Liu He, the steward of the Liu family, who was in charge of running errands, after getting the consent of the master, colluded with him in the past two days, and early this morning, he and the Lin brothers took a small boat from Hangzhou City and went straight to Tangzhuang.

Along the way, Liu Hexiang introduced the situation of his good friend to the two: this person's surname is Xiong Mingdao, a maritime merchant from outside, and the owner of Tangzhuang. Mr. Xiong is rich and rich, has a good promise, has a good relationship with Liu Fu, and is a top businessman.

After learning the inside story, the Lin brothers were also a little confused, it stands to reason that this Liu Hekou is a sea merchant, no matter what goods he wants to buy, he will definitely be able to find them from Hangzhou City, why bother to invite the two brothers to meet?

...... After going out of the city for more than ten miles east, the boat turned along the river, and then went a short distance away, and the Lin brothers saw five warehouses built along the river.

This row of warehouses is obviously newly repaired for a long time, the warehouse is tall, the newly plastered white ash on the stone wall has not yet dried, there are several Qingtiao Shihe ports in front of the warehouse, and several small boats are unloading at the river port, Lin Baoquan is running the old boat, and when he sweeps his eyes, he knows that the laborers are carrying rice into the warehouse.

"These are all newly built warehouses by Master Xiong." Liu He saw that the Lin brothers were staring at the warehouse, and added with a smile.

Lin Baoquan nodded and didn't reply, and in his heart, he took the financial assessment of this unmet old man Xiong to another level: This kind of stone warehouse is not cheap, and even idle merchants can't afford it. It is not enough to finish the construction, but there must be a large amount of silver to stock up and hire people to guard it day and night, which costs a lot of money.

...... The boat arrived at the ground: in a river bay in front of which had obviously rested, there were three sand boats parked at the moment, the first one was wider than Lin's Xing'anping, and some laborers were loading the sand boats.

Before the two of them could take a closer look at the sand boats, a few people who were talking on the river pier had already noticed them, Liu and Erlin Pu got off the boat, and the chief on the opposite side laughed, left the little guy and his companion beside him, and slowly stepped forward.

This person is tall and fat, in his prime, with a fair and rich face, and when he opens his mouth, he reveals a mouthful of white flowers, showing that he is from a rich family; Wearing a Nanjing brocade robe embroidered with Xiangfei bamboo, a pig dragon skin belt around his waist, three or four gold and jade rings on his hands, and a fist glittering with golden light.

"It must be the two brothers of the Lin family in person, not just Xiong Dao, yesterday I took the liberty to invite each other, a little abrupt, and I hope that the distinguished guest Haihan, hehe, hehe." Xiong Dao's voice was loud, but his tone was gentle, although the accent was a little weird, others felt kind to their ears.

"Where and where, when I learned that Master Xiong was summoned, it was too late for the brothers to rejoice, so why did he say it suddenly......" Merchant Lin bowed in a Min accent at this time, and naturally greeted Merchant Xiong cordially.

A few people chatted while walking, Liu He gagged on the side, and within a few steps, everyone was as close as old friends, and they came to the door of Tangzhuang.

Tangzhuang has not changed, it is still that magnificent manor, people come and go at the door, and from time to time there are people wearing short sailors in and out, one by one, they are described as fierce and powerful.

Xiong Dao saw that the Lin brothers were thoughtful after seeing the sailors, so the topic inadvertently turned to the sea route, saying that the sea has not been very peaceful in recent years, and the business has become more and more difficult, and the boatmen dare not leave the port if they are not ready.

Xiong Dao's words resonated with the Lin brothers, everyone is running to the sea, knowing that it is difficult, the Lin family's ship does not even want to go to Fuzhou now, but only wants to go north to Hangzhou, because the ocean is not quiet.

The guests were then led to an elegant courtyard in the village, and after the guests sat down, the maid was busy and prepared a hand towel, fruit plate, and tea before retreating.

Slowly drank three teas, during which everyone chatted for a while Emperor Jiazong died, nine thousand years old sat on wax, who knows such gossip anecdotes in the road ahead, the atmosphere in the house became more and more harmonious, Xiong Dao asked people to change to new tea, and then said the reason for meeting today.

According to Xiong Dao, when he was doing goods on weekdays, he found that most of the iron materials used in Jiangnan came from Fujian and Guangdong, especially Fujian iron, which was large in quantity and good in quality.

Now Xiong Dao has a foundation in the city in urgent need of iron, he thought about buying iron with his own family in the south of the Yangtze River, it is better to ask the familiar Fujian businessmen to buy it on the spot, it is best for the Fujian businessmen to receive the iron materials directly transported to the ground, which saves the cost of running Hangzhou again, everyone is cheap, as for the ship price and cargo money, this is easy to discuss.

......

After Lin Baoquan heard this, he nodded slightly: The deal that Master Xiong just said was within a few guesses made by his brothers last night, and this matter did not surprise him.

Fujian is mountainous, the state and county iron pit people do not know how many, the furnace is everywhere, Fujian iron over the years marketing Ming two Beijing 13 provinces, the name is loud. Funing Prefecture, where the Lin brothers are located, not only has iron pits, but also government-run silver pits; The Lin clan itself has shares in the iron pit in the mountains, and the purchase of iron materials is not a big deal.

The only thing to worry about is that this old man Xiong just pointed out that he wanted a whole ship of iron, which made Lin Baoquan a little vigilant: iron is coarse goods, and few people buy the whole ship.

Thinking of this, Lin Baoquan twisted his beard and asked, "I don't know the iron material purchased, where does the bear proprietor want to send it?" ”

Xiong Dao smiled, and his middle knuckle lightly tapped twice on the black lacquer-inlaid dragon play bead table in front of him, and then slowly spit out two words: "Adult."

"Hiss......" Erlin heard the name of the place at first glance, and at the same time took a breath of cool air. Rao is brothers had a belly case in their stomachs before, but they didn't expect that the iron material was actually sent to the master!

At this time, it has only been more than 2 months since the change of the new master, and the Lin brothers naturally do not know what the situation is over there. So the first reaction of the two brothers was: Hello comprador brother! ...... At this moment, they regarded Xiong Dao as a red-haired comprador.

It's a pity that the Ming Dynasty doesn't pay attention to this, the merchants on the southeast coast have been doing business with the people of the color eyes for thousands of years, and no one despises the compradors in these years, because the people of the color eyes have not launched the opium war, so they are not very dragged, and everyone is proud of the payment of the people of the color eyes and ran away......

After hearing the word Dayuan, Erlin immediately made the whole thing clear: the red-haired people had a hard time in Dayuan, and they spent money everywhere looking for big businessmen to buy goods, which was already public news along the coast of Fujian and Guangdong, and it seems that this bear master is also one of them. What Erlin didn't expect was that the red-haired man's line was so far away, and there were actually people in Hangzhou City to help him plan.

After Lin Baoquan had been meditating for half a cup of tea, he raised his head and asked Xiong Dao: "I often smell that this 'big man' loves raw silk and porcelain cloth on weekdays, and it is like coarse goods like iron, which are probably not sold at a price." ”

...... Lin Baoquan has been a businessman for half his life, naturally cautious, and knows that in this Hangzhou city, it is best not to export words such as "red hair, Dutch", so he replaced it with "a big man" at the moment.

After Xiong Dao listened, he smiled slightly: These two are pretending to understand in a daze. He naturally wouldn't reveal it at the moment, so he pretended to be confused: "Xian Kunzhong, but please rest assured, Dayuan Island is in ruins at the moment, and the 'people on the island' are all going to do long-term business, how can you let the friends who are rushing to deliver goods not have to make money?" ”

As he spoke, Xiong Dao stretched out a slap full of rings: "Five cents, five cents of a pound of pig iron."