Cao Jinbao said:

"It is not appropriate for Wei Hou to say that it is not appropriate, because the emperor opened a warehouse to release grain for the people of the world, how can there be a reason to release grain for the people of the world without the need for the people of the world to transport grain? That was my charter, and I just wanted to ask the Marquis to wait for me to make the situation clear, so that he would not be deceived by traitors again. “

Lan Ziyi smiled when he heard this, and took a sip of wine. This Cao Jinbao spoke in a full tone and with great momentum, and he showed the domineering aura of his giant without showing his face. Lan Ziyi is very familiar with this, this is the characteristic of northerners, if it sounds good, it is called ambitious, and if it is bad, it is love to brag.

Seeing that Lan Ziyi didn't speak, Cao Jinbao continued:

"Cao Mou also said just now, I have encountered more than one difficult thing, is Wei Hou interested in listening to me continue?"

Lan Ziyi said:

"Boss Cao, but it doesn't matter, I also said a long time ago, you and I should be angry."

Cao Jinbao smiled:

"Wei Hou said well, it's a good thing. Then you're welcome. In fact, for us Beishang, in addition to the matter of transporting grain, there is another thing that is quite a headache for me. “

Lan Ziyi asked:

"It's not easy to compare it with a big deal like grain transportation, but I don't know what it is?"

Cao Jinbao said:

"It's a salt deal."

Lan Ziyi said:

"Salt?"

Cao Jinbao said:

"Exactly, it's salt. My territory is vast, east, west, north and south, thousands of miles in all directions, and the people on the earth are enough for hundreds of millions. People have to eat when they live, and they can't eat without salt, and it is not a trivial matter to provide salt for my people. ”

Lan Ziyi said:

"It's not a small thing, it's a big deal."

Cao Jinbao smiled when he heard this, while Lan Ziyi continued:

"It's just Boss Cao, the salt and iron franchise, it has existed since ancient times, this matter is a matter of the imperial court, how can Boss Cao still get involved."

Qiu Wenruo said to Lan Ziyi about this:

"Wei Hou has never served in the yamen, and he may not know much about the specific administration. It is true that I have a monopoly on salt and iron, but after all, the manpower of the imperial court is limited, and the specific steps of salt mining and selling are all given to the common people to operate on their own. “

Lan Ziyi said:

"I see, I never cared about these things before."

Cao Jinbao smiled:

"This Mr. Wen Ruo is really good at the rule of officials, and he deserves to be the think tank of Weihou. Wei Hou said that the monopoly of salt and iron, the monopoly of the imperial court, and the imperial court came to see him did not want to do, as far as I know, in the early days of the founding of the Taisho Dynasty, salt was in the hands of the yamen. It's just that the Yamen salt mining is half the effort, and we wait for the salt mining to get twice the result with half the effort, and the two sides are compared, and the advantages and disadvantages are self-divided, and later the imperial court will collect taxes with peace of mind, and it is not to blame for the salt mining and salt selling. ”

Lan Ziyi asked:

"Since Boss Cao sells salt legally, how can there be any difficulty? I thought Boss Cao was asking me to help sell smuggled salt. ”

Cao Jinbao said:

"Selling smuggled salt is a matter of death, and illegal things are not what a businessman like me should do. I bring this up today because someone wants to cut me off. ”

Lan Ziyi smiled:

"Boss Cao, you have a lot of money, every street by the Green River is yours, who dares to cut off your wealth?"

Cao Jinbao smiled bitterly:

"This street was built brick by brick by brick by the joint efforts of all the businessmen in the north, Cao was just elected by everyone to be a villager, and he was just a bull nose for the time being, where do you dare to say that the whole street is mine?"

Lan Ziyi thought for a long time when Cao Jinbao spoke, and when Cao Jinbao finished speaking, Lan Ziyi asked:

"Could it be that the Beijing businessman has an entanglement with Boss Cao's business?"

Cao Jinbao nodded and smiled:

"Exactly, exactly, although Taizheng is one, but a great river divides the country into north and south, and we merchants and gangs also gather together to keep warm within the limits of the region. This trend has become more and more obvious in recent years, and there have been more and more conflicts between us and Kyoto merchants, and the salt matter is one of the focal points of contention between the two parties. ”

Qiu Xiaozhi buried his head in eating for a long time, and it seemed that he was full of wine and food, and he interjected at this time:

"I have two sources of salt, one is sea salt, refining sea boiled salt has been around since ancient times, as long as the coast can produce salt. But after all, Taisho is not everywhere by the sea, and the more sea salt is transported inland, the higher the price, so many inland salt areas use mineral salt. ”

Lan Ziyi asked:

"What is mineral salt?"

Cao Jinbao replied to Lan Ziyi:

"As the name suggests, mineral salt is the salt dug out of the ground by mining, and the production of mineral salt is very different from sea salt, so I will not expand on the specifics.

Mr. Xiaozhi knows so much, it seems that he knows a lot about the salt industry, but he misses a few points, in addition to mineral salt, there are also well salt, lake salt, and some saltwater lakes can also be boiled around salt. “

Qiu Xiao said straightly:

"Boss Cao is right, although the inland is not close to the sea, there are many ways to make salt and eat salt. It's just that the coasts of Qi, Yan, Liao and even Silla are all in the hands of the Northern Merchants, and the salt wells in the interior are indistinguishable from the north and the south, and almost all of them are controlled by the Northern Merchants, and the salt production land in the hands of the Beijing Merchants is only the southeast and Lingnan coasts. ”

Lan Ziyi listened to Qiu Xiaozhi's analysis, and at the same time reassessed Cao Jinbao's financial resources in his heart. It turns out that Cao Jinbao is not only in the hands of the money business, but also in the salt business, according to Qiu Xiaozhi, two-thirds of the salt industry in Taizheng is in the hands of Cao Jinbao, how much salt does each person in Dazheng eat every day? Cao Jinbao He only collects salt money a day can be rich and rival the country, and the little cattle and sheep business that his Lan family does is really small compared to Cao Jinbao, Lan Ziyi entered the watchtower and felt that he was a poor egg for the first time.

Cao Jinbao heard what Qiu Xiaozhi said, and laughed. He said:

"Mr. Xiaozhi is really well-read and strong-minded, and all the things between me and my friends are known by Mr. What Mr. said is true, after decades of integration and development, my Beishang does have more salt-producing land than Beijing merchants, and it does have a little advantage over Beijing merchants in selling salt. But that was before, and now it's a different story. “

Lan Ziyi thought to himself that you Cao Jinbao only have a little advantage, obviously the situation is very good. But Lan Ziyi still asked with a smile:

"What's wrong with Jingshang, you actually let the situation change?"

Cao Jinbao said:

"The Beijing merchants started last year, in order to support the Northern Expedition of the Daigong, the Taizheng up and down are contributing, and our businessmen are also raising grain for the Daigong, but the Northern Expedition is huge, the capacity of the Northern Merchants is insufficient, and the Beijing merchants take advantage of this to cross a bar, they are good at water transportation, and there are many ships under their hands, and then the name of the Northern Expedition is to bring many salt farms in the north into their own control, and the imperial court seems to be intent on conniving at the expansion of the power of the Beijing merchants.

When Lan Ziyi heard this, he understood in his heart that this was Zhang Mingyue's intention to support Jingshang. Based on the relationship between Zhang Mingyue and the Beijing merchants, it is not surprising that the imperial court favored the Beijing merchants.

Cao Jinbao went on to say:

"We have already been cut off from the Haiyan Salt Farm, and now the whole country is short of grain, and the inland salt mines in our hands are about to be lost."

Lan Ziyi said:

What do you mean by that? What is the connection between grain and salt mines? ‘

Cao Jinbao said:

"Drying salt and boiling salt requires a large area of land and a lot of labor, all the inland salt mines, the land near the salt mines are all salt farms, the people are all salt workers, the salt mines do not produce grain around them, and the grain depends on the surrounding imports, but the price of salt is higher than the price of grain, and the counties around the annuity will rush to sell grain to the salt mines, and the workers in the mines also live well because of salt mining, and they are not short of money to buy grain. However, this year's disaster is too serious, grain prices are available all over the country, and salt miners are also human beings, so it is impossible to eat only salt and not eat. If you want them to eat, you have to transport grain, where can the private grain swallowed in the hands of my northern merchants compare with the national treasury? Although the special order was only a few days old, a lot of salt in our hands had begun to waver, and many friends from the salt mines came to me and told me that if there was no more food, they could only sell the salt mines to the Beijing merchants at a low price. “

Lan Ziyi took a few deep breaths when he heard this, this Jingshang method is really ruthless, and the beauty of it is not without the style of Zhang Mingyue. Lan Ziyi said:

"Boss Cao, your two things, in the final analysis, are still one thing: food. The Haiyan Salt Farm that was taken away by the Beijing merchants earlier was a clever seizure, and there must be something strange, so I want to investigate. Boss Cao and his colleagues in Beijing have strong financial resources, how can such a thing as grain transportation be excluded? I will also tell the court about this. But neither of these things is trivial, and even if I wanted to, it wouldn't be easy to do. I wonder if Boss Cao can help me? ”