I studied in modern times

Chapter 726 Magic
On the fifteenth day of the second month of the second year of Yuanyou, Zhao Xu woke up from the inner bedroom of Baoci Palace. As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw Feng Jing's figure appear outside the curtain.

"Feng Jing, is there something wrong?" Zhao Xu asked.

"Inform everyone..." Feng Jing's voice answered from outside the curtain: "The governor of Dengzhou, Shi, reported urgently that the Goryeo monk leader Yi Tian appeared in the sea off Dengzhou on the orders of the Goryeo king..."

"I beg to see His Majesty..."

Zhao Xu laughed: "The Koreans are finally here."

Zhao Xu was not surprised by this.

After all, it is spring now, and the cold winds are disappearing as the snow on the peninsula melts.

As long as the weather is clear and the ground is dry, the army can be deployed.

The Liao army might leave Pyongyang, go south along the Taedong River and take Kaesong directly.

The Battle of Kaifeng will definitely begin as early as March or as late as April!

Under such circumstances, the Koreans would naturally try every possible means to seek help.

However, for Zhao Xu's Song Dynasty, whether to save Goryeo? How to save it? It needs to be carefully considered.

Zhao Xu got up from the bed and ordered, "Go and inform the Ministry of Rites and ask them to send someone to Dengzhou to welcome the Goryeo envoys!"

"By the way, investigate the battle situation between the Koreans and the Liaos."

Although Zhao Xu can now know some of the progress of the war between Liao and Goryeo through Liao nobles such as Yelu Ju.

However, Yelu Ju and others only heard it from hearsay.

All they knew was that after the Liao army captured Pyongyang, they marched all the way south. Their vanguard once reached the outskirts of Kaesong and fought several skirmishes with the Goryeo defenders. Then, because it started snowing on the peninsula, they retreated across the board.

The other details are basically unclear.

In particular, they were completely unaware of the Liao Kingdom's military strategy and deployment on the peninsula.

This is dying.

Without knowing the details of the war and how the situation would develop, how could the Song Dynasty take advantage of the situation?

Therefore, verifying the relevant details through another party became Zhao Xu's choice.

Of course……

Just listen to what the Koreans say, but don't believe them completely.

Feng Jing received the imperial edict, left Baoci Palace and went to the inner east gate, where he found Guo Zhongxiao and passed the imperial edict down.

……

After Zhao Xu got up and washed up, he went to the west hall of Baoci Palace to pay his respects to Empress Dowager Xiang.

The mother and son immediately went to the Qingshou Palace to pay their respects. After completing this duty, Zhao Xu returned to the Funing Palace.

Today is the Spring Equinox. After today, the imperial lectures will resume.

In other words, Zhao Xu had to go back to school and return to his life of attending lectures every three days.

When they returned to Funing Palace, Wen Xunniang, Di Qiang and Meng Qingqing had already brought people to start cleaning and tidying up the palace inside and outside.

They each have their own division of labor and are able to help Zhao Xu deal with many things in life in a proper manner.

Zhao Xu nodded slightly when he saw how seriously they were working.

At this time, Feng Jing, who had gone to the Tongjiansi of the Inner East Gate to convey the imperial edict, came back.

Behind him followed Liu Weijian.

"I, your old servant, greet everyone." Liu Weijian came up to Zhao Xu and kowtowed earnestly to greet him.

"Please stand up quickly, old commander." Zhao Xu quickly asked Feng Jing to help him up.

Liu Weijian stood up and said, "According to the imperial decree, I have already communicated with Prime Minister Zuo to learn some of the secrets of the various departments!"

"Good!" Zhao Xu clapped his hands.

I asked about the conversation between Liu Weijian and Lu Gongzhu yesterday.

After learning that Lu Gongzhu was already fully aware of the operating conditions and profits of various departments in Beijing.

Zhao Xu said: "Let's see if the left prime minister is flexible enough!"

If Lu Gongzhu could be as sensible as Han Jiang, then Zhao Xu would naturally give him greater authority and allow him to participate more deeply in Zhao Xu's core circle.

If not...

Then he would have to stop there.

A prime minister who cannot keep up with the trend of the times will only be abandoned.

At worst, I’ll just quit!
It's not a big deal.

In the Song Dynasty, dismissal of prime ministers was common.

There has never been an emperor like Zhao Xu in the history of the Song Dynasty who has always worked hard to ensure the stability of the capital and reduce turmoil.

……

Lu Gongzhu stood at the foot of the inner east gate.

He felt anxious and nervous.

Because today is a big exam.

He knows it!

He understood this after learning the secrets in Taifu Temple yesterday and seeing the account books of various departments in Beijing.

This is a test.

A test of loyalty and obedience.

He let out a sigh of relief and recalled the detailed accounts of income and expenditure of various departments that he had calculated in the Taifu Temple yesterday under the witness of Liu Weijian.

By checking the account details of various departments, Lu Gongzhu was able to see one fact very clearly.

That is - all the businesses in Beijing that are still operating according to the old methods passed down by their ancestors.

Basically all of them are at a loss.

The warehouse that suffered the greatest loss was the Bian Jing Changping Warehouse.

Not only did the Ministry of Revenue have to allocate money for subsidies, but Fengzhuang Warehouse also had to take out millions of strings of cash every year to subsidize the purchase capital of the Changping Warehouse.

Only in this way can the price of grain be stabilized and the people of Bianliang can eat rice at one hundred coins per dou.

In contrast, in the eighth year of Yuanfeng, the annual loss of Santanchang reached a huge amount of 380,000 strings of cash.

This is because the Santanchang also shoulders the mission of stabilizing the fuel price in Bianjing and subsidizing coal. The price of coal in Bianjing is 60 wen per pound, which has not changed since the Xining period!
The price of charcoal at Santanchang is no more than fifty yuan per weigh, which is almost the same as the price in the coal producing areas!
In other words, the imperial court not only purchased the coal at its own expense, but also transported it to Bianliang at its own expense, and then wholesaled it to dealers in Beijing at the price at the place of origin.

It would be strange if it wasn’t a loss!
However, this situation began to reverse in the second half of last year.

Especially after September, the Santan Field began to turn losses into profits.

After winter, you can make huge profits!

After one winter, they actually successfully reversed the losses and even made a slight profit of more than 10,000 strings of cash!
Unfortunately, the people of Bianjing have no complaints.

At least, Lu Gongzhu had never heard of it.

how did you do that?
Liu Weijian said that it was because "the Lord managed the country wisely and the saints spread virtue, so the people benefited and the court benefited."

After further questioning, I found out that the Santan Field no longer sold charcoal directly to merchants starting from September.

Instead, they started selling their "honeycomb coal".

The Santanchang earned 300,000 strings of cash in just one winter from honeycomb coal, which directly offset the losses in the first half of the year and even achieved profitability.

To be honest, Lu Gongzhu was shocked when he learned about this.

Because he had never heard of honeycomb briquettes before.

This is normal - the wealthy families in the Song Dynasty used charcoal for heating.

The families of important officials above the rank of Daizhi directly used the high-quality charcoal distributed by the imperial court!
For example, at the prime minister level, one could receive 1,200 bundles of firewood and 200 jin (1,200 Song jin) of charcoal every month [as stipulated in the Jiayou Luling].

Under such circumstances, naturally, these high-ranking figures would not care about the fuel situation among the people at all.

The same thing happened in Lingjinyuan.

Moreover, the changes in Lingjinyuan were beyond Lu Gongzhu's expectations.

Ever since Lingjinyuan was bought, the imperial court has directly gotten rid of a financial burden. This alone has saved more than 200,000 strings of cash each year!

Not only that, by returning the stolen goods and paying compensation, Lingjinyuan recovered a loss of more than 100,000 strings of cash.

However, these pale in comparison to the booming sales of the cloth shop in Lingjinyuan after New Year's Day.

In just one month, Lingjinyuan sold more than 20,000 rolls of cotton cloth and more than 100,000 rolls of other cloth.

The total value of the cotton cloth sold alone exceeded more than 300,000 strings of cash!

Liu Weijian said that in the Lingjinyuan, there were still more than 100,000 pieces of cotton cloth that were being woven or had already been woven.

After reading the account book and listening to Liu Weijian's introduction, Lu Gongzhu felt a little unwell.

Because, Liu Weijian told him, this was just the beginning.

The cotton cloth that was launched on the market in the second year of Yuanyou could only be considered a taste of the market.

If this year, Xihe's cotton will have another good harvest.

Then next year, the Song Dynasty will have more than one million pieces of cotton cloth!

Therefore, starting from next year, the income from cotton cloth alone may reach 10 million strings of cash!
And the court’s profit was more than ten times!
It's absolutely terrifying!
What is even more terrifying is what Liu Weijian described: in the future, the annual output of cotton cloth in Lingjinyuan will continue to rise.

One million horses is just the beginning.

Two million, three million, five million or even ten million horses are all conceivable.

Liu Weijian's words made Lu Gongzhu tremble all over.

The cotton cloth is just an appetizer.

The next thing served was the "Sugar Selling Office" newly set up by the government-ordered Street Office in the city of Bianjing.

This institution also started operations after New Year's Day.

Within one month, more than 30,000 kilograms of brown sugar and more than 5,000 kilograms of icing sugar were sold.

And that’s just retail sales.

All the major stores, theaters and brothels are purchasing in large quantities.

Within one month, the sugar company sold 100,000 kilograms of brown sugar and 20,000 kilograms of icing sugar.

The sales volume exceeded 160,000 strings of cash.

However, the cost to the court was less than 50,000 strings of cash.

Sugar was still being transported from Jiaozhou to Beijing via the canal.

In the future, the Sugar Sales Agency will set up offices in Yangzhou, Hangzhou, Zhenzhou, Yingchang Prefecture, Luoyang, Daming Prefecture and other places, specializing in selling brown sugar and icing sugar.

It is estimated that it can generate millions of strings of cash in revenue for the country every year, which is equivalent to adding an additional source of income like the salt tax out of thin air.

The income from the cloth and sugar sales of Lingjinyuan only started this year.

Although both were amazing, the fiscal surplus they created combined was less than 500,000 strings of cash.

The remaining surplus was more than three million strings of cash.

The money was earned from the koji of Duquyuan, the commercial tax revenue of Dushangshuiyuan, the rental income of shops and residences, and the property money of the Street Office.

Among them, according to Liu Weijian, Duquyuan and Dushangshuiyuan had the largest income.

In two years, Duquyuan increased its income from the purchase of wine koji by more than 900,000 strings of cash.

Of course, it goes without saying that this increased income was earned from the five official stores that were approved by the emperor to sell Yuye Liquor.

However, the total commercial tax collected by the Capital Commercial Tax Office last year reached 1.5 million strings of cash, which was something Lu Gongzhu had not expected.

Because, in Lu Gongzhu's original understanding, after the government abolished the Bianliang city gate tax, Bianliang's commercial tax revenue should have dropped significantly.

But this is not the case.

After losing the annual city gate tax of more than 100,000 strings of cash, the commercial tax of the Capital Commercial Tax Office grew against the trend, from less than one million strings of cash per year in the past to a milestone in the first year of Yuanyou - one and a half million strings of cash.

A fifty percent growth rate!
It's like magic!

Moreover, it is a very exaggerated magic.

Lu Gongzhu didn’t even know how this magic was performed?

But he also knew that the data from the various ministries and commissions was correct.

Since the abolition of the city gate tax, the market in Bianliang City has become much more active than before.

Not only merchants from the capital area came to Beijing to do business.

Even people from other places began to come to Beijing to do business.

(End of this chapter)