Chapter 1336 Yixing Cloth Market

Chapter 1336 Yixing Cloth Market

The area west of Taihu Lake belongs to Yixing County, which is half hilly and half plain, unlike the flat land of the Three Wus.

In addition, Yixing is close to Danyang, the capital, and there are no powerful and powerful families in the area. Many dignitaries in the capital are keen to come here to build gardens and enjoy the mountains and rivers, but they often come only a few times a year, so there are many quiet places in the mountains and swamps that are confined and rarely visited.

In the early years, Chen Qian ordered people to transport goods from Wuzhong to the capital to participate in the mutual trade, and a considerable part of the profits were left in the area near Taihu Lake. Among them, there were several gardens and villas in Yixing County for storing money and materials. Before, his confidant Hua Jiao was captured, and he told Wu Mingche all these places, hoping to exchange them for his life.

Before, Wu Mingche and Xu Du worked together to quell the rebellion in Wu County, but were blocked by the divisions and brigades of Wuxing along Songjiang. Because there was no further order from the court, Wu Mingche settled down on the spot. After that, the Tang army did not march south in large numbers, and Wu Mingche was bored, so he dispatched troops to the west of Taihu Lake to sweep the strongholds where the money and goods were hidden one by one, and made a lot of money.

These money were not directly seized on the battlefield, and the Southern Chen court did not directly announce that the King of Linchuan was a traitor, so they were not stolen goods. Therefore, Wu Mingche did not hand them over to the court, but directly included them in his headquarters and distributed them to his soldiers as additional subsidies and rewards.

Most of his troops were from Jiangbei. The Jiankang Division had been recalled to the capital before. It was naturally inconvenient to carry so much money and goods with the army, and if they wanted to transport them to Jiangbei, they had to go through Jingkou.

The Tang army did have a problem of insufficient supplies when crossing the river. Among this batch of money and goods, there were materials that were suitable for use at the moment. Some Feng directly withheld them for his troops to use, and converted them into money to pay the families of the soldiers directly in Jiangbei, which also saved the trouble of transporting them back and forth. The soldiers under Wu Mingche were delighted. They were still on the journey, but their families had already benefited from it, and they had no more worries.

In view of the different customs and eccentricities of Jiangdong, the Tang army had been discussing and formulating subsequent attack plans after crossing the river. Although the Tang army was absolutely strong at the moment, the resistance of the people from all sides of Jiangdong was still not small, even including the Jinling Jingkou area where Xu Du took the initiative to surrender, the people were also dissatisfied with the arrival of the Tang army.

Therefore, if the Tang army wanted to advance straight into the Three Wus, it must also ensure the stability of the rear road and guard against the people from all over the country harassing the rear road when fighting hard on the front line.

Therefore, in the past period of time, the Tang army has not taken any further actions. On the one hand, it is waiting for the supplies from the Heluo area to be transported southward, and on the other hand, it is continuing to assemble the divisions and brigades in Shannan, Huainan and other places to the Yangtze River line, and waiting for the troops fighting in Lingbiao to return to their positions.

At present, Wuzhong only thinks that the Tang army is waiting for the opportunity to attack, but in fact, in a wider space, the personnel and materials of the Tang Dynasty are being rapidly mobilized. Now, the Tang army divisions and brigades gathered from the East Gate of Hefei to Jingkou have reached 100,000 people.

Among them, Quan Jingxuan and Ruoyu Feng respectively led the army to guard the upper and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, while Shi Ning led the army into the Xuancheng area.

The Lingbiao division led by Li Xun had just finished the battle in Guizhou and captured and killed the governor of Guizhou, Chunyu Liang, so the journey was slow. Now they have just arrived in the Ganshui River Basin. They have to wait until February or March of next year to reach the upper reaches of Zhejiang and launch an attack on the troops of Liu Yi, the governor of Dongyang, who is entrenched there.

Although no direct offensive has been launched at present, the big net woven around the Three Wu areas has actually been set up, and it is getting stronger and tighter.

Xu Du suggested buying hemp cloth from the people of Jiangdong. He was familiar with the people of Jiangdong and the way of business, and had a deep understanding of this: "The people of Wuzhong all have the desire to trade. The scholars make profits from trade, and the common people make a living from trade. The cloth goods of the former are difficult to sell, and the people have nothing else to sell.

Now that the king's army has crossed the river, people are not attached. It is said that the great righteousness may not be fully believed. If you first make it profitable, people will be happy. Moreover, there is a shortage of money in Jiangdong, and the goods are stagnant. If it can be relieved, the goods will be communicated, and then the benefits will be made clear, and the people will be united and the bandits will be difficult to separate!"

The reason why Xu Du made such a proposal was that on the one hand, he felt that it would help to ease the confrontation between the people of Jiangdong and the Tang army, and on the other hand, it was out of guilt and the hope to help the hard-working people of Jiangdong.

Although it is no different from directly throwing money, and the Tang army does not need to lower its posture so much in the current strong state, it does not mean that it is meaningless to do so. In the short term, it can ease hostility and make the actions of the king's army in Jiangdong less hindered by the people's sentiments. In the long run, it is also conducive to rebuilding a healthy order of commerce and people's livelihood, so that the Jiangdong region can recover quickly after the war.

When Ruoyufeng reported this suggestion to the court, Li Tai also expressed his approval after reading it. He never regarded the people of Jiangdong as enemies. If he could win them over, he would definitely try his best to win them over. No matter how majestic the Tang Dynasty's armor and soldiers are, the Red County of Shenzhou is not a place to show off their power. There are also merits waiting to be chased!

However, being gentle and benevolent is one aspect, but it does not mean that all the accumulated malpractices in Jiangdong for generations should be accepted without discrimination. Therefore, based on Xu Du's proposal, Li Tai made some changes and regulations. The people of Jiangdong must attach their place of origin when they bring cloth to sell. The price of Jiangbei silk within 100 pieces shall be based on the price of Jiangbei silk, and the price of more than 100 pieces shall be based on the market price of Jiankang, Jiangdong.

Even if the people of Jiangdong were diligent in farming and weaving, they could be considered a well-off family if they accumulated 100 pieces of cloth a year. The limit of 100 pieces could take care of the ordinary people of Jiangdong to the greatest extent. As for those who had more than 100 pieces of cloth, most of them were powerful families with considerable industries and servants, and it was naturally impossible to let them arbitrarily profit.

As for those powerful families distributing the accumulated cloth in their homes to their soldiers to sell in order to obtain higher prices and profits, it was nothing. At least the Tang army had mastered the household registration data. In the next year, they would be added to the household registration, and they would have their own personal and labor household tax to be collected. Moreover, these cloths were only low in price, not without value.

As the organization of the Fubing expanded, a large amount of cloth was consumed every year for the supply of military uniforms. The household tax of the local land distribution alone could not meet this demand, and silk fabrics such as silk and silk did not meet the military needs. The court also needed to purchase a lot of additional cloth every year.

Although Jiangdong's ramie cloth is a relatively backward production capacity, it will lack competitiveness once the market is opened to introduce stronger commodity competition, but the reason for its squeeze is that the market demand is far less than the production capacity. However, if Jiangdong is fully integrated into the Tang Dynasty, the demand from other places will naturally absorb the surplus production capacity.

In the long run, since the textile technology of Jiangdong and more remote Zhejiang, Fujian, Lingnan and other places still has a lot of room for development compared with Hebei and other places, in order to accelerate the integration of people's sentiments in these places, a subsidy system for cloth products can even be specially established, which can be regarded as a fiscal transfer payment in the Middle Ages.

Through such institutional subsidies, coupled with the long-standing equal-field system in the north, it will surely be able to quickly disintegrate the large manor economy that has existed in Jiangdong for many years, and greatly increase the number of registered households and rapidly develop people's livelihood.

Of course, these are all later stories, and they need to be thoroughly pacified before they can be gradually promoted and implemented. At present, after the Tang army opened a cloth market in Yixing, the people of Wuzhong also reacted strongly. Every day, there was an endless stream of people from Wuzhong selling cloth.

Hua Jiao, a surrendered person, was appointed as the cloth market supervisor and was responsible for the Yixing cloth market transactions because of his correct attitude and active cooperation.

On the one hand, he did have this talent. On the other hand, it was naturally because he was Chen Qian's confidant and was a celebrity in Wuzhong. Now he was openly working for the Tang Kingdom. In addition, he half-truthfully spread the fact that King Linchuan hid his wealth, which immediately caused more widespread heated discussions among the people.

However, in the market, the people of Wuzhong were more concerned about their own interests. When they saw that the old hemp cloth that had been accumulated for a long time in their homes was finally cashed in and exchanged for good coins with good texture, good shape and good writing, they were extremely happy.

There were also extremely poor villagers who helped each other to walk to the market. Seeing that this was true, but suffering from the lack of cloth to sell, some villagers were extremely distressed and hungry, and took off the ragged robes that barely covered their bodies and held them in their hands, asking in a hoarse voice: "This is also a robe made of fine ramie cloth. Will the Tang army accept it?"

"Where did this disgusting thing come from to cause trouble? Get out of here quickly and don't disturb the villagers selling goods in the back!"

The Wuxiang people nearby were afraid that such actions might anger the Tang army and affect their business, so they all started to scold and wanted to push these troublemakers out of the market.

"Wait a minute, as long as it's hemp cloth, the market will buy it!"

At this time, a lieutenant of the Tang army came forward, raised his hand to stop the shouting people next to him, took the torn clothes from the villager, shook them in his hand, and then frowned and said: "Your clothes are too damaged, and the size can no longer be measured, so it's really hard to estimate the price. I'll use my hands as a scale and give you fifty coins. Don't make a fuss here, go to the team to get the money!"

When the villager heard the sergeant belittle his torn clothes, his eyes dimmed, and when he heard the following words, he suddenly became excited again, waving his hands and saying: "No, no fifty coins, the general will only give fifteen or twenty coins That's good!"

"Stop talking nonsense. We are here to spread the king's order and fight against the evil bandits. We are here to make achievements and to give titles to our wives and children. How can we covet the hundreds of coins in your pockets!"

The young officer said angrily after hearing this. When he saw the villager with frostbite on his hands and feet and shivering with his arms folded, he stopped him again, walked forward and threw his clothes back, and cursed with a smile: "Forget it, don't go there again. I will count the money for you. Just think of it as a lost horse blanket. Go buy rice and cook!"

As he spoke, he counted out dozens of coins from the leather bag on his side, strung them together with a hemp rope and handed them to the villager.

The villager took the clothes and money handed back by the soldier with trembling hands. After a moment of silence, he burst into tears and cried, "The King of Linchuan gathered people to defend the village, but the villagers were destroyed. The Tang army came to attack the village, and scattered money and rice..."