"What? You're going to pull our family into this business?! ”

The days at the end of the year always fly by, and in a blink of an eye, it is the twenty-eighth day of the lunar month, which is the time for the most grand event of the year in Ningyuan Bofu, the end of the year.

The so-called tail teeth, Yuan is just a traditional Chinese festival in southern Fujian, the "end" of the annual activities of merchants, and the "precursor" of the Spring Festival activities of ordinary people. The first and fifteenth days of the first month of December every year or the second and sixteenth days of the first month are the days when the merchants of southern Fujian worship the god of the land, which is called "making teeth". February 2 is the first dental work, which is called "head teeth"; Dental done on December 16 is the last one to be done. On this day, the common people should burn the land and gold to worship the god of good fortune (i.e., the land lord), and also set up a bench in front of the door, offer the five-flavor tail tooth banquet bowl, burn the sutra clothes, silver paper, and worship the foundation master (worship of the foundation of the house). All businesses should also feast their employees today to reward them for their hard work in the past year. Jinjiang, Fujian Province has always maintained the year-end day activities. But Shouhan gave it another meaning, in addition to eating and drinking, it turned it into an annual summary and commendation meeting.

Those who have made outstanding contributions in various fields, whether they are among the workers, peasants, soldiers, scholars, and businessmen, are qualified to sit proudly at the year-end congress and accept the toast from the Shouhan. Not to mention the toast, there is also a salute officer next to him who recites aloud the person's merits and contributions, and the deeds of these people will be listed one by one in the New Year's special issue of Nanzhong Business Daily published in the New Year.

This kind of glory, for an ordinary person, is no less than the name mark on the Lingyan Pavilion.

Outside the palace's Yin'an Palace, a huge tent that can accommodate more than 100 tables of banquets has already been erected. The people in the house kept coming in and out, setting up tables and chairs, arranging seats, and listing cups and plates.

Inside and outside the palace, there is a festive style full of lights.

In the whole city of Hue, it is a scene of flowers and brocade and cooking oil with fire.

"On New Year's Day, the bucket handle is returned, the Taiping is unified for the New Year, and the door god pair is pasted on the side. The rich man is neatly dressed and hated, and he only changes the robe. Lay people, see the festival carrying baskets. He sells is. Melon seeds, peanuts, magnolia slices. Little people. Seeing the New Year's money earned during the festival, I earned money to buy some tricks. He bought it, and the glass trumpet drum was used as a bamboo horse, and his grimace was whirling. Come late. Ping-pong ping-pong sounds; At dawn. Come and go to return the gift. This one says congratulations. How dare you say that the New Year is auspicious and a source of wealth. ”

Feng Menglong wrote this poem. Originally, it was a description of the New Year's scene in the Wanli period, but many eunuchs and guards who came to Hue with Wang Dehua clearly saw this peaceful and prosperous scene inside and outside Hue City.

Keju, flying kites, buying flowers, buying fireworks, playing chess, throwing pots, playing liquor licenses, playing horse hanging, and playing Shuanglu streets and alleys are full of lively atmosphere.

Only the wharf port is still busy, and all kinds of goods in and out are transported by coolies to the warehouse by rail cars, or from the warehouse to the dock for loading onto the ship.

In the village, there are lively activities such as lions and dragon lanterns planning for the New Year, and there are endless arguments about which one will dance the lion and which one will dance the young lion.

Some of the guests who had been invited to the end of the year had already settled in various pavilions in the city. However, after following Wang Dehua to announce the decree, several officials of the Ministry of Rites saw that many people should not appear on such a grand scene!

"Duh! Sage clouds, farmers and businessmen, farmers farming and collecting grain, it's fine, but why don't you invite those who cultivate and read heirlooms? But invited the so-called big farmers and good farmers to come to the meeting. There are even more lowly craftsmen, who are just people who smelt iron and steel, make utensils, and fire porcelain, and dare to come to the banquet?! ”

"That's it! People who read and understand are in the same row among the farmers who farm, the craftsmen who build ships, smelt iron, and burn porcelain. ”

"Shhhh Silence! Wang Gonggong, Ning Yuanbo, Zheng Zongbing and others are drinking tea and enjoying flowers in the small flower hall over there, don't you have a head?! ”

On the flower hall, Wang Dehua, who is an angel of the Qincha, took off his flying fish costume and changed into civilian clothes, and tasted tea and enjoyed flowers with Shouhan and Zheng Zhilong, who were also dressed in civilian clothes.

Shouhan patted his hands lightly, and several guards carried a huge tray. The red lacquer plate is full of all kinds of fruits produced in Nanzhong, which is not enough to attract Wang Dehua's attention, since he arrived in Hue, he has feasted every day, and these various fruits are a little tired of eating. However, several thick bamboo tubes in the middle of the wooden plate caught his attention, especially the red paper pasted on them, with different words written on them.

Some have black characters written on them, some have round characters written on them, some have Huai characters written on them, some have Gui characters written on them, and some have tribute characters written on them, and so on.

"Is it bamboo rice?" A few days ago, Wang Dehua Shouhan invited him to eat a Siamese-style bamboo tube rice, which is to use a fresh bamboo tube with the newly harvested fragrant glutinous rice and various colors of meat into the charcoal fire and roast it into the charcoal fire and then open the tube for use, the fragrance of glutinous rice and the deliciousness of the ingredients, the fragrance of the bamboo tube is mixed in one place, and the taste has a unique taste lingering on the tip of the tongue.

Wang Dehua was thinking wildly, but he saw that the Han guards opened a bamboo tube and carefully poured the things and soup inside into a sea bowl that was as thin as paper and as smooth as jade. Suddenly, a fresh fragrance of lychee came out.

Wang Dehua was stunned by the scene in front of him! As the top figure among the eunuchs, he is naturally exhausted, it can be said that Chongzhen has eaten, he has eaten, Chongzhen has never eaten, he has also eaten! But he knows that he would rather fight with his lord than with the sky. I know that in Lingnan and Nanzhong, lychee is not a rare thing. But in the cold winter, there are lychees in the moon, which is really shocking!

Looking at the bright red lychees in front of him, Wang Dehua hesitated.

"Uncle, what does this mean?"

"Father-in-law, please taste it first and see how it tastes." Zheng Zhilong's face was full of sincerity, peeled off the red skin of a lychee, and put the crystal flesh on the food plate in front of Wang Dehua with a small spoon.

The juice of lychee exerts a fragrant and sweet taste in the mouth, and Wang Dehua can't help but smile when he eats it.

"Alas! The so-called 300 lychees a day are not reluctant to be Lingnan people. Back then, Emperor Tang Ming wanted to win a smile from Yang Guifei. At the expense of manpower and material resources to transport lychees, our family was still complaining when we were studying, so unsympathetic to the people, there is really a way to the Anshi Rebellion. Now that I think about it, it's worth it! ”

"Father-in-law, if the two of us ask our father-in-law to do this fruit fresh business in Nanzhong and Lingnan together, what do you think?"

"What? Uncle, are you ridiculing our family? ”

Wang Dehua quickly sobered up from the initial shock, joke! From Nanzhong to Guangzhou, it is still necessary to bump on the sea for a few days, and then transport it to the capital, let alone lychees. It's that the core of the lychee is going to rot! And to make money?

"That. In the capital, in the Imperial Palace, in the palace and in the palace of the princes and ministers, if you want to taste this thing. And how? "Shouhan deliberately pretended not to know. In order to raise the price. The act of luring the snake out of the hole made Wang Dehua realize the huge benefits of this project.

"I don't know anyone else. However, Taishi Cai was my fellow villager in Fujian back then. He likes to eat lychees, and in order to be able to eat lychees in Kaifeng Mansion, this sage of mine also took great pains. Zheng Zhilong on the side was very tacitly cooperating with the problem of guarding the Han.

At that time, the method studied by Cai Jing and Taishi Cai has been used until the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, and this method is called the secret migration to create the Minshan Mountain. Taishi Cai came up with the idea of transplanting the lychees that had already borne small plants into pots every year, and then sending them to Tokyo, where they were picked and eaten when they were ripe, but the lychee trees died after they were finished. (Does this look familiar?) That's right, in Zhou Xingxing's "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qi'er", his local tyrant father did just that, in order to eat lychees in Beijing, he simply loaded a lychee tree into the car and transported it to Beijing! However, due to the war at the end of the Ming Dynasty, it is unlikely that the Minshan Mountain was secretly moved. And the cost of dense migration out of Minshan is too high, ordinary people simply can't afford it, since the Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty, there are hundreds of lychees sent to Beijing every year, each plant has more than 200 pieces, and there can be 20,000 or 30,000 lychees in Beijing a year.

Therefore, although Wang Dehua's mind was full of the flashing light of the silver dollar, he was also very clear that how to transport this lychee, which was extremely difficult to store and transport, to the capital?

"Father-in-law, if Ben Bo has a way to transport this lychee to the capital in the weather of the tenth winter wax moon, how much do you think it should be?"

Shouhan peeled a lychee, put it in his mouth and chewed it, with a look of indifference on his face.

"If the uncle can transport this thing and all kinds of fresh goods and fruits produced in Nanzhong, Lingnan and Fujian to the capital in such a good condition, I dare not say anything else, eight taels of lychees, a silver dollar is an absolute conscience price! I'm afraid that the civil and military ministers of the city, the rich businessmen and giants will say that the uncle is kind-hearted! ”

Wang Dehua was not polite, spit out a lychee core in a small silver plate, and casually gave a price.

Eight taels of lychees are a silver dollar, and these eight taels are half a catty. And not the eight taels we are used to!

Such a price is also called a conscience price, which shows the importance of technological innovation.

"Okay, father-in-law, the starting price of this lychee is according to what my father-in-law said, eight taels of lychees is a silver dollar!" The Han Shou ordered the people to take the bamboo tube with black characters and blue characters written on it, and explained to Wang Dehua after dismantling: It is the black leaf that writes the black characters, and the orchid characters are the orchid bamboo, both of which are relatively durable, and they are also the main brands for export in the future.

Next, he gave Zheng Zhilong the Fujian Chen Zi Lychee with purple characters written on it, and handed over the Guiwei lychee with the Chinese character with the Chinese character to the guards and ordered them to distribute it to a few little eunuchs who were waiting on the side, and everyone tasted one or two together.

In the end, Shouhan respectfully held a bamboo tube with the word tribute written on it and said: "This is hanging green, it is a tribute sent to the Jingshi, and our ministers are naturally not allowed to trespass." However, today is different, and we, as human ministers, must first taste what this thing tastes like for our father. ”

After speaking, Shouhan dismantled the bamboo tube, and while distributing hanging green to Zheng Zhilong and Wang Dehua, he said to a few guards nearby: "Come on, come on, let's taste the taste of this hanging green first!" ”

Zengcheng hanging green lychee, like the Chen Zi lychee in Putian, is a famous species of lychee. Both kinds of lychees were tributes in ancient times. In particular, Zengcheng hangs green, known as a hanging green and a grain of gold, the peel is four points slightly green and six dividends, and there is a green line running through the fruit body, and a "hanging green" is therefore obtained. The flesh is crisp and slightly fragrant, and the paper wrap is not wet when the outer skin is peeled off.

Eating Zengcheng hanging green lychees in his mouth. Allowing many sensations of tenderness, crispness, sweetness, and fragrance to diffuse in his mouth, Wang Dehua nervously calculated in his mind how much silver he could earn in a winter if these lychees were transported to the north and south of Erjing?

"Not only lychees, but also bananas, sugarcane, citrus, mangosteen, durian, rambutan and many other fresh fruits from Nanzhong, Liangguang and Fujian can continue to go to the capital all year round!"

In this way, there is less money? Wang Dehua was already dizzy with the silver dollars flying everywhere in his head, and he simply didn't calculate how much silver money he could make. However, he knows that not to mention such a valuable lychee, it is citrus, sugarcane, bananas, and other fruits that are everywhere in Nanzhong and Lingnan. Because of the war. The north-south traffic is blocked, even in the palace, only the favored Tian Guifei can occasionally see citrus as a fruit for pressing the table when she is alone with the emperor because of the relationship between her family. The rest may not be seen in Queen Zhou.

But. After all, he is Chongzhen's most trusted and central house slave. Although his mind is full of silver dollars. But he still retained a trace of clarity: "Two adults, so loving, our family naturally deserves to be disrespectful." But. Our family is the slave of the emperor, and we must consider putting the emperor in front of everything we do. I don't know what the two adults think of the emperor? ”

"Also, what the two adults said is so wonderful, I don't know how long it will take to get from Nanzhong to Jingshi? Even if there is an excellent way to store it, these fresh goods are also not resistant to delay. ”

What a great character! What a faithful eunuch! Shouhan sighed secretly in his heart, if the officials of the Ming Dynasty were all characters like Wang Dehua and Wang Chengen, greedy for money and greedy for money, but they did not forget their own roots, and they would not suddenly collapse like a building when they came to the Ming Dynasty.

To be able to face the temptation of such huge benefits, not to forget his own master, not to forget to take into account specific transportation, storage and other technical issues, such a figure is rare among the many famous ministers who have left their names in history.

Jang Zhidong, who made a name for himself in building the Hanyang Iron Works, made a similar stupid mistake when building the Iron Works. When Zhang Zhidong was the governor of Liangguang, he set up an ironworks in Guangzhou, cited figures, and reported that Guangdong produced a lot of iron, and the purchase of foreign iron was very expensive, and submitted to Britain to order furnaces and machines. In the process, Zhang Zhidong was transferred to the governor of Huguang because of the preparation for the Luhan Railway, and Li Hanzhang, who succeeded him as the governor of Liangguang, reported that there was not much iron production in Guangdong and could not set up a factory, and Zhang Zhidong asked the ironworks to be moved to Hubei, which was later the Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant. Zhang Zhidong's report on the iron-making situation in Guangdong was all speculation, and he didn't know anything about foreign iron-making methods, so he rashly wanted to buy back two iron-making furnaces, and he didn't care whether they could be applied. The owner of the British factory said that it was necessary to send samples of coal coke and iron sand to the British for testing before deciding to design a furnace for ironmaking according to the quality. Zhang Zhidong actually replied: "China is so big, where is there no good coal and good iron?" But it is also possible to buy one according to the British owner. "This kind of slaughter of wealth is shocking to the world. The British side designed two smelting furnaces according to the iron-making method used by the British, and the coal of the saddle could not be coking, and the iron of Daye was not suitable for this furnace type, and it became a joke. On the issue of the location of the iron factory, Zhang Zhidong's arbitrariness, ignorance and narrowness can be seen even more. At that time, Daye discovered iron ore, and someone built an iron smelting plant that should be located in Daye, Zhang Zhidong said: "Daye is far away, and it is inconvenient to take care of it. "In order to make the chimneys visible to the Governor, the ironworks were built at the foot of Turtle Mountain, which caused a lot of trouble later. The Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant cost 3 million taels of silver, and the improper location of Zhangzhidong cost more than 300,000 taels of landfilling, and the cost of ordering machines in Britain was also more than 300,000 taels, and the two together used two-tenths of the cost of building the plant. The loss of ignorance is so great. In the 20th year of Guangxu, the products of Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant should be on the market, and the losses over the years were amazing, and in the 24th year of Guangxu, the cumulative losses reached more than 1 million taels. This mess had to be handed over to Sheng Xuanhuai to clean up. To cite this example, the rest can be summarized.

If Zhang Zhidong had the brains of Wang Dehua and others, instead of making the mistake of not caring about the upwelling of blood that Qingliu often loves, Hanyeping Company would not have been controlled by the Japanese Tongguò loan.

"Father-in-law, don't worry! I have a clipper boat, and this boat is moving faster than anyone can imagine. If you go from Hue to Guangzhou, you can get to it in the evening, and you can reach it in the area of Beijing and Tianjin. ”

Speaking of this, Zheng Zhilong was very proud to carry out literacy activities for Wang Dehua in front of him, and at the same time show off the science and technology and shipbuilding level of the Nanyue Army.

"As for the matter mentioned by the father-in-law, a certain family thinks about it this way. According to the rules of the city divisions everywhere, the tax rate of 5 percent is sent to the palace treasury for use. This matter was handled by Zheng Sen, Benbo's fast son-in-law of the east bed. I also hope that after my father-in-law returns to Beijing, I will ask the emperor to reward him with a meritorious background! ”

Speaking of the tax rate of the city, Wang Dehua was even more moved, this time to the south, he saw the huge benefits of the customs duties collected by the city, if it is handled in Jiangbei, will the emperor's embarrassment of lack of money and food be alleviated?

But this matter is not said here, and it can only be mentioned to him after returning to Beijing when he meets the emperor.

"Please take a break for your father-in-law, and then invite your father-in-law to the banquet when the banquet is held."

returned to the room where he was staying, and several little eunuchs knelt down in front of Wang Dehua.

"The slave asks the father-in-law to hand over this matter to the slave and the maid!" (To be continued......)

PS: Keep asking for a monthly pass!