry, and it is too late to make money.
There is no obvious landmark of the Xingyao China Clay Mine, so Cizhou found it first.
It is located in the upper reaches of Fushui in the southeast of Liangqi County and northwest of Ye County, in the Taihang Mountains.
"The china clay vein should be in the east of Magnet Mountain. Send more manpower to explore it as soon as possible. Send 10,000 hard laborers there. Build a city and build a kiln in the valley near the vein. A small fortress can seal the valley mouth. Build a cement kiln and a lime kiln together. Craftsmen and laborers
Arrange to live in the city and send a thousand soldiers to garrison it."
The Cizhou kiln was about to be born ahead of schedule, and he seemed to see mountains of gold and seas of gold.
Porcelain is a treasure, especially white porcelain, which is owned by Han Dynasty alone. This is a monopoly business and can earn countless wealth.
The profits from porcelain alone could support an army.
If the Silk Road can be opened up and sea trade routes can be re-opened, the profits from porcelain can support a wave of nationwide development, and perhaps promote the advent of great navigation and the era of great development.
Even if it can only be sold domestically for the time being, there will be an additional pillar industry under Liu Xiang's rule.
This reminded him of soap. The "anti-plague pill" that was originally a joke has now become one of the pillars of Youzhou's commerce. It is small in size, high in value, and easy to transport. It is a hot commodity most sought after by caravans.
Military caravans whose children in the family have not made great contributions will not be able to purchase goods at all, and private merchants will not even think about it!
Because priority was given to supplying the military, and the manufacturing scale was not expanded too much, not much flowed into the private sector, and the price remained high.
"Extreme Spiritual Chaos Jue"
Of course, it will not be like when it first appeared, claiming to be worth a million dollars and not selling it. Now, it is basically more than one thousand dollars. Military purchases are all three hundred dollars a piece, and after exchanging new currency, it is a hundred dollars a piece.
The workshop can produce more than 3,000 yuan a day, and its biggest customer is the military. It purchases an average of 2,000 yuan a day, and the profit is 50,000 Ping'an Tongbao, which is nearly 155,000 baht.
The remaining one thousand yuan will be sold to the military caravan for 300 Ping'an Tongbao, with a profit of 400,000 Ping'an Tongbao, which is more than 1.2 million for five baht.
The annual profit from soap exceeds 500 million and a half baht.
This is still the income obtained when the market demand cannot be met.
In an era when large-scale industrial production is not possible, we cannot consider the issue of popularizing it to the general public. That is unrealistic. The output of oil will limit the upper limit of large-scale production.
The main reason is that there are too many places where oil is needed, so it can’t all be used to produce cleaning supplies, right?
Therefore, the scale of the soap workshop was not large, and it was Liu Xiang's private property. 10% of the profits were Su Wei's exclusive welfare, and workers were also selected from among Su Wei's family members. Once selected, they could not withdraw for life.
Because Su Wei did not retire but died in battle, and his death in battle was recorded in the roster. Their family members were still Su Wei's military dependents and enjoyed the same treatment.
As for those who are injured or too old to fight, there will be plenty of room for them such as concierges, attendants, soap workshops, etc.
From the two hundred "daily meritorious officers" who started the army to the current one thousand guards, except for some who were transferred out to lead the troops in the early stage and those who died in battle with themselves, most of the rest have stayed with them.
Liu Xiang is used to having them around, which makes him feel at ease. Even if you are dead, injured or old, I will take care of you.
In fact, there are not many people there, less than 1,200 families. Most of the families live in the soap workshop, and the rest live in the surrounding areas.
He is not planning to expand his bodyguard any more. Five hundred knights, five hundred soldiers, and one thousand men are enough to protect him. He also has thirty thousand central troops, which are all his direct troops.
If you include leather armor, the armor coverage rate exceeds 70%. If you only count iron armor, the armor coverage rate exceeds 30%. The most important thing is that this is an army composed entirely of veterans.
He created the army from scratch, built it up bit by bit, and followed him through battle after battle.
The whole army consisted of 32,000 men, including 8,700 cavalry.
This gives him the confidence to control the territory.
And his territory can be considered vast, right?
The land of the three states of the Han Dynasty, the place where the royal court of Xianbei is located, the southern grasslands of East Xianbei, the entire territory of Goguryeo, and the entire Korean Peninsula.
The population is nearly one-sixth that of Han Dynasty, and the proportion of cultivated land is about the same. Mineral resources are extremely rich, and more and more of them are being discovered.
The gold mines in Jundu and Changping counties, the silver-lead associated mines in the northeast of Yuyang County, the copper mines in Jundushan, the copper-gold associated mines in Hongtoushan, Xishan, Tuyin, Xigeima, Pingcheng coal mines, Yu
The iron mines in Yang, Zhuojun, Haiyang, Xiangping, and Pingguo, the sea salt in Haiyang, Quanzhou, Pingguo, Dashi, and the pool salt in the Yanmen County salt lake.
As well as high-quality wood, clay, limestone, calcite, dolomite, etc.
These mining areas and their associated workshops were all brought under exclusive control, and hundreds of thousands of people were busy working on them.
The Changbai Mountains, Qianshan Mountains, Yanshan Mountains, Taihang Mountains, Luliang Mountains, and Yinshan Mountains are all his actual occupied areas, and they contain countless minerals, waiting to be discovered and exploited.
He has to guard all this, wait and see the situation, and wait for the opportunity.