Chapter 239: If successful, help all under heaven

"This... is too much, isn't it?"

Yin A Shu, his eyes full of greed, watched as boxes of silver were carried down, his eyes shining.

In Great Tang, currency was scarce, and gold and silver were extremely valuable.

These few boxes of silver ingots were truly worth a city.

"Worth every coin."

Lin Dao clapped his hands. "To buy this coal mine, this should be enough."

A daughter beautiful enough to catch the eye of powerful nobles, then throwing her weight around by borrowing their power—such things have existed since ancient times.

This Yin A Shu was not the first, and could not be the last.

This coal mine had originally been snatched by him using his influence; he had no capital at all.

Now being able to exchange it for so much expensive precious metal, he was naturally delighted.

The only problem was—

"You are from the Qin Wangfu. If the Crown Prince finds out, I fear it won't be easy to handle."

Lin Dao simply denied it. "Don't randomly assign me an identity; I am not from the Qin Wangfu."

"Not?" Yin A Shu didn't believe him. "If not, then why would Changsun Wuji run around buying a mine for you?"

Not to say much—just say ten years later, besides Li Er and his son, who in Great Tang would dare call Changsun Wuji by name directly?

For now, Li Yuan and Li Jiancheng were the nominal masters of Great Tang.

The flies and dogs clinging to them were all more arrogant than the last.

This was the true turning of the wheel of fortune.

"It's because they need me."

Lin Dao kicked the box beside him. "You can't bear to part with the silver?"

Staring at Lin Dao for a while, a smile appeared on Yin A Shu's handsome face.

"You're right, who can't bear to part with silver—"

Don't believe the stereotyped faces in film and TV; villains are not all ugly and short.

Although his name was Yin A Shu, he was not actually shifty-eyed.

Actually, his daughter could be beautiful enough to catch the eye of the old lecher Li Yuan; as a father, how could he be ugly? Genetically it just didn't add up.

Unless~~~

Yin A Shu, riding a horse, kept turning his head to look at Lin Dao.

He instructed his servants: "Arrange people to keep watch on him."

"Find out clearly what exactly he wants these coals for."

"As for this silver, take out half and send it to the palace."

He still cared more about his daughter.

Knowing his daughter needed money to compete for favor.

After earning a sum, the first thing he thought of was giving half to his daughter.

Unlike Zhang Jieyu's father.

Rampant all day, committing every evil.

Now someone had killed him, and no one knew who did it.

As for this Lin Dao, once they found out exactly what he wanted to do—

then they would just snatch everything away at once.

In this Great Tang, as long as his daughter continued to be favored, he feared no one!

This was the power under rules and institutions.

The common people in the villages near the coal mine recently had a new source of income.

Carrying coal on their backs.

Ten jin of coal for one wen; carrying dozens of jin, a basket of coal up from the mine, that was several wen.

The purchasing power of currency during the Wude era: one wen could buy about one jin of millet.

Such high wages—even during the busy autumn harvest, the common people in nearby villages would make time to come down to the mine, carry several frames of coal up, and exchange them for money.

In Guanzhong of the Tang dynasty, soil erosion was not yet as severe as in later generations.

Near Chang'an City, there were many rivers of all sizes.

Beside the coal mine, river water flowed past.

Lin Dao opened a coal-washing factory on the open ground by the riverbank.

Called a coal-washing factory, it was actually just the simplest open-air rinsing.

Coal gangue and such would all be screened out.

Truly useful coal powder and coal lumps were mixed with lime, red and yellow mud, stirred together, and made into honeycomb coal.

Besides the basic raw materials, combustion accelerants were also mixed in.

The combustion accelerants were mainly charcoal powder, nitrates, potassium permanganate, carbonized sawdust, etc.

The hired villagers, holding ball machines, shaped the damp coal raw materials into blocks of honeycomb coal.

After these honeycomb coals dried and solidified, they were loaded onto four-wheeled horse carts and sent to the West Market for sale.

Lin Dao took over a shop beside the restaurant selling mutton paomo, specializing in selling iron stoves, kettles, and honeycomb coal.

These days there was no widespread advertising.

Li Erfeng was not at home; they couldn't invite this top traffic to go all over the city to proclaim 'Honeycomb coal is good—those who have used it know~~'

Lin Dao used the simplest method.

Outside the shop, a row of ten-plus stoves was set up, loaded with honeycomb coal to boil water directly.

The kettles for boiling water were forged by the blacksmiths, and the aluminum alloy raw materials were brought by Lin Dao.

Sure enough, the roaring flames and the whistling kettles attracted countless people's attention.

When one succeeds, one should help the world.

Lin Dao could do little for now; temporarily helping the common folk distressed by rising firewood prices, so they could save some expenses.

At the same time, he was also fishing.

How the entire Great Tang imperial court reacted would decide how Lin Dao would ultimately act.

If Li Erfeng or Li Jiancheng were suitable, he would support them, opening commercial markets through support to earn profits.

If neither were suitable~

Then he would do it himself!

As for the standard of suitability, it was very simple.

Put the people first.

These people were not the scholars of aristocratic clans.

They were the true farmers facing the yellow earth with backs to the sky, the soldiers crawling through ice and snow and slaughtering on the battlefield, the common folk hauling a cart of charcoal weighing over a thousand jin!

The prices Lin Dao sold at were extremely cheap, basically at cost.

Good effect, and cheap price.

The business of stoves and honeycomb coal quickly became booming.

Compared to firewood and charcoal, the advantage was too great.

And the most popular was the aluminum alloy kettle.

Even some people who didn't buy stoves still wanted to buy a kettle to take home.

After all, only those who had used it knew how important, and how luxurious, boiling hot water was.

West Market, as the most prosperous place for commerce within Chang'an City.

Traveling merchants, city households, and exterior farmers quickly spread the goods and news everywhere.

The booming product naturally attracted those with business acumen.

The first to arrive were a group of Hu merchants.

These Hu merchants from distant Western Regions countries, and even from the more distant Zhao Wu Nine Surnames, immediately wanted to buy the technology upon arrival.

They produced bags of spices, gems, and even brought out a group of Hu courtesans.

To exchange for Lin Dao's stove, kettle, and honeycomb coal technology.

"Technology is not for sale."

Lin Dao, sitting on a Hu stool, had a relaxed expression "Especially cannot be sold to Hu people."

"I am no fool who gives women and technology!"

The Hu merchants did not pester, but immediately proposed to buy all goods.

"How much goods do you have? We want them all."

Of course not to transport back to their homeland with camels over a thousand li.

But to resell to big merchants everywhere, shipping the goods to all parts of Great Tang for sale.

Marking up the price several or ten times, reselling for profit.

"Buy all goods?"

Lin Dao also smiled "Fine, business delivered to the door must be done."

"At current prices, selling to you at a hundred times markup."

The Hu people were very angry, all accusing Lin Dao of damaging the image of the Celestial Dynasty and ruining relations between states, and so on.

"With benefits, one certainly thinks of one's own people first."

"Let you earn the benefits, then turn around to screw one's own people?"

"Do you take me for a brick expert called beast?"

Tang people around all cheered and shouted approval.

All agreeing Lin Dao was absolutely right!

One's own people haven't even lived good days, why let you outsiders live comfortably!

The Hu merchants left in a sorry state.

But the thought of making money would not stop just like that, only growing stronger.

"Shopkeeper!"

"The blacksmith at the blacksmith shop has been poached~~~"

"Shopkeeper!"

"The coal mining machine at the coal mine has been stolen~"

Lin Dao lazily responded here "The blacksmith matter, go inform the Wangfu; the person was found by them."

"Things at the coal mine were stolen, go report to Lantian County."

Technically there was nothing profound; buy it back, take it apart, and you'd understand.

The real key was the material.

The stoves used white iron sheet.

The name sounded ordinary, but it adopted galvanizing technology.

As for the kettle, it was aluminum alloy.

They didn't have these raw materials; at most they could use cast iron.

Cast iron can certainly be used to make furnaces, but cast iron kettles have a serious oxidation problem.

That's not even the most important thing; what matters most is honeycomb coal.

Coal dust, sawdust, and red-yellow clay are all easy to come by.

But where does the combustion promoter come from?

Forced ignition isn't impossible, but the cost would have to increase significantly.

Lin Dao was selling at cost price anyway.

How could those lacking core technology compete with him for the market?

Don't underestimate this small market.

Chang'an City is an international metropolis with a population of one million.

Plus the many people in the counties of the Guanzhong region—the daily consumption of firewood is an astronomical figure.

It is precisely because of this that the forests of the Guanzhong region gradually disappeared, and no dynasty after the Tang established its capital here again.

Lin Dao opened up this brand-new market.

Alleviating the pressure on firewood, protecting the natural environment, and at the same time it was a huge business.

Counterfeits soon appeared on the market, but they had the form without the substance.

Boiling water, you'd drink a mouthful of rust.

Honeycomb coal was even more troublesome to light, and its heat wasn't as good as Lin Dao's.

If there was nothing better, this was innovative technology—if it could be used, it was used.

But once there was a comparison, it wouldn't do, especially with Lin Dao selling at cost price.

It even got to the point where people who bought them came back demanding refunds.

The ancients weren't stupid.

They soon figured out it was a difference in raw materials.

But figuring it out didn't mean they could solve the problem.

After all, whether it was white iron sheet, aluminum alloy, or combustion promoter—

these industrial products, cheap under Lin Dao's large-scale wholesale, simply couldn't be made here in the Great Tang.

Since they couldn't outsell Lin Dao, those imitators started thinking of ways to smuggle them out.

But they were a step too slow in this regard.

Yanshou Fang absorbed more and more blacksmiths; this place almost became the blacksmiths' world, hammering out furnaces and kettles all day long.

Besides supplying Chang'an City, most were sent by Changsun Wuji to Li Erfeng in Hebei.

When he sought Lin Dao's support, he put it simply.

"Assist the King of Qin in comforting the local people's hearts~~~"

Lower the common people's cost of living, give them better living conditions, and even ease the resentment of the people of the Territory of Hebei.

Lin Dao agreed without hesitation.

As for honeycomb coal, none was sent over.

Hebei doesn't lack coal mines; although there's no combustion promoter, they can still barely burn it for use.

The imitators got desperate.

If commercial competition doesn't work, then use physical means directly!

End of Chapter