A scholar of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty

"What are these guys outside arguing about?" Li Zhi looked at the courtyard in front of him, "What's wrong with these people?"

Gu Qing looked at the map intently and asked, "What do you think, Your Highness King Jin?"

"What about it?" Li Zhi looked at Gu Qing's map, "Your lines are quite unique."

Gu Qing said with black lines all over his head, "His Royal Highness King Jin should continue reading."

Glancing again, Li Zhi wondered again, "Do you want to learn from the former Sui Dynasty to open up canals? Gu Qing, let me tell you, you are now the Prime Minister, and your father was helping you when you built the seaport. No matter what kind of storm is caused, if you dig a canal again, it will waste people's money and waste money, and beware of turning against you."

"If someone turns against me, will His Royal Highness King Jin help me?" Gu Qing stroked his chin and carefully looked at the rivers.

"Help you? Good idea." Li Zhi turned his head and left.

"People's hearts are indeed sinister." Gu Qing sat down and outlined the waterway based on several important canals in later generations. The south of the Yangtze River can be the source of the waterway. The waterway is divided into three fork roads, going north to Youzhou, south to Lingnan, and in the middle it can lead directly to Chang'an, and even enter Shu.

The Grand Canal dug by Yang Guang has had a great influence on future generations. It has to be said that this is a good thing, but with the wrong timing, Yang Guang played himself into a dead end.

"The Patriarch has been here for more than an hour." Fan Jian reported in a low voice.

"Let them hang out for another half hour." Gu Qing took a sip of hot tea and said, "If they can't wait, they can leave, if they want to continue with me, they can stay, not all business can be negotiated once."

Fan Jian nodded.

"This old man has already drank six cups of tea and gone to the toilet three times! Why is Gu Qing still here?" Some businessmen couldn't wait any longer.

"We have been in business for so many years, don't we have any patience?"

"I have to say that the Gu family's tea is really good." Someone said, "Another cup?"

"Damn it!" He slapped the table angrily...

……

After another half an hour, someone couldn't wait anymore and was about to get up and leave when Gu Qing walked into the front yard, "Everyone, there are a lot of things at hand, so I kept you waiting for a long time."

They breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Gu Qing come out.

"Is this elder brother leaving?" Gu Qing looked at him and asked.

"No, it's the old man who wants to go to the toilet." The other party smiled.

"So that's how it is." Gu Qing still sat down, "I thought I could see off the guests?"

Everyone smiled wryly again. They must do business well to earn money in the future. It is really not easy to do business with Master Gu with so many twists and turns.

"Then let me talk about business." Gu Qing spread out the huge map, "About [-]% of the people's money can actually be used for other purposes, and you don't have to pay, but I have a condition."

All the businessmen frowned when they saw the map, "The map of Lord Gu is really detailed, with mountains, rivers and rivers in it."

Gu Qing nodded slowly and said, "That's not the point."

"No, to say that there is no map in Guanzhong that can be done like it is now." Another person said.

"If I hadn't traveled all over the mountains and rivers, I wouldn't be able to draw such details."

……

"Okay, okay." Gu Qing interrupted them, "The point is really not this picture."

"May I ask Master Gu if I can buy this picture later?" a businessman said.

A smile appeared on his troubled face, Gu Qing asked curiously, "How much do you plan to pay?"

"This..." Everyone hesitated.

"Hey, hey, don't change the subject, let's talk about business." Gu Qing put away his desire to make money, "Again, the focus is not on pictures, but on business."

"Yes, yes, yes." Everyone nodded.

Looking at the waterways marked on the map, Gu Qing said, "I want to open up waterways, build rivers, and open up three waterways that can connect the north, south, and west sides of the Central Plains, starting from Jiangdong."

"Opening up waterways, this is Gu Houye's condition." These businessmen can do it right away, "It will take a lot of manpower and material resources to open up waterways, and besides, many rivers have stopped flowing or are congested with silt, so it may take several years. And if the construction is too big, the sound will be heard in the DPRK."

"Of course I understand that." Gu Qing nodded.

"I don't know if Master Gu can change the condition. We all know the misery of Yang Guang back then."

"On this condition." Gu Qing said, "Different from Yang Guang's approach back then, we can proceed step by step, starting from a young age, and I will give this time limit of ten years."

"Ten years." The merchants said one after another, "As long as it is completed within ten years, can our sea trade members not have to pay?"

"That's right." Gu Qing added again, "But there is one thing I want to add, if you forcefully recruit civilian husbands, don't blame me for being rude."

"Of course not. Now that the world is just at peace, it would be a bit difficult for me to say that Lord Gu is going to build waterways, let alone forcefully conscripting civilian husbands."

"That's how it is." Gu Qing continued, "You can hire people to build waterways yourself, but you can't rob civilians. You can build waterways from small to large. Ten years is enough time. Although the business of Datang has been stable for a long time, But the improvement is not very great, and the liquidity of commodities is too poor. For example, you may earn a lot of money by exchanging silk from Jiangnan once a year, but this money is given by your regular merchants, but if you can make a few more money a year Silk trading, coupled with the faster flow of goods, the faster the flow of money, the faster the liquidity in your hands will be."

"Liquid funds." These merchants heard such a description for the first time.

"Sometimes you will definitely encounter such a situation. After a transaction is made, it will take a month or two to receive the money, but if it only takes ten days to receive the money, you can do it immediately if you have the money. Another thing, often after a sale is over, you will not get the money until the next season, but when you sell the silk and want to do another business, you don’t have enough money to be rich, so you may miss the opportunity to let others Get there first."

"In the same example, the benefits of doing one business a year are very different from those of doing three businesses a year." Gu Qing said with a smile, "Are you tempted?"

"But I'm not short of the working capital that Master Gu said."

Gu Qing sat down decadently, forgetting that they are all very rich businessmen.

"However, Gu Houye's words are not unreasonable. If the waterway is opened up and the flow of goods is accelerated, we can indeed get faster money and even do more business."

6 Chapter Forty

"That's right." Gu Qing nodded and said, "As long as you are willing to help build the waterway, I can hand it over to you."

"This..." The merchants could only nod their heads as they looked at each other, "I'll go back to discuss it later, and ask Master Gu to wait for a few days."

"Yes." Gu Qing nodded.

Li Zhi was listening to the conversation between Gu Qing and the businessman, he walked out from the side and asked, "Are you fooling me?"

"His Royal Highness, please be reasonable, but I lost a lot of money?" Gu Qing pretended to wipe away tears.

"I don't believe it." Li Zhi said firmly, "I think you must not be at a loss, because you have never suffered a loss in business."

"His Royal Highness, believe it or not." Gu Qing smiled again in a blink of an eye.

Li Zhi stared at Gu Qing: "Put a piece of meat in front of the tiger, and the tiger can run faster, because it will run after the meat. You ask these merchants to pay for the construction of waterways, because the things these merchants get after opening the sea trade There will be more, especially good things from overseas.”

"They must be eager to sell the good things they got. Who should they sell them to? All merchants know that if the goods are not sold, they will be nothing but ashes. importance, so they will definitely work hard to open up waterways for you, but in fact, the only thing they can't get around is your Gu Qing's port."