Cultivation of chastity

Chapter 193 Du Ruhui's Visit

"Gao Jifu returned to the governor's mansion?" Li Tai couldn't help asking Wang Zhenru after remembering this incident more or less.

"Go back!" Wang Zhenru nodded and said, "The governor probably didn't find out about this. We also asked him if he wanted to become a corvee teacher according to the procedure, but Gao Changshi still refused, and he didn't give him any extra care."

"En!" Li Tai nodded when he heard Wang Zhenru's words, and said, "As long as we don't cause trouble to us.

In contrast, it is almost the Chinese New Year. Can the road built along the canal be repaired before the Chinese New Year! "

"I'm afraid it can't be done." Hearing Li Tai's words, Wang Zhenru shook his head and said, "King Yan's request is to build a road that can accommodate eight carriages side by side. It's still a little tighter in just one winter!"

"I know!" Li Tai took a deep breath and said,
"But next spring, a large part of the corvees will go back to plow the fields for spring plowing.

Except for some sharecroppers who would be willing to stay, other people with fields and acres would probably leave a lot.

At that time, we may have a lot less manpower on hand, so you have to be prepared. "

"I think we can let some foreign races come over and have a try!" Wang Zhenru thought for a while and said to Li Tai.

"Do you think the current corvee system can withstand the impact of foreign races again?" Li Tai asked Wang Zhenru.

Wang Zhenru said seriously: "After this winter's tempering, the number of corvees in our hands has reached 10.

However, there were less than 5000 of them who were actually selected by us as corvee workers in Tianjin.

Counting the original population of our small town in Tianjin, there is only about [-] corvee workers.

Theoretically speaking, nothing should happen to those who control less than [-] alien races! "

Wang Zhenru knew what Li Tai was worried about. He was very worried that if the proportion of the foreign population was too large, it would cause the culture of the foreign race to backlash against the culture of the Han nationality.

Even if the Han nationality has the blessing of culture, if the proportion of its own population is too small, it is not very easy to assimilate a foreign race.

Especially in this border area, once the turmoil arises, there may be military chaos.

"5 people is still too much..." Li Tai thought for a while, then said,
"Let's see how many people are willing to stay next year, and then decide how many foreigners to recruit."

"No!" Wang Zhenru didn't care when he heard that Li Tai wanted to suppress this matter.

After all, although the use of Tianjin corvee is relatively neat, in fact, Li Tai's corvee model can be said to be a waste of money.

We must know that the most important reason why Li Tai can support such consumption is the silk and satin that Li Tai brought to Youzhou.

Wang Zhenru didn't know how much money Li Tai had in his hands, but Wang Zhenru knew how much food Li Tai had in his hands.

You know, the money that Li Tai took out was saved by him in Chang'an back then, and now it has been consumed so much, no one knows if King Yan can still support this kind of money if he continues to work like this this year. Food consumption!

"By the way, since this road can't be repaired before the Chinese New Year this year, then from the 25th of the twelfth lunar month, organize horses and vehicles to send these corvees back to Youzhou in batches, and send them all before the [-]th of the twelfth lunar month!" Li Tai is polite to Wang Zhenru.

"Eh?" Hearing Li Tai's words suddenly, Wang Zhenru couldn't help being stunned, and said:
"Although there are horses and carriages, do we need to do this? This winter consumes a lot of horsepower!"

"Just send them as much as you can, not to mention sending them to the village, it is always possible to send them to the county level!"

Li Tai asked Wang Zhenru back when he heard Wang Zhenru's words.

"Yes!" Wang Zhenru nodded repeatedly.

And Li Tai continued to say to Wang Zhenru, "Have you ever thought about what the next section of the Grand Canal in Youzhou will be repaired?"

Wang Zhenru was stunned when he heard Li Tai's words, but soon smiled wryly, and said, "I'm afraid King Yan still wants me to build the road!"

"Well, let the following horsemen and postmen help you to make a simple selection, knowing that the roads in Youzhou will be built first in the future, and the roads in those places can be slowed down, laying a foundation for future work. .”

When Wang Zhenru heard Li Tai's words, he couldn't help showing a helpless smile.

Having been in corvee for so long, he also knew exactly what kind of work Li Tai made him do.

I just feel that this matter seems to be far away, will I take half my life in it?

But in the face of Li Tai's expectations, what else could he do, and he could only reply respectfully: "Obey."

At this time, Lu Anshou, who was guarding the door, said, "King Yan, Du Pu is now serving tea in the side hall!"

"Huh?" Li Tai was taken aback, and said to Wang Zhenru, "Zhenru, you should go back first.

In addition, the New Year's Eve is approaching, and those corvees who have accumulated a lot of food stamps will probably exchange all the food stamps for food before leaving.

You have to prepare their food.

Of course, they can also exchange food stamps for other pots and pans, salted fish and bacon, so that the corvees can have a good year this year! "

"Obey!" Wang Zhenru bowed after hearing Li Tai's order, then retreated and began to deal with the matter.

And Li Tai looked at Bai He who was taking shorthand, and said to Lu Anshou, "Hurry up and ask Mr. Du to come over!"

Bai He quickly completed his shorthand, then obediently followed behind Li Tai, and waited together at the entrance of the main hall.

Seeing Lu Anshou leading Du Ruhui over, Li Tai hurried up to welcome Du Ruhui into the house.

When Du Ruhui was seated, Li Tai said to Du Ruhui: "Du Xiang, if you talk about business matters with me, I usually ask Bai He to take care of the records, so as to facilitate the time arrangement and avoid mistakes. If it is a private matter, let Bai He avoid it! "

"It doesn't matter, Ming people don't do secret things, and King Yan can get used to it, which is really the virtue of King Yan!" Du Ruhui sighed.

Du Ruhui didn't expect Li Tai to have such a habit, so he reorganized his words for a while:

"King Yan, this room is steaming hot, not at all like the temperature that Youzhou should have in winter, and it is very hot and humid, just like the south."

"Because there are several iron urns around the house, which are filled with water and then boiled with charcoal fire.

The water vapor is transpiring, which naturally heats up the house. "Li Tai began to explain to Du Ruhui.

Du Ruhui looked deeply at Li Tai, apart from sincerity, Li Tai's eyes were filled with eye shit!

"Ah!" Du Ruhui sighed, "King Yan's life is still so extravagant! I don't know how to use water or charcoal!"

"This water is from the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, and this charcoal comes from Taihang Mountains. However, this water is from the canal, and this coal is from the coal factory. It is not too much for me to use it myself!"

Hearing Du Ruhui's words, Li Tai immediately reacted.

There is no way, these ministers have been persuading themselves to be more frugal all day long, but the problem is that this is spending my own money, why are you talking here and there.

Could it be that as a prince, I can't enjoy it? !

Du Ruhui opened his mouth, but finally closed it.

After all, it's not the first time Li Tai knows about extravagance. When he was in Gaoling, Li Tai's life wasn't extravagant!
Li Shimin didn't say much. Now that he came to this bitter cold place, he just added a few stoves in winter, and then added charcoal fire for barbecue. Isn't this a common thing for rich and noble people in winter...

Although he could understand, Du Ruhui still felt that Li Tai was a bit extravagant, so couldn't King Yan be more thrifty!
Of course, there is something in it, King Yan's ability is already very good, so why can't he have a better personality, although perfect people are rare, but if there is one, Du Ruhui is still very willing to facilitate it.

"King Yan, I came here this time because I heard that King Yan seems to be building a road next to the canal recently?" Du Ruhui said.

"I remember I gave you the relevant road construction report!" Li Tai was stunned when he heard Du Ruhui's question.

Because I originally thought that Du Ruhui came here because of Gao Jifu, but I didn't expect it to be for this path?

But he had completed all the procedures, and he had discussed it with Du Ruhui, Li Tai said with some doubts,
"Du Xiang, I remember that I said in the report that because the Youzhou Canal and Lake are frozen this winter, unless a large-scale corvée is organized to dig ice, it will consume too much labor.

Instead of this, this year, it is better to organize the people to build roads along the canal, as well as several small port water villages, prepare for the distribution of logistics, and use manpower to repair the roads first.

One is to facilitate the dispatch of materials for next year, and the other is not to waste corvees in vain.

how?What's wrong with this path? "

"Of course there is nothing wrong with this road!" Hearing Li Tai's doubts, Du Ruhui waved his hand and said,

"I came this time for another matter, just take a look!"

At this time, Du Ruhui took out a small paper bag from his sleeve, and when he opened it, he saw white crystals appearing in the bag.

Although it was a bit rough, Li Tai could tell at a glance that this thing was table salt!
"I understand building roads and clearing snow, but I don't know that King Yan is so extravagant that he sprinkles snow with salt!" Du Ruhui said.

"This, because the fusion of salt and snow can speed up the melting of snow, which will reduce the workload of corvee workers for the next day to a certain extent!"

Li Tai looked at Du Ruhui's appearance, and decisively explained to Du Ruhui.

"I know this purpose!" Du Ruhui said, "But what I'm curious about is, where did King Yan get so much salt!
Salt and iron have been the country's top priority since ancient times. Although our dynasty did not monopolize salt, it also paid attention to the price of salt. "

Hearing Du Ruhui's words, Li Tai also understood that the price of salt in the Zhenguan period was not high because it was not a monopoly of the imperial court, at most each prefecture and county had its own private channels.

It is even recorded in "New Book of Tang Shihuo Zhi" that "between Tianbao and Zhide, salt is ten dollars per bucket". It can be said that before the birth of the salt discussion method, basically the common people did not worry about eating salt.

In addition, the so-called salt law is not so much a salt tax, but a poll tax is more appropriate.

Because at that time, the Tang Dynasty's imperial court's control over the local area further declined, which basically made it impossible to collect taxes.

This makes table salt a fixed place and something that everyone needs as a source of taxation.

In this way, many areas that cannot be collected are collected, and taxes are collected through these high-priced salt.

After all, compared to the cost of paying taxes to the people of the whole world, it is not as convenient to collect them directly from the salt.

But no matter how cheap table salt is now, it is still not so cheap that it can be poured on the ground anywhere to let the table salt melt the snow. Even when many ordinary people are in corvée, they will hold some utensils to hold the coarse salt.

After all, in their view, it would be worthwhile to spend extra effort when working, rather than pouring the white salt directly on the ground, just to make the snow melt faster.

To be honest, such an exciting thing is really heartbreaking for the low-level corvees.

Especially after my own utensils really couldn't fit, I could only watch this sack, a sack of salt was poured on the ground to melt snow, it really felt like my values ​​were being severely torn and trampled.

Of course, Du Ruhui understood that Li Tai must have obtained a lot of cheap salt compared to the fact that the corvee was just a heartache for the salt, otherwise Li Tai would not have done it.

Because Du Ruhui had worked with Ma Zhou before and passed the Gaoling corvee back then, he also knew that Li Tai's work seemed very extravagant to outsiders, but in his heart he had an account book.

If the operating cost of salting snow is too high, then Li Tai would never do it this way.

At least in Li Tai's view, the cost of asking the people to sweep the snow directly is lower than the cost of sprinkling the ground with salt and then letting the people sweep the snow.

So Du Ruhui came here immediately!

"..." Li Tai heard Du Ruhui's words, was silent for a while, and then said,

"Because I improved the technology based on the principle of the law of the sun and the law of water, and improved the method of boiling salt into the method of drying salt!
This method is still only a preliminary experiment, but compared with the traditional boiling salt method, the cost is much lower.

In the future, it should be possible to make further improvements and produce more salt! "

"So that's it!" Du Ruhui nodded in understanding, and said, "But it's too wasteful to use it like this!"

"I know what Du Xiang means, but the table salt produced by the sun-dried salt method is only coarse salt, and if you eat it for a long time, various problems will inevitably occur.

Therefore, it is still necessary to find a way to further refine this coarse salt into fine salt.

It is precisely because of this that although I have developed the sun-dried salt method, I have not put this table salt directly on the market.

The price of salt in Datang will not be greatly affected for a while, and the more coarse salt is stored in the warehouse, the more it will be.

So these sea salts were used on the snowmelt repair road.

Of course, the research on how to make these coarse salt into fine salt will continue.

My purpose, of course, is to hope that the people can eat cheap and refined table salt. In the end, whatever table salt I can eat, the people can also eat any table salt! "

Facing Du Ruhui, Li Tai didn't back down, because Li Tai knew that what he did was right.

When Du Ruhui heard Li Tai's words, he was silent for a while, and said, "Can you give the court a copy of this method?"

"..." Li Tai shook his head when he heard this, "I can tell you the reason, but if you want to recover the method, please ask the court to do it yourself."

(End of this chapter)