Zhuge Liang was also quite happy to see his sister after returning to Lanzhou, although it was not surprising. After all, Zhuge Zhi was invited by him in person at the beginning of the year.

When Li Su and Zhuge Liang arrived, Zhuge Zhi had been here for more than half a month. She had inspected the industrial and commercial investment environment near Lanzhou County. She had already had a lot of thoughts and did make several small investments.

Zhuge Zhi also invited her younger brother to drink and greet her at the Langshui Ferry in the west of the city and the northern foot of Gaolan Mountain to visit her new industry.

The villa is very simple and is still a large construction site. After all, the houses have only been built for more than half a month, and some private houses are still bought ready-made.

The foot of Gaolan Mountain is Zhuge's new cotton cloth factory. You can see from the female boss's villa that one or two thousand cotton looms have been invested in the factory. However, due to the haste, it has been built so that weavers can be asked to put into production, but there are only five or six hundred, and the others are still in semi-finished state.

However, if it is just a "simple repetition and expansion reproduction" that does not require creativity, just send a housekeeper to manage it. There is no need for Zhuge Zhi to personally inquire about it.

Zhuge Zhi came in person and conducted in-depth investigations. Obviously, she noticed that there are still many problems in the industrial and commercial construction planning in Xiliang, and there are too many places that need improvement and activation.

When Zhuge Zhi invited Zhuge Liang and Li Su to dinner, she didn't see her and asked her directly:

"Right General, I'm sorry, the young woman said bluntly that I came to Lanzhou County for half a month. Except for the Diannong Zhonglang General Guoyuan Guozini, it is still reliable. At least it has made the military farming and popularizing cotton planting orderly. The other plans are too bad and cannot mobilize the role of private wealthy business investment to accelerate construction."

Li Su smiled slightly: "Oh? You mean the original plan. It was because the local governments in Lanzhou County had not had time to rectify them all. In fact, Aliang and I arrived here at the end of February and had already put forward a lot of opinions. Some of them had already done it, while others had not had time."

Zhuge Zhi took a sip of sweet rice wine and waved her hand to stop Li Su's defense:

"I have also inquired about what you said, "How to speed up the progress of the construction of the dike in Liujiaxia to plan the project volume", "How to adjust the planning of the downstream water truck workshop area", "How to build more warehousing and improve logistics and reduce the seasonal idleness of water conservancy facilities", "How to maintain and improve the service life of the water truck in the dry season in winter", to be honest, these are all technical small fuss.

After all, you are looking at the problem from the perspective of an official, and have not really stood in the perspective of a businessman, and have thought about how to inspire and lure the enthusiasm of merchants to burst out. Your lazy government is ineffective and unwilling to reform and optimize our business atmosphere from a system perspective."

Zhuge Zhi's words were really overwhelming. Among the four rectification suggestions she quoted above, two of them were proposed by Zhuge Liang himself two months ago, and the last one was proposed by Huang Yueying.

Zhuge Zhi scolded her younger brother directly, and she was really merciless.

Li Su was also slightly shocked: What kind of monster did his butterfly effect release? Could it be that someone in the Zhuge family could burst out with such great confidence by forcing them to devote themselves to doing business? Is there really a lot of epoch-making ideas?

Li Su didn't think that Zhuge Zhi's IQ could be compared with Zhuge Liang. However, among all the brothers and sisters of the Zhuge family, Zhuge Zhi was the closest to Zhuge Liang, and perhaps he had communicated more since childhood.

In addition, for the sake of the family's interests, he has embarked on different paths and different directions of struggle. Zhuge Zhi has specialized in doing business and inspiring business enthusiasm.

Zhuge Liang has been focusing on technology and science knowledge since four or five years ago, and later focused on reading books and studying government affairs. It is normal for him to motivate money to be less sensitive than his sister.

Li Su asked humbly: "Miss Zhuge, but it doesn't matter. Any suggestions that make us 'not lazy' can promote industry and commerce, so we will adopt it."

Zhuge Zhi was embarrassed to say it too bluntly and suggested tactfully: "The land of Xiliang is far and vast, far better than Yizhou. However, the terrain is flat, and it lacks a coherent river transport system, so the long-distance freight loss is still huge, and the ruling collection is inconvenient.

I have been here for half a month and I have also seen General Right vigorously promote water and land chariots, and even avoid private "patent fees". Anyone who wants to build them can do it. This is certainly beneficial to the people. But the officials and people in Xiliang are too poor for too long, so they can develop slowly by themselves. I am afraid they can't spend too much money to build caravans and transport materials to develop industry and commerce.

According to the governance of General Guan and Xu County Magistrate, after this autumn harvest, there will be a bumper harvest of cotton in Zhangye, Wuwei, Jiuquan and other places, and there will be not enough vehicles and ships to transport the lint to Guanzhong and even Guandong in the east. I hope to trade routes in the Western Regions, but I am afraid that the sales volume will not be large. Wouldn’t it be a waste of money?

Money and materials must be produced and spent immediately, and new materials will be transformed into expanded production. This way, industrial and commercial construction will be faster. How can goods be kept waiting?"

Li Su smiled helplessly: "Everyone understands the truth, what do you think you should do?"

Zhuge Zhi gritted her teeth and said some ruthless words: "My idea is not yet mature. Then we will take shape slowly on the road of traveling west. At present, there is only a little prototype. Please correct the right general.

I think that today's merchants buy low and sell high, and they are responsible for their own profits and losses. They will not directly ask the owner for the money for "transport". For example, 100 kilograms of lint may only cost 2,000 yuan in Zhangye, and then transport it to Wuwei, and then transport it to Lanzhou for processing in the waterwheel spinning workshop here, and sell it for 2,500 yuan.

After the water wheel is spinning, the loss is removed and it becomes 90 kilograms of yarn, worth 3,000 yuan, and can weave three wide and thick cotton steps. After weaving, the finished cloth is sold for 3,000 yuan per piece, and the weaving process is twice as much as possible. The cost of each step is to repay the price of the next product.

In this way, when every merchant is transporting what goods does not transport what goods, and when processing what business does not process, he must first calculate what is the most profitable. Every merchant calculates it, and spends more energy? Moreover, some businesses are in short supply and will raise prices in the future, but the merchant responds very slowly. You said that you have a specialty in your profession, and you must let the person who does something focus on doing it so that you can do the best.

Therefore, some merchants should not care about the interests of each item. The price difference between the various places is to focus on investing money, grain and materials, making vehicles and ships to achieve equal savings, and clearly mark prices. In places where there are no waterways in the Hexi Corridor, how much does a caravan transport cargo of 100 kilograms and 100 miles cost?

Any merchant thinks that the freight is profitable and can make a profit when selling his goods. If he is willing to take advantage of it, he will hire the merchandise that operates the car and ship to help him transport it. The merchandise and ship shop will not take risks, regardless of whether the cargo owner's goods will lose or make money after they arrive. Those who transport things will focus on shipping, without using their brains to calculate the prices in various places, which can allow wealthy people with more money to invest money quickly to expand their transportation capacity."

Li Su's eyes lit up. Zhuge Zhi's idea did take "professional people to do professional things" to a new level.

Just like after the West entered the late period of the Age of Great Discovery, the company system was improved, and the maritime logistics industry was extracted separately. The Western ship owners in the early Age of Great Discovery were all responsible for their own profits and losses. For example, when the Portuguese Spaniards were just engaging in the sea, they were often also cargo owners, and they made money by making the difference in goods.

Gradually, when the Dutch were about to rise in the navigation industry, it became this contracted transportation system. Anyway, the Dutch would charge you how much freight for a ton of cargo and a hundred nautical miles. If you follow the ship, the cargo owner will not be jealous of the ship owner.

In this way, the Dutch people are called "sea coachmen", which greatly reduces the threshold for the navigation industry, and the categories of things transported are also explosive. Because as long as you know sailing, you don't have to know how to do business, you don't have to have a high level of culture, or even have to settle accounts too well, you don't have to observe the market and take responsibility for your own profits and losses, just transport the freight to the place.

Li Su encountered this situation in Liangzhou now: people with a lot of money don’t have the energy to examine which business is the most profitable one by one, and their cognition and investigation speed restricted her investment speed.

Those who understand the local market and do business have less capital to expand rapidly to build so many caravans, and they can't afford to take risks even if they want to-

Of course, even if a new "logistics company" bears the risk of logistics expenditure, it still needs to be mortgaged. The goods themselves are mortgages. If the value of the goods is not as high as the freight, the "logistics company" can definitely not carry it.

After being shipped to the place, if you find that the owner has a poor vision and the profit after selling the goods is not enough to bear the freight, there is no way. You can only detain the goods at the logistics company and let the logistics company auction off the freight, and return the remaining ones to the owner after selling them.

After thinking about these principles, Li Su felt that Zhuge Zhi's method was indeed worth deepening. If done, it would definitely accelerate the start of industrial and commercial construction in Liangzhou for a few years. It would also have certain benefits for opening up the Western Regions trade route and making Western Regions trade more prosperous.

If many adventurers in small Western countries cannot afford the transportation capital, they can take risks and leverage. As long as they have the money to purchase goods, they will mortgage the goods to the transportation company for transportation. In this way, the original threshold for doing business will be reduced from "you can take out the money to buy goods and shipping costs" to the level of "you can enter the market as long as you can take out half of it", and mortgage the goods once.

Of course, the risk is also doubled when doubled leverage. Once you lose a lot of money, you will be cleared directly if you lose all your money.

Historically, in the Alabachian Mountains before 1830, and in the westward advance between 1830 and 1850, large caravan companies were engaged in full-time transportation business, with a charge of 100 pounds of cargo and a 100-mile land mileage. It was also considered convenient to meet a river where you can go. After 1850, the American railway industry rose, and these caravan companies were eliminated. Of course, several of the more visionary tycoons directly switched to railways.

Li Su decided to set a tone first, and said sincerely: "Miss Zhuge, this proposal is very good... However, there are still many details to be discussed. If you can organize a transporter by yourself by relying on the private sector, you may not have discussed this matter with me. There must be some difficulties, and I thought of some difficulties."

Zhuge Zhi: "There are indeed many difficulties. For example, when it was just starting out, the cargo owner might not trust the major transporters. Many places in the Western Regions are vast and sparsely populated, and they are regarded as illegal places. They must have credit endorsements from the imperial government.

I see the office system before the imperial court, and merchants trust it more. However, the offices of the imperial court only deliver letters but not goods. If private merchants can be hired to contract part of the mission, but retain the offices of the imperial court, it will definitely be of great help to the credit in the initial stage. There are also many difficulties, let’s slowly discuss on the way west."

Li Su also expressed his support. Several people rested overnight in Zhuge's villa and embarked on the road to continue their journey westward the next day.

It is definitely impossible to abolish all the imperial stations and contract them to individuals, because the station system is guaranteed and must ensure the smooth flow of information between the ruling jurisdictions and the central government in the country. Merchants are too irresponsible.
Chapter completed!