The Wealth of Qi Commandery

Wang Xuan had long since dumped all the governmental affairs on Xi Zhicai and the others. In any case, he was only responsible for overall planning and coordination. As for the remaining details, no one had the nerve to trouble him with them. After all, most people could handle that sort of thing; it was nothing more than tedious repetition. Bothering Wang Xuan with such matters would practically be looking down on him.

Early in the morning, Wang Xuan summoned Mi Zhu. "Come on, I'll show you just how wealthy Qi Commandery really is!"

Mi Zhu smiled with great restraint. When the client was bragging, all he had to do was listen.

Xi Zhicai followed them as well. Wang Xuan claimed he was bringing him along to explain a few things, but in reality, he planned to hand everything back to Xi Zhicai once the man understood it.

"What's the deal with this road?" Mi Zhu was extremely interested in it. The question had been troubling him all night. To a merchant, increased transport capacity and speed represented limitless profits.

"A cement road!" Wang Xuan turned to look at Mi Zhu. "I know what you're planning, so I'll tell you directly: it's impossible. Even now, we don't have enough of this stuff to meet Qi Commandery's own needs."

"This... What a pity!" Mi Zhu looked as though he had just lost ten billion coins. His mentality nearly collapsed.

Xi Zhicai immediately understood that Mi Zhu had his eye on the cement roads. But in Xi Zhicai's view, this was simply a waste. He strongly opposed wasting cement on roads. The roads paved with the large stone rollers Guan Yu had cut out were good enough. Why lay cement as well?

With all that cement, wouldn't it be better to build