In the thirteenth year of Jingming, autumn.
Qi Wang Liu Yu returned from the Western Regions.
Lin Shuping was ordered to personally take people outside the city to meet him.
Lu Wang Liu Yun accompanied him.
At Shili Pavilion outside the city, the two brothers were very excited to meet each other.
"Brother, you are back."
"Third brother!"
Liu Yu, who had a cold temperament, burst into laughter the moment he saw his third brother Liu Yun.
Like the melting of ice and snow, spring comes early.
Liu Yu who laughed, his demeanor changed, he was not a general in battle, but a gentle and noble son.
"Can the third brother go back to Beijing with the elder brother in the carriage?"
"Of course I would."
Lu Wang Liu Yun abandoned his horse and boarded the carriage.
The two brothers chatted happily in the carriage.
"It's a pity that the second brother and sister couldn't meet the eldest brother, and they all feel very regretful." Liu Yun said with emotion.
Liu Yu said: "I am also very sorry. If I have the opportunity, I will go overseas to see them, to see their lives, and to see their territory."
"If elder brother really wants to go overseas, younger brother is willing to go together."
Liu Yu was surprised, "Aren't you afraid of water and don't want to go out to sea?"
"We can start from the southwest and go overland to the territory of the second brother and sister."
"The official road leading to the overseas from the southwest has been repaired?"
"It's done!"
After several years, the cement road leading from the southwest to overseas ports has finally been opened.
Today, there are two routes to go overseas.
One is by water and the other by land.
The waterway is to go to sea by sea boat, which has the advantages of convenience and speed, and can carry the goods and people of dozens of sea boats at a time.
The disadvantage is that it is disturbed by the weather and cannot control the itinerary. For several months, it was impossible to go to sea because the wind was not in the right direction.
Traveling by land is a long and difficult journey, but the advantage is that it is not disturbed by the weather and can be set off all year round.
Pull the cargo population with a horse-drawn cart, and you can set off. Arrange your own itinerary.
In order to open up the official road from the southwest to overseas, a huge amount of financial and material resources, as well as manpower, were spent.
"I heard that since the official road leading to overseas was completed, there has been a lot of excitement there. I have been thinking about when I will go there and take a look. My brother also wants to go, so we will go together."
Lu Wang Liu Yun was in high spirits and wished he could go out tomorrow.
Among the four siblings, he is the most homely.
After so many years, I haven't left the capital yet.
Liu Yu smiled and said: "There is no rush! I heard people say that you have a crush on the girl from the Gu family."
"It's a girl from the Pingnanhou Mansion."
Nothing that Gu Jiu was worried about happened.
What Liu Yun took a fancy to was not Gu Ting's daughter, but Gu Ruitong Zhou's daughter.
Liu Yu laughed, "I didn't expect you to have solved the major issues in life without making a sound."
Liu Yun smiled triumphantly, "Compared to elder brother, my marriage is considered smooth."
…
Liu Yu went back to the palace to visit his wife and children before entering the palace to pay his respects.
After leaving Beijing for a few years, I have a lot to say.
There are private matters, more business matters.
The wars in the Western Regions, the situation, the various situations of the Anxi Palace...
All this is news that the emperor and empress urgently need to know.
"The war in the Western Regions has spread across the entire continent, and dozens of countries, large and small, have been implicated. This war will not end within three to five years. It is not surprising that it will last for ten or twenty years."
This is Liu Yu's point of view.
"How is the opponent's combat strength?" Liu Zhao asked.
"The soldiers are not afraid of death, their weapons are unparalleled sharpness, and their riding skills are not a problem. They have great advantages. Their smelting skills cannot be underestimated. This time, my son brought back two craftsmen from the Western Regions, which may help."
Gu Jiu asked: "Compared with weapons, do our weapons have an advantage?"
She asked herself that Huanyu's steel technology was ahead of the world, so there was no reason why her own weapons could not compare to those of other races.
Liu Yu hesitated for a while before saying, "Everyone has its own merits!"
Gu Jiu frowned.
"Did you bring back their weapons?"
"My son came back with a load of weapons, also made of refined steel."
Awesome!
Huanyu steel, because Gu Jiu has crossed the golden finger and has a theoretical basis, can successfully refine fine steel, and then use fine steel to forge weapons.
The foreign races in the Western Regions, without a golden finger, were able to successfully refine weapons made of fine steel, and they really had a few brushes.
No wonder it was able to start a war in the Western Regions, and it would burn for decades or hundreds of years.
This is a tough opponent.
Gu Jiu and Liu Zhao looked at each other, and they had a tacit understanding.
"We must speed up the update of weapons."
Time to roll out the hot weapons.
"Just to fight the Western Regions?" Liu Zhao asked Gu Jiu.
Gu Jiu said: "Not only to fight the Western Regions, but also so many overseas lands. The real opponent has not been encountered in overseas camps. When we encounter it, we will know how wise it is to update weapons."
Looking at the map of Huanyu, Liu Zhao found that there were indeed large tracts of land that the Zhou army had never set foot on.
The merchants of Da Zhou have never been to many places.
Liu Yu looked at the map of Huanyu, his eyes kept shining. This
He stretched out his hand and circled the land on the map, "The imperial authority of the Great Zhou Dynasty is so strict that it will definitely be able to penetrate into these blank places."
"It's very good, it has the demeanor of my past!" Liu Zhao laughed, very embarrassing!
Gu Jiu didn't expose him either.
She told Liu Yu, "Go home and rest first. You should make a report on the affairs of the Western Regions."
Liu Yu stood up and said goodbye.
Liu Zhao's finger slid from the northwest to Xiliang on the map.
"Shouldn't we build an official road leading to Xiliang? The war in the Western Regions will take at least a decade or two. If there is a change in the middle, it may take decades. Building a road can shorten the distance between the capital and the king city of Xiliang , the information can be sent back to the capital faster."
Gu Jiu nodded in agreement, "We're thinking about it together. It's time to build a concrete road from northwest to Xiliang."
"Where does the money come from?"
Thousands of miles of road, crossing mountains and ridges, building bridges when encountering rivers, and even building roads on cliffs and cliffs. This is a huge project.
The money and food spent will be an astronomical figure.
However, this road is sparsely populated and the land is barren, so the economic profits that can be obtained are actually very limited.
Asking the Ministry of Households to pay for road repairs, the Minister of the Ministry of Households dared to bump into a pillar on the Jinluan Hall and died.
All the officials in the court would point to Liu Zhao's nose and scold the faint king.
Gu Jiu gritted her teeth and circled a large area of land on the map with her fingers, "As far as I know, this area can grow cotton! It can just alleviate the shortage of domestic cotton and reduce the price of cotton cloth."
"To grow cotton, you must first open up wasteland. Opening up wasteland requires a large number of people, which is not an easy task."
Gu Jiu's face turned cold, "There are two plans, one is to recruit people from the people, pay wages, and give land. The other is to use prisoners of war slaves to open up wasteland."
Liu Zhao said bluntly, "Using prisoners of war slaves is a way, but it is easy to breed all kinds of dark sides."
"Prisoned slaves who have worked for ten years can give them a legal status."
"Are you sure you want to give legal status? It's better to drive them all home, or give them a sum of money."
"When driven home, there is a possibility of being arrested again and becoming a prisoner of war slave again. Opening up wasteland for ten years, giving an identity, delimiting the area, but try it. But to control the population, you must live in a scattered place, and you must not gather together. Together, lest there be chaos."
"Then give it a try."
Ten years, Liu Zhao can afford to wait!
The money issue was still unresolved.
"Raise funds! Ask the caravans that travel to the Western Regions all year round to raise funds. The advantage is that there will be no tolls for 20 years."
"Even so, the cost of road construction is still not enough, and the gap is huge."
The caravan gave money, hundreds of thousands of taels.
It is possible to only give a few thousand taels, tens of thousands of taels.
This amount of money is a drop in the bucket for the construction of thousands of miles of cement roads, and it is not enough to buy food.
"Look for Prince Anxi and ask him to buy some of the money." Gu Jiu thought of a way, "The Palace of Prince Anxi must spend at least five million taels."
"I'm afraid Pei Meng won't agree!" Liu Zhao knew Pei Meng, he was an iron rooster.
I saw him picking wool from other people's hands, but I didn't see him being generous once.
What is fought in war is money and food.
In the past, there was insufficient money and food, and the Northwest Army often suffered from famine.
This made Pei Meng always nervous every time he faced a problem involving money and food.
Gu Jiu responded domineeringly, "If you agree, you have to agree, and if you don't agree, you have to agree. It's not his turn to say no to road construction. Otherwise, I will cut off the trade route from Dazhou to Xiliang."
"This move is ruthless! Pei Meng will definitely give in!" Liu Zhao looked cheerful, happy to see Pei Meng deflated.
The little money Da Zhou lost by cutting off the business route was just a drop in the bucket for Queen Gu Jiu.
But for Anxi King Pei Meng, the lost money is the main source of income for the palace.
Once the trade route is cut off, the Anxi Palace will be paralyzed immediately!
Pei Meng's throne, don't even think about securing it.
Without customs revenue, what would King Anxi use to support the army.
Without the continuous delivery of goods to Xiliang by the Great Zhou caravan, what would the Northwest Army eat and drink
The tea that relieves greasy is only available in Da Zhou.
For the Northwest Army who lived in Dazhou for the first half of their lives, without tea, it would be their lives.
Occasionally eating a bowl of rice is also a kind of comfort.
It is an important means of stabilizing people's hearts.
Once the business route was cut off, no matter whether it was tea, rice, or various snacks from home, they were all out of stock.
As time goes on, the army must be in chaos.
This is Gu Jiu's trump card. Holding the trade route firmly in his hands is tantamount to choking the lifeblood of Anxi Palace.
The gap in the funds needed for road construction can only be relied on by Shaofu and Four Seas.
The Ministry of Finance cannot be expected.
People in the household department are born misers.
Asking them to spend money to build roads is tantamount to killing them, and it is absolutely unacceptable.
The husband and wife determined the general direction, set a specific plan, and the next step was to arrange personnel to implement it.
This matter was not discussed in the court, and the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Industry were directly notified to cooperate.
Work on the Northwest section started first.
Xiliang section, when will King Anxi take out the money and when will the construction start.
The courtiers were in an uproar when they learned of this.
"Building roads in the desert, where the population is sparsely populated and the land barren, is clearly a waste of money and food."
"If you have money for road construction, why don't you use it to build a school here?"
"Your Majesty and the empress are crazy! The sky is high and the earth is far away, and the road is desolate and chaotic. Why do you want to build a concrete road to Xiliang? It's meaningless!"
"The scale of trade with Xiliang is limited every year. It is pure waste to build roads just for a small tariff."
Even though the road construction did not cost the household department a cent, the courtiers upheld the spirit of daring to be the first in the world, and a sense of responsibility to persuade the emperor and empress to take the right path, and they rushed to stop the matter.
Even if it's Shaofu's money, it's very distressing, okay
Your Majesty cannot be capricious!
So much money, why not do it, why build roads
It's a waste of hard work to build roads, but the people of Dazhou don't need them!
If Your Majesty thinks the money is too much to spend, it is better to give the money to the humble minister. Weichen is very poor, and he never thinks he has too much money.
Weichen is also very poor!
Everyone in the courtiers called him poor, obviously mocking and mocking Emperor Liu Zhao.
Sitting on the Golden Luan Hall, Liu Zhao rolled his eyes.
"I'm poor too!"
"Your Majesty calls you poor, but you have the money to build a road that no one walks. It's ridiculous!"
"I spend my own money, what's the problem?"
"Nominally, His Majesty spends his own money, but actually spends the people's fat and anointing. Salt and iron taxes go into the Shaofu's pocket. Ten taxes and one tax also go into the Shaofu's pocket. The income of the Shaofu Bank also goes into the pocket of the Shaofu. It went into the pocket of the Shaofu... Can His Majesty say that this money is his own money?"
"If it goes into the Shaofu's pocket, it's my money. This is a rule that was set when Taizu was in power. Are you trying to break this rule now? You always say you want to keep the ancestral system, but now I want to keep the ancestral system." Why don’t you agree? You are the ones who are right, and you are the ones who are wrong! Whether you are right or not, it’s all up to you.”
"Your Majesty's words are wrong! If you build a road in the country, the Shaofu will pay for it, and there will be absolutely no objection. But the road your Majesty wants to build now is from the northwest to Xiliang. The journey will cost thousands of miles. The amount of money and food will be astronomical. However, the land on this road is barren and uninhabited, so what is the benefit of such road repairs?"
"Those who say that building roads are not beneficial, in my opinion, are all short-sighted people. Why build this road and what are the benefits of building this road, this question should not be answered for you. As ministers, You should find the answer by yourself. If you need me to come forward for everything, what is the use of you courtiers?"