The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 327: Daqin's Business

May 1733, 5, around 3 p.m.

The drizzle that had lasted for two days finally stopped, and the sky in Xuzhou gradually cleared up. The clouds seemed to have been washed clean and were pure white. The sky was reflected on the ground, like a huge painting.

On the ground, the rain gathered into a stream, gurgling and making a crisp sound. The leaves were wet by the rain, crystal clear, and the sunlight shone through the gaps in the leaves, casting mottled shadows. The fields were green and the dew on the grass tips sparkled silver under the sunlight. The blooming flowers were more colorful under the nourishment of the rain, exuding a faint floral fragrance.

On the tower, the old tiles look even more quaint after the rain, and the traces of history are clearly visible on the tiles. At the corner of the city wall, the bronze stone door is slightly open, as if showing people the traces of the past years. On the street, the rain has gradually receded, and the stone road is brighter after being washed by the rain.

Some pedestrians began to walk out, their rolled-up umbrellas and bamboo hats shining slightly in the sun. Shop signs swayed in the sun, and the atmosphere of the old city filled the air.

At the railway station, eight miles southeast of the old city of Xuzhou, there was a surging crowd of people, countless passengers and goods gathered here, and a noisy scene. The railway station was filled with the roar of trains entering and leaving, the huge pendulum in the station made a crisp ticking sound, and whistles and shouts came one after another.

Smoke filled the air, rising as the train started, and spreading around people. The shouts of the train conductor, the shoving of luggage, and the noise of passengers mixed together to form a unique melody.

However, the VIP room in the station is exceptionally quiet and elegant, with the refreshing sandalwood scent rising in the air, making people feel inexplicably relaxed and happy.

The guests sipped their tea and chatted in low voices, and from time to time they did not forget to glance outside the platform to see whether the waiting guests from Nanjing had arrived.

Hu Enxie, the chief treasurer of the Liguoyi Coal Mining Bureau, withdrew his gaze, subconsciously took out an exquisite pocket watch from his arms, opened the golden cover, and glanced at the time.

Five twenty.

Alas, this distinguished guest from Nanjing may be late!

"Hey, Manager Hu, you bought a new watch!" Cheng Baihua, the manager of Invesco Bank, was dazzled by Hu Enxie's golden pocket watch and looked at him with interest.

"Well, it's the latest gadget from Qi." Hu Enxie smiled, took the pocket watch off his collar, and handed it to Cheng Baihua to admire. "You know what, once I get used to using the pocket watch, it's like I can keep track of my own time. Hey, this time is much more accurate than the night watchman's time."

"Really? This pocket watch looks very exquisite and unique!" Cheng Baihua brought the golden pocket watch closer and looked at it carefully. "Listen carefully, there is a ticking sound. This watch is not cheap, right?"

"Sun Datou from the watch shop said that even if this watch runs for eight or ten years, the error will only be one or two seconds. Well, this watch is indeed not cheap. It cost a full 2,800 silver dollars." Hu Enxie said calmly.

"Wow, two thousand eight hundred silver dollars!" Cheng Baihua said softly, and was immediately amazed. "If you count it, this watch is more expensive than such a large piece of gold! Shopkeeper Hu, in Xuzhou City, when it comes to luxury, you are the only one like me!"

"No, no..." Hu Enxie waved his hands and said modestly, "I am old now and don't have any other hobbies. I just like to collect some exquisite gadgets. If we really talk about luxury, how can I compare with the salt merchants in Lianghuai and the overseas traders in Jiangsu and Zhejiang! I can buy a Yangzhou skinny horse worth a few thousand yuan and a steam clipper worth tens of thousands of yuan without blinking an eye."

“Haha…” Cheng Baihua reluctantly handed the gold pocket watch back to Hu Enxie, and said with a smile: “Those people have been rich since the previous dynasty. We, the country bumpkins from the remote countryside, can never compare to them! However, Manager Hu, the three coal mines in your hands produce tens of thousands of tons of coal every day. They are simply two hens that lay golden eggs, which continuously bring you endless silver and money. I am really envious of them!”

"Manager Cheng, you only see how I produce countless coal every day and how prosperous I am, but you have never seen how much money and energy I have spent to run these three coal mines!" Hu Enxie shook his head, then turned sideways and whispered, "Not to mention that I have spent more than half of the income from the coal mines to maintain various official relationships and honor various gods. Even if I want to sell the coal and collect the money, I don't know how much effort it takes. ... Alas, it's hard to describe!"

"Why, Manager Hu has the Deng family as his backer, but he is afraid of the monsters and gods from all over the place?"

"Uh..." Hu Enxie looked around after hearing this, then smiled bitterly and said, "Manager Cheng, although Mr. Deng has invested in my mine, we can't always ask him to intervene whenever something happens. You see, we can't waste our friendship over and over again just for some trivial official matters, right? Besides, even if the Deng family wants to protect me, Hu, they have to consider the reputation of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

The so-called Deng family is the maiden family of the Crown Princess, a family of scholars for generations. In the early years of the Qin Dynasty, there was a Minister of Rites, who was famous in Xuzhou. More than 20 years ago, when the Crown Prince was selecting a concubine, the daughter of the Deng family was gentle, virtuous, and beautiful. She was chosen by the current Queen and the late Empress Dowager Zhaosheng, and became the Crown Princess, adding a bit of royal nobility to the Deng family.

More than 40 years ago, during the "Zhaosheng New Deal", the imperial court established the Industrial and Commercial Encouragement Bureau in Xuzhou to encourage local industries, open mines and build factories in order to enrich the country and strengthen the military.

Xuzhou's local resources and crops are relatively single, and there is a lack of catalysts for specialized markets. However, with the advancement of the "Zhaosheng New Deal", some traditional handicrafts have been transformed into specialized and large-scale industrial markets.

Xuzhou and its surrounding areas are rich in reeds, and weaving reed mats has always been a traditional folk handicraft. In the early years of the Qin Dynasty, local reed mat markets began to appear, and the "Jingshun Mat Shop" run by Cheng Baihua's parents came into being. Its products were sold in Lianghuai, Shandong, Henan and other places.

The Huanghuai Plain is rich in cattle, horses, donkeys, dogs, weasels and other livestock, and animal skins are mostly distributed in Xuzhou. As the volume of skin transactions continues to increase, specialized large traders - leather shops - have emerged, competing with the Denglai fur processing center.

In addition, there are many intermediary agencies for buying and selling grain, namely grain shops. From the early years of Qianyuan to the present, the four largest ones, namely Yuan, Liu, Jiang and Li, have formed and handled more than millions of shi of grain each year.

Xuzhou is rich in crops such as sorghum and soybeans. It is also located on a major water and land transportation route, and is crowded with merchants. The wine-making and oil-pressing industries have always been very developed, with more than 30 wine and oil workshops. They have strong capital and a wide range of business, with their products sold to places such as Jiangnan and North China.

At that time, mining was seen as a dual function of "making a country strong through wealth" and "making a country rich through strength". Xuzhou had rich coal and iron resources, which attracted the attention of many private industrialists.

It was in 1686 that Hu Enxie's father, together with more than ten shareholders, requested to open a mine in Xuzhou, which was approved by the imperial court. The following year, the Liguoyi Coal Mining Bureau was formally established, and then excavations were carried out in Caishan (now Liguodong Caishan), Qingshanquan, Quanwangtou and other places, with a large amount of coal and good quality, and tens of thousands of tons of coal were mined every year.

By the time of Hu Enxie's generation, as the application scope of domestic steam engines became wider and wider, the coal business became more and more prosperous, with profits accumulating. However, in order to cope with the suppression and exploitation of the court and local governments, the shares of the Liguoyi Coal Mining Bureau were constantly diluted, and more dignitaries and local forces had to be pulled in. The Deng family was Hu Enxie's biggest political reliance in officialdom, blocking waves of greedy people who wanted to share the spoils. In recent years, with the slow development of domestic industry, in addition to the shortage of coal resources, the demand for pig iron is also very large. Hu Enxie came up with the idea of ​​​​giving equal importance to coal and iron, and wanted to build an ironworks in order to further expand the production scale of Liguoyi.

The iron smelting and steelmaking technologies that were gradually introduced from the State of Qi greatly promoted the development of the Qin steel industry, and made the mainland's steel production reach the highest peak in all dynasties.

According to rough statistics, Daqin's annual pig iron production has exceeded 320,000 tons, and steel production has exceeded 40,000 tons, which is four times that of the pre-Song Dynasty and twice that of the pre-Ming Dynasty. Foshan, Zunhua, Daye, Laiwu, Taiyuan and other places are all major iron smelting centers in Daqin.

But even so, Daqin still imported more than 100,000 tons of steel and related products from Qi every year, most of which were high-quality carbon steel and wrought iron, which were used in many important industries related to national economy and people's livelihood, such as military industry, shipbuilding, machinery manufacturing, railways and bridge construction.

If Hu Enxie wanted to run an iron factory, he had to first obtain the corresponding charter from the Ministry of Industry. To this end, he had already made arrangements with many government offices and officials through the Deng family.

But after more than two years, visiting more than a dozen government offices, dozens of officials of all ranks, and spending more than 20,000 silver dollars, he still failed to obtain the franchise to operate the ironworks, which made Hu Enxie very troubled.

Several consultants from Qi State who provided him with technical and management advice said that Xuzhou had coal and iron, and was the most suitable place to build a coal-iron consortium. If more thought was put into it, a series of coal chemical industries could be established based on the abundant local coal resources, so that coal and iron ore resources could be more fully utilized.

Moreover, Xuzhou is located at the intersection of the North China Plain and the Jianghuai Plain, connecting Jiangnan in the south and Shandong in the north, bordering the three provinces of Shandong, Anhui and Henan. Since ancient times, it has been the key to the north, the gateway to the south, a battleground for military strategists and a gathering center for merchants. It is also the political, economic and cultural center of the Lianghuai region. Xuzhou is the hub where the Xupu Railway and the Xuluo Railway meet, and it is only more than 200 kilometers away from Haizhou (now Lianyungang), with extremely convenient transportation. If a series of heavy industries such as coal-iron complexes can be built, it will definitely be a huge commercial success.

However, the court's procrastination and evasion, the extremely perfunctory government offices, and the endless extortion and blackmail have made it impossible for Hu Enxie's grand blueprint to be realized. What can he do?
At this time, Hu Enxie was extremely envious of Qi's business environment. It was said that as long as the merchants there paid taxes according to the law and assumed the various social obligations assigned by the government, they could focus on running their own trading companies or factories. Even when they encountered specific business problems, they could ask the government for help and obtain certain policy preferences or financial support to help them get through the difficulties smoothly.

My parents, if it weren't for their large family and wealth, with dozens or even hundreds of people living in Xuzhou, with complicated ties to their hometown and the local accent, they might have taken all their property and immigrated to Qi, which would have been better than staying in Qin.

"Woo..."

A long train whistle sounded, and the station manager immediately came to the VIP room and informed everyone that the special train of the Qin Northern Tour Envoy, His Royal Highness the Prince of Jin, had arrived at the platform.

Many officials including the Xuzhou prefect, the associate prefect, the assistant judge, the prosecutor, the governor, the town commander, the railway envoy, the salt and iron ambassador, etc. stepped out of the VIP room first, and then lined up according to their official rank, waiting to be received by His Royal Highness the Prince of Jin.

Hu Enxie and other Xuzhou gentry and businessmen stood in an orderly manner behind the officials, bowing slightly, with a humble and respectful attitude.

With a "bang", the door of the compartment in which Prince Jin was riding was opened, and several officers of the Royal Guard quickly got out of the car. They glanced around sharply, and then stood solemnly on both sides of the carriage.

A moment later, Prince of Jin, Sun Youyu, appeared at the door of the carriage with a smile on his face and waved cordially to the officials and gentry waiting on the platform.

Upon seeing this, the local military and political officials of Xuzhou immediately stepped forward respectfully, bowed and greeted him, asked about his health, and expressed their sympathy for the long journey.

Then, the prefect Yu Shizheng enthusiastically introduced to His Royal Highness the Prince of Jin the officials and local gentry who had come to welcome him.

Sun Youyu nodded politely to everyone, while the chief secretary of the palace beside him quietly put the gift list handed over by the co-magistrate of Xuzhou into his arms without making a sound. After the welcoming banquet in the evening, he would report the receipt to His Royal Highness the Prince of Jin.

"This is a famous Confucian scholar in Xuzhou..."

"I have long heard of your great name, but unfortunately have never met you. Now that we meet today, I will certainly ask for your advice..."

"This is my Xuzhou family of scholars..."

"This is me, Xuzhou Lishengxing xxx..."

"..."

"This is Hu Enxie, the owner of the Liguoyi Coal Mining Bureau..." When the prefect Yu Shizheng introduced Hu Enxie, he paused for a moment, then said with a smile: "Let your highness know that Hu's Liguoyi is the main coal supplier for several railway lines near Xuzhou, and is also the exclusive coal supplier for those steam ships in Haizhou Port. Haha, if Hu stamps his feet, the entire Huaibei region will tremble."

"Greetings, Your Highness Prince of Jin." Hu Enxie bowed deeply to Sun Youyu, with a look of fear on his face. "I run the Liguo Posthouse and serve the Qin wholeheartedly. I have made a small contribution to the local people's livelihood. I would never dare to make comments like the prefect."

"Your Highness, Prince Jin, this shopkeeper Hu has indeed made a lot of efforts for the livelihood of Xuzhou. He is a rare person who is kind and generous." Yu Shizheng continued calmly, "In addition, shopkeeper Hu is indeed concerned about the court and is a loyal supporter of His Highness the Crown Prince. He has made a lot of efforts to promote the Crown Prince's reputation and win the hearts of the people."

"Hmm?" Sun Youyu couldn't help but look at Hu Enxie deeply after hearing this. "Boss Hu, you have a good trick! It's a pleasure to meet you!"

"Your Highness, Prince of Jin, I dare not, I dare not." When Hu Enxie bowed to Sun Youyu again, he couldn't help but glanced at the prefect Yu Shizheng in astonishment.

You dog official, are you trying to murder me?
(End of this chapter)