Zhu Yuanzhang's heart blossomed, and the cost of building the city wall has fallen. But after thinking about it, it was too late to scare Shen Wansan away, I heard that some wealthy businessmen in Jiangsu and Zhejiang couldn't stand his harsh policies and fled to Nanyang with their families, if Shen Wansan was forced away, it would be worth the loss, and he would keep this fat sheep to slaughter slowly. So he said hypocritically: "Shen Weng cares about the imperial court and is a model among businessmen, and I am very relieved." I will build cities with you in half, and you will build the cities of the southeast, and I will build the cities of the northwest. When the time comes, it will be better to compare the walls of the northwest or the walls of the southeast. ”

Where will the remaining half of the wall construction cost come from? Zhu Yuanzhang has already thought about it, with Shen Wansan as the lead, he will go to "discuss" with other rich gentry, presumably those rich gentry will not agree. Even if these rich gentry are not as rich as Shen Wansan, one is less than ten, and ten is not enough for a hundred, he doesn't believe that the rich gentry in the world can't raise this expense.

Shen Wansan said that even if only half of the city wall of the capital is built, it is a lot of money, and Zhu Yuanzhang also said that he wants to see who can build it well, if the city wall he built is not as strong and reliable as Zhu Yuanzhang sent someone to build it, then Zhu Yuanzhang will treat him with a perfunctory and disrespectful charge, and he will really not be able to eat and walk around.

was beaten by Zhu Yuanzhang like this, how dare Shen Wansan cut corners, and hurriedly recruited laborers when he left the palace, and rushed to build the southeast cities overnight.

When Lu Xiaoqian heard Zhu Yuanzhang ask Shen Wansan to build the city in half, she couldn't help but gasp, and shouted in pain: "The emperor has such a big appetite, why should the government do what we should have done?" ”

Shen Wansan's mouth was full of bitterness, "The whole world is his, he wants me to build a city wall, can I say nothing?" Luckily, he only let me build half of the walls, and if he had asked me to build all the walls, I would have to say yes. ”

"No, I'm going to go into the palace and ask Ma Xiuying, what do you want us to do, even the emperor can't be unreasonable!" Lu Xiaoqian is still unhappy, the Shen family is rich, but it is not the wind blowing, Shen Wansan almost died in the ocean several times in order to open up smuggling routes, and the hardships are indescribable. Now that the silver exchanged for blood and sweat was asked by Zhu Yuanzhang for no reason, and the Shen family was slaughtered with blood with one knife, do you want anyone to live?

Shen Wansan thought about it and said, "Then you go into the palace to test Ma Xiuying's tone, she also participates in these businesses, ask her what to do?" ”

He can only admit to the matter of building the city wall, he is afraid that Zhu Yuanzhang will endlessly ask him for money in the future, this kind of thing should be asked clearly as soon as possible, and there will be a charter to deal with it in the future.

Early in the morning of the second day, Lu Xiaoqian went to the palace. Because Ma Xiuying greeted the guards, she was brought to Ma Xiuying almost without any obstacles.

She is a straightforward woman, she can't hold back her words, and after chatting with Ma Xiuying about the customs of the capital, she turned the topic to the construction of the city wall, "Queen Mother, the women may stay in the capital for a while longer." Yesterday, the emperor asked the people to build the southeast city wall, and now the women and husbands are busy building the city wall all night, in order to complete the emperor's will as soon as possible. ”

Ma Xiuying heard Zhu Yuanzhang talk about Shen Wansan's intention to build the city wall last night, but she didn't expect Zhu Yuanzhang to make such an outrageous request, she thought that Shen Wansan voluntarily paid for it. Seeing that Lu Xiaoqian changed her smile from yesterday, her face was full of grievances, and it was estimated that these two people were not happy to pay for it. Thinking about it, the cost of building the city wall is often millions of taels of silver or more, which is equivalent to a year's tax revenue of the state, and such a huge expense can be borne by a family, even the Shen family, which is rich and rivals the country, can not bear it.

On the one hand, she was embarrassed by Zhu Yuanzhang's greed and aggressiveness, and on the other hand, she apologized to Shen Wansan and his wife, and said with a little guilt: "I am in charge of the government of uneven loss and procurement, and I will suggest to the emperor that the future supply of food and salary for the court and the needs of the court will also rely on the strength of you businessmen, and I hope you can fully support it at that time." ”

She has no right to change Zhu Yuanzhang's will, so she can only compensate Shen Wansan from elsewhere. This can be regarded as a promise to Shen Wansan in disguise.

As we all know, the imperial merchant is not an ordinary businessman, his status is equivalent to the company department that is now in charge of government procurement, and to put it bluntly, he is a businessman who works for the imperial court. For example, procuring various materials for the royal court, from the wood built by the palace to the weaving of clothes in the emperor's harem; As small as the planting of flowers and trees in the palace and the gouache of women...... Things are inconspicuous, but they are large in number and rewarding. Moreover, once the imperial merchants have a closer connection with the imperial court, it will also bring great benefits to their survival and development. Not to mention anything else, even the official government should be humble and give strong support and help in business. Therefore, the imperial merchant can be regarded as a very good royal errand, and he has jumped out of the embarrassing position of ordinary businessmen, and many businessmen have broken their heads for this place.

After getting Ma Xiuying's promise, Shen Wansan's depressed mood was finally relieved, this time he was slaughtered, and he will slowly earn it back with the convenience of the imperial merchant in the future. At the same time, he became more and more interested in the construction of the city wall, and he not only hired first-class construction craftsmen, but also supervised the progress and checked the quality of the construction site all day long.

But there was trouble when building the wall with bricks, and there were no bricks near the capital to sell to Shen Wansan, and they all said that the bricks were used to build the northwest city wall. This made Shen Wansan very depressed, even if these people wanted to please the emperor, they couldn't leave a single brick, and besides, could the northwest city wall use so many bricks?

Shen Wansan didn't know that this was Hu Weiyong's deliberate instruction that the people below were not allowed to sell bricks to him, and he was embarrassed by all the excuses of royal priority, who let their husband and wife be old friends with Ma Xiuying.

Lu Xiaoqian's visit to Ma Xiuying had already been told to Hu Weiyong by the people in the palace who were monitoring Ma Xiuying's actions. Hu Weiyong was very surprised how Ma Xiuying could have a close relationship with a businesswoman, and through multiple investigations, he found out from Guo Hui that Ma Xiuying, Lu Xiaoqian and Shen Wansan had known each other for a long time, and Ma Xiuying and the Guo family had lived in the house donated by the Shen family.

This made Hu Weiyong and Guo Hui very happy, they were worried that they couldn't find Ma Xiuying's handle, and one would appear soon.

Hu Weiyong has long understood the truth that "the enemy's friend is the enemy, and the enemy's enemy is the friend", although he is not good at dealing with Ma Xiuying at present, it is still easy to clean up a low-status businessman.

Even though Shen Wansan is rich in the world, he has no right to instruct the magistrates of various prefectures, prefectures, and counties to make bricks for him, and he is afraid that he will not be able to catch up with the construction period when transporting bricks from other places, so he has to let Lu Xiaoqian enter the palace to ask Ma Xiuying for help, hoping that Ma Xiuying can make the government sell him some bricks accommodatingly.

Ma Xiuying sent Fu Shun to inquire, only to learn that Hu Weiyong was in the way of this matter, but the old fox who hated Li Shanchang knew the inside story and didn't inform her, so he actually stood by and watched.

She asked Fushun to intercede. The government replied with great words, they are first of all to serve the emperor, and the emperor is now sending people to build the city wall, so it is natural to put the emperor's needs first, in case the bricks are sold to the people, the emperor's needs can not be met, who will bear this responsibility?

The words made Fushun speechless, and he came back to his life in a gloomy manner.