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Chapter 325: A piece of cloth for a cow, four catties of tea for a horse


The third more is sent, begging for subscription Take the organized caravan to the border market.

In Zhang Chao's view, Taozhou is located on the border between agricultural and pastoral areas, and it is also the border between Han and Tuyuhun, and it is not even far from Tubo.

There are many mountains and rivers in the territory, Tao River, Tan River, Yemu River, Yangsha River, etc., which cut out many deep river valleys in Taozhou, and washed out many flat valleys.

Taozhou, which is located in the west, can even be regarded as a water town.

"If the entire river valley suitable for cultivation in Taozhou is reclaimed, I estimate that there will be at least 670,000 mu of arable land."

Zhang Chao sighed and said to the horse beside him.

"But this place is vast and sparsely populated" Ma Zhou, as Zhang Chao's long history, has been dealing with local officials and wealthy families all day these days, and has a lot of understanding of this place.

In the whole of Taozhou, there are actually only two counties, Lintan and Meixiang.

Both counties were built on the banks of the Taoshui River, one west and one east.

The population of the two counties is less than 10,000, and there are only less than 5,000 households in the whole state, about 20,000 people.

In addition, there are also the Tugu Hun Ye Force Department and the Dangxiang Tribe, which have several thousand people.

But a war caused Taozhou to lose almost two-thirds of its population, many were taken captive, many fled, and many rebels were attached to Tuyuhun, and now the entire Taozhou has a population of just over 10,000.

Most of this population is herded.

There are very few people engaged in farming, so it is a truly sparsely populated area.

In fact, Zhang Chao found that the climatic conditions in Taozhou are very suitable for the development of agriculture.

The place of trade agreed with the Hu people was on the border of the Tao River, which was a large bay, where the valley made a bend, and the river made a piece of land into a narrow peninsula.

Zhang Chao and Hu Shang chose this place for trading, because the peninsula was protruding to the northwest, so the Tang people from Taozhou in the northeast and the Hu merchants from the southwest had to cross the Tao River to trade on this peninsula surrounded by water on three sides.

In addition, the mountains around the river valley make the peninsula-like river valley in the middle have a wide view, so you don't have to worry about being ambushed.

If you really want to find out that something is wrong, you can also evacuate quickly, and there is a Tao River to block it, which can make it difficult for people who are not prepared by ships to pursue.

Anyway, he is cautious everywhere, Zhang Chao is not worried about what tricks Hu Ren dares to play, but since there is such a suitable place, he is also satisfied.

"There is a lack of a good road in Taozhou."

Cui Yi looked at the rotten road under his feet with some dissatisfaction, it was very narrow and always crumbling.

"It's not a problem to build roads, first reopen this city, and then we can build some boats, Tao River, Tan River, there are so many rivers here, they can be boated.

In fact, here, it is quite similar to the water town in the south of the Yangtze River, with many rivers.

There are many mountains here, and the road can only be walked along the river, so it is better to simply get some boats, whether it is to carry goods or people, it is very convenient. ” "I don't know how many businessmen will come, we have organized so many merchants, if no one comes, then we will run for nothing, and the businessmen will not have this enthusiasm next time."

Sun Fujia was not very concerned about Zhang Chao personally organizing merchant transactions.

In his opinion, this should not be a matter for the government.

"Believe me, there will definitely be a lot of Hu businessmen coming.

If you see that they are picky and picky, and they choose such a place to trade, it means that they value this transaction very much.

Zhang Chao attaches great importance to the transaction, and many soldiers do not know that Taozhou City is now facing a trouble.

There is not much food and grass.

Zhang Chao told the soldiers that the imperial court would bring food and wages, but he knew that he should not expect this in the short term.

This time, Tuyuhun broke through four prefectures in a row, and even Qinzhou, Tang, He, and Lanzhu prefectures were attacked and plundered.

There is no grain and grass to raise around, so it has to be transported from Chang'an.

But transporting grain from Chang'an to Taozhou, it is quite troublesome, the road is far and difficult to walk, and it takes several cars to transport a cart of grain.

Zhang Chao didn't want to wait until Taozhou ran out of food, he was in a hurry temporarily, he planned to do it himself and have enough food and clothing.

There are many lands suitable for reclamation in Taozhou, and Tuntian is an option.

However, it is impossible for Tuntian to produce grain immediately, and it still has to rely on trading.

From the Taozhou Zhizhi Lintan, along the tributary of the Tao River, Tanshui, all the way south, it took a day to reach the mouth of the Tan River.

"Hu Shang has arrived, on the other side, a lot of people have come" The scouts brought back good news.

"Very good, go cut down trees and build a pontoon."

Zhang Chao brought a lot of sheepskin rafts, filled them with air, and then connected them with ropes, and then laid wooden planks, and a simple pontoon bridge was formed.

The Hu people on the opposite side have also been observing this side, seeing that there are a lot of people, they were a little nervous at first, but after looking carefully, they found that they did bring a lot of commercial goods, and slowly calmed down.

They sat and waited for Zhang Chao, and they spent most of the day to build the pontoon.

Zhang Chao crossed the river with his guards and caravan and came to the peninsula in the middle of the river, which was surrounded by water on three sides.

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There were many Hu merchants who came, including Qiang people, Tuguhun Xianbei people, as well as Tubo people and Di people.

Like the Qiang, the Di people, from the pre-Qin to the Northern and Southern Dynasties, lived at the junction of Gansu, Shaanxi, Sichuan and other provinces, and most of them were in the Longnan region.

During the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms, it also successively established Qiuchi, Qianqin, Houliang, Chenghan and other countries.

However, at this time in the Sui and Tang dynasties, most of them were integrated into the Han and Tuyuhun, and there were very few who were still independent.

The Tuyuhun merchants who came were mainly from the Metallurgical Department.

Yeli tribe is one of the Tuyuhun tribes, in the early years was to live in Tao, Min area, later the Central Plains Dynasty will be Taomin and other places to recover, Yeli seven retreat to Henan.

In the last war, the Metallurgical Department was the vanguard.

But Zhang Chao didn't care about this, anyway, he just came to talk about business today.

In addition to organizing many Taozhou merchants to come to trade, Zhang Chao also brought a lot of commodities to him, many of which were handed over to him by Li Shimin, including silk and tea.

On the Hanaka Peninsula, the two sides greeted each other, and after some introductions, they began to exchange markets.

Zhang Chao had already sorted out his caravan, and even compiled a target list for all the goods.

In order to facilitate trading, Zhang Chao uses the two simplest trading units for all commodities.

A pound of tea and a sheep.

All the commodities of the Han merchants have a reference price, and the unit of this price is tea.

After all, the copper coins of the Tang people are useless.

Both sides of the gold and silver are collected, but the units are too large to be traded.

The main commodities on the Tang merchants' side were silk and tea, as well as porcelain, books, paper, etc., while the commodities on the Fanshang side were mainly cattle, horses, sheep, furs, herbs, and even slaves.

Some Tuyuhun merchants openly traded the Han Chinese who had been taken captive last time as slaves as commodities.

One of the biggest troubles in doing business with these merchants is the lack of a currency that everyone can accept, and in most cases they can only barter.

Now Zhang Chao needs to agree on an exchange rate with these merchants.

A pound of tea is worth a few sheep Zhang Chao negotiated with these dealers and finally reached a relatively fair price.

A piece of one pound of tea bricks, in exchange for three sheep, or nine sheepskins.

Twelve sheep for a mare, fifteen sheep for a bull, thirty sheep for a camel.

This price, of course, is very advantageous for the Han merchants, and many of the tea used for trading are the tea produced in Shuzhong and Hanzhong, and there is no need for too good tea, and it is easy to preserve and transport when pressed into tea bricks.

Replaced with cattle, sheep and horses, as long as they are transported to Guanzhong and the Central Plains, the profit is very high.

This is equivalent to four catties of tea can be exchanged for a horse, five catties of tea can be exchanged for a cow, and ten catties of tea can be exchanged for a camel.

A cow in Chang'an can be sold for at least nearly 20,000 yuan, and a pound of tea is equivalent to selling for 4,000 yuan, and the gross profit can reach 1,000 percent.

You must know that in the Song Dynasty, the normal tea and horse market in the northwest was exchanged, but one hundred catties of tea was exchanged for a horse, and later it even reached two or three hundred catties of tea before a horse.

"A piece of cloth is worth five tea bricks, and a piece of silk is worth six tea bricks."

With tea and sheep as the unit of valuation, and with the mutually agreed transaction ratio, business is relatively easy to do.

Find each other what you want and trade them.

Zhang Chao even provided guarantees for all Han merchants to facilitate their transactions.

The goods brought by Zhang Chao to all the Han merchants and Hu merchants were valued according to the valuation, and the value of the sheep or how many catties of tea was given, and then Zhang Chao issued a village ticket to these merchants, which was in copper coins.

"These horses of yours are valued at a total of 100 catties of tea, and I will give you 400 Zhuang tickets."

Zhang Chao smiled and handed Ma Zhou a 400-guan Zhang Ji Qian Zhuang bank's banknote to the merchant of the Yeli tribe.

In fact, Zhang Chao's so-called Zhang Ji shop was his temporary idea, and the banker's ticket was just a piece of paper.

But this piece of paper does a good job.

When all the Hanhu merchants have conducted a price appraisal here with Zhang Chao, and they have all obtained the banker notes issued by Zhang Chao, their goods are actually temporarily mortgaged by Zhang Chao, and they all have the banker tickets in their hands, and they can directly buy what they want to buy, instead of having to consider bartering and whether the other party is willing to trade such items.

The goods still belong to the merchants, but they are only temporarily mortgaged by Zhang Chao and exchanged for banker bills to facilitate transactions.

Zhang Chao turned the merchants' own transactions into an auction led by him.

All the goods became Zhang Chao's lots, and he also managed to earn an auction fee, and even when the merchants obtained the appraisal from him and exchanged it for the banker's ticket, he also charged a handling fee, but this time, he only charged one percent of the handling fee.

Zhang Chao classified all the goods of these merchants and auctioned them in batches according to different types.

The rules of the auction are bidding.

This way of trading is new, but there is also a benefit.

That is, every product can get the attention of all interested buyers, so that interested parties can participate in the auction.

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It also saves time.

For the Fanhan businessmen present, this is a very fresh trading model.

One more chapter, sixteen chapters are still owed t1706231537: