Tang Dynasty Xie Lu Lang

Chapter 244 The Merits and Deeds of Consort Hui of the Tang Dynasty
Although Supervisor Yang had already sent his subordinates to bring the cargo team into the city, according to him, in order to prevent the local porters and pack animals from causing trouble, a certain amount of transportation fees still needed to be paid.

The freight is calculated per ten li (approximately 5 kilometers), with any distance less than ten li counted as ten li. Depending on the mode of transport, the freight for one hundred jin (approximately 50 kg) of goods is usually between ten and fifteen qian (approximately 3.5-4.5 grams). If the route is rugged mountain road, muddy swamp, or during rainy or snowy weather, the cost will be increased accordingly.

Zhang Dai's caravan consisted of over two hundred carts. Although not fully loaded, each cart carried about a thousand catties, totaling approximately two hundred thousand catties of goods. The journey from outside the city to the transport center would naturally take less than ten li. Using the highest-grade freight rate of fifteen coins per hundred catties, the transport cost for two hundred thousand catties would only be thirty strings of cash.

It's almost laughable that Zhang Dai had to make a personal trip for a mere thirty strings of cash. It's not that his stamina was particularly valuable, but rather that things weren't that simple.

If Zhang Dai hadn't happened to meet Yang Jian outside the gambling den, and if Yang Jian hadn't happened to be a relative of this Supervisor Yang, then the matter clearly wouldn't have been settled with thirty strings of cash.

Although Supervisor Yang claimed that he couldn't afford to offend the local bullies, he was actually just using that as an excuse.

Without Yang Jian's involvement, the costs of guiding people in and out, loading and unloading, and storage, as well as the impact on the city's various businesses, would have to be carefully calculated. It would likely take several hundred strings of cash to resolve this matter.

After all, even if Zhang Dai went to other places to find connections, or his father asked his colleagues in the prefecture to come forward and enforce the order, the face he was willing to give up would be worth several hundred strings of cash, and the favors owed would eventually need to be repaid.

"Living off the water" – this phrase, it seems, refers not only to the villagers but also to the officials who administer the judgments.

However, since the other party had already expressed their opinion, Zhang Dai was too lazy to argue about it further. However, he still asked Wei Lin to send over the thirty strings of cash that needed to be paid to the local labor service company as soon as possible, rather than incurring a favor over such a small amount of money.

As for borrowing the warehouse at the transportation depot, this favor was done by the Zhengzhou prefectural government, and it wasn't done for free. When Zhang Dai left the prefectural city, he had already ordered that 1,000 catties of veterinary medicine for disease prevention be left behind.

In any case, these medicines are going to be distributed along the way to benefit the people, and directly donated to the state government. This is a way of repaying the care they've received over the past few months, and it will also make his father look better. If the epidemic in Zhengzhou can be brought under control as a result, it will be considered a political achievement for them.

Yang Jian wanted to stay and catch up with his clansmen, so Zhang Dai went back to his rented inn first. If the "million canal workers" was just a joke to him before, now, after encountering some difficulties, he had begun to seriously consider the feasibility of building his own logistics team.

Although the Tang Dynasty was not yet as reliant on taxes from the south as it was during the mid-to-late Tang period after the An Lushan Rebellion, its dependence on the Grand Canal was increasing year by year. In particular, the consecutive years of disasters in the north and the increased expenses for border affairs made the Grand Canal even more important.

When Zhang Dai first submitted his memorial, it was about the Grand Canal. Now he deeply felt the disruption caused by the personnel obstacles related to the Grand Canal.

If it weren't for Yang Jian's influence, the matter would have been difficult to resolve properly today. If this issue isn't given sufficient attention, then future similar difficulties will likely not be resolved so smoothly.

He summoned Wei Lin and asked him, "How should these fleets and pack animals be organized? Is it enough to simply build vehicles and boats and recruit the corresponding soldiers to start operations?"

"We still need the government's permission; otherwise, we can't transport goods for profit!"

Wei Lin quickly replied, expressing his own hope that his master's business would flourish, and thus he was quite enthusiastic about it: "People and goods must pass through checkpoints and ferries. If they are registered differently from vehicles and boats, they cannot enter the market. All boats and carts must be registered with the prefecture and county, first for public use and then for private use. The government must hire them for official purposes before they can be used privately..."

For vehicles and boats to be used on roads and rivers, they first had to be registered with the government and complete the transportation tasks assigned by the government before they could operate on their own.

Of course, this refers to vehicles and ships that meet certain specifications and have considerable carrying capacity. If they are just means of transportation with limited carrying capacity and only used in rural areas, the government will not bother to requisition them.

There were two ways the government levied taxes: one was to assign labor service annually based on time or weight, and the other was to hire boats and carts for transportation. The former was free and voluntary, while the latter involved paying a certain fee.

In fact, the biggest source of income for these vehicles and boats was government-sponsored and hired transport. Government-sponsored transport covered a huge volume of goods, and the travel times were relatively fixed. Private hiring and rental, on the other hand, was more flexible and subject to greater variability.

"Therefore, boatmen on both sides of the Bian Canal often joked that they could earn money by rowing and punting, so why would they need to own land to support their families? Some wealthy and powerful families in the village owned more than ten boats, and their annual income was no less than that of a hundred acres of fertile land."

Wei Lin, formerly a broker in the southern market, was also adept at gathering information. He explained the ins and outs of the business very clearly: "Even if a household owns ten boats, two for corvée labor, five for hire, and three for their own use, a family can easily earn a thousand strings of cash a year. This is a better profession than farming and mulberry cultivation!"

Hearing this, Zhang Dai was greatly intrigued. Ten ships, after deducting official duties and other costs, could actually generate over a thousand strings of cash in profit annually. The profit per ship was roughly equivalent to the price he paid for writing an epitaph—a truly considerable income. The problem was, epitaphs couldn't be written every day, but this shipbuilding business could be run long-term. "How many men are needed to maintain ten ships?"

He casually asked a question that was actually more important to him than the ship's operating revenue.

"Taking a millet boat as an example, a boat carrying 1,000 bushels requires 30 boatmen and 5 polemen. Although the porters and other miscellaneous workers do not board the boat, they still need 3 to 5 people as backup, totaling 40 people, who take turns from the river to the canal."

So, if you calculate it this way, one ship would need to support forty laborers of various kinds, ten ships would need four hundred laborers, a hundred ships would need four thousand, a thousand ships would need forty thousand, and so on. It would be quite easy to gather a million laborers!

Zhang Dai couldn't think of a reason to privately own tens of thousands of ships, but he felt that he could achieve that number with some effort.

Although the actual operation may not be as simple and straightforward as Wei Lin described, and there will inevitably be various personnel difficulties, in the long run, operating such a canal transport team is undoubtedly beneficial and harmless.

Even setting aside the exaggerated figure of tens of thousands of ships, just imagining a hundred or so cargo ships sailing between the rivers and the Bian River would be a wonderful thing. The Sima family's three thousand elite warriors could already be swearing an oath on the Luo River!

During the Tianbao era, An Lushan was able to amass a powerful army and openly maintain several thousand private soldiers along the Yeluo River. Now, Zhang Dai, anticipating future needs, took advantage of the social development of the Tang Dynasty and the increased demand for canal transport to build a canal transport team of several thousand or even tens of thousands of people, which was also in line with the needs of the times!
A hundred or so grain transport boats may seem like a lot, but if they are distributed along the Huai River and the Bian Canal, they are not particularly noticeable. In fact, some wealthy shipowners currently own far more ships and craftsmen than that, but they have no political influence over them.

If Zhang Dai really wanted to build a fleet, he certainly wouldn't be satisfied with just gathering a group of laborers to earn freight fees. He hoped to use this method to create a higher organizational structure, a team that would be more cohesive and have more faith than ordinary merchant fleets!
He was brainstorming until late at night before finally falling asleep. Early the next morning, another classmate arrived excitedly. This classmate, who called himself Guo Yong of Taiyuan, was actually from Ruzhou and had no clear lineage with the Guo family of Taiyuan.

"Liu Lang, you're awake! I was worried that coming early in the morning would disturb your sleep, as I was tired from the journey and needed to rest."

After Guo Yong entered, he clasped his hands in greeting to Zhang Dai and said with a smile. Among the thirteen classmates, Guo Yong was the oldest, already thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old, a few years older than Zhang Dai's father.

Although being in one's thirties isn't considered old among the Jinshi (successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations), since fifty is a rare age for Jinshi, in terms of lifespan in ancient times, thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old could be considered to have passed more than half of one's life.

"Even if you're still fast asleep when Brother Guo comes to visit, you must immediately put on your clothes and go out to greet him!"

Zhang Dai smiled and invited Guo Yong to sit down in the hall. He noticed that the older the students were, the more formal and polite they were to him. However, those of similar age, such as Li Yi and Xue Yi, were more casual and unrestrained in their interactions, and their conversations were not limited to anything.

"I visited the city yesterday and recorded some of my observations. However, I am afraid that I may not have grasped the essentials, so I would like to ask Liu Lang to take a look and correct them."

Guo Yong took out a scroll of manuscript from his bosom and placed it on Zhang Dai's desk. He then smiled and said, "I was deeply moved by what Liu Lang said in the street yesterday, especially his discussion of factions. People talk about it like crazy, but I think Liu Lang's words make sense. Right and wrong are subjective."

The ideal of universal harmony is the aspiration of sages. While our ambitions may not be grand, we still wish to use our talents to benefit the world and help people. With support and guidance from all sides, we can more easily realize our aspirations and live up to our learning!

Zhang Dai could easily tell that his old classmate was clearly eager to improve himself.

This is understandable. To put it bluntly, while it is certainly gratifying that Guo Yong passed the imperial examination, he was already at such an age. Without strong support, he might have died before even being granted an official position. There are quite a few tragic figures like this in history, which is why he had a stronger desire to advance compared to his peers.

Zhang Dai certainly wouldn't laugh at such sentiments. On the contrary, he disliked the coy, hermit-like mentality. If someone wanted to engage with the world and create a career, they should express it openly and honestly. As long as their abilities matched, he would offer assistance.

He reviewed Guo Yong's insights and found that what Guo Yong wrote were management suggestions for a relatively special commercial complex like Guancheng. It still followed the idea of ​​separating industry and commerce from citizens. However, the management of industry and commerce was commendable, and it incorporated many of Guan Zhong's theories. It can be seen that Guo Yong was not a pedantic person.

When he turned to the end of the scroll, he found that it was a eulogy, the first chapter of which was titled "Record of the Merits of Consort Hui of the Great Tang Dynasty in Establishing the Weaving Workshop".

(End of this chapter)