A few days have passed since the leisurely days, and many things have come rushing back.

First of all, the boat that transported grain from the sea through Huaiyin finally arrived in Shouchun, although there were only five ships, carrying more than 8,000 grains, which was a drop in the bucket for Huainan's overall needs. But this successful attempt is still of great significance, adding a new option to Huaiyin's external supplement in the future. Moreover, compared with the previous inland waterway, this choice can be longer and shorter in efficiency.

This time, the ship set sail from Haiyan, Jiaxing, Wuzhong, detoured the coast, turned from Huaiyin to Huaishui, and finally arrived in Shouchun. Due to the lack of experience for the first time, both the previous preparation and the layout along the way were insufficient, and the final arrival time in Shouchun was seven or eight days later than the previous inland waterway. However, this does not mean that the efficiency of sea transportation is lower than that of domestic navigation, and according to the judgment of those accompanying the crew, if this route can be developed into a mature shipping route in the future, it will be much more efficient than domestic navigation, both in terms of time, labor and consumption along the way.

In fact, in terms of shipping, Jiangdong does not have much technical limitations, not to mention the previous accumulation of technology and experience in shipping in Dongwu, and even during the Zhongxing period of Nandu, Jiangdong had made contact with Murong Xianbei in Liaodi by sea. Moreover, the Shen family opened up the Zhoushan Islands by themselves earlier, although it was not too far from the shore, but the use of sea routes has also accumulated quite mature experience and a certain scale of talents.

Before Shen Zhezi crossed the river to the north, the Shen family basically had no interests in Jiangbei, and there was no need to waste resources in this regard. Another reason is that Jiangdong was weak at that time, and it was still underdeveloped on land, not to mention that it was completely passive defense on the sea route.

Previously, the Xuzhou Army of the Kingdom of Qian, in addition to frequently launching attacks on Jiangdong between Huaisi and Si, often plundered by sea on the sea route, and even the coastal counties of Wuzhong in the southeast were deeply disturbed. For example, in the early years, the Shen family's opponent in the countryside of Wuzhong, the Yan family of the salt lord, took the initiative to contact and recruit the Liukou of the Qian Kingdom to harm the countryside, which was not an isolated case.

Now that the situation between the north and the south has undergone drastic changes, the state itself has fallen into division and turmoil, and the original Xuzhou army has also fallen apart. Huaiyin City was firmly in the hands of the Xuzhou Army, which was enough to develop into a stable and important docking port, and continuously transferred Jiangdong goods and goods.

Although the risks on maritime transport are greater than those of domestic shipping, and they are also affected by seasonal conditions such as monsoons, compared to today's internal navigation, which is completely subject to the season, and once the water dries up, the impact is not so great, and it is completely worth the large-scale investment.

Moreover, if shipping flourishes, it will completely pull up another major import of important goods, that is, salt. The starting point of sea transportation is directly in the area with the most salt production in Wuzhong, and due to the promotion of dried salt in the early years, the price of salt there has been reduced to a staggering price.

In the early years, the shipping capacity was limited, and there were many kinds of goods that needed to be transported, and once there was a war, the commercial and civil movements had to come to a standstill, so although Wuzhong produced a lot of salt, if it wanted to be transported all over Jiangdong, the cost was still not low, and the huge output did not greatly reduce the price of salt in the entire Jiangdong, but only improved the people's livelihood in the vicinity of these salt-producing areas. Even the most ordinary small households no longer directly eat the inferior salt that is directly dried, and they have to be refined and sifted again.

If shipping flourishes, then the salt in Wuzhong can be transported directly by sea. Compared with Jiangdong, the Central Plains is definitely a huge market, and the profit of this commodity alone can inspire endless imagination!

Therefore, the successful arrival of more than 8,000 grains in Shouchun this time is of great significance to Huainan. Shen Zhezi was also quite excited about this, stopped playing around with Princess Xingnan, gathered the town's officials, and summoned all those crew members to the Inner History Mansion to ask about the various difficulties encountered in the shipping process and discuss solutions.

At this meeting, there was another person present, and that was Xuzhou Thorn Shi Xi Jian. Xi Jian personally followed the grain ship along the Huaibei to Shouchun, of course, this grain is not worthy of his personal escort, he actually came to Shouchun for other purposes. However, seeing that Shen Zhezi attached so much importance to the matter of transporting grain by sea this time, he gradually realized the great significance contained in it, so he listened attentively in the banquet.

The town discussed such a financial route, and Shen Zhezi did not shy away from Xi Jian, an outsider. Because if you want to completely develop the shipping route, you can't get around the cooperation of Xuzhou at all, not to mention that Huaiyin is now in the hands of the Xuzhou army, without the cooperation of the Xuzhou army, no matter how beautiful and huge the concept of Huainan is, the boat can't enter the Huaishui at all.

Moreover, in the whole sea transportation, once the river estuary, the coast is the counties under the jurisdiction of Xuzhou. Therefore, the cooperation of the Xuzhou Army is very important for the establishment and operation of the entire route.

Shen Zhezi listened to the audience and had an understanding of the objective limitations of shipping technology and environment. At this moment, although all the government officials in Huainan were present, most of them did not know much about shipping and commerce itself, and it was difficult to discuss a mature plan for a while.

With this kind of cross-regional resource allocation, Shen Zhezi does not expect to be able to make any decisions through one or two meetings. Knowing what the general situation of this matter is, with this intention, we will have to go through several more sea trials and grasp more information to make more accurate predictions and judgments. Even if Huainan has made all the preparations here, Jiangdong needs to cooperate.

So right now, it's just to collect as many details as possible, and Shen Zhezi doesn't have time to return to Jiangdong at the moment. However, after the beginning of spring next year, he plans to go back to Jiankang and contact all parties to finally finalize the matter and make every effort to promote it.

When considering these issues, Shen Zhezi never focused on pure profit, but was committed to creating a huge circle of interests. Wealth is certainly worth chasing, but if you can't give full play to the social significance of wealth and influence as many other people as possible, then wealth is just a number. If it weren't for the fact that the interests of the Shen family were equal to the interests of many Wu people, it would have been impossible for Shen Zhezi to gain so much support in the battle in Huainan earlier.

Although Shen Zhezi has determined the idea of developing maritime transportation here, he has not stopped several major projects of dredging inland waterways that are now underway in Huainan. Although both maritime and domestic aviation are essentially logistics categories, internal aviation also has its own significance. It is of extremely far-reaching significance to the construction and development of the areas along the line, which cannot be replaced by shipping.

Nowadays, the area of Jiangbei and Huaizhong is in ruins, and many reconstruction and development plans in the future must be based on waterways and waterways to be realized. Otherwise, no matter how much lost land is recovered, it can only be abandoned there, which is not enough to form a solid and stable rule, and it is difficult to quickly recover and accumulate vitality.

After talking about this matter, Shen Zhezi invited Xi Jian into a Yajing hall in the mansion, and asked people to prepare a little food, and then said with a smile: "If Gong Xi has any teaching, he can send someone to sue him directly, so why do you need to go ascetic in the cold winter and enter the town in person." ”

Xi Jian's mind was still immersed in the discussion about the sea route just now, and he personally watched Huainan's discussion on this, which brought him a lot of impact. It is not the idea of shipping itself, but the courage to mobilize resources on a large scale across regions, which really touched Xi Jian.

In fact, he did not have this kind of idea, he also had the vision of the prosperity and rise of the capital, and he had the idea of transshipment by sea long before the recovery of Huaiyin. But there are too many difficulties, and even the most basic ones are what kind of goods to transport, he doesn't have any specific ideas here, and he doesn't know where to go.

At this time, when he was alone with Shen Zhezi, Xi Jian even forgot his original intention, and said in a deep voice at the banquet: "I was really inspired to watch the Huainan sages discuss current affairs. People are rich and poor, the land is thick and thin, and there is a surplus and shortage of goods, if you have to donate evenly, it is not only in accordance with the way of heaven, but also the income can be used for the king's affairs. In fact, if only talk about salt goods, Xuzhou is also not lacking in production, now Huaisi has no strong enemy, but the people are still not lacking in chaos, lack of production, if you can donate, it is really beneficial to the people of the north and south. ”

When Shen Zhezi heard this, he knew that Xi Jian had some thoughts of going it alone. After all, the channel is now in the hands of Xuzhou, and even if the two sides are limited to the vortex, the Qingxu territory that the Xuzhou army can cover now is also a big market. Xi Jian has such an idea, which is not surprising, and it can be regarded as a kind of honesty to be able to say it in front of himself.

"What Gong Xi thinks is indeed appropriate, there are losses and gains, wealth is like flowing water, and it is natural to move towards profit. But the word profit, the most confusing, the so-called desire is difficult to fill, if the real profit trend, how many people can control the weight? ”

Shen Zhezi is not optimistic about Xuzhou operating this matter alone, not because of a simple conflict of interest, but because he does not think that Xi Jian can control the situation. Once the market and trade with Huaibei are opened, there are too many interests to be gained, and Xi Jian himself does not have the status of Shen Zhezi in Huainan in Xuzhou, and there is no shortage of powerful military leaders who are also qualified to intervene and share channels.

And once too many are added, there will be competition with each other, and the scale is not easy to grasp. Those military leaders have their own armies and channels, and they may not be willing to limit transactions only to people's livelihood, and it is very likely that they will expand the scope of transactions privately, and it is too difficult to regulate and restrain them.

Xi Jian heard Shen Zhezi say this, he was actually a little unconvinced in his heart, although Shen Zhezi's words were implicit, but in fact, he still looked down on him a little, why can Huainan think this, but Xuzhou can't?