Yenan City, Dongshi North Street, there are crowds of people at the entrance of several bookstores lined up along the street. Boxes of books were carried out from the store and loaded onto a cart parked at the door. After filling up a cart, the next empty car was picked up.

Books transported from Huangzhou, Shannan are one of the hottest goods in the east city of Yecheng. Of course, when scholars hear this, they will denounce it as "indignant" but for merchants, what can make money is their goods.

Scholars are naturally not ashamed to be with merchants. Taking this into account, the bookstore has received more than one place to receive customers, and the noisy places are used to receive merchants from all over the country. The quiet private room is specially reserved for literary scholars to read books.

Customers with different identities have filled these bookstores. In sharp contrast, the business of those bookstores in the East City was much worse.

Unlike other places, Huangzhou's books are "line-bound books", not a volume that has been common for hundreds of years, and the text on the books is "printed" and not handwritten.

The paper quality is good and the variety of books is rich. The key is that the price is also appropriate. Therefore, these bookstores specializing in Huangzhou books quickly robbed the original bookstores.

With the novel "printing technique", thread-bound books defeated traditional hand-written books. Even though these books were transported from Huangzhou thousands of miles away, their final price was cheaper than traditional bookstores' hand-written books.

Apart from the price factor, another advantage is the quality of the book. The content of a thousand books printed using printing is the same. During the hand-copying process of the mailman, it is inevitable that there will be typos, other words or even missing words.

This novel printing technique is called woodblock printing. As long as it is made into woodblocks, books can be printed in large quantities. However, even though the local bookstores in Yecheng learned this trick, they still cannot compete with the bookstores that operate Huangzhou books.

Because in Xiyang, Huangzhou, a large number of carved papers have been prepared in a large number of carved papers. Apart from lonely scrolls, broken scrolls or books collected by the high-ranking families, it almost includes all the common books on the market, and then it is mass printing.

The most expensive thing about woodblock printing is to make woodblocks, and as long as there is a woodblock, you can publish books. Huangzhou's bookstores have a large number of woodblocks, and can print the books that customers want at any time, and then make small profits but quick returns. This alone can't compare to the bookstores elsewhere.

Not to mention that ink is also of particular importance. The ink used for printing in Huangzhou Bookstore is obviously different from other places.

The printed font is round, plump and very clear, and it will not dissipate even if it is soaked with some water. There must be something strange about this ink, but no one can imitate it.

Even if it is copied, it is useless, because the selling point of Huangzhou books is not this, but that some famous artists make proofreading books.

Liu Zhuo and Liu Xuan, a famous scholar of the Confucian scholars known as "Er Liu", now live in Xiyang, Huangzhou, teach at the provincial school, and also do proofreading books for Huangzhou's bookstores. The same is true for other well-known scholars. With these people doing proofreading books, the quality of Huangzhou books must be guaranteed.

A well-proofed carved paper can print thousands of books day and night, with absolutely the same content, and it is not as easy to miss all kinds of mistakes like hand-written books. For books proofread by famous artists, readers can read with confidence without fear of being misled by mistakes.

Based on the above advantages, it is not surprising that Huangzhou books have become popular goods. However, Huangzhou merchants took this as a breakthrough point and gained a foothold in the east city of Yecheng. There are also stores selling colored cloths, summer cloths, soaps, white porcelain, tea and transparent glass products.

Gradually, this section of street became a "Huangzhou Street", and goods from Huangzhou can be bought here, and merchants from the north come here to purchase goods and then ship them to various places for sale, so the popularity of the entire street has been boosted.

Antulu stopped and watched the prosperous street scene, turned around and walked into the restaurant to a private room. Liu Ping had been waiting for a long time, and the two were very familiar with each other, so after a brief greeting, they took their seats and started talking about things.

As the head of the Xiyang Royal Mansion industry in Yecheng, Liu Ping, like other Huangzhou merchants, had to deal with local owners and shopkeepers every day, and Antulu was often his guest.

Antulu is a Sogdian Hu merchant. He has his own connections in Yecheng and has close ties with other local wealthy merchants. Therefore, he is an important partner for Huangzhou merchants to expand their business in Yecheng.

Huangzhou merchants were doing business in Yecheng thanks to the help of Antulu and others, but this was mutual benefit. Several wealthy merchants such as Antulu also benefited from this cooperation and mastered the supply of hot-selling goods in Huangzhou.

And now there are a few more types, that are overseas incense medicines.

The Sogdians are a business nation. Over the past hundreds of years, countless Sogdian caravans have traveled between the East and the West. Therefore, the popular incense medicine in the Central Plains is actually the goods they sell all year round. Why do they now purchase goods from Huangzhou merchants?

It was very simple. Zhou Jun took over the Lingbiao area and included Guangzhou under his rule. Guangzhou Panyu Port is a well-known trading port in China and abroad. Many incense medicines that Sogdians could not acquire or were unable to acquire in large quantities can be bought from the maritime merchants in Panyu Port.

For example, precious incense medicines such as sandalwood and ambergris are produced in coastal countries such as India, Lion Kingdom or Funan. If sold to Persia or Funan, it will also be huge profits.

The Sogdians do land trade, so it is difficult to find enough sources of goods. Now Huangzhou merchants have set up some places to do business in Panyu, so Antuo smelled the business opportunities and had to prepare in advance.

Lingbiao has been under the jurisdiction of the State of Zhou. I think many wealthy merchants can organize caravans to Guangzhou to make money by themselves, but Antulu knows that since it was the one who took Guangzhou, others should get a share of the pie to satisfy their cravings, but it is difficult to not give "sincerity" if they want to eat enough.

"The king means that of course you can't eat alone, but the commercial road from Lingbiao to Guangzhou to Huangzhou, Shannan, took a lot of time to open up. Not to mention that the station needs to be rectified or renovated, even the powerful people along the way have to manage some things, so there is no reason why others can share their meat without eating enough."

"I wonder what kind of effort can An take?"

"Does Mr. An have old friends in Qingzhou?"

Antulu was stunned when he heard this, but soon figured out the key. He pondered for a moment and said, "If it were Qingzhou, An would be powerless. After all, he had never been involved in maritime trade."

The east of Qingzhou is the sea. Liu Ping asked Antuo this question, but in fact he pointed out the implication: the land distance from Guangzhou to Huangzhou and then to Yecheng is too far, so the King of Xiyang is very likely to consider loading Fanyu's cargo and transporting it to the north by sea.

"It's okay, it's not bad, I'm not to hide it. Liu from Qingzhou is already thinking of a solution. I won't mention the matter of the sea boat. How should the goods be transported to Yecheng after they arrive at the port? An Langjun should be sure, right?"

"No problem!" Antulo answered very simply. He looked happy and knew that the other party was planning to give in. This would be the right deal for Lingbiao.

The cooperative relationship between Antulu and King Xiyang is getting closer and closer. Since the other party regards him as half of his own, some news should be revealed to the other party in time. Antulu knows that Liu Ping is responsible for handling the transactions of King Xiyang in Yecheng, so Liu Ping knows some news, and I think King Xiyang can also know it.

"Shopkeeper Liu, I wonder what he thinks about the current situation?"

"Uh, Liu is ignorant, please give me some advice?"
Chapter completed!