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"Your Highness, Xia Guan has almost been eaten by merchants in the past few days."

In the main hall of the Qi Palace, Li Kaiyuan presented the account books of the Chamber of Commerce with both hands, and complained in his mouth.

Xiao Ming smiled, he had also heard about these two things, and the businessmen almost broke the threshold of the Chamber of Commerce because of the white sugar.

However, for him, he was already mentally prepared when he was ready to release the white sugar technology, after all, the success of the soap shop made many businessmen very angry.

Moreover, this time the White Sugar Chamber of Commerce has not even been sold in Dayu, which means that white sugar will be a brand new commodity, and compared with the soap that has already made a lot of money from the Chamber of Commerce, the profit of this white sugar will inevitably be higher.

Because of this, businessmen are so eager to get their hands on the technology for the production of white sugar.

"You won't eat it, it's possible to send you tens of thousands of taels of silver tickets, and pick a few concubines for you." Xiao Ming smiled while taking the account book from Li Kaiyuan's hand.

Li Kaiyuan cried and said: "Your Highness, don't bury the lower officials, the lower officials have always been honest." ”

Of course, Xiao Ming is just joking, he gave Li Kaiyuan a very high salary, in order to maintain a high salary, if it is outside the feudal country, Li Kaiyuan's position is estimated to be broken and robbed.

Smiling teasingly, Xiao Ming looked at the account book, which recorded the merchants who had purchased white sugar production technology in the past few days.

"Three hundred and seventy-eight." Xiao Ming was a little shocked when he saw the number of people in the account book, "So many." ”

"No, the lower officials have been reminding them not to buy technology too blindly, but they just don't believe it." Li Kaiyuan shook his head.

"Since I've been reminded, let them go, it's up to them to lose or make money when the time comes, but even if there are more than 200 people, I'm afraid they will make it in the early days."

"Xiaguan also thinks so, this white sugar has never appeared on the market, and there will be a lot of sales on the market, not to mention that now that the sea trade routes are opened, merchants can still sell white sugar to Goryeo and the Wa Kingdom." Li Kaiyuan said.

Xiao Ming nodded when he heard this, this number seems to be very large, just because this white sugar workshop is concentrated in Qingzhou, just like there is only one commissary in a town in modern times, but the whole country adds up to thousands.

In the same way, if these more than 300 white sugar workshops were evenly distributed throughout the Great Chongqing Kingdom, they would just be like drops of water into the sea, and now he wants to open up private capital and not interfere too much in the behavior of these merchants.

Doing business is to lose and make money, he only needs to control the general business operation of the entire feudal country, and the specific details will be managed by the government.

"More than three million taels plus the sale of sulfites, this white sugar chamber of commerce is a net profit, not bad, not bad."

The numbers in the account book made Xiao Ming laugh happily, in fact, he was the most profitable, he could sell both sugarcane and chemicals, which meant that the merchants had to give him a part of the money.

In addition to the white sugar, this pendulum has not been sold, and once it is sold, it will be another good income, and the finances that have been strained by the frantic expansion of the army are now finally relaxed.

Li Kaiyuan's eyes narrowed with a smile, but he remembered something and suddenly said: "Your Highness, there is one thing that the lower officials almost forgot, these merchants have been complaining that they can't find enough craftsmen to be responsible for production after buying technology, and the slaves in the Qingzhou market are also very scarce, and there is not enough for the merchants to share, and this problem will cause some problems for the development of commerce." ”

"Well, you're right." Xiao Ming nodded, I have to say that Li Kaiyuan saw this question very accurately.

In fact, he was also thinking about this problem, and now he obviously could not compete with Europe for the slave trade, and it was very difficult to carry out the slave trade in Asia, after all, neither the Wa Kingdom nor Goryeo existed in a tribal situation like Africa.

However, he already had a specific replacement plan in mind, so he said: "You can talk to the merchants and ask them to recruit craftsmen from outside the feudal kingdom. ”

"Recruit craftsmen from somewhere else?" Li Kaiyuan's eyes rolled, and he suddenly laughed, "Your Highness's trick is really high, so that no matter if these businessmen buy it from outside or cheat it, this is all increasing the population of Qingzhou." ”

There was a hint of evil smile on the corner of Xiao Ming's mouth, this is exactly what he wants to achieve, after his on-demand, these businessmen will inevitably sell people from outside the closed country to Qingzhou in order to pursue profits to meet the shortage of people in industry.

In his opinion, in this situation, it is the same as that of European businessmen who traffick African people for profit, except that his method is more civilized, that is, similar to the export of modern labor.

"That's right, so you can secretly alert the merchant when you get back." Xiao Ming said.

Li Kaiyuan nodded, "Yes, Your Highness, the lower officials will prepare for this matter when they go back." ”

Seeing Li Kaiyuan away, Xiao Ming asked people to prepare horses, and he was going to go to the military workshop.

Now the situation in Dayu may take a turn for the worse at any time, and he must prepare in advance, so he has not been idle in the past two days, but is thinking about changing the equipment of the armies of various states.

After discussing with Niu Ben, he felt that it was now necessary to focus on replacing the equipment of the three armies, and the first place was naturally the Youzhou Army.

Relatively speaking, the Youzhou Army is now the largest number of people in the feudal army, with 20,000 infantry and 20,000 cavalry, a total of 40,000 people, and the second is the current Dengzhou Army.

After Dengzhou's position became more and more important, he expanded the Dengzhou army from 10,000 to 20,000, and the last one was the Yunzhou army, which is currently only 10,000.

This army was prepared for the resources of King Yong's fiefdom, and if there was a war in the Great Chongqing Kingdom, he said that he would not use this army.

As for the armies of other states, Xiao Ming only left a standing army of 1,000 people, not that he didn't want to expand the army, but his fief had a population of 2 million, and the armies of Youzhou, Qingzhou, Yunzhou, and Dengzhou combined were 90,000 people, which was already the limit that the fiefdom could bear, which was equivalent to one out of more than 20 people being a soldier, and the proportion was extremely high.

Even so, it is impossible for him to use all 90,000 troops at one time, after all, the logistics of the 100,000 army must be followed by 560,000 people, and if he continues to fight like this, his fiefdom will be finished by himself.

So after thinking about it, Xiao Ming felt that he could only improve the level of the army's equipment, quality over quantity, and because of this, he decided to go to the military workshop to check the equipment and urge production, and at the same time let Chen Qi deliver the hoarded equipment to the armies of various states.

When he arrived at the military workshop, the sound of metal knocking sounded, since the last time he went to sea, Xiao Ming had not come to the military workshop for two months.

Thinking of the rifled gun that Song Changping sent to him at the beginning, he first went to the firearms workshop.