Since the forty-fifth year of Qianlong (1780), the situation of the Thirteen Elements has become turbulent.

There have been ups and downs, but the general environment for doing business is starting to be less friendly than it used to be. The main problems are multiple, the external environment is the outbreak of the revolution in France, the second largest market in Europe has shrunk significantly, so that the business scale and profits of merchants have begun to decline, and many merchants have begun to lose money; The other is the internal environment, after the monopoly of trade in the Kang Yongqian and Qianqian dynasties, especially in the late Qianlong period, the corruption of officials became more and more serious, and the extortion of merchants day after day, causing the operating costs of merchants to rise year after year.

As soon as officials took office, they all tried their best to increase their income, such as Su Leng'e's predecessor Sheng Zhu.

When Sheng Zhu took office, the second place among the thirteen lines was the source of the bank, the boss Chen Wenkuo, the business name Shouguan, after the death of Chen Wenkuo, his son Chen Shouguan II was not good at management, and the foreign bank appointed Mr. Ni Bingfa, the bookkeeper. Sheng Jia learned that Ni Bingfa was good at foreign trade, and in order to ask for an extra license fee for a foreign goods bank, he ordered Ni Bingfa to set up a foreign bank independently. As a result, Chen Shouguan II had serious business difficulties, unable to fulfill the supply agreements signed with foreign businessmen, and could not obtain sufficient funds and government support, so he had to declare Yuanquan Bank bankrupt.

In order to be more filial, forcibly ordered the manager of a well-run commercial house to resign, this kind of thing can only be done by characters like Sheng Zhu and Su Leng'e.

Although the British did not pay taxes, the merchants paid more than 30,000 silver dollars on their behalf, and Magalny sent people to negotiate, saying that the mission fleet carried gifts from the Qianlong Emperor, not commodities, and the result of using Qianlong to press Su Leng's amount was that Su Leng returned 10,000 yuan, and insisted that the merchants only paid such a small amount of money.

Externally, there are great changes such as American independence and the French Revolution, and internally, there are officials such as Sheng Zhu and Su Leng'e for blackmail, and it is no wonder that the life of the merchants of the Thirteen Lines can be better.

If something happens to someone who is smart, he may be able to protect himself wisely, but if he is not flexible enough, he will often encounter great difficulties.

And Yixing is like this, and Yixing is run by the brother surnamed Shi.

In recent years, Yixing has risen very fast, and the Shi brothers have been extremely bold in business, and their business has expanded very rapidly. After Pan Zhencheng's death, the government originally wanted Pan Youdu, the heir of the Pan family, to take over the post of chief merchant, but Pan Youdu modestly thought that he was just a newcomer and highly recommended Yixing to replace him as the chief merchant; It also refused to be the first to negotiate a contract with the Pan family for the new year, as was customary, and put itself in third place.

When the Magalny mission arrived in Canton, he had also seen the Shi brothers' style, and described in his diary, "I had some conversations with the main foreign merchants here (the Chinese merchants who engaged in foreign trade, that is, the merchants of the Thirteen Merchants). Pan Qiguan was one of the most powerful merchants, treacherous and cunning. In terms of importance, Shi Qiongguan ranked second, but he was richer, younger, and more frank than Pan Qiguan. It seems to me that Mr. Shi showed great respect for the British, and unreservedly declared that he was willing to try anything new that our company (the British East India Company) agent had entrusted him to try. Pan Qiguan's hat only has a translucent white top bead, while Shi Qiongguan wears a crystal necklace hat, which indicates that the latter's official rank is one level higher than the former. But I soon learned why. Pan Qiguan is more cautious, while Shi Qiongguan is more like to show off. Shi Qiongguan told me with certainty that Pan Qiguan also had a blue top, but he only wore it at home and when he was gathering with his family, but he definitely did not wear it in public, for fear that those officials in the yamen would come to the door to ask for bribes, and took it for granted that the big man who paid the price of 10,000 taels of silver in exchange for such an honor would certainly be able to get this small gift. ”

Qiongguan is the business name of the boss of Yixing, and in Magalny's understanding, he even thinks that the Shi family is richer than the Pan family. But in fact, it is the Shi family that is even more show-off. History has left a large number of Western merchants to marvel at the wealth of the thirteen merchants, but in history, there are also a large number of cases of bankruptcy, in fact, these people only know how to show off. This is very much in line with the style of Chinese businessmen who hide their wealth, for the simple reason that everyone wants to give Western businessmen the impression that they have strong capital, so that foreigners are more willing to sign orders, and the Pan family and the Wu family have actually done this kind of thing.

But the Shi family was as good as the Pan family in showing off, and was willing to do any business with the British, such merchants were often eager to expand, and they were often prone to fall into the dilemma of broken capital chains.

It's not that they don't want to pay filial piety to Su Leng, but they really can't get the silver.

And they really want to go bankrupt, use bankruptcy to avoid continuing to do business, the super-rich people in people's impressions, but they want to escape from this industry, it is really ironic, but this is the truth, the Pan family of Tongwen Bank spent a lot of money on this in order to get rid of their business identity, but they still can't do it, Pan Youdu tried his best to just push out the identity of the general businessman and let Cai Shiwen take over; Jardine Xing, Wu Bingjian's father Wu Guoying even absconded with the money, just because the government's blackmail was really unsupportable.

And the Yixing Shi brothers really want to take the opportunity to get rid of their business status this time, so they don't give Su Leng any filial piety, the purpose is to let the other party revoke their business license, in their opinion, it's a big deal that they are rectified, and they have already opened up the joints, they will not be killed, so they have no fear, suffer a little, and then get out of the way, which is also a good result.

But the two of them went too far, and as a result, being smart was mistaken by being smart.

After the siege of Guangzhou, in order to share the reward handed over to the government, the Yixing Shi brothers embezzled the funds of the East India Company (unpaid payment) held on behalf of them, and then were forced to pay debts by the East India Company.

And Yixing is indeed insolvent, but it is not enough to say that it cannot continue to operate, in fact, the two brothers just want to take the opportunity to quit. So fortunately, taking advantage of the East India Company's forced debt and Su Leng's extortion, he planned to go bankrupt.

Although Pan Youdu pushed away his identity as the chief merchant, due to the good credit of the Pan family, the stable financial situation, and other factors, although he did not nominally serve as the first merchant, the Guangdong Customs asked him to take on some obligations that should have been the responsibility of the chief merchant more than once.

Pan Youdu is low-key, the purpose is actually to protect himself, thinking about retiring and keeping the Pan family's family business, so he doesn't want to take advantage of this opportunity to do something to the Shi family, but tries to make the big thing small.

Pan Youdu is very organized, he knows that some money can be owed, and some money cannot be owed. He first raised the duties owed by the Shi family, and he ran all over the relatives, friends and partners of the Shi family, and forced them to raise the money by means of coaxing and intimidation, and among the 200,000 taels, Ye Renguan (Ye Shanglin) was forced to take out 50,000 taels because he had cooperated with Shi Zhonghe's brother, and Tongwen Xing, who was supposed to be responsible for clearing and benefiting from the customs duties, did not have to take out a penny.

Then Pan Youdu successfully lobbied the greedy Su Leng, so that the other party agreed to the liquidation of Yixing, which was resolved internally by the Thirteen Banks.

Pan Youdu's purpose, in addition to being unwilling to let his own family bear the obligation of guarantee, also had the purpose of protecting the Shi family, so as to avoid the exile of Qianlong in the 45th year.

But the Shi brothers' performance at this time was too stupid, they believed in their relationship too much, and even hid their property.

In the name of Yixing, the eldest brother Shi Zhonghe is the businessman, and the actual business is controlled by his younger brother Shi Huailian. Under Shi Huailian's operation, Yixing intended to hide most of his property and refused to take it out to pay off his debts.

After checking the accounts, Pan Youdu found that the assets submitted by the Shi brothers to the Guangdong Customs Superintendent and the merchants showed that they no longer had much property. But Pan Youdu and the East India Company were not fools, if it weren't for the fact that the Shi brothers had taken out a rich asset mortgage, how could they get the new appointment of the East India Company and give them so many loans.

However, the brothers Shi Zhonghe and Shi Huailian refused to admit that they had hidden assets, and the largest creditor, the East India Company, refused to give up, and the East India Company paid the Shi family a high tea deposit in advance, and they insisted that the Shi family complete the transaction. Pan Youdu heard that the tea merchants in the mainland had shipped the tea ordered by the Shi brothers to Guangzhou, but the Shi family had no money to pay for the goods, so they had been squeezing in the warehouse, and the tea merchants were also very anxious.

Pan Youdu secretly exerted pressure on the Shi brothers through the Guangdong Customs, and the two brothers did give the equivalent of 75% of the payment to the tea merchants, who then handed over the tea to the East India Company. After the transaction, the debts owed by the Shi family have been greatly reduced, and if they find a way, they can pay off, but the Shi family resolutely refused to repay the remaining debts at this time, and instead handed over their real estate to a long-term cooperative tea merchant, nominally to offset the tea money, but it is unknown what is in it.

At this time, after the tea merchant finished handing over the tea, the Shi brothers should have paid them the rest of the tea money, but the Shi Huailian brothers instigated the tea merchant to ask Pan Youdu for it, which angered Pan Youdu.

Originally, the customs superintendent promised to let the Thirteen Guilds be responsible for solving the problem of the Shi family's debts, and the East India Company also entrusted Pan Youdu to help them collect debts, these things have been solved privately, but now the Shi family is relying on the Pan family, according to the rules formulated by the government, they can rely on it, because although the Pan family is not a general businessman, the government also asked the Pan family to guarantee, but it is reasonable to disagree.

Pan Youdu was very dissatisfied with the Shi brothers and was unwilling to continue to protect the Shi family, but fortunately the East India Company formally sued and benefited. The customs yamen, who were originally dissatisfied with the Shi brothers and did not intervene because of Pan Youdu's request, acted quickly and arrested the Shi brothers.

After the two brothers were tortured, they took out the equivalent of 100,000 taels of silver in gold and redeemed the title deed. Since the foreign merchants had already sued the foreign merchants, the Cantonese customs superintendent had no choice but to report the whole case to the imperial court, and according to the precedent of 1780, all debts owed to foreigners were to be paid to all foreign merchants. Yixing's debt was determined to be 600,000 taels, to be repaid in 6 years.

For 600,000 taels of silver, the two brothers were exiled from their homes, and if they hadn't been clever at that time, they would have had the opportunity to take out all the family property, and then let the other merchants share it if they still couldn't pay it back, but the result was that the matter was big, the money was gone, and the people were gone.

In this case, Pan Youdu finally used all kinds of tricks, and the Pan family only shared a small part, and the bulk was borne by Cai Shiwen, the general businessman.

Wei Lianli participated in the whole process of this case, and he reported all the tricks to Zhou Lang through letters.

Zhou Lang immediately noticed Pan Youdu, the second Pan Qiguan.

Zhou Lang replied and told Wei Lianli to take advantage of the dilemma of the shortage of funds of the merchants to control these merchants as much as possible, but not to provoke this Pan Qiguan for the time being.

As for the rest, Zhou Lang could not be unduly distracted, as he currently had to deal with a group of British, shareholders of the China (East India) Company.

At the invitation of Zhou Lang, Henry Pitt and others came to Fengshan County from India, a total of eleven people, and they will hold a board meeting in Fengshan County.

This time, the board of directors will review the future direction of the company and clear the company's debt problem.