Chapter 1 Five Years in a Sudden

The first day is warm and the spring breeze warms people, and time flies, and five years have passed.

In early spring, there is still a chill in the north, but on Qiongzhou Island in the south, flowers are already competing for beauty, and spring is back to the earth.

The sand on the beach was as fine as snow, and a group of children were jumping by the beach, picking up shells, and their small feet were walking on the tender beach, marking a bunch of small footprints.

Under a row of coconut trees, dozens of umbrellas were lined up in a row, and beauties were all lying beauties underneath, each of which was a peerless beauty, surrounded by groups of three or five, either watching the sea or playing games, wearing very exposed clothes, and her white thighs were exposed, making people dizzy. Fortunately, the guards were all female guards nearby. If it were a man, he might have made a huge mistake.

What's even more amazing is that the dress of these beauties is very modern. If they weren't for the tone and accent, they would probably think that they had traveled to the 21st century even when time travelers came - even their clothes were bikini-style, and their hairstyles were combed according to the style of later generations, and they were accompanied by sunglasses of different colors and the various juices in the glass... Even if later generations came, as long as they didn't talk to them, they would probably think that this was still in the 21st century.

But unfortunately, this place was not in the 21st century, but in the seventh century AD. Now it is the early spring of the 23rd year of Zhenguan, the Tang Dynasty.

The spring breeze in February made people's bones so soft that Li Zhen rarely took his spare time from the busyness and brought his wife and family to a place called Yalong Bay later in life. This place was still in a wilderness in this era, and even the entire island had no civilized atmosphere except for some indigenous people.

However, this situation was completely changed a year ago. Li Zhen sent a fleet here three years ago, and then spent two years building this place into the most picturesque scene of the Tang Dynasty (who is praised by the world, not Li Zhen’s narcissism). Not only this Yalong Bay, but also the interior of Qiongzhou Island is being transformed - after all, it is also a territory of the Tang Dynasty. Although it was used for exile at the beginning, with the continuous development of Lingnan and the establishment of the Lingnan Economic Circle centered on Yuezhou, many people have set their sights on it. However, Li Zhen was worried that they would destroy the environment here, so he started to build it himself. After all, if Li Zhen takes action, at least the best appearance can be maintained here.

Speaking of Lingnan’s current development, everyone who mentions this will give you a thumbs up and praise it as a good place.

Lingnan is no longer the Lingnan five years ago. Let’s not talk about anything else, let’s talk about the highways. Where can I talk about the roads in Lingnan five years ago? The mountain roads are rugged and difficult to walk. Only some big cities are paved with cement roads, and it would be nice to have a little gravel road in other places.

However, this situation was unremittingly worked by Wen Xueling (Little Dragon was set up and only appeared once. Because she looked very much like a star he hated, she was sent out by Li Zhen to detect the geological conditions of Lingnan). It took a whole year to figure out the geological conditions of Lingnan, and then it was completely changed after more than a year of detailed planning by the engineers.

The construction of the highway in Lingnan began five years ago. After Li Zhen invested nearly 100,000 slaves, and even insufficient slaves, the people of Lingnan independently set out to help, and many people lost their precious lives.

But there is reward for your efforts. After Li Zhen ignored the lives of the slaves at all costs and united with Lingnan, it took a full five years to completely change the road conditions in Lingnan.

Today, Lingnan is the most developed place in the Tang Dynasty road system. Not to mention cities, some villages have roads. Although it has not yet reached the perverted level of every village, it is quite good. After all, it was too luxurious in this era - not to mention that even if it has not reached the access to every village, it at least ensures that all the towns under Lingnan have access to roads, which greatly facilitates the travel of the people. It can be said that Li Zhen, even if he is just a civilian, is enough to be famous in history. As for the designers who built these roads, they were even carved by Li Zhen in Shibei Mountain to ensure that they can be famous throughout the ages.

However, in order to achieve such achievements, there is no price. Although the lives of slaves in the South China Sea are not worthwhile, even if the slaves are not counted, daily resource consumption is an astronomical figure, such as cement fees, money for purchasing explosives, tool losses, etc. Afterwards, Li Zhen asked someone to make a statistics. According to the statistical figures, Lingnan spent a lot of money equivalent to Lingnan's tax revenue last year for road construction alone.

And how much was the tax in Lingnan last year?

Thirteen million trump cards...

Among them, Yuezhou alone contributed 7 million guan. In terms of tax payment amount alone, this number has even surpassed Luoyang and Kaifeng, second only to Chang'an (8 million guan), and is the second largest tax-paying city of the Tang Dynasty. Moreover, Li Zhen was sure to increase this number to 10 million guan this year, completely leaving Chang'an behind. The reason why Chang'an has such high tax revenue is purely because the Tang Dynasty's strength triggered merchants from the Western Regions, especially Dashi. At this time, the stimulus of the Tang Dynasty, had completely killed Sassanthemum Persia, and the territory was already connected with the Tang Dynasty, and it was only separated by a desert in the Western Regions.

However, there are so many Jedi on the Silk Road, and the supply is quite limited. There are only so many caravans that can reach the Tang Dynasty through the Silk Road in a year. This number is constant. No matter how much it breaks out, it will definitely not exceed 10 million. This is the limit of Chang'an. Unless they increase taxes, high taxes will only scare away merchants.

However, Yuezhou is different. The taxes here mainly rely on navigation trade. The biggest feature of navigation trade is that they have strong liquidity and large cargo loading. A fleet can carry goods that exceed ten camel fleets on the Silk Road at one time. Moreover, because they can make money by trade, the tax revenue is also very high. Not only docking taxes are required, but transaction taxes are required after the transaction is completed. More importantly, as more and more people make money on overseas trips, even though five years have passed, the annual cargo ship holdings in Datang are still rising at an average annual rate of 10%.

Nowadays, the number of private private merchant ships in the Tang Dynasty has exceeded 5,000. Some large fleets go to sea at one time to hundreds of merchant ships. In addition, the existence of auxiliary boats, a piece of black can almost cover the sea area of ​​dozens of nautical miles. Some small-scale pirates dare not get close even if they are connected.
Chapter completed!