At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 544: There is really a "car" test and the ambitious oil city
Xu Aimin was a little dissatisfied and said, "The money from selling vegetables is not enough for me to use for reform. Father, can't you think of a way for me to make more money?"

Xu Fan smiled and said, "There are ways to make money quickly and a lot of money. It depends on whether you are willing to spend it or not."

Xu Aimin immediately asked: "What method?"

Xu Fan smiled and said, "The factories in the inner palace all belong to our royal family. Father will retire in a few years. You are the heir of the Han Dynasty. Father can hand over the factories in the inner palace to you in advance. If you are willing, you can make all the factories in the inner palace government-owned. In this way, you will have a foundation for the reform in Chang'an City."

After hearing this method, Xu Aimin was full of hesitation. If for no other reason, he just couldn't bear to do it.

Although this is still his father's money now, it will belong to him in a few years. Hundreds of billions of assets will be handed over at any time, and even he is the prince, he cannot afford it.

At the beginning, Xu Fan believed that the mountains, swamps, ponds and forests belonged to the people of the world, so he handed over the Shaofu, who was in charge of all of them, to the court.

Although this was praised by the world, it also directly cut off the source of the Han Dynasty's economy. Sometimes Xu Aimin did not understand where his father's idea came from. He actually thought that the emperor was a position.

When the emperor handed over the title to the Shaofu, the court disagreed. Prime Minister Zhou Zhang even asked directly: "How will the emperor support himself? How will the Han Dynasty live?"

My father smiled and said, "That's easy. Set a salary for the emperor, the empress, the queen mother, the emperor emeritus, and the crown prince. They are also part of the court duties, so set the same salary for them."

Zhou Zhang was stunned and asked, "What about the other princes and princesses?"

"That's easy. The court will set an annual commission for the royal family. The court will give them a sum of money every year and the royal family will use the money to support the princes and princesses."

It would be better if this matter is settled earlier, so as not to be like Zhu Yuanzhang who raised a group of fat pigs and almost ate up the entire Ming Dynasty.

(Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if Zhang Shicheng had been the emperor at the end of the Yuan Dynasty? Zhu Yuanzhang had a strong sense of small-peasantism, which directly changed the relaxed political atmosphere since the Tang and Song dynasties. He really wanted to use his third brother's system in the Ming Dynasty.)
Then something unprecedented happened. The emperor of the Han Dynasty had a salary of 30,000 dan per year, the empress received 25,000 dan, the crown prince received 20,000 dan, and the salary of the retired emperor and the empress dowager was set at 35,000 dan.

Last year, he received a prince's salary of 300 million coins, which was really good. The court also increased his salary according to the price of goods.

Xu Aimin dared to guarantee that he would hand it over to the imperial court. His father would really do such a thing, but he really could not hand it over.

He couldn't help but smile bitterly and said, "Father, I am not you. Even if you hand over the inner court now, I believe you can create a new inner court in a few years, but I don't have this ability. Without the inner court, I, the emperor, can't reward my subjects even if I want to. Will my descendants really live on that little salary?"

Xu Fan said: "It's really funny. If you want to make money, you'd better go into real estate."

Then Xu Fan briefly talked about how to do real estate. Almost everyone in later generations understood this kind of thing. In fact, if you do it well, you can make profits in many ways, but if you insist on winning all, then there is nothing you can do.

The consequences are already there, and Little Days, Hope Country, Frog Island, and Xiangjiang have also demonstrated the consequences through their own personal experiences.

But I still have to jump in, what else can I say?
Xu Aimin then smiled and said, "Thank you for your teaching, father."

Xu Aimin, who met his father unexpectedly, did not stay for too long. He continued to inspect Neishi County in the west according to his original plan.

The five counties near the Zhengguo Canal are also mainly engaged in the grain industry. The grain industry chain is mainly based on the flour industry, noodles, various cakes, and winemaking, which use grain as raw materials. The textile industry is mainly related to imitation woven cotton cloth and printing and dyeing garment manufacturing. These industries still serve the huge consumer market of Chang'an City.

The content of the first technological revolution in the Han Dynasty was not high, and a large number of factories were highly homogeneous. They mainly served the industries of food, clothing, housing and transportation.

The raw materials that can be used on a large scale are coal and steel. In recent years, the Han Dynasty has added a new raw material. That is oil. But it is not used as a raw material for power. Instead, it is used as a lighting fuel and a raw material for construction.

At that time, Du County gave Xu Aimin a little surprise. Compared with the monotonous food and textile industries in other counties, Du County finally had a sense of technology.

The industries in Du County are mainly small manual machines such as sewing machines, jacquard machines, and cotton tying machines. The main industries are the production of parts for horse-drawn carriages. It can be said that it is a small machine processing center.

What surprised Xu Aimin was that in such a small county far from Chang'an City, there was actually a factory with an annual output value of over 100 million yuan, producing the most famous Meihua brand sewing machines in the Han Dynasty.

When Xu Aimin came to visit the factory, he was surprised and asked, "Are you the master craftsman Zhao Wu?"

He never expected to meet an acquaintance here. The youngest craftsman who used to be the master of the Bashang Steel Plant, now came to Du County and became the director of a sewing machine factory?

"Who are you?" Zhao Wu was a little confused when he saw Xu Aimin. Although he looked familiar, he couldn't remember where he had seen Xu Aimin.

"Little Chen from the Shaofu, I used to follow the Shaofu Ling to the Bashang Steel Plant, and it was you, Master Zhaowu, who entertained us."

At this time, Zhao Wu suddenly realized something. Then he immediately realized that the former Xiao Chen was actually the Crown Prince. He had never said anything to offend the Crown Prince, right? Zhao Wu thought hard.

Xu Aimin asked curiously, "Why don't you work at Bashang Steel Plant? I remember that you were the most proud disciple of Master Zhang Ying."

Zhao Wu said: "Although Bashang Steel Plant is good, I still want to venture out and make some money. I left Bashang Steel Plant a few years ago and opened this sewing machine factory."

Xu Aimin was a little surprised and said, "I didn't expect that Master Zhao Wu is also a genius in business."

Zhao Wu smiled and said, "This is all due to fate. It's mainly thanks to the imperial court. If it weren't for the prosperity of the Han Dynasty, I wouldn't be able to open this sewing machine factory."

Xu Aimin said, "There are dozens of workshops in Dahan that can produce sewing machines. But there are not many sewing machine factories as well-known as your Meihua brand."

In recent years, Dahan has been facing fierce competition. In order to highlight its products and prevent others from counterfeiting, Dahan factory owners began to consciously trademark their products more than a decade ago. Of course, at the beginning, they just made some unique stamp-like logos. Ten years ago, the Patent Office passed the Trademark Law at the Sage Assembly, and now most of Dahan's industrial products have a trademark.

Xu Aimin then visited Zhao Wu's factory. Although the output value of Zhao Wu's factory exceeded 100 million yuan, its interior was not too big. A two-acre factory building, divided into two floors, has dozens of machine tools inside, but not many steam engines. These machine tools are mainly powered by manpower, which can turn steel raw materials into sewing machine parts through mechanical arms.

These parts are then collected by craftsmen and sent to the heat treatment workshop. After a period of heat treatment, these parts are polished and assembled into sewing machines.

Because this is a private factory. Even if they were notified to inspect, they would just clean it up. Ordinary craftsmen would just glance at Xu Aimin and his team and then turn around to do their own work.

Xu Aimin asked, "How many sewing machines can your factory produce in a year?"

Zhao Wu said: "The price of sewing machines has been falling over the years. Citizens in cities and ordinary farmers can afford them. Young people also like to buy a sewing machine as a dowry when they get married, so sales are still relatively prosperous, and we can sell about 3 units every year."

Even though Xu Aiming knew that Zhao Wu made a lot of money, he was still very surprised to hear this number. The current price of a sewing machine on the market is about 4000 to 5000. Zhao Wu's Meihua brand sewing machine can't be lower than 3000. He can make more than 9000 million a year just by taking care of the sewing machine. Add to that the other machines he produces. Such a small factory can easily make over million.

After leaving Zhao Wu's sewing machine factory, Zhang Pijiang sighed: "Such a small factory has a production capacity of over 100 million. It turns out that it is more profitable to make machinery in the Han Dynasty."

His brother had a vassal state, but his brother made more money from the caravan in Tianzhu than from Zhao Wu's sewing machine factory. Jia Yi said, "Indeed, the most profitable business in the Han Dynasty now is the research and development of machines. Especially if a practical machine is developed, it can make a country rich in a few years. But if you don't have some skills, you can't enter this industry at all."

"Your Highness, if you want to manage the camp, you must find a way to develop the machinery industry. The machine tool factory has become the source of all industries in the Han Dynasty."

After leaving Du County, Xu Aimin and his party came to Yong County, which was also the most important county in their inspection.

As soon as he entered the county, Xu Aimin felt that it was different. Other counties had gravel roads at most, but here, dozens of miles away from the county seat, there was a straight asphalt road, which showed his extraordinary financial resources.

At the same time, there were oil tanker carts flowing continuously on this asphalt road. There were so many of them that they formed a long dragon with no end in sight.

Jia Yi introduced: "Yong County is the oil refining base of the Han Dynasty. Tens of millions of people in Guanzhong use oil, most of which is refined here. The wealth brought by oil has made Yong County quickly become a government office, a town in one year, and Chengdu in three years. The myth has appeared again in Guanzhong. This is a model of an industry driving a county in our Han Dynasty."

Yong County is one of the more ordinary counties in Guanzhong. The only difference may be that the Qin royal family came from here, but now it is the Han Dynasty, which has become a political disadvantage.

But more than ten years ago, after Dahan designated this place as an oil refining center, it built the largest refinery in the entire Dahan area.

Everything in Yong County has become different. The huge wealth brought by oil has made this place change with each passing day. In 10 years, the population of Yong County has increased 10 times. It has grown from a small county with tens of thousands of people to a metropolis with hundreds of thousands of people, and its level of wealth is close to that of Chang'an.

Xu Aimin came to the kerosene refinery in Yong County, where there were countless large and small containers and tanks filled with various petroleums. After calcination, cooling and condensation, kerosene was produced and loaded onto horse-drawn carriages. The kerosene was transported to various parts of the Han Dynasty. The remaining gasoline was used as weapons and carefully stored, while the asphalt was transported by horse-drawn carriages to various construction sites in the Han Dynasty.

Xu Aimin asked the refinery director: "What is the annual output value of your refinery?"

The factory director said proudly: "Your Highness, the annual output value of our refinery has exceeded 10 billion yuan. There is no factory in the entire Han Dynasty with a higher output value than ours, even the Bashang Steel Plant is the same."

In the past, the number one factory in the Han Dynasty was the Bashang Steel Plant, and the Yong County Oil Refinery was the one that defeated the old overlord and ascended to the throne of overlord.

Xu Aimin looked at the tall crude oil tanks around him and had no doubt about the data.

This is a city of oil. The entire industrial chain of the city revolves around oil. There are steel mills, but they are mainly used to build containers and tin cans for oil. There is a carriage factory of its own, but it manufactures professional carriages for transporting kerosene and carriages for pulling asphalt. The residual asphalt from refining oil has become the best building material for this county.

All the roads in the county were replaced by asphalt roads. At the same time, the asphalt roads that extended in all directions continuously connected various roads, and even the highways between villages were connected by asphalt roads. This was the only county in the entire Han Dynasty that had achieved highways connecting all villages.

The huge wealth brought extraordinary pride to the people of Yong County. Let's put it this way, there are several counties in Guanzhong called "Little Chang'an", and the people of Guanzhong most recognize Yong County as "Little Chang'an", but Yong County disdains such a title.

"Little Chang'an" can be considered a compliment. If we want to build a city, we must build one that is comparable to Chang'an.

Because the refinery was so huge, Xu Aimin spent the night in the refinery's reception room after his inspection.

While chatting in the evening, Xu Aimin sighed: "If the Han Dynasty had a few more giant workshops like this, all problems could be solved."

Zhang Pijiang said with a bit of a smile: "Your Highness, I passed through Yong County from the Western Regions three years ago. The people of this county are not only arrogant, but also very ambitious. They have always wanted to break away from Neishi County and want to merge into Longxi County."

"Hmm?" Xu Aimin's face was full of questions. He couldn't understand the logic behind this.

Zhang Pijiang said: "They want to use the small to swallow the big and become the seat of Longxi."

Xu Aimin suddenly realized, "That makes sense. A population of several hundred thousand can be a seat of government even in the Central Plains. Yong County is also the second most populous city in Neishi."

Zhang Pijiang said: "But their idea was strongly suppressed by the Internal History Order. Yong County is now the second largest tax-paying county in the Internal History Order. Under the restrictions of Chang'an, the Internal History Order will never accept such a thing."

Xu Aimin said: "I can't accept it either. The tax revenue of Yong County exceeds 700 million yuan a year. Without this money, many things of the Internal History will be difficult to do."

However, his identity is not only the right minister of internal history, but also the prince of the Han Dynasty and the future emperor. A strong county like Yong County going to Longxi County can indeed drive the development of Longxi. Although it belongs to Guanzhong, Longxi has not developed much in recent years. The population growth figures cannot even catch up with the average level of the Han Dynasty. Longxi County does need an economic center to drive the development of the entire county.

Of course, this is just an idea of ​​Xu Aimin's. His current position does not allow him to do such a thing.

May 15th.

After more than a month of inspection, Xu Aimin traveled to 41 counties in the Neishi Prefecture and returned to Chang'an.

"Right Commander, you've been running around for a long time, thank you for your hard work!" Zhou Chang said.

Xu Aimin smiled and said, "Your Majesty, I am a young man, so of course I have to run around. Besides, Chang'an has developed so well under your leadership, so it is not that hard."

"Yes, Your Majesty, the most important thing is to inspect the local areas so that you can understand the other side's situation."

Then he asked, “What do you think of the local situation?”

Xu Aimin said: "The counties in Neishi are also developing thrivingly. Agriculture and industry are growing steadily. The people's income has increased, and they are supportive of the court's policies."

Zhou Chang smiled and said, "This is not the best plan for the court. Let's talk about the following problem."

Xu Aimin thought for a moment and said, "Sir, I have inspected the industrial zones in Neishi these days and feel that these industrial zones are too homogeneous and have no unique characteristics of their own. It is also difficult for them to form an industry that rises. They see that other textile industries are making money, so they build a textile industrial zone. They see that iron smelting is making money, so they want to build an iron smelting plant. Because of the extremely fierce competition in homogeneity, the counties below don't make much money at all.

Chang'an City was home to too many excellent factories, which led to a large influx of outstanding craftsmen from all over the world and farmers from Guanzhong into Chang'an City, bringing tremendous pressure to the residential security management of Chang'an City.

I think that our Neishifu Yamen should play its leadership role and reasonably distribute some of Chang'an City's excellent factories to the counties below. This will not only create a new economic center in Guanzhong, but also allow these counties to share the population pressure of Chang'an City, and also promote the common prosperity of the people in these counties. "

Zhou Chang smiled and said, "You are far-sighted. In fact, I have the same idea, but it is difficult to put it into action due to pressure from all sides. However, Your Highness should be able to withstand the pressure."

For the Minister of Internal Affairs, the government affairs of Chang'an are the foundation of everything. Any accident that occurs in Chang'an City will be a major accident that can be reported to the emperor.

During the ten years that Zhou Chang served as the Minister of Internal Affairs, he felt that the most difficult thing to do was to control the population of Chang'an City.

The population of Chang'an exceeded 160 million. During the Warring States Period, the population of South Korea was about the same. A city could account for the population of an entire country, especially as the population was still increasing rapidly. Zhou Chang's inner pressure can be imagined.

He also had the idea of ​​rationally planning the industrial chain, but unfortunately the factories where Nei Shi made money were basically controlled by Shao Fu. Those factory managers all had bad tempers and dared to refute even the orders of Shao Fu, let alone him, the Nei Shi Ling who had nothing to do with him. The Han officials in Nei Shi's government office also did not want to disperse the industries in Chang'an City to other counties, so Zhou Chang had to give up this idea.

(End of this chapter)