Chapter 1 To Attract Merchants to Yunzhou

To attract merchants to Yunzhou, to draw those with money and leisure to appreciate the scenery of the grasslands, Yunzhou also had to have a service-oriented mindset. In Dongjiaji, those entering Yunzhou could obtain a paid voucher the size of a postcard after paying the road tax according to the imperial regulations. The upper left corner of the voucher's front was printed with a Yunzhou logo, and the rest of the space was a landscape painting of a place in Yunzhou. Due to the limitations of printing technology, even the Ye family's workshops couldn't achieve color printing, at most three-color printing, but everyone still fully exploited the technical limits, designing a total of thirty-six kinds of images for the voucher, using metal etching, woodblock printing, stone lithography and other methods to show the scenery of places including Thunderclap Cliff, Snow Wolf Lake, Di River, and Benlang Plain. On the back of the voucher, except for the rightmost third, which was used to stamp a receipt chop and a date chop, the rest of the space was divided into two parts: one part emotionally reiterated the meaning of "Yunzhou welcomes you," and the other part introduced the location and characteristics of the scenery on the entire voucher, and also noted the creator of the picture.

Because the vouchers were so exquisite, and the only way to obtain them was to pay the road tax, some people who were very wealthy and didn't care about the money paid thirty-six road taxes at once to collect a set. It should be known that one road tax was not limited to one person, but could include four companions and transportation such as horses and carriages. When this collection tendency was discovered, Ye Tao's design team very timely launched collection albums with sheepskin covers and exquisite hot-silver cardboard interiors, and began to design limited edition vouchers for various festivals, especially the unique festivals of the Yunzhou tribes.

The Yunzhou investment and promotion conferences funded by the Yunzhou Development Fund in the six major cities of Dongping were also a great success. For example, in Danyang, when the Yizhan Tower's lecture hall was used for the promotion conference, the entire small square outside was full of flags and banners printed with the Yunzhou logo. If it were in later generations, Ye Tao's team would have won an advertising award for "Best Regional Coverage," but there were no competitors in this time and space. Every attendee received a beautifully printed booklet. The booklet contained a folded map, a bird's-eye view type, a not-very-precise map that depicted the topography of Yunzhou in a freehand style, as well as the locations of various cities and important towns and markets. The first part of the booklet summarized Yunzhou's geographical location and characteristics, approximate area and population figures, geological features and climate conditions. The second part narrated the historical changes and current situation of Yunzhou. The third part described the approximate distribution of Yunzhou's current resources and elaborated that Yunzhou was a hotbed full of business opportunities. The fourth part introduced the various unique and charming natural landscapes of Yunzhou and the north of Yunzhou. The last part was a very detailed business travel guide, including Yunzhou's transportation situation, which places had post stations or Federal Express passenger services, what famous local specialties were available, what famous inns and hotels were available, and the approximate cost of transportation and food in various places. After this section, the booklet also stated that Yunzhou would do its utmost to ensure the safety of merchants and travelers. The Yunzhou and Yunzhou Development Fund logos were printed on the back cover of the booklet. The entire booklet had a modern feel.

Another type of printed matter was even more unexpected. It was a foldable brochure that could be unfolded. The back of the brochure contained the same content as the travel guide in the last part of the promotional booklet, but with the addition of several recommended inns and villas with unique characteristics that the Road and Bridge Department recommended and were willing to charge a fee to accommodate guests for accommodation and meals. On the front of the brochure, Yunzhou's existing main roads were abstracted into lines of different thicknesses, connecting the post stations at important locations. Each post station was represented by a circle with the name of the post station printed inside. In the other blank spaces on this side, there were detailed descriptions of each post station, information about the scenery around these post stations, which towns and markets were available, and the cost of staying at or changing horses at this post station. In the lower right corner of the brochure, the instructions for using this brochure were printed in red: After passing through these important post stations marked on the brochure, you could request the post station to stamp the brochure with the post station's unique stamp. The content of the stamp was naturally closely related to the local situation, some were pine tree patterns, some were horses, some were cattle, some were lingzhi, some were lambs, and so on. Eleven post stations covered most of Yunzhou's developed and semi-developed territory from Dongjiaji to Benlang Plain, and were extremely representative. After collecting a total of eleven post station stamps, you could receive an exquisite souvenir at the Road and Bridge Department's office in the Dongjiaji camp.

And those souvenirs were indeed exquisite: a scale model of Thunderclap Cliff, a scale model of a bronze carriage and horse, one of the following with the Yunzhou logo: a horse bridle, a saddle, a horse whip, riding pants, a girdle, a hat… and all the souvenirs were limited editions, all with unique numbers. What was particularly difficult was that set of horse gear, it was estimated that the difficulty of collecting a set of horse gear with the same number was higher than simply running the entire Yunzhou territory dozens of times.

Ye Tao was not a reckless person. Because many of the printed materials and related content contained a lot of information about Yunzhou, in order to avoid being attacked in the future for leaking military secrets, the specific figures provided in the booklets were quite different from the actual situation. Before the official release, everything was jointly reviewed by the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of War, and the Intelligence Bureau, and everyone signed to confirm that there were no problems with the publication of these materials. These signed confirmations naturally became a model of Dongping's procedural justice. If there was any responsibility in the future, it would not be possible to push it all onto Ye Tao. The departments of the Dongping court that handled these matters marveled at the fact that Dongping did not have an institution that could specifically guide or control public opinion, nor an institution that specialized in academic and social influence, but even more marveled at Ye Tao's endless stream of ingenious ideas. As soon as they signed and confirmed these things, Ye Tao launched a massive publicity campaign for Yunzhou in a very short period of time. Almost everywhere, people could be heard talking about Yunzhou: merchants were whispering about the possibility of getting rich in Yunzhou; guys with a little spare money and a wilder heart wanted to see the scenery… The all-inclusive travel package launched by the Yunzhou Management Office's Road and Bridge Department in conjunction with Federal Express was reasonably priced, so everyone couldn't help but be tempted.

Ye Tao's combination punches to promote Yunzhou hadn't finished, and "Go to Yunzhou" was no longer just a slogan on the promotional brochure. The Dongjiaji camp had already welcomed the first wave of people, and the staff of the Road and Bridge Department's Dongjiaji office, who were well-prepared, were warm and friendly, and did not put on airs as officials of the imperial court, fully demonstrating Yunzhou's hospitality. As the flow of people, mainly merchants with a keen sense of smell, entered Yunzhou, the Road and Bridge Department and the Yunzhou Development Fund promised to do their best to ensure safety, and it was by no means empty talk... It was conceivable how people would praise Yunzhou after discovering business opportunities or enjoying the beautiful scenery.

Tan Xiaopei, who knew very well the mission Ye Tao was undertaking, could only smile wryly as he read the various reports that were constantly being sent in. Ye Tao was too good at doing business, too flexible, and too able to fully mobilize the various resources around him. Many of the personnel who returned to Dongping to promote the area were "trainees" selected by the Internal Affairs Bureau from various places. Some of these personnel who were sent back for promotion did not enter the second round of training because their personalities or abilities were not suitable for working behind enemy lines, while others were sent back in the name of "internships" after entering the second round of training to test their skills in interpersonal communication and persuasion… Ye Tao had not neglected serious matters. More than a dozen of those with extremely good talent had already passed all three rounds of training and had already begun working behind enemy lines in Xiling.

It was precisely because he knew all this that Tan Xiaopei found it particularly incredible that Ye Tao's work ability was so strong. Although Ye Tao had been using several different teams from the beginning to share the work and advance the work in the form of teams, judging from Ye Tao's team control and talent cultivation ability alone, it was probably impossible to find a second person in the entire Dongping. Perhaps Tan Weixin could compare with him, but Tan Weixin did not have such a good body or such abundant energy to work like this.

What was even more amazing was that Tan Xiaopei knew that Xu Jingtian had agreed to fully cooperate with Ye Tao, but in a series of matters, Ye Tao had hardly done anything beyond his authority, but only made the things in his hands more colorful. Although this colorfulness would inevitably attract the attention of those who were interested in the court, and perhaps even awaken some people's antipathy towards Ye Tao that had never completely slumbered, this colorfulness was indeed conducive to smoothly importing Yunzhou from a quasi-wartime economic system into a comprehensive development path in Dongping with a strong army as the leader. In this process, Ye Tao had also enabled the Internal Affairs Bureau and the Dai family to have closer cooperation, and consistency in interests was much more reliable than a simple in-law relationship. Bringing the capital of the tribes into Yunzhou's revitalization plan was more conducive to Yunzhou's stability and development, and more conducive to the long-term peace and stability of Dongping as a unified country in the future.

Thinking of these things, even though it was not Tan Xiaopei's original intention for Ye Tao to be so vigorous and vigorous in the Road and Bridge Department, which should have been a plain position, he could only cheer and try his best to help Ye Tao eliminate some hidden dangers.

"By the way, how is the thing that Ye Tao is writing progressing?" Reading the report, Tan Xiaopei suddenly remembered that there was such a thing.