Updated: 2010-04-08

Seeing that the merchants looked a little nervous, Chen De probably knew what they were thinking, and walked into the merchants and smiled and bowed to the left and right, "Why are you doing well, Mr. Chu?" It seemed as if a stone was thrown into the calm water. When the merchants got this opportunity, they all became polite. Some bowed and said that their business had been good recently, and some came forward to wish Mr. Chen's family good luck. In short, the scene of an underground organization meeting suddenly disappeared.

Merchants value profit. If they take Chen De's line at this moment, the tea, silk and porcelain from Jiangnan can go out on the Hexi business road, which is much safer than the sea road. The only worry is that Chen De wants them to launch trouble in Jiangnan to kill officials and rebel, which is a major event of scouting homes and extermination of clans. These wealthy merchants dare not do it.

Chen De wanted this effect. After he finished politely, he stretched out his hands and pressed it. The merchants below suddenly fell silent. Chen De said in a deep voice: "The city of Jinling is broken, and things are changed. The king of Jiangnan is hunting north. I also respected Bianliang. Mr. Chu left the Shenwei Army and operated various industries and had small families. The place where he summoned everyone to discuss this time is not a dangerous event, but a business." His tone was familiar to all merchants, and it was gentle and had some temptation.

"What is your order? I will just do it. If you talk about business, you will be with us. Why don't you feel disappointed? Lord!" Han Shang suddenly knelt down in tears and said. The other merchants suddenly realized that since they got on Chen De's boat, they would be the fate of working together. If Chen De had an attitude of discussing business, if there was any dissonance in the future, he would pat his butt and return to Hexi, and his wealth and life would be held in the hands of the Song Dynasty. The only way was to completely surrender. In this way, Chen De would like to join him.

In the future, we always have to care about the incense and not sacrifice the power under our command in vain. Everyone cursed the old fox and followed closely behind Han Shang. They cried with tears and asked Chen De to re-incorporate himself and others into the Anxi Army system. Several people even asked Chen De to re-register his property into the Anxi Army's military. The status of merchants in this era was not as respected as that of later generations, so it is of course for everyone to have such concerns, otherwise they would not have been involved in the Divine Guard system back then.

Seeing a group of primitive bourgeois elements crying and shouting to return to the proletariat's ranks, Chen De, who originally planned to convince these merchants to cooperate with the Anxi Army with interests, was shocked. He looked at Gou Luoan in confusion, and Gou Luoan shrugged helplessly. This was the signature move learned from Chen De, indicating that it had nothing to do with him.

Chen De frowned. The merchants' reaction was much beyond his expectations, but there were always some talks. He coughed and helped Han Shang up, and said in a deep voice: "Han Dutou, what are you doing? I came to Jiangnan and no one saw you. Let Luo An find you. Is this a way to abandon you?" Because Han Shang and others were old acquaintances with Gou Luo An, Chen De only called him by his name in front of these people, and the famous Han Chan, no one knew who he was after a long time. Many ministers from Song and Liao even thought that they were another identity of Li Si, the head of the Military Intelligence Department.

Han Shang and other merchants stopped crying, stood up aggrievedly, as if their subordinates were following their masters. Chen De sighed in his heart, saying that all businessmen are not traitorous, and sometimes they don’t understand the abacus in their minds. Fortunately, they will not give them too important things. This kind of relationship between masters and slaves will be beneficial to the major events that they have to use the help of these merchants to plan.

Seeing that everyone began to listen to him carefully, Chen De said in a deep voice: "Since you are voluntarily returning to my command, you must implement orders and prohibitions. The specific rules, Luo An will tell you on my behalf. What I want to discuss with you now is a few businesses." His tone was serious, and the merchants had just done a show, so they did not dare to interrupt him again and again, and they all listened quietly.

"This first stake is salt trading." Chen De said, and there was an uproar below. All the merchants understood that what Chen De wanted to traffic was impossible to be official salt, which was a serious crime of scouting and beheading the head. Everyone knew that there were many large salt lakes near Hexi controlled by Chen De, which produced high-quality salt, but in this era, you could not sell it everywhere with salt. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the salt tax accounted for about half of the treasury income of the imperial court. In the middle, officials and clerks worked on it, and the benefits gained were several times higher than that. It can be said that the salt industry was the largest industry in the late Tang Dynasty and the largest cancer in the late Tang Dynasty.

The price of salt incest greatly stimulated the emergence of private salt dealers. Private salt dealers affected the interests of the government and caused bloody suppression by the government. Even if children were unwilling to bring out a grain of salt from the salt field, they would die. The government's abuse of punishment was simply a model of violence. In the face of huge interests, private salt dealers not only were not suppressed, but instead armed themselves in groups and began to fight against the government. One of the most famous ones was Huang Chao, who claimed to have "the sky-suming fragrance formation broke Chang'an, and the whole city was full of golden armor." Since then, trafficking in private salt became synonymous with rebellion. All private salt dealers were brave heroes. In addition to Huang Chao, Wang Jian, Qian Liu and Zhu Xuan successively seized the area. The serious vendors also left the dangerous area of ​​selling private salt.

Therefore, when Chen De said he wanted to sell salt, the merchants below were shocked. Many people thought that the lord was indeed not a scheming leader, and he wanted to sell salt alone, which was incompatible with the court.

The expressions of the merchants below were captured by Chen De, which made the loyalty that had just cried and cried just now just like a joke. Chen De sneered in his heart, coughed, and said in a deep voice: "You are quiet, the salt trade I mentioned below is voluntarily participating, and it is not strong. Also, you only need to transport the salt from the northwest to the prefectures of Jiangnan, and then my son will send someone to pick up the goods and then hand them over to those real private salt traders to sell them. You don't meet those people." After he said this, the merchants below were relieved. It is of course good to not do such a dangerous transaction. Only a few greedy people think in their hearts that if they take over the salt trade business in the northwest, they will be the leading wealthy merchant in Jiangnan in a few years.

Chen Deyi just wanted to find a few partners selling northwest green salt among merchants in Jiangnan. In fact, there are many merchants who go to the northwest to find private salt every year to sell them to the Central Plains, but these people may not be safe and reliable, and the capital is too small. At present, the salt administration of the Song Dynasty was still strictly bought by officials, and private salt traders could only contact private salt dealers. After the court implemented the salt-inducing salt system and allowed private merchants to sell salt, they could imitate salt banknotes and then let the green salt be sold through these merchant networks.

"The second business is to underwrite the three things of beautiful jade, famous horse and treasure sword from the Western Regions." The merchant below was in an uproar again. Unlike the panic that was filled with just now, this time was a surprise and exclaiming surprise. Some people even thought to themselves that the adults really thought that we were confidants, and they received the benefits of underwriting. These three were all stable and profitable transactions. Those who thought deeper were thinking that the adults actually exported two military and national weapons, namely famous horse and treasure sword to the Central Plains. They were not planning to separatist the northwest and had no ambition to advance to the Central Plains. In this way, they might not necessarily want us to oppose the court, but they were just making money together.

Hexi is now in Chen De's hand. It is the main channel for treasures in the Western Regions to enter the Central Plains. Whoever Chen De wants to give the goods to, that is who. Among these merchants, except for a few Korean merchants, most of them cannot be called wealthy merchants. However, if they get the benefits of underwriting, their wealth will probably double within a few years.

Although everyone has their own thoughts and this time, those who actively asked the goods to be underwritten became enthusiastic, Chen De smiled and said, "Everyone is my subordinate, so I will take care of it. You all sign up for Luo'an, and Luo'an will tell you the charter I drafted." Through underwritten means, Chen De can control these three downstream markets to the greatest extent and gain the greatest benefits from it.

"The third business is profitable and risky, and it is impossible to do it without a large amount of capital. If you can't afford this risk at your own expense, you can withdraw now." Chen De said slowly. The merchants below were already stimulated by the huge interests of the treasures of the Western Regions, and their eyes were red. They all wanted to listen to the details before making a decision.

Seeing that the merchants were eager to try on their faces and no one left, Chen De sighed in his heart, it turns out that money can turn cowards into warriors. When these people heard about selling private salt, they were frightened and sifted all over their bodies. Just as they stimulated their underwriting rights, they put on their courage again.

"You must know that the base of the Anxi Army should have been the four towns of Anxi, but unfortunately, most of these four towns have become foreign lands. Since I have built Anxi, I naturally have to plan to restore the former lands of the Han and Tang dynasties. Therefore, sending troops to attack the Manchus who did not accept the kingship is already on the verge of arrows, and it is urgent to wait." Chen De paused at this point, looked at the unclear expressions of the merchants below, and continued: "I think about it, this war is like doing business, with both profit and loss. As the saying goes, before the troops move, food and grass will go first, you can also guess that the Anxi Army's food and salary for the barbarians can only be solved by itself. However, after capturing the four towns of Anxi, there were immediately thousands of miles of grasslands, beautiful jade mineral veins, and large and small towns along the way, all inexhaustible sources of wealth."

Note 1: "Song Dynasty pacified all countries, and the salt and profits of the world were all subject to county officials and traded with officials and land. However, the promotion of Suizhou and counties was not constant, and the ban on private sales was particularly important." In the early Song Dynasty, the salt administration inherited the Five Dynasties and had no major changes. Salt tuition was the country's main tax revenue, and local funds were only dependent on this. Just like the current land sales revenue is the main income of local governments.

Note 2: During the Northern Song Dynasty, "the country's salt-boiling profit was based on three points, and Huai was the second one." "Song History? Food and Memorials" said in the time when talking about salt-boiling: During the Yuanyou period (1086-1093), "Huai Yan and Jiechi had 4 million titans a year, which was two-thirds more than the Tang Dynasty's taxes." At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the highest amount of salt-boiling profit in Lianghuai was 15 million jin to 24.05 million jin, and the highest amount of salt-boiling profit in the country was 31.13 million jin, and the salt-boiling profit in Lianghuai accounted for about one-half to two-thirds of the total salt-boiling profit in the Song Dynasty. In the words of Lu Zuqian, a Song Dynasty, "In the Song Dynasty, it was only Huai Yan that was the most useful for the country."

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