Wucheng, a certain restaurant, the hall was filled with people, people with accents in Henan, Shannan and Hebei gathered in front of a wall, looking at a map hanging on the wall, and looking at a person in front of the map, pointing fingers.

The man held a wooden stick and pointed to the territory of Cangzhou on the map. He said excitedly: "Changlu Salt Field and its surrounding coastal salt fields have been piloted for several years. Now that the output has increased significantly this year, the white sea salt is yellow copper coins!"

"Originally, I had to take a long road route to transport the salt from Changlu Salt Field. Now it's different. I just need to transport the salt to the edge of Yongji Canal, load it up, and then go south along the canal and distribute it to all places."

"Everyone understands this principle. Now the Yongji Canal is fully open to navigation, but the salt in Changlu Salt Field is still not smooth to transport."

"What's the problem? The local big players control the ships. They raise prices on the ground, and the asking price is too high!"

"If you do business, you will be willing to do it. The price cannot be negotiated, the ship cannot move, and the government cannot manage it. But we still have a way, that is, to send our own fleet to transport salt."

"But what about the fleet that was agreed upon? Why haven't you set out yet? Are you not ready? No, the fleet hasn't arrived in Beizhou yet!"

"When passing through Xiangzhou, the fleet recruited workers at the dock, but was sued to the government, saying that it was a fugitive slave. Now it is unclear. It is consumed by the government, and the entire fleet cannot move!"

"How to solve this problem? Don't worry about it now. Today I'll call everyone here to come here to discuss a solution..."

When the man said this, he put away his whip and looked at everyone here: "The opening of the Trade Institute is good, and you must not mess it up like this. Now that the fleet is in trouble, we will reorganize a fleet. If there are not enough ships, let's get together."

"Now, report the situation of the ships under their respective names, collect them immediately, and make compensation later... The old rules will definitely not lose everyone."

As soon as the words were finished, everyone present spoke enthusiastically, one or two scrambling to report their numbers, willing to obey the recruitment to ensure that a fleet of ships was gathered as soon as possible and rushed to the border of Cangzhou to transport salt.

Doing salt transactions is huge profits. If you delay one more day, you will make less money, not to mention that the opening of the Tongshang Institute must be successful, otherwise you will be laughed at.

Since its establishment, the Institute of Commerce has taken promoting the development of industry and commerce as its mission, and has successively presided over several "big projects" and all of them have been successfully completed. Now that the financial path of Yongji Canal has just been opened, if the Institute of Commerce is not good for its leadership, it will be dull for the emperor.

Therefore, merchants registered in the Trade Institute are now "sharing against the enemy".

Originally, with the strength of the Trade Institute, it was not a problem to organize a fleet. The problem was that the Yongji Canal had just been opened to sail and there were too many places to use the ships. The official army temporarily mobilized and deployed defenses. In addition, the King of Yan was going to Youzhou to take office, so a large number of ships were needed to recruit.

The fleet that the Trade Institute originally planned to invest in Yongji Canal for shipping has been recruited. Now, when encountering an emergency, it can only rely on merchants to "make up the numbers".

If everyone draws out the ships that are already nervous at hand to "make up the numbers", the business will inevitably be affected, but that doesn't matter. After all, working together to do a good job of big things is the right way, and some losses suffered will definitely be made up in the future.

After all, the Trade Institute is a "one of our own people" and will never treat the merchants who are sincerely cooperating.

The preparation and construction of the emergency fleet was soon completed in a heated discussion. The next meeting topic was the progress of the implementation of the "commercial street" at the main wharfs along the Yongji Canal.

The construction of Yongji Canal has lasted for several years. In the river channel that was opened, the Trade and Commerce Institute has made plans based on local conditions and planned "commercial streets" where merchants gathered in many wharfs. Its supporting facilities have been speeding up in recent years.

Now that the Yongji Channel is fully open to navigation, various "commercial streets" built in advance have been completed one after another. Now, we are waiting for the merchants to officially settle in, and then start doing business and make a lot of money.

Of course, the merchants who settled in the "commercial street" of each terminal have obtained the license of the Commercial Bureau, and then have division of labor and are engaged in different business projects to avoid vicious competition and messing up the market.

Everything is in an orderly manner, even recruiting workers, but the problem is that the most troublesome thing is that the business that recruits workers is easily harassed.

The reason is that the farmers and tenants under the names of major households in various places saw that working is better than working as a cattle and horse, so they fled in large numbers and gathered at the docks along the Yongji Canal to find work. In this way, the master's family would not be able to sit still, so they would definitely get the people back, so there was a dispute.

However, most of these people were hidden households, so the master naturally could not sue the official, so he used all kinds of secret tricks to take the people away from the merchants who hired these so-called "escape slaves".

This is one of them. Secondly, some local big-name households try to monopolize employment and interfere between merchants and the people. If merchants want to hire people, they have to pass them first, and if the people want to find work, they have to pass them.

If the merchants directly recruit workers, these big players will use insidious tricks, causing chaos in the merchants or threatening ordinary people who are looking for work.

The above two situations have occurred in many places along the Yongji Canal, which has obviously affected the normal operation of merchants in various places. After all, when people open the door and do business, they pay attention to making money by making peace. If they are entangled with rogues all day long, they don’t have to do business.

Those local snakes have time to waste, but merchants cannot afford it unless they lose money and eliminate disasters.

But this kind of precedent cannot be opened. Once it is opened, there will be endless troubles. When the other party's appetite rises, it will only keep asking for more benefits.

As the protector of "registered merchants", the Trade Institute will never allow anyone to collect so-called "peaceful money" from merchants.

Not to mention that if someone monopolizes employment and charges commissions forcibly, it will directly increase the business costs of the merchant. This situation is something that the business institutes that have always been committed to creating a good business environment cannot tolerate.

In this situation, the Trade and Commerce Institute had already expected in advance, and the countermeasures adopted were of course to win over local big players to "join" and make a fortune together.

But the problem is that Hebei has a large population and every county has tens of thousands of households, so there are more than one family in the local area, and not everyone is willing to cooperate with outsiders.

In addition, the Institute of Commerce and Trade led the dumping of grain, which has long lowered grain prices in Hebei (the coast of Yongji Canal), and has invisibly offended many people.

Therefore, in the areas along the Yongji Canal, there are as many local snakes as they fight against foreign merchants.

If you want to bring all these local snakes into the house and make a fortune together, you will definitely have more monks and less porridge, so don’t think about the profits. So since someone is shameless now, the Trade Institute will not be polite.

Fighting, killing, etc. is too bad, it will damage the reputation of the Commercial Bureau and make it difficult for local governments to do it.

But the staff of the Trade Institute are very experienced in how to deal with local snakes.

The man saw that everyone present was his own people, so he said directly: "To this day, he still has to deal with the person he is fighting, that is, the enemy is not a friend, and the other party dares not come out openly. It doesn't matter if he plays foolishly, we will accompany him to the end!"

"Previously, we released grain at a low price. They wanted to take the opportunity to collect grain and hoard it. They had already fought for a round, and in the end we won. Now, they are here to play with the dark side again, so we are not afraid!"
Chapter completed!