Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 395 March
The morning was cold and clear, the early birds were singing, the squirrels were wagging their furry tails and sniffing around, and the woodpeckers kept making a series of greetings.

Li Si stood in the yard, raising the knife in his hand, and he cut off pieces of mutton one by one.

Today, a large group of Hu merchants from the Western Regions lived in. They spend a lot of money, so they have to entertain them well and earn some money back.

For the post station of Guochao, the government really loves and hates it.

Needless to say the benefits, posting stations are indispensable for the transmission of military information and official documents, and for officials and generals to go on business.

The downside is that it costs too much!
During the Xuanzong Dynasty, there were more than 600 water and land post stations across the country, and the imperial court allocated more than 150 million yuan a year, but this amount of money was not enough.

In addition to the imperial court appropriation, post stations generally have three sources of funding.

One is the appropriation from the prefectures and counties. This amount is not comparable to the appropriation from the imperial court and can only be used as a small supplement.

The second is to close the field at the post station. In principle, each horse is given [-] mu of land. If there is pasture nearby, the horse will be reduced by [-] mu.

A horse certainly does not need thirty or forty acres of land to raise. This is actually for the post to rent out to others to obtain income.The highest-level post station has more than 20 postmen and sixty to seventy horses, while the small post station has only two or three people and less than ten horses.

The third income is foreign business.

Guochao's post stations are generally well repaired.There are pavilions and halls, stables and warehouses, and some have ponds and woods, and there are many accommodation rooms.Because it is on the main road of traffic, and the scenery in the post station is quiet, you can enjoy the moon by leaning on the railing, drink banquets by the lake, etc., and the operating income is still very good.

In all fairness, since the Song Dynasty, the construction of post stations has become more and more narrow and simple. The post stations in the Tang Dynasty should be the most luxurious and cost the most—now that you know why the generals like to live in post stations when they are marching outside, right?
After the Anshi Rebellion, the imperial court gradually could not afford the expenditure, so the station system gradually became dilapidated.

Take the 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 fence to enjoy the moon at night. It was almost a garden.

Later, "the swamps were seen as muddy and polluted, and the boats were separated and glued together. The courtyards were in disarray, and the halls were in ruins."

Nowadays, many post stations in various places have resumed the method of the early Tang Dynasty, and handed over to the local rich households to operate them.As long as the courier, officials' accommodation, and transportation needs are guaranteed, the rest is ignored.

These rich households who contracted are not only merchants, but also court officials. It is also characteristic of the Tang Dynasty that merchants can also be officials.

The density of post stations in Shuofang Town is not high as far as the whole country is concerned. It is far from reaching the required level of [-] miles per post station. It would be good to have one post station within a hundred miles. The land is vast and sparsely populated, and it would be a waste to build too many .

As a relatively large warehouse city in Lingzhou, Qianjinbao has stored a large amount of military rations.The vicinity is also a good agricultural area with a large population, so a post station was set up less than ten miles from the Yellow River to the east of Cangcheng.

This post station is run by the post general.

There are not too many post fields, and some of them can be rented out to party members in addition to planting grass.Every year, the shogunate allocates some money, silk, and goats to come down, and they will manage the outside world by themselves. For the ten people in the station, their lives are still decent.

After "ping pong pong pong" chopped up a pile of meat, Li Si asked a young postman to light a fire and boil water for cooking the meat.

The dilapidated houses in the post station were repaired by the help of people from Lingzhou and Huaiyuan counties, and they have slightly restored the glory of more than a hundred years ago.

The Hu merchants were also very satisfied after seeing it.

The kind of private hotel, the house is poor, the place is small, the food is not good, it can't be compared with the inn.

"One hundred Hubing, are you ready?" Li Si wiped his sweat, and roared in the backyard.

"The postman, there are the last [-] cards, they will be ready soon." A postman replied.

"Five altars of Uighur milk paste, send them over quickly." Someone shouted again.

No one in the post station can make Uighur milk.However, thousands of Uighur households live near Huaiyuan City, all of whom are family members of soldiers in the Silver Spear City, and many of them have also started their own small businesses.

The post station is often the support of this kind of small business.With this as the core, they provide services that various post stations cannot provide.

The water boiled quickly.

Li Si skillfully put pepper, onion, garlic, soy sauce, wild leek and other condiments into the pot, and then put in large pieces of mutton.

A postman moved the wine jar.

The popular wines in Shuofang include barley wine, millet wine, Xiaoqu wine, fermented wine, kumiss, wine, etc. There are still a lot of types.

In the past few years, grain production has increased greatly, and ale and millet wine have gradually increased, unlike the previous kumiss and wine that did not consume grains.

The Hu merchants ordered several jars of wine, which was not a small profit for the post station.

Li Si asked a young postman to come over and look at the pot of boiling mutton, while he took a plate of milk dregs and a Maza, and sat down under the willow tree at the entrance of the post station to rest.

To the east is the avenue from Lingzhou to the Tiande Army, which is being repaired.

The road condition is really bad.

Especially when the rain and snow melt and the roads are full of overlapping ruts and potholes.

Lingzhou and Huaiyuan counties had to recruit a large number of people to build roads. While leveling the road surface, they also spread a large amount of burnt charcoal slag on it to improve the road surface condition.

But the problem is that there is not enough carbon residue, which can only alleviate the road problem, not completely solve it.

Li Si is very much in favor of road construction, because it is related to his business.

But how to put it, the people everywhere are not very active about it, as if the quality of the road has no effect on them.

After all, relying on the shogunate to allocate money is not a long-term solution!

But relying on local gentry is even more difficult.

In Gainshuofang Town, there are almost no country gentry except for a few frontier wealthy families. Most of the people are either Dangxiang, Uyghur, and Tubo, or Han immigrants who have immigrated. The germination of the clan has not yet been established.

A few old counties and townships do have some big surnames, but their power is ridiculous compared with the powerful families in the interior.

Although this situation has brought about the stability of the rule, when it is necessary to share the cost of local construction, it will feel the disadvantages.

We can only take it slowly, pave the road with charcoal residue, and make a good section.

Land post roads are no less important than Yellow River water transport.Not to mention that the Yellow River still has a freezing period every year. This season has just begun to thaw. Didn't it just rely on post roads before?

After eating the dregs, Li Si went back to the front yard and went to the stables again.

All the camels and horses of Hu merchants in the Western Regions were fostered here.

The goods are mainly silk, and it is said that they are bought in Lingzhou, which has become a distribution center for silk in the south.

Xianwen damask, Jinghua damask and Sige silk from Jianglingfu, Weizhou white cotton silk, Rui damask and Duke damask, Yangzhou "Fanke Jinpao", brocade quilt, half-arm brocade, Fuzhou Gebu, Yangzhou purple storage cloth, tortoise seed Ling, Yizhou single silk Luo, Zigao cloth shirt section, Banan Liantou cloth, etc.

There are too many, and there are silk fabrics from all towns in the Tang Dynasty. It seems that the exposition is indeed not for nothing.

Wars are raging everywhere, and Hu merchants dare not go far. If they can be bought in Lingzhou, everything will be fine.Anyway, the profit of shipping this thing back is extremely high, so I don't care too much about the expensive purchase price.

Li Si sincerely hopes that the expo can continue, preferably every month, every day.

The increase in business travel will not only allow the shogunate to levy taxes, but also make business more prosperous for their inns.

fight?That was the last thing he wanted to see!
If you really want to fight, go to another town to fight, don't affect Shuofang, don't affect his business.

The king of Lingwu County has worked hard for ten years to create the current situation. Anyone who dares to destroy it will be beaten by everyone.

There was a rush of horseshoes outside the door.

A postman rushed out, and after a few words of negotiation, he led in a messenger with a flag of recognition on his back.

Li Si didn't dare to neglect, and stepped forward to greet him in person.

Although he has been doing business all the time, he has not forgotten his other identity: Qianjin Postmaster.

"This brother came from the north..." He ordered the postman to lead the horse in, brought over a bowl of milk, and handed it to the messenger.

The messenger was very tight-lipped and didn't say anything, only nodded slightly.

"Prepare some water and bring a fast horse, there is something urgent." The messenger ordered.

Li Si nodded again and again, and at the same time secretly laughed in his heart.

Who doesn't know?It must be that the Hexi Party Project that appeases Shaqi has a clue.The messengers who went north had rested here before, and there was a large group of people at that time, I already knew about it.

But it is also a good thing to be able to appease!

Shaqi's Tuoba remnants, all of them poor and impoverished, have actually been invaded twice in three years.

Although they were all repelled by Shannan Inspector Ge Shu, Geyuquan Inspector Zhuang Lang, and the Yajun who stayed behind in Lingzhou, they were always watching from the sidelines, and I will give you a cool time. After a long time, it is not always way.

If you can caress, you can caress, but if you can't caress—then you can only send troops to conquer.

The courier sat on the mazza, devoured a bowl of physalis, took some steamed cakes and cheese, and then made a charge on the expenditure account.

After finishing the painting, he changed to a stage horse, turned over and rode on, and galloped towards the south again.

"Don't fight anymore! After one month, I can earn more than 1000 yuan. I still want to continue to hold this job." Li Si muttered a few words in a low voice, and went to the backyard to become a butcher and butcher, busy It was such a joy.

(End of this chapter)