Handan City.

Another court discussion had just been held, and everyone's faces were full of joy.

Fei Yi touched his completely white beard and smiled: "When the king just proposed the theory of unification of the world a few years ago, the old minister actually disagreed. Now he realized that it was indeed the old minister who was old and could not keep up with the times. According to the momentum of Da Zhao, it is probably only a few years before the world can be unified! The old minister really didn't expect that in this lifetime, he could see that the whole world belongs to Da Zhao!"

Fei Yi's words were immediately approved by everyone present.

Si Kou Zhou Qi sighed: "Yes, yes, a few years ago, the Great Zhao was only the second and third country among the seven Warring States countries. At that time, Qi was at its peak, Qin dominated the Western Regions, and there were strong enemies on both sides of the east and west. As ministers of Great Zhao, we were not trembling with fear? I didn't expect that Da Zhao had grown to this point in just a few years. It was really incredible. Not to mention anything else, the newly added officials of our Si Kou Office in recent years are already twice as many as before. There is no way, there are too many things."

Lieutenant Zhao Wen smiled and said, "Look, you are complaining because you have a lot of land and many business now. By the way, let the king give you a budget for next year."

Everyone laughed in unison.

Zhou Qi smiled and glared at Zhao Wen, saying, "You Lieutenant Zhao is amazing. You are the biggest voice when you make a budget, right?"

Zhao Wen laughed and shrugged his shoulders, as if you were to say that I would not retaliate.

As the monarch, Zhao He sat in the upper head, smiling and watching the ministers in the lower head make jokes and teasing each other.

This is the first court discussion after New Year's Day. It is like going to work on the first day after the Spring Festival holiday in later generations. It must be talk and laughing, not that serious.

After a long time of lively, Fei Yi coughed and said, "Okay, everyone should start talking about the serious business."

As an old minister of the three dynasties and a prime minister who has been in power for many years, Fei Yi's words are naturally very useful, so everyone immediately restrained their smiles and waited for Fei Yi to raise the issue.

As for Zhao He, although he was the king, he had been fighting for the past six months, so he did not play the role of this host.

Fei Yi said: "Today we are mainly discussing two things. First, the businessmen and business issues of Dazhao, and secondly, the issue of the upcoming Handan Alliance. In my opinion, the business issues of merchants are more important, so it is best to discuss them first."

After Fei Yi finished speaking, the other ministers of Zhao present couldn't help but look surprised. Someone couldn't help asking: "What's the best for business affairs? Is it more important than the alliance of the Four Nations?"

Fei Yi yelled and said, "You don't know. Da Zhao's business is not the same as before!"

Fei Yi stroked his beard and began to talk.

After successive victories, this place has now become the busiest and most prosperous city in the Central Plains and even the entire China.

Countless scholars gathered here, hoping to be appreciated by the king of Zhao and get the opportunity to become an official in Zhao.

Countless businessmen gathered here, hoping to discover greater business opportunities, and at the same time, they also wanted to use the power of Zhao State to ensure their safety in business.

The benefits of doing business in Zhao State are obvious. The ginseng from Shangdang County, the silk from Linzi, the dancers and iron tools from Handan, the war horses and cattle and sheep from the northern counties are all popular goods, and they can also hire rangers from Yanzhao as guards.

More importantly, doing business between Zhao does not require passing through the borders of one country after another, and does not require the commercial tax to be levied over and over again, so that the benefits that merchants can get far better than before.

Not only that, Zhao He also set up a Ministry of Commerce specializing in commercial affairs in Handan for the first time.

The Ministry of Commerce was established three years ago and was affiliated with the Xiangbang Office at the beginning, but it was just a department that seemed inconspicuous.

But as time went by and workload increased, the most important thing was the expansion of the scale of Zhao's business, which made the Ministry of Commerce now an important department of Xiangbang's official residence. Its person in charge also became more and more important from a minor official at the beginning to a confidant from Fei Yi and the head of the Xiangbang official director Shi himself.

Zhao He believes that as long as Zhao's business can continue to develop vigorously, sooner or later, the Ministry of Commerce will be completely independent and its head will become a member of the core officials of Zhao.

Of course, there is no reason why the monarchs of feudal dynasties value agriculture and suppress commerce, and there are also people with knowledge in all dynasties. Why has always been a national policy of Chinese dynasties been the unavoidable topic in history - commerce is to compete with agriculture for population.

For example, if a businessman opens a store, he needs to hire a few friends, a accounting office, and a shopkeeper. If he wants to purchase goods, he has to hire a coachman. If the goods are valuable, he has to hire a few bodyguards.

After a rough calculation, at least about ten young and middle-aged laborers will be gone, and this is just the smallest and most ordinary small shop in Handan market. There are not ten thousand or eight thousand shops like this in Handan!

This is just a small shop. If you consider those larger shops and even workshops, the scale effect of devouring labor is even more amazing.

Once the population is concentrated in the city in large quantities, no one will cultivate the farmland, and no one will cultivate the farmland, which means that people will go hungry. The so-called food is the most important thing for people. This is obviously a situation that the monarchs do not like to see. Therefore, it is inevitable to suppress business and businessmen and prevent excessive labor from entering business from agriculture.

Business changes to Zhao State more than these aspects.

Fei Yi said here, glanced at Si Kou and Zhou Qi next to him, and said, "Zhou Si Kou, has the number of commercial cases you received from you coming in and receiving significantly?"

Zhou Zhi pondered for a moment and said, "It's true, it's increasing year by year."

Fei Yi looked at Lieutenant Zhao Wen again and said, "Lieutenant Zhao, is there a increase in the number of people reporting and handling collusion between officials and businessmen on your side?"

Zhao Wen pondered for a moment and nodded in agreement.

Fei Yi continued to ask one by one, and indeed, in the relevant jurisdictions of several other important officials, business-related affairs are also growing continuously.

Fei Yi spread his hands and said, "Did you all see it? Businesses and businessmen have actually had a great impact on Da Zhao. If you cannot pay attention to this and handle it well, there is a very likely chaos in the future."

Regarding Fei Yi's warning, some of the important officials of Zhao State present obviously disagreed with their faces, but Zhao He, who was sitting on the throne at the top, felt a little moved.

What will merchants become if they continue to develop? Of course, Zhao He knew that, that is, capitalists.

In later generations, the influence of capitalists on the country and even the entire world is well known.

Even though this era is far from comparable to later generations, this is indeed a matter that must be paid attention to.

I have to say that Fei Yi, as a governor of Zhao for many years, has rich experience and can detect this problem that no one else has noticed.

In fact, there were not many countries as vast as Zhao before, and Qin and Chu could also be considered as those of them.

But the problem is that Shang Yang's reforms in Qin State were extremely advocated by the small peasant landlord economy and hated and suppressed business. Although Chu State did not hate business, the corruption and exploitation of the nobles in the country were extremely serious, which made the businesses in their respective areas difficult.

Zhao State is the only exception. This exception is of course from Zhao He's knowledge as a time traveler that made him understand the importance of business to a country. It is also because Zhao State's Legalism thought of governing the country is based on the cautious theory of "power" and although it is the same Legalist as Shang Yang's "law" in Qin State, it is like the Qi Sect and the Jian Sect of the Huashan School.

If we also use a GDP statistics now, Zhao State will undoubtedly easily defeat all other countries.

Zhao He thought for a while and said, "Let's do this, you should take more attention to the matter of the Ministry of Commerce. After Lin Xiangru comes back, let Lin Xiangru solve this matter."

After Zhao He finished speaking, the faces of many ministers changed at the same time.

In just this sentence, Zhao He revealed at least two information.

First of all, the king attached great importance to the Ministry of Commerce and attached extraordinary importance to it, otherwise Fei Yi would not have paid attention to it, and then Lin Xiangru would have given him the presidency.

Secondly, the king seemed to have regarded Lin Xiangru as Fei Yi's successor.

None of these two information can definitely affect the national policy of Zhao and even the future situation in the mainland. Even for the many important officials of Zhao who were present, it will also have a profound impact on their political interests.

The hall was in a short silence.

Zhao Heqing let out a sigh and said with a smile: "Okay, let's talk about the alliance next."

The biggest advantage of being a time traveler is that you can look at problems from a historical perspective.

The opposition between commerce and agriculture is ultimately due to insufficient productivity that leads to mutual competition for populations.

There are actually two ways to resolve this opposition and conflict once and for all.

The first is to increase grain yield. A specific example is hybrid rice in later generations. When the grain yield is increased to a small number of people, it is not a problem.

The second is to continue to improve the productivity of business. When productivity increases to a high degree of automation, mechanization, and even when machinery can replace labor from production to transportation to sales, this problem is also solved.

At the current level of Zhao State, it is obviously impossible to achieve any of these two "crazy" answers.

Fortunately, although Zhao He cannot cure the root cause, he can still cure the symptoms.

How to do it?

The answer is very simple, war!

War can continuously bring new and extremely cheap labor to Zhao State, more land, richer resources, larger markets and commodity dumping places.

Therefore, both business and agriculture can benefit from war.

As long as Zhao State can continue to win in the war, as long as Zhao State's territory and population continue to expand, this problem will be suppressed to a reasonable level and will not be so sharp that it is about to break out. Zhao He will not have to choose one of them and ignore the other like those monarchs in history.

To a certain extent, this also implies the characteristics of the military merit system - expansion, expansion again!

Of course there will be efforts and sacrifices, but those who give and sacrifice will never be the people of Zhao State, but those who live on the land that was defeated and conquered by Zhao State.

Is this fair?

Of course it is not fair.

However, people have a standpoint.

As the monarch of Zhao, Zhao He was of course thinking about the interests of Zhao and seeking the welfare of the people of Zhao.

If Zhao He harmed the interests of Zhao and the people of Zhao because of the interests of other countries, then he would have been kicked out of his mind.

This is what is called "position determines thinking", or to put it more bluntly, "the butt determines the head".

...

After Zhao He made the final decision, many ministers of Zhao State present were no longer confused, but began to discuss the next issue, which was the alliance of the four countries of Zhao, Wei, Han and Chu that was about to be held.

No, it's not the Four Kingdoms.

Zhao He coughed and said, "This time, someone made a suggestion to me, hoping that Da Zhao could allow Xue Gongtian Wen to participate in this meeting. I wonder what you think?"

After escaping from Daliang City, Tian Wen was removed from Xiangbang's position by the King of Wei and was publicly wanted.

In addition, the King of Wei also transferred Mangmao's troops from Hedong County to return to the army, asking Mangmao to lead his troops to attack Tian Wen's fiefdom, hoping to destroy Tian Wen.

Tian Wen also did not sit idly by, but made an extremely bold move, which was to announce his fiefdom to leave Wei State and establish himself as Xue State, and at the same time sent an envoy to ask the Emperor of Zhou for enthronement.

For example, Qin State had no mind to pay attention to the establishment of Xue State, while South Korea and Chu State maintained subtle silence.

The only one who admitted Xue State at the first time was Lu State, whose lips and teeth were cold.

With the help of Lu State, although Xue State was captured by Mangmao, the core area was still under the control of Tian Wen.

Since winter has arrived, the war inevitably stagnated. After hearing about the news of the Handan League, Tian Wen came in person immediately.

As long as Zhao can stand on the side of Xue, Wei will obviously be completely unfair.

After listening to Zhao He's words, the ministers of Zhao State fell into thinking one after another.

The State of Xue and Wei obviously seem to be in a completely opposite situation.
Chapter completed!