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

Chapter 649: Initial Intention is Easy to Acquire, but Always Hard to Find
Liu Heng was extremely disappointed by Liu Piao's words. He could not help but scold her, "Your father has taught you for decades. Why don't you learn the good things and learn the bad things? You also learned medical skills from the Queen Mother. Why don't you learn how to cure diseases and save lives from her?"

In the Han Dynasty, many aristocratic women also became Chen Xiu's disciples and became doctors and nurses. Although they initially intended to please Chen Xiu, the queen, this behavior also objectively improved the status of women in the Han Dynasty. In the Han Dynasty, even the wives and daughters of the upper class learned from Chen Xiu to master their own profession and have their own careers. Such women were the representatives of virtue in the Han Dynasty.

Liu Piao said: "Being a doctor is too hard, my daughter is not used to it."

Under Xu Fan's promotion for several decades, the current Han Dynasty not only did not belittle technology, but raised it to a relatively high status. What the superiors like, the subordinates must follow, so many children of aristocratic families also have a technical background. Liu Piao was a student in the medical school and worked as a doctor for three years. However, after she got married, she gave up this profession and started to take care of her husband and children.

Then she complained again: "Father, can you please listen to what I have to say today?"

Liu Heng said: "Speak!"

Liu Piao was unwilling to accept the fact, saying, "Which of the children of other high-ranking officials in the Han Dynasty didn't have a great career? My grandfather worked hard for the Han Dynasty all his life, and you have also worked hard for the Han Dynasty for half your life. My Liu family had a share in the founding of the Han Dynasty. Even the emperor said that we princes have a share in this world. My daughter is just asking for convenience. This request is not excessive. It's not reasonable for you to work hard all your life and your daughter to have nothing. Isn't this reasonable?"

Liu Heng scolded, "The Emperor said that the world belongs to everyone, and everyone has a share. As a father, I am doing things for the Han Dynasty and for the realization of a harmonious world, not for you prodigals. How dare you say that you have a share in the world? What have you done for the world and the people of the world?"

"You only know how to take, but not how to give. Your behavior is like that of parasites. Don't you know how many parasites the emperor killed in the past?"

Liu Piao said: "My daughter is also developing industry. The emperor said that the world belongs to everyone, and he also set up an inner treasury."

When Liu Heng heard that Liu Piao dared to slander even the emperor, he was furious and shouted, "Get out, get out, get out!"

Liu Heng threw his teacup directly at Liu Piao, which scared her.

Chen Wu immediately pulled Liu Piao away and said, "Sir, don't be angry, we will leave now."

After arriving at the hall, Dou and the two brothers Liu Qi and Liu Wu immediately ran over and asked, "What's going on? Why is your father so angry?"

Liu Heng's roar was so loud that even Dou, who was looking after her granddaughter, heard it.

Liu Piao said helplessly: "Father is too old-fashioned. I just want him to give me some convenience. I am not doing anything against the law. Many people do the same now."

Then she simply recounted what had just happened.

Dou said helplessly: "You were a smart person before you got married. How come you haven't made any progress in these years? How can you ask your father for help with such a matter?"

Dou knew her husband very well. He was a loyal believer of the retired emperor and regarded the governance of Datong as his lifelong career.

Because the Liu Mansion had the property left by Liu Bang, plus the money Liu Ying had given to his younger brothers over the years, and the money when the family was divided, the Liu Mansion had more than ten billion yuan. In terms of the wealth it controlled, the Liu Family was considered one of the top families in the Han Dynasty.

However, Liu Heng had been an official for many years and had only eight sets of daily clothes for four seasons, all of which were sewn and patched by Dou over the years. The family's daily expenses were also extremely frugal, with only three dishes and one soup per day, and even during the New Year and other festivals, only eight dishes and one soup. If this Peihou Mansion had not been built by Liu Bang, Liu Heng would not have wanted to live in such a luxurious mansion. It can be said that the daily living expenses of the Liu Mansion were completely mismatched with his family's wealth.

It is no exaggeration to say that Liu Heng was an ascetic. Although many people in the Han Dynasty could not stand Liu Heng's ascetic life, they also admired his character very much.

Her husband had been practicing the Datong Governance for decades, but no matter what, Liu Piao's actions were merely digging into the Han Dynasty, which was something her husband would never allow.

Liu Qi smiled bitterly and said, "Big sister, this is because father likes you, otherwise I'm afraid you would have been kicked out of the house long ago."

He dared to imagine that if he dared to make such an excessive request, his legs might be broken by his father.

Liu Wu looked at his Chen Wu in surprise and said, "Brother-in-law, you are also the eldest son of the Tangyi Marquisate, why are you still short of money?"

The Tangyi Marquisate had thousands of miles of territory, more than 500,000 tribesmen, and ten cities. It was considered a relatively wealthy vassal state in Liaodong.

Hearing this, Chen Wu looked at Liu Piao and smiled bitterly, "Who in this world doesn't lack money? Not to mention that my brother-in-law is only the eldest son, not even the Marquis of Tangyi."

In fact, Chen Wu was a relatively honest third-generation nobleman, and was satisfied with his life. Tangyi Marquis was in Liaodong, a marquisate that was neither better than the others nor worse than the others. It had fishing and logging industries, as well as a large coal mine. It would be a joke to say that the marquisate was poor.

As the eldest son of a marquis, there is no problem with his life of great wealth and honor, but his wife likes to compare and likes money. Liaodong happens to have the vassal state of her second uncle Liu Ying. Liu Bang chose a good place when he founded the country, so that the expansion of Peihou State was unimpeded. It is called a marquisate, but it is actually larger than the general principality. Liu Bang also left the shipbuilding industry to Peihou State. Peihou State is the richest vassal state in Liaodong, at least much richer than Tangyi Marquisate. So Liu Piao often compared Tangyi Marquisate with Peihou State, and suddenly Liu Piao felt that her husband was not ambitious enough. She wanted to get more industries for her husband's family.

Liu Bang was a social expert back then, and a small number of the Han princes had good relations with him. Liu Piao herself was also a person who was good at networking, and she inherited some of Liu Bang's connections, so she had many friends in the Han aristocratic circles. Then she got in touch with those nobles overseas. Knowing that transportation was becoming more and more popular, she wanted to get into this business.

But if one wants to engage in maritime trade, then naturally the more cargo ships one has, the greater the economies of scale, the lower the cost and the higher the profit. A 10,000-ton transport ship can easily cost tens or even hundreds of millions, and Tangyi Hou State cannot afford many of them, not to mention that Liu Piao is not the head of the family yet. Then she thought of her father. With her father's influence in the Han Dynasty, as long as she said a few words, she could lease and collect transport ships at extremely low prices.

Liu Qi said, "Don't you know what kind of person father is? The closer we are to our family, the stricter we are. Big sister, you are asking for trouble by going to father with this matter."

When Liu Qi graduated from Mozi Academy, I wanted my father to find him a better job, but his father disagreed and said that he should go out and gain experience at such a young age. He finally asked his seventh uncle for help and got a job in Chang'an City, but his father was furious and he sent him to the plateau for five years.

Liu Wu went directly to the military academy. After graduation, he guarded the border in the desert for five years. Because of his outstanding performance, he was transferred to the General Zhenxi's Mansion.

The two brothers not only did not receive help from their father in their official careers, but became obstacles instead. Liu Qi had been a Han official for eight years, but he was still only a rural official with a salary of 400 shi, and Liu Wu was only an ordinary military marquis. Liu Piao said aggrievedly: "This is not a big deal. Everyone does this. How did my elder sister know that this matter caused my father's anger?"

Dou said calmly, "Other families can do this, but our family can't. You said that your grandfather fought for the Han Dynasty all his life. Although this is true, the Han Dynasty did not treat your grandfather unfairly. It rewarded the Peihou Kingdom with a land of 3,000 miles. The Han Dynasty did not owe your grandfather anything. By the time of your father's generation, there were three Yuan officials with 2,000 stones. Which family in the Han Dynasty has this honor? It is not an exaggeration to say that our Liu family is deeply blessed by the emperor, not to mention that your father has always regarded the Great Harmony as his ideal. To put it bluntly, your behavior is digging into the Han Dynasty. How could your father agree to it?"

Liu Piao sighed inwardly. Although there were many people in the Han Dynasty who had the idea of ​​governing in a harmonious way, the proportion was not large. His father was one of the few among them.

Dou thought for a moment and said, "Do you know how much it would cost to buy a transport ship?"

Liu Piao said, "For transporting iron ore, the bigger the ship, the lower the cost and the more money you can make. Now the industry generally recognizes that the most profitable cargo ship is a 2-ton transport ship. One such transport ship costs about 12000 million yuan. Transporting iron ore from Medan Island can make about 3000 million yuan a year. It will take four years to recover the investment, and the rest is pure profit."

Liu Wu said: "Sister, even if I have never done business, I know that if more and more transport ships are built, the profits will become lower and lower."

Liu Piao said, "Sister, I have verified this from many sources. Railways are being built all over the world. To build railways, a large amount of iron ore is needed. The higher the quality of the iron ore, the greater the demand. In the next few decades, railways will be a business that will make money regardless of drought or flood. We will definitely not lose money. Even if the market of the Han Dynasty is saturated, we can transport the iron ore to India. The motherland of India is also making steel now. There are also the Xiongnu Kingdom and the countries of the Qinzhou Continent. There is no shortage of buyers for high-quality iron ore. Moreover, the Han Dynasty is now building a global market. Every year, hundreds of millions of goods are transported from the Han Dynasty to all parts of the world, and at the same time, goods from all over the world are transported back to the Han Dynasty. This transportation market is so big that even if we don't transport iron ore in the future, we can make a lot of money by slightly modifying this ship to transport goods."

Liu Piao was really interested in making money. As the old saying goes, interest is the best teacher, so she observed the maritime transportation industry for more than half a year and conducted in-depth investigation and understanding. She knew that the transportation industry had extremely high profits, and because it was an asset-intensive industry with extremely high barriers to entry, ordinary people simply could not enter this industry. Whether it was short-term or long-term profits, profits were guaranteed. More importantly, over the past few decades since the founding of the Han Dynasty, the share of ocean trade had been expanding, and even now there was still no sign of a decrease. In fact, because of the Han Dynasty's development of the New World and the Han Dynasty's use of steam ships to start sailing ships, the transportation industry once again entered a golden period of development, and it was also a period of drastic change. In the global waters, the nine cities' ocean-going trade ships were all sailing ships, and only Jinghai had a small number of steam ships. However, in the past ten years, the Han Dynasty's steam technology had made great progress, especially as the Han Dynasty's shipyards began to replace coal with oil and began to use heavy oil boilers to drive steam engines. The efficiency of steam engines became higher, and tens of thousands of tons of all-steel transport ships began to be manufactured. The transportation industry began to undergo earth-shaking changes and a fierce reshuffle began, so she dared to enter this industry.

Of course, she soon encountered obstacles. She knew that the transportation industry was an asset-intensive industry with a very high threshold, but she didn't expect it to be so high that even the Marquis' Mansion would find it difficult to enter. The price of a steam transport ship ranged from tens of millions to hundreds of millions, and it was difficult for the Marquis' Mansion to come up with that money.

Of course, if Liu Piao really wanted to raise money, he could raise some and buy a small steam transport ship of less than 10,000 tons, but this scale was obviously difficult to satisfy his ambition, so he wanted to ask his father for help.

Dou said, "Don't do anything crooked. Mother will give you money to buy two transport ships to try first."

Although the Liu family was frugal, they were not without money. At the beginning, Liu Heng and his brothers were all high-ranking officials with a salary of 2,000 shi, so it was not convenient to continue to bring them together. Therefore, the Liu family split up, and Liu Heng got a lot of shares in the factory. The industry could earn 100 million or 200 million yuan every year.

As Liu Qi and his men were officials of the Han Dynasty, they could not live a life of debauchery like the merchants. The Liu family had very little expenses, so they could still afford to support their daughter's career.

Liu Piao was overjoyed and said, "This money is what your daughter owes you. I will pay you back when I make money."

Dou said, "Since you want to make this a career, you must take it seriously and don't lose face for our Liu family. Mother will arrange for the shopkeeper to help you. You must take the initiative to learn and understand the situation of the transportation industry. The most important thing is that if you want to do transportation, you should specialize in transportation. Don't get involved in other things, especially those dandy boys. They are not the same as our family. Those dandy boys took advantage of the Han Dynasty today by using the family's authority, and they will pay it back sooner or later."

Liu Piao didn't know what to say for a moment. First, she didn't expect her mother to have so much money. Second, strictly speaking, she was a playboy, and she knew this. "

His father had chosen a career as a doctor for her, but she chose this profession because it was too hard. Also, being a doctor requires too much talent. No matter if you are the daughter of a noble or an ordinary citizen, whether you dare to face the bloody scene or can remain motionless when holding a scalpel, all these require talent and hard work, not family background. If you can do it, you can do it, and if you can't, you can't do it. Surgery is no joke.

Liu Piao was beaten to a pulp by her classmates who were extremely talented. During the years she studied medicine, she felt that she was just an ordinary person who needed to look up to those geniuses all the time. The gap between the two sides could not be narrowed by hard work. Liu Piao's pride was completely destroyed, which was also the reason why she stopped being a doctor after getting married.

To some extent, technology is something fairer than the imperial examination. If you have talent, you have talent; if you don’t have talent, you don’t have talent. If you can learn it, you can learn it; if you can’t learn it, you can’t learn it. Family background and wealth have basically little influence on technology.

Among the aristocratic and bureaucratic families of the Han Dynasty, there were not many children who learned technical skills and succeeded. Most of these people were still crowded in the Han officialdom, finance, and business circles. These fields relied on connections and relationships, and these were the industries where they had an advantage.

Later, Dou told Liu Heng that she supported Liu Piao in purchasing two transport ships.

Liu Heng said: "This is the right way. The emperor once said that problems that can be solved with money are not difficult. For our Liu family, we must keep this in mind."

Liu Heng then sneered, "Those dandies don't know how much they will pay in the future for taking shortcuts today. There is no such thing as getting something for nothing in this world. They use the power given to them by the Han Dynasty to make money. They don't know how great the cost behind this is."

Sometimes even Liu Heng didn't understand how these aristocratic families of the Han Dynasty educated their children and nephews. In the eyes of these people, it seemed that the Han Dynasty really belonged to their family. Seeing that the Han Dynasty had enfeoffed hundreds of princes, they thought that the Han Dynasty shared the world with the nobles and dared to do these lawless things.

But he forgot that even the emperor emeritus did not dare to say that the Han Dynasty belonged to him, but always said that the Han Dynasty belonged to everyone in the world.

As long as you go to the classroom of the retired emperor and attend a few classes in the school in Chang'an City, you will understand that the foundation of the Han Dynasty is all the people.

After Xu Fan retired, he first built an extremely large laboratory and designed a path to break through the technology tree based on his own experience in later life. He has made many inventions over the years, and electrical technology has been rapidly popularized under the promotion of Xu Fan.

The second is to popularize political knowledge among the students in Dahan’s institutions and among the new students in Dahan, and to explain the development of society and how the industrial society works, as well as some common sense in economics in a way that ordinary people can understand.

At the very least, the people of the Han Dynasty must know that it is their hard work that feeds the masters of the world, rather than those masters giving them a job and letting them support their families.

This may seem like a simple and plain truth, but in fact it has only been understood and spoken openly for less than 100 years.

A hundred years ago, those landlords and factory owners would tell the craftsmen and farmers in an extremely arrogant tone that it was their land that fed the farmers, so they fed the farmers, and it was their factories that fed the craftsmen, so they fed the wages.

Farmers and craftsmen work as hard as oxen and horses every day, but they still have to be grateful to the landlords and factory owners for giving them the opportunity to support themselves.

(End of this chapter)