I am not an ant thief in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 819, Expanding Merchant Power

Wang Guojun was surprised when he heard this: "The merchants in the Central Plains want to contract the railway? Do they have such a fortune?"

To be honest, the railway is not very profitable, especially Xu Wei understands that the most important aspect of the railway is communication and logistics. The lower the price, the faster the development of the place, and the imperial court does not seem to make money on the railway, but it can make money on taxes. But if it is a privately contracted railway, it is really difficult to make money at the current price!
Of course, in addition to making money, the price of railway construction is also extremely high. In the land of Hebei, the average price of a mile of railway is 1000 million yuan, and Bingzhou is slightly more, because there are many mountains in the area, and the price of a mile is about 2000 million yuan, but Bingzhou is rich. They pay half, and they pay half, and the construction of the state railway is the fastest.

And the states in the Central Plains are not looking down on them by the Royal Army. Even if the one-mile railway costs 500 million yuan, how much can these merchants repair?

However, if the railway is not long enough, it will not be effective. The railway network in Hebei has been built for more than ten years, and it took hundreds of billions to achieve limited benefits. Let the economy of the entire Hebei take off. How much can the Central Plains merchants repair? the railway?

But Wan Yi said with a smile: "The prime minister underestimated the value of merchants in the Central Plains. Although they are not as good as merchants in Hebei and Jizhou now, they are worth hundreds of millions in the Central Plains, and there are hundreds of merchants in the Central Plains. Only those with a value of more than 10 billion are considered big merchants." If the prime minister can agree to their request, they can raise 50 yuan within half a year and 300 billion yuan within three years to build the railway!
In this way, when the imperial court builds the main line railway, the local merchants raise money to build the branch line railway. They only ask for a 30-year contract. They have the final say on the price charged during this period, and they are willing to build it. There is a railway, and this can also double the speed of railway construction. It can be said that this is a good thing that kills multiple birds with one stone! "

The joint development of Dagan's industrialization and shipping has brought a huge fortune to the newborn Daqian. Although Xu Wei has tried his best to favor ordinary people, the most rewarded are merchants who invest in industry and shipping.

Take their wealth as an example. There was a famous incident in the old days when the great general Liang Ji fell in love with the property of Sun Fen, the richest merchant in Luoyang City. With more than 7000 million in property, even if Sun Fen is the top merchant of the Han Dynasty, his wealth is equivalent to restricting the middle-level merchants.

But now in the Dagan court, even the relatively declining Central Plains merchants are worth 10 times more than the richest merchant in Luoyang City, and in Hebei, the core of Dagan's development, there are rich merchants who are dozens of times worth!Obviously, the Royal Army underestimated their wealth a bit!
Wan Yi's words sounded very good. With the financial support of merchants, the speed of building the Dagan Railway can be increased several times, which is also good for the imperial court. The construction of railways in the local area is also good for the local people.

However, the merchants wanted to block roads and charge fees, which made Wang Guojun a little unsure. After all, the toll fees have always been the right of the court. Now that they are in the hands of merchants, even if there is a 30-year limit, Wang Guojun still feels uneasy!

He asked these people to wait for the news, while he found Xu Wei and reported that the merchants in the Central Plains wanted to invest in the railway!Then he hesitated and said: "These merchants still want the right to charge fees, and the subordinates feel that this is a bit too much!"

Xu Wei didn't care much about it. He had seen too much road blocking and tolling. Bridges and expressways could also be contracted by private parties for development many years ago.

It’s not that Xu Wei has never seen the white wolf with empty gloves. The Great Hope Country used stocks and bonds to play with the capital of old Europe and let them invest a lot in the construction of railways. The last one became insolvent, and these investments were wiped out. To get a railway for nothing is to be considered a master of means.

Then Xu Wei suddenly thought that Dagan seems to be able to use such a method. After all, according to Wang Guojun, the financial resources of Dagan merchants are growing too fast, and there will be problems if we don’t want to weaken it a little!
Xu Wei thought for a while and asked: "Do you think the merchants we are working on are too rich? Merchants in one state can raise 300 billion yuan. This is still Yanzhou. If the merchants in Jizhou and Youzhou are afraid of hundreds of billions Money can be raised!"

Xu Wei found that the strength of these merchants was growing a bit too fast. In the past hundreds of years, the rich and powerful families of the big Han were only worth billions of dollars (take Liang Ji as an example. As a general, he monopolized power for more than ten In a few years, when he was ransacked by Hengdi, he had 30 billion yuan, which is almost the net worth of the top aristocrats.)
Now, the big merchants who are doing a lot of work have accumulated billions of net worth in less than a few decades, and as long as the speed of industrialization is faster, the faster the wealth accumulation of these merchants will be, when their net worth reaches a certain amount At that time, these merchants must start to ask for rights. Even Xu Wei is hard to change this point!
After listening to Xu Wei's words, Wang Guojun questioned: "The ruler wants to deal with these merchants?"

They wiped out all the clansmen. He didn't think it was difficult to deal with merchants. It's just that there was no restriction on merchants in the policy. He was worried that he would be involved because of the sudden restriction. After all, power and money are not separated. If you want to achieve good political performance, you must have a few big merchants as friends, even if he was the governor of Jizhou at the beginning, otherwise, how could he build the canal through Jizhou!

He was worried that dealing with these merchants in this way would easily implicate officials of the imperial court.After all, it is impossible for the elites to have something to do with these mud legs, but now these merchants have something to do with them!
Xu Wei said with a smile: "I have no idea to deal with them. After all, they helped us a lot at the beginning. Since they are so rich, the imperial court agreed to them to build the railway, and the 30-year operating right can also be given to them. They invested money, let them earn some!"

Of course, Xu Wei has no idea of ​​dealing with merchants. After all, most of the world is a primitive society, and the advanced ones are still in a semi-feudal and semi-slavish society (you are talking about Rome, and the four empires have the worst civilization level!)

Merchants are the power of capital anyway, and they are advanced forces in this era, but the idea of ​​​​restricting them has come into being. I hope that Xu Wei can learn from how the merchants of the National University of China cheated people, so that their wealth disappears, so that they can Work harder, from this aspect, Xu Wei also let these merchants not forget their original intentions!
After Wang Guojun returned with Xu Wei's affirmation, the entire business community in Daqian was boiling, and the railway industry allowed them to enter. This will definitely become a new investment hotspot and wealth center in Daqian!
(End of this chapter)