The Maojin knife from the late Jin Dynasty

Chapter 310 Successfully signed the contract

For Liu Tai, he had long wanted to get supplies like sugar.

After all, white sugar is almost universal as a condiment, and compared to table salt, it can be used to replenish energy.

Give the soldiers a bite before fighting. It will not only burst out the combat power beyond the physiological limit, but at least it will be enough to make any soldier feel that he is fighting for his life.

However, Liu Tai could not find sugar sources in the north. For example, the sugar beets needed for normal sugar production in the north were not even seen at this time.

However, Liu Tai checked the historical records and found out that Soochow had the habit of sending cane sugar as tribute to Cao Wei. After all, he was the king of Wu in the Wei Dynasty, so it was only natural to show filial piety to his overlord.

Therefore, sugar cane was cultivated in the areas south of the Yangtze River, but the technology of sugar cane cultivation was at the tribute level in this era and was only in the hands of a few people, with no intention of expanding.

As for making sucrose, which does not require very complicated technology, Liu Tai still has a general understanding.

The first thing is to crush the sugar cane into cinders so that the juice of the sugar cane can flow out. Although the progress of my steam engine is slow, this skill is still activated, but it is usually used to crush coal mines into cinders. Now it is just replaced with Just sugar cane.

After filtering the crushed sugarcane juice, you need to try to calcine it into the most elementary sucrose. The coal continuously produced by the Coal and Steel Company can become a very good energy source. Not only is the temperature extremely high, but it also burns quite a lot. Stablize.

The resulting syrup is then heated to evaporate the water, gradually increasing its concentration. As the water content continues to decrease, the sugar in the syrup gradually becomes concentrated. When the concentration of the syrup reaches a certain level, the sugar in it will begin to crystallize and precipitate.

At this time, it is usually necessary to use filtration, centrifugation and other methods to separate the crystals from the syrup.

Next, the sucrose crystals need to be dried. During the drying process, the water will be gradually removed, making the sucrose crystals gradually harder. Dried sucrose crystals are called granulated sugar.

All in all, even if Liu Tai is immature in the art of making sucrose, he can certainly do it if he wants to.

But the biggest problem for Liu Tai is that there is no raw material, and sugar cane is not common in areas south of the Yangtze River.

Therefore, it is naturally best to let Jin Ting do the raw materials and venues while making peace with Jin Ting.

In addition to purchasing unlimited amounts of sugar cane, Cui Yue also talked about purchasing unlimited amounts of bamboo, professionally processed shade-dried wood and other raw materials.

All in all, Cui Yue's attitude is that since we have a temporary truce, we should engage in trade now.

With this kind of mutual benefit, we big men can believe that your Jin Dynasty will not take action against us, instead of secretly holding it back here.

After all, you don’t do business with us. We have no financial dealings and no interests tied to each other. Then who will believe your empty talk about peace and the promise of the Sima family? Go find out which family believes it!

To be honest, the binding of interests is a relatively stable agreement in any era, especially in the Jin Dynasty where the monarchy is severely checked and balanced, and the aristocratic families have the right to speak. Every representative of the aristocratic family feels that Cui Yue's words are reasonable.

The interests of both parties are tied up. If a war does break out, it will cause serious losses to both parties doing business. Then there will be people on both sides with damaged interests who will come out to oppose the war.

Compared with empty promises, at least the binding of economic interests is more convincing.

Although Cui Yue pointed at and scolded him, he couldn't hold his head up, but there was nothing he could do. Ever since Sima Yi pointed at Luo Shui and swore, no one in Jinting believed in such things as oaths, especially the oaths of Sima's family.

Now Cui Yue proposes to do business between the two parties, thus having a stable interest bundle. This is no more credible than Liu Tai sending an envoy to say that he promises not to attack Jin Ting. At least even if Liu Tai wants to attack, he will not be able to do so. Consider the profit and loss.

However, these aristocratic families have gone too far away from the autocratic monarchy system that dictates the world.

If it really comes to a war to unify the world, what are the so-called mere economic interests?

When the time comes, Liu Tai will defeat them. Not only will he be able to take over a large number of plantations as means of production, but the cost will also be reduced a lot. To a certain extent, as long as he kills you, all the resources in your hands will naturally be lost. be mine.

Of course, Liu Tai would not be so shameless, but now the Jin court has lost the northern refugee group with the bottom, and the aristocratic families have been attracted by him to form stable economic ties with him. As for the top class Wang Dun and the Sima family, they have not yet separated. A winner comes out.

For Liu Tai, basically the Jin Dynasty had completely lost its ability to conduct the Northern Expedition and could only regard it as a source of raw materials for itself.

There is no way. Compared with the northern region, Jinting is basically located south of the Yangtze River. The climate conditions here are superior. Compared with the cold climate in the north, the south is humid and rainy, with plenty of sunshine and rain.

Secondly, the local area is rich in untapped land resources. The land south of the Yangtze River has always been fertile and suitable for growing various crops.

The most important thing is that a large number of refugees went north and were corrupted by these aristocratic families one by one and became a hidden population.

It is almost impossible for the Jin court to collect taxes from such a hidden population. However, with the massive demand for various raw materials needed by Liu Tai, the family will naturally find ways to let these hidden populations vigorously develop wasteland and develop. productive forces.

At least in terms of labor costs, the labor costs in Liu Tai's area are much higher than those in Jinting.

Not to mention that the tax law "Corvee Tax" alone limits the number of servants that aristocratic families can accept, and each one must go to the court for justice, and then each servant must pay taxes every year.

But for the aristocratic families in the Jin Dynasty, "taxes, even servants have to pay taxes? It's simply unheard of, and it's a big deal in the world!"

Because of this, the labor costs of both parties are directly spread, and Jinting is really suitable as a raw material production place.

As for Cui Yuelu's successive proposals for business exchanges after peace between the two parties, Jin Ting did not agree in one breath, but it also did not refuse in one breath.

Wang Dun agreed to this matter in principle, but he needed his subordinates to discuss the specific details, so he hoped that Cui Yue would stay in Jiankang for a few days and wait for news.

In fact, at least Wang Dun and Sima Rui agreed after thinking about Liu Tai's use of economic interests as a guarantee for peace between the two parties. After all, this matter was also good for them.

Not to mention that the Jiangdong nobles as local snakes or the exiled nobles from the north can get enough benefits from this matter, and there is no reason to refuse, but the specific price needs to be carefully discussed with Cui Yue.

And as Cui Yue completes his initial intention and needs to set further specific raw material prices, this requires Zhang Song, a person who has been engaged in business for a long time, to take action.

Also with Zhang Song's arrival, in addition to determining the price of raw materials, he also proposed that Han Dynasty introduce long-term labor. If you have people on hand, you can send them over.

All in all, Zhang Song's arrival signified a package contract with Jin Ting, and Liu Tai also purchased a large amount of raw materials from Jin Ting.

At the same time, Liu Tai sold salt, cane sugar, paper, pottery... various industrial products to the Jin court. In addition, due to the development of pottery and the further utilization of coal energy, processed products such as cans also gradually appeared in the northern market.

Although canned food is inconspicuous, it can preserve some relatively short-term fruits very well and sell them from the north of the Yellow River to the south of the Yangtze River, helping Liu Tai make huge profits.

The industrial system that Liu Tai had been laying out began to gradually show a ferocious attitude and entered a certain period of growth.

At this time, the most important thing is not the production process, because even if Liu Tai consciously blocks these things, people in Jinting can always figure out these technologies if they want to learn them in five or ten years.

Now the reason why Liu Tai's big men have widened the gap with Jin Ting is that Liu Tai has always invested in energy and steel, and the rewards brought by developing the coal and steel company regardless of the cost have begun to feed back the entire society bit by bit.

The first is that the use of steel in the army has become saturated to a certain extent. After all, I don't need to replace the soldiers with new scale armor every year, or the horses with iron pagodas.

This caused a large amount of steel to begin to flow from the military field to the civilian world, and the materials for various production tools, starting from wood, were gradually replaced by steel, thus directly increasing productivity.

Secondly, coal, an energy source, began to gradually become popular throughout society.

This kind of popularity is naturally inferior to that of the first industrial revolution, when the thermal energy provided by coal was converted into the mechanical energy of steam engines, thereby transforming society.

However, the introduction of large amounts of coal into thousands of households will naturally replace the original demand for charcoal and firewood in certain industries.

In particular, the more large-scale industries use coal, it will be more efficient and cost-effective than firewood and charcoal.

Under such circumstances, even if the Jinting side obtains the corresponding technology, the energy is not as good as Liu Tai's coal, and the equipment and materials are not as good as Liu Tai's steel, not to mention the overall planning and layout, Liu Tai is able to From an overall perspective, we will gradually complete an entire industrial chain.

It is a joke for Jin Ting to think that he can surpass Liu Tai's industrial products with only one or two sporadic skills.

At most, the price of leek-cut products has changed from a hugely profitable one to a relatively high price of leek-cut products.

Liu Tai will use the power of capital to tell those who have learned technology but cannot reduce the cost that industry is really not something that Jin Ting can play with if he wants to.

However, Liu Tai didn't pay that much attention to the Jin court. Basically, with the death of Gou Xi, the refugee organization was finally destroyed by Liu Tai, and he began to focus entirely on governing the several states he captured. .

At least until next year's harvest and the common people can actually dig food from the land, then they can gain a firm foothold in these states.

Because one of the reasons why Chinese people are better than foreigners is that they are naturally good at farming.

As long as there is a piece of land, the Chinese people will cultivate it themselves. Therefore, the governance methods of these Central Plains states are different from those in the north where foreign and Han people are mixed.

The north proposed to build the Yongji Canal in order to integrate the northern foreigners and Han people as quickly as possible.

After all, Liu Tai's policy is to convert the Hu into Han, so it is necessary to give the northern foreigners a channel to convert from foreigners into Han.

But there is no need to do this in the Central Plains region, because although the Central Plains region is somewhat vast and sparsely populated due to the continuous chaos, the main body is still the refugees from the North due to Zu Ti's recovery.

Therefore, what I need to do is to guide these people to open up wasteland. If there is time, they will cultivate winter wheat in winter. If it is too late, they will cultivate millet in spring tomorrow.

All in all, for the people, as long as they can have their own land, they support Liu Tai very much.

Of course, Liu Tai also knew very well that in the first year he would definitely encourage the people to mainly farm, because for the people in the area that had just been included under his rule, only if they can personally reap the benefits would they truly support him.

But after Liu Tai returned to Yecheng, he immediately found Cao Yi and began to plan the future of these states.

Liu Tai said: "Uncle Cao, I need you to lead people to make a comprehensive plan for the roads in Suizhou, Yanzhou, Yuzhou, Xuzhou and other places, and then organize people to build roads next year and the next year during the slack season to speed up the circulation of this base.

The most important thing is that if we want to dispatch our troops to the south, it will be more convenient! "

"Please rest assured, Your Majesty, I will leave this matter to you. Before the beginning of summer next year, I will give you a suitable plan!" Cao Yi also knew Liu Tai's habits and immediately set a time.

Originally, Cao Yi thought that after he built the Yongji Canal, he could rest on his merits and enjoy his old age.

But as a great king, he was not the master of peace, and a three-state road project was about to hit his head.

For Liu Tai, this kind of road project is the best way to boost the local economy and change the lifestyle of local people.

At the same time, these states are experiencing war, and they also need large-scale infrastructure projects to improve the living conditions of the people.

It can be said that whether the farming work or this project is carried out in Xuzhou, Yuzhou, Yanzhou and other states, it can basically ensure that the people of these states can truly return to their own governance.

And when all these projects are completed, a few of them will take four to five years. By that time, after the most basic road laying is completed, it may be possible to open up the Tongji Canal, Main Canal, and Jiangnan Canal in the south. Work is also on the agenda.

Now, Liu Tai watched Zhang Song and Cui Yue return the terms negotiated with Jin Ting, and successfully signed a temporary truce contract with Wang Dun. Liu Tai showed a satisfied smile.

To be honest, it is enough for both sides to have a truce. As for the price of the raw materials discussed, anyway, when the time comes to make the finished products and sell them back, I will increase the price. Otherwise, I will not have learned the so-called scissor price difference in vain.

The most important thing is that he is pursuing a centralized monarchy. As long as he needs it, he can terminate the contract at any time and prepare for the war of unification.

But in Jin Ting's case, interests are involved and responsibilities are complicated. It would be unrealistic to give up these interests and then attack himself.

Even if there really is a strong man coming from the Jin court, there are probably too many people holding him back.

It can be said that with the signing of this contract, Jin Ting can let it go for a while. When it accumulates enough grassroots management system, it can push Jin Ting to the level in one breath.

For me now, it's time to re-gather strength and then regain the old capital of the Han Dynasty!

(End of this chapter)