Daming: My boss Zhu Yuanzhang

On the canal, dozens of ships carried Li Wei to Yangzhou again.

Around him were the loyal personal guards such as Wu Yong and Lu Tang, as well as the old Yangzhou Guard generals who were grateful to him.

In addition to these generals, he once again transferred some officials from the Ministry of Industry, including Jiang Shouqing, and some craftsmen who were familiar with cement.

The officials from the Ministry of Industry that he brought before were killed by Japanese pirates, and only three people, including Jiang Quan, survived. These officials who died were compensated by the court, and Li Wei also paid some money to compensate him. After all, these people were brought here by themselves. He died because of his own reasons.

The same goes for the dozen or so sacrificed guards.

Upon learning that Li Wei had returned, Tian Qing and others waited at the ferry early in the morning.

Nowadays, most of the officials in Yangzhou have been taken to the capital and beheaded because of their involvement with Zhang Cheng. The remaining people finally have a personal experience of Li Wei's power, and their attitude is not only respectful, but also deeply fearful.

After preliminary training, the guards were well-organized and showed their elite appearance for the first time, supporting him as he entered Yangzhou City.

This time there were no obstacles to building the city, and Li Wei began to work aggressively.

In the temporarily requisitioned office lobby, Li Wei sat in front of a desk with drawings prepared by Jiang Quan and others. A group of officials stood beside him, waiting for his orders.

"The city wall is heightened to five feet!"

Li Wei pointed at the drawings on the desk and said proudly.

He is now the King of Guangling. Naturally, this Yangzhou New City can no longer be dealt with as simply as before. It must be built as a benchmark!

Jiang Quan, who was taking a pen to record, trembled when he heard this. Because Li Wei paid Ding Yi the salary, the cost had already risen to 100,000 yuan before, and now Li Wei wanted to increase it!

"No sir! Your Majesty's palace is less than five feet high. If we do this, it would be arrogance!" Jiang Shouqing hurriedly advised.

"Yes, sir, you can't mess around with this!" Jiang Quan also spoke.

Li Wei frowned immediately when he heard this. These feudal rules are really annoying, and they can't do anything.

"Then just four feet." Li Wei said reluctantly.

Jiang Shouqing glanced at Jiang Quan, and Jiang Quan quickly made a mental calculation. Heightening this one foot would cost at least 20,000 guan, but it was not too much compared to the already 100,000 guan.

Thinking of this, Jiang Quan nodded slightly and recorded the matter.

However, this was just the beginning. Li Wei followed up and said: "In addition, the city wall needs to be wider. I plan to place cannons on it. It is too narrow."

Jiang Quan was stunned for a moment, and then he quickly did some mental calculations, and he added another ten thousand or twenty thousand dollars.

"Also, these city gates must all be added with Wengcheng."

Jiang Quan's scalp was numb and he calculated it again.

"besides……"

"Sir, is that all right? I think this is good enough!"

Jiang Quan interrupted with trembling hands, "You are not building a palace. Are you so extravagant?"

After Li Wei's instructions, the cost has reached more than 150,000 yuan, which made him frightened. This amount of money is enough to build a big city. The land east of Yangzhou is only 5,000 acres, the size of a county. , it’s a bit too much to invest so much!

"We are here now. Don't worry about money. We can still make money when our city is built!"

Li Wei waved his hand and said confidently.

"Can you still make money?"

Jiang Quan, Jiang Shouqing and others looked at each other, wondering what other whimsical ideas their young minister had.

Li Wei glanced at them and told them about the pre-sale of the land without any hesitation.

All the officials were very surprised after hearing this method.

In fact, when the imperial court built the city, it did not need to buy all the land. Instead, it only needed to compensate for the destroyed areas of the city wall. Usually a few hundred strings were enough.

But Li Wei bought all the 5,000 acres of land with one big wave of his hand, and then conducted a pre-sale, bought low and sold high, directly recovering the cost of building the city.

This method has never been done before. It is equivalent to the government expropriating all the land and houses on both sides of the road before building the road. After the road is built, the price of the land and houses increases, and then they are sold to cover the cost of road construction.

In fact, this method is very reasonable, but neither the later governments nor the current court thought of doing this. Instead, they transferred the court's interests to some merchants and individuals without paying back taxes. I don’t know if the officials in the court are really stupid or pretending to be stupid, or they think the emperor and the people are stupid.

"Can it still be like this? Is this really possible?" Jiang Quan asked with some surprise. He was not a fool. Although this bend was a bit big, it was not difficult to understand.

If Li Wei's method really works, then the imperial court will no longer have to spend money to build cities in the future. Even direct pre-sales like Li Wei can make money before building a city!

"of course!"

Li Wei said with confidence that this method has been verified by countless real estate projects in later generations, and he just used it to make slight modifications. "Sir, when will we start... what is this called, oh pre-sale!" Jiang Shouqing also asked with some excitement. They are all pragmatic officials, so naturally they will fully support such a good idea.

Li Wei thought about it. In later generations, real estate companies dug a hole and started selling it. Of course, he could do the same.

"In this way, we will start pre-sales as soon as we start construction!" Li Wei said softly.

"Okay, I will do my best to mobilize the troops and start construction as soon as possible!" Jiang Shouqing promised seriously.

After understanding this method, both he and Jiang Quan became more motivated and their faces were full of joy.

After Li Wei's advice, the construction cost of the new city had increased to nearly 200%. After Jiang Quan and Jiang Shouqing listened to his pre-sale method, they started to implement it with many officials without any further persuasion. .

When the people of Yangzhou heard that they were going to be drafted for service again, they complained incessantly at first. But when they heard that the corvee workers were being paid back, they were immediately overjoyed, especially when the pay was as high as five guans, which made them even more excited. Call me Mr. Li Wei Qingtian!

The common people no longer complained, but took the initiative to go to the government to sign up, for fear that they would be left behind.

Due to Zhang Cheng, Wu Xing and others' previous outrageous manipulations, most of Yangzhou's servants fell on ordinary people. However, at this time, the original burden turned into a huge benefit. Under Li Wei's careful instructions, this The breeding ratio has not changed, and most of the benefits have been given to ordinary people.

Although the other wealthy families suffered a heavy loss, they did not dare to say anything. After all, the Yue family and the Gu family were beheaded, and their backer Zhang Cheng was directly killed by the Nine Clan. In this case, they all wished they could. If Li Wei could forget their existence, how could he dare to show up again.

Under the money offensive, tens of thousands of strong men were quickly in place. Various masonry materials, as well as cement prepared by Li Wei and various new mechanical equipment were quickly transported to Yangzhou via water and land.

In less than half a month, officials and craftsmen from the Ministry of Industry led tens of thousands of people to work enthusiastically on the land east of Yangzhou City.

At the same time, Li Wei also sent people to set up a shed for pre-sale land under Xianchun Gate in the east of Yangzhou City where he was attacked.

Because he had added to the city defense facilities, the new city would definitely be far superior to ordinary cities after it was built. Therefore, he directly set a high price of 150 guan per acre for the land. If everything went well, the land in the new city would be at least It can be sold for 700,000 to 800,000 yuan.

Of course, he won't sell them all, as long as he recovers the cost first.

After all, with the construction and development of cities, these cities will only become more and more expensive, and he has to learn from others to be reluctant to sell!

In the temporary shed, there was a map hanging next to it, which showed the East City after it was built. Around this city, there was a towering and tall city wall, and the city was divided into pieces of land by streets. It looked like Clean and tidy, very beautiful.

Li Wei sat confidently next to him, waiting for the knowledgeable people who flocked to buy the land.

However, after waiting for a long time, his land pre-sale office was deserted. There were people coming and going at the city gate, but no one showed up at his pre-sale office.

At noon, Li Wei couldn't sit still and asked Jiang Shouqing next to him: "Have all the notices been posted?"

"It's posted, it's posted at all five city gates!"

Jiang Shouqing was also a little anxious. If Li Wei's method didn't work, then the nearly 200,000 yuan spent would be in vain, and the imperial court would still have to build cities with no access as before.

"Damn it, you still have to ask me to use some tricks?" Li Wei frowned. He thought this matter was very simple. After all, buying land now will definitely make money in the future. There are many merchants in Yangzhou, so he should be able to see it. When he came out, he didn't learn as many promotional tricks as later generations.

However, the reality is a bit of a slap in the face!

"Sir, are we unable to sell this land?" Jiang Shouqing asked worriedly.

"No! You don't understand. If you buy these land now, you can make a lot of money if the price increases in the future. If it weren't for the cost recovery, I wouldn't want to sell it at all!"

Li Wei waved his hand and said.

In fact, it is only 200,000 guan, and it is easy for the Minghuang Chamber of Commerce to spend all of it. However, this pre-sale model must be feasible. Otherwise, the chamber of commerce can spend 200,000 guan to build Yangzhou City, but it cannot spend 5 to 6 million. If you want to build a city all over the world, unless you empty out your family's wealth, the Chamber of Commerce will not want it.

But he will definitely not do this kind of thing. The Chamber of Commerce is still in the development stage, and it is definitely not possible to allocate a large amount of funds at this time.

Jiang Shouqing was silent after hearing this. He was not a businessman and didn't understand what was profitable or not. He only knew that no one cared about these lands now, and Li Wei's solution was in doubt.

Li Wei thought for a while, pointed at the map of the new city and said: "Hang this outside!"

"Yes." A handyman responded quickly, and he and two other people hung the exquisite city map outside.

Among the people passing by, some people paused slightly when they saw this picture and looked at it curiously, but in the end they still did not come forward to ask.

Li Wei waited for a while and lost his patience. Seeing a merchant stop and look before leaving, he immediately raised his hand and shouted: "Don't leave yet, come here!"

"Ah?" The merchant froze on the spot, his eyes were horrified and his legs were weak, "Sir... please forgive me!"

Li Wei: "..." (End of chapter)