Lingnan.

At the end of February, Guangzhou was still in a late spring cold. Even the lively Guangzhou Wharf seemed much deserted. The southerners who were used to the cool spring in Lingnan could not help but hide in their houses and roast the fire.

Although he is far away from the Central Plains, Guangzhou communicates with the world and connects with the world. Those merchants who travel south and north are already well-informed.

In the major shopping malls at the dock, merchants gathered to cook fire and drank tea while also communicating various information, including commercial information from various places and political and current affairs from Chang'an, mainland China. In the past few days, the most talked about news in Guangzhou Port is undoubtedly the death of the Taishang Emperor in the Changsheng Hall of Tai Chi Palace.

The Emperor of the Supreme Emperor, who was 71 years old, was not a big deal for the merchants. Because the founding king of the Tang Dynasty had abdicated nine years ago. When Zi had been in power for nine years, the death of the Emperor of the Supreme Emperor would not affect the current situation and policies at all.

What merchants value most is the stability of policies, especially the Zhenguan Dynasty's emphasis on industry and commerce. If Tian Khan, who is focusing on industry and commerce and promoting trade, died in Tai Chi Palace, it is estimated that every businessman will be lost, and everyone will be worried about the future political situation. I wonder if the political situation will be destroyed.

But has the Supreme Emperor left in the Daming Palace? Life is still the same.

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The news of the destruction has reached Guangzhou.

In the Guangzhou Military Affairs Office, the Governor's Office immediately set up a white banner, and the yamen runners also sent news of the funeral to Chuzhou, County and Township, and then they wanted to mourn the whole country to mourn the Supreme Emperor.

Fortunately, the national mourning of the Supreme Emperor actually had little influence on ordinary people. The Governor's Office had an order to prohibit entertainment and drinking for seven days in the nine prefectures of Lingnan and marriage for seven days.

After seven days, it will return to normal.

The Governor's Office and local governments and schools must set up altars to pay tribute to the emperor's heaven from afar.

Sitting around in front of the charcoal stove, making a side stove, and using tea instead of wine, everyone changed into gorgeous silk jackets and marten coats, and rarely put on cloth clothes.

In fact, this cloth looks simple, but it is cotton woven by white cotton, a specialty of the Qin family in Wu'an Prefecture, and is paired with brocade woven by local officials in Lang Sang Mountain. It is simple on the surface, but secretly low-key and luxurious.

The merchants in Guangzhou also gathered together. Just look at the rows of guild halls built at the port terminal. The largest guild hall is the Chang'an guild hall. These merchants come from Chang'an, the capital of the Central Plains. These merchants have a characteristic, most of them are the shopkeepers of the powerful and powerful.

Each of them is strong and wealthy. They are either rich or noble behind them, either prime minister or prince. At the very least, they must be a relative of the foreigners. If you only have General Hou Bo to serve as the backstage, you can only do an errand in the Chang'an Guild Hall.

The second only to the Chang'an Guild Hall is the Luoyang Guild Hall. The Luoyang Guild Hall is mainly composed of Shandong gentry, with five surnames and seven sects in Shandong, such as Liu, Zhang, Zhao, Wang and Yan. They are all famous gentry families that have been famous for hundreds or even hundreds of years.

Behind these two top guild halls are the Yangzhou guild hall, the Yizhou guild hall, the Jingzhou guild hall, the Hangzhou guild hall and other merchants from all over the country, and behind them are the powerful surnames of the place.

On the contrary, local business groups in Lingnan, such as the Guangzhou Guizhou Guizhou Guizhou Guizhou Guizhou, Yongzhou Guizhou Guizhou, and Jiaozhou Guizhou, seem a bit weak. No matter the size of the guild hall, the height of the hall, or even the staff hired, they are far inferior to those crossing the river.

Even the Wu'an Guild Hall is much larger than the Guangzhou Guild Hall.

As for the Jiangxi Guild Hall, Xiaoxiang Guild Hall, Fujian Guild Hall, Zhejiang Guild Hall, Jiangdong Guild Hall, etc., it is even smaller.

But no matter which guild businessman is, he likes to talk about current affairs, even talks and guides the country, as if he is the prime minister of a political affairs hall.

Changsun Fu held a teapot and listened to the conversations of his companions from the capital, but he just said nothing. This businessman with the surname Changsun knew that it was extraordinary when he heard the surname. In fact, this is indeed a member of the current queen clan, a concubine of the Changsun clan in Henan. He is working for the Changsun family and managing business.

He is the nephew of the family of Changsun Wuji, the prime minister Zhao Duke, and he was given the title of Changsun family. However, he was just a very humble child, and even a maid. In the Tang Dynasty, the children born by maids could not be recorded in the genealogy and were not recognized by the clan.

Especially if the maid is still a slave rather than a hired maid, the child born may sometimes become a slave. He is neither a child recognized by the family nor seems to be a servant. However, in fact, this type of maid has a child and his status is very low when he grows up.

The reputation, status, title, wealth, etc. of the family have nothing to do with them. Their best way out is to manage affairs for the family and be a reliable manager.

He is a higher-level slave, but he still cannot get rid of this identity.

Changsun Fu understood this since he was a child and started running for the Changsun family very early. Now, at his forties, he is known for his shrewdness and ability in the clan, and has even been praised by Changsun Wuji several times. Now he is in Guangzhou and is in charge of the Changsun family's industry in Lingnan.

Compared to Chang'an, he prefers Guangzhou.

The sky is high and the emperor is far away. Everyone respects him here. Most of this respect comes from the word Changsun. He likes this feeling very much. Here, no one will deliberately correct him that he is not a child of the Changsun family, and he will not say that he is just a servant.

He is the representative of the Changsun family.

"I heard that the imperial edict summoned Duke Wei to return to Chang'an quickly."

Gao Dalin from the Gao family in Bohai smiled and said, "Duke Wei is still the mountain tomb envoy of Xianling, and he must go back. I heard that because Duke Wei is not in Beijing, the saint ordered seven former prime ministers and current prime ministers to serve as mountain tomb envoys."

"In fact, as the mountain tomb envoy, Duke Wei had already built the Xianling Mausoleum. Even the current saint's Jiujiu Mountain Zhaoling Mausoleum has been built for several years and has been basically built."

The Emperor Xian Tomb of the Supreme Emperor was a tomb, and today's Zhao Tomb was made of a mountain as a tomb. The tomb of the earth was directly piled up a huge artificial earth mountain on a flat ground to make an imperial tomb. However, because the mountain was a tomb, a mountain was chosen to dig out the imperial tomb.

Because the mountain is a mausoleum, the project volume is undoubtedly smaller.

However, Zhaoling was built early, but the cost was very high. The emperor enclosed a large piece of land as a mausoleum area and the entire Jiuji Mountain was used as the emperor's mountain tomb. Then, around Jiuji Mountain, he wanted to build a mausoleum palace and a mausoleum city, and hundreds of locations were drawn on the periphery, and the Zhenguan Dynasty was specially rewarded to the great heroes and heroes, generals and ministers of the Zhenguan Dynasty, as well as the family of honor and Qi, etc.

The major families who received the honor of the Zhaoling Mausoleum also began to build their own tombs early, basically they were covered with soil, built early, piled up soil and reserved a good place, and then built a small manor, various stone people, stone horses, etc., which could be built for many years.

The construction of the tombs of Zhaoling, imperial tombs and honorary relatives recruited countless craftsmen and civilians to work, and even led to the prosperity of Liquan County. The population of Liquan County increased greatly and consumption rose sharply.

Building a tomb is very expensive, and the number of stonemasons alone is very amazing. Since Zhenguan, the imperial court has sufficient finances. After the two tax laws, the craftsmen have been distributed to the acres and the craftsmen have been free of great burdens. In the past, the imperial court has often recruited and served for free, and they have to bring their own dry food.

Now it has been changed to hiring, spending money to hire, and the treatment of craftsmen has increased. They are all looking forward to receiving the call from the government because now they have rich workmanship and still have a lot of wages.

Works like building Xianling Zhaoling are all big jobs. They can work for a long time. In addition to temporarily suspending work during the busy farming season every year, craftsmen can work for many months a year, have a stable income, and their wages are not low, especially stonemasons.

Due to the huge increase in demand, the treatment of stonemasons has increased. In recent years, the income of stonemasons in Guanzhong has increased several times.

This led to countless poor children from the peasant family going to learn from stonemasons. This was a hard work before, hard work, and dirty, but now the income is higher than that of a hundred labourers, second only to blacksmiths, and even before carpenters.

After working for a year, you can buy a lot of new land and after working for a few years, you can buy a new house.

Many fathers took their sons, and their brothers took their younger brothers to do it.

For merchants, these major projects are also good projects for them to make money. Needless to say, they provide various raw materials, and even repair various kilns, such as brick kilns, charcoal kilns, tile kilns, etc. These can be regarded as high-tech and high-profit industries.

Not to mention purchasing and transporting some giant woods, huge stones and other materials from thousands of miles away, the profit will be even higher.

Among the many business projects of these Guanzhong merchants in the Chang'an Association of Lingnan, there are many business projects that purchase various wood and stone from Lingnan to transport them back to Guanzhong.

This kind of work cannot be done by ordinary small businesses. It must be done by big businesses like them, and it is profitable.

Just like the New Year's Wei Gong proposed to rebuild Meiguan Road in Daruling. From planning and design to starting construction, to building a road, it connects the north and south sides of the Ling River. The whole journey is nearly a hundred miles, but it is completed in just a few months.

Its efficiency is quite amazing.

The secret here is also very simple, that is, the planning route of Meiguan New Road is very good, and the second is that it adopts the form of investment and contracting labor, which greatly improves the engineering efficiency.

Qin Lang did not adopt the traditional method of government-led and recruiting civilians to construct construction, but directly split the entire Meiguan New Road into multiple projects, and then bid for the bid. Everything was a business model, signed a contract, paid 30% of the advance payment, and paid after passing the acceptance in stages.

The merchants opened mountains, cut trees, provided stones, built canals, paving roads, and split a Bailimeiguan new road into hundreds of projects, and subcontracted them. After the merchants showed their strengths.

From Ganzhou at the southern end of Jiangnan West Road, follow the Zhangshui River to Dayu, exit from Daruling Meiguan, follow the tributary of the Beijiang River, passes through Nanxiong, and then rises to Shaoguan, then follow the Beijiang River through Qujiang, Yingde, Qingyuan, and arrives in Guangzhou in the south.

The two projects of Meiguan New Road and Beijiang Waterway were started at the same time. It took only a few months to complete the entire line of construction.

The Meiguan New Road, which is ten feet wide, is a hundred miles long. It is also covered with bluestone slabs on the most difficult Meiling in the past. Once this road is opened, it can be said that Guangzhou has instantly opened up a Ren and Du meridian.

Countless commercial goods directly cross Meiling and connect with Jiangnan.

This saves too much time than the traditional Hunan-Guangxi Channel, let alone closer to the Jiangnan region.
Chapter completed!