After the Battle of Guangzhou, Wei Lianli returned to Guangzhou with fear, but soon he lived an extremely chic life.

His greatest fear was that he would be arrested by the Canton government on charges of piracy, and that there was only one way to deal with pirates, and that was to put them to death.

But after he arrived in Guangzhou, he found that, as before, those officials selectively ignored his existence, and only businessmen like Cai Shiwen communicated with him.

Later, taking advantage of Magalny's persecution, he also changed his identity to a businessman, and he also used his own name to apply for a license in the Guangzhou government and established a trading house called Lianli Bank.

After that, he absorbed the supply of goods through Lian Li Xing, he had strong financial strength, Zhou Lang allocated five million silver dollars to him, but in his operation, this Lian Li Bank was his industry, and the money was Zhou Lang's money, he brought Zhou Lang the source of goods, and he also wanted to make money from it, he found that Zhou Lang didn't care about these at all, and his courage was extraordinarily big, he was tantamount to using Zhou Lang's money to do business.

How important capital is in trade is understood only by people who actually do business. With so much cash flow, he has too many advantages over other merchants, it can be said that among the thirteen merchants, only the Pan family is stronger than him, and the other merchants, even the general merchant Cai Shiwen is far inferior to him.

The thirteen merchants seem to be doing a huge business, but the expenses are also large, to maintain the relationship with the government, then the upper and lower levels have to be in place, and then to maintain the upstream and downstream goods turnover, it requires a large amount of cash flow. But Chinese businessmen have a habit of not liking to hold too much cash, and when they have money, they want to turn it into land and real estate before they can be sure. Therefore, among the thirteen merchants, there are a large number of people with a net worth of millions, but they are all smashed on the land. Whenever they need to turn over funds, they need to borrow money instead, and even borrow usury.

The most powerful financial strength in Guangzhou City, except for the Pan family, was not other merchants, but the British East India Company.

So a long time ago, there were merchants who borrowed money from the East India Company. The East India Company was also willing to lend money to these powerful business partners, and if there was a surplus every year, it would not be put in its own account, but would be handed over to big businessmen such as the Pan family and the Cai family for safekeeping.

But the government has always opposed merchants borrowing money from foreigners, because it is not only about the dignity of the imperial court, how can they owe money to the ghosts? There were also political considerations, the Manchu court had always regarded trade as a weapon to restrain foreigners, and allowed trade as a favor to the vassal states.

Therefore, since the Kangxi era, from the emperor level, many orders have been issued to prohibit merchants from borrowing money from foreigners. But it was still repeatedly banned, and in the forty-fifth year of Qianlong (1780), a huge disaster finally occurred. That year, as many as four businesses were insolvent and could not continue to operate.

At that time, there were a total of 8 merchants engaged in foreign trade in Guangzhou, and they all owed money, and 4 of them owed the most debts, and were sued by foreign merchants to the yamen, which caused a great disaster.

These four merchants are Taihe Bank, Yuyuan Bank, Yifeng Bank and Guangshun Bank, of which Yan Shiying of Taihe Bank owes the most money, reaching 1.354 million yuan, and Zhang Tianqiu of Yuyuan Bank owes 438,000 yuan.

In fact, the four companies owed a total of only 3.8 million yuan in foreign debt, and their loan principal was only 1.07 million yuan, and the interest was more than tripled. But this is not the East India Company bullying them, in fact, according to the market to lend to them, the reason why the interest rate is so high, mainly because China's commercial culture has not been underdeveloped, under the high squeeze of the government's administrative power, the people have not formed a perfect financial system, a very simple truth, the more developed an industry, the cheaper the product, China's financial market is not developed enough, the cost of borrowers to obtain funds is naturally higher, the general interest rate of the market is as high as 20% to 40%, This is already a high level of usury in the West.

The reason why this incident is big is mainly due to political involvement, because whether it is 1.07 million silver dollars or 3.8 million silver dollars, although the amount is very large, it is not enough to say that the entire 13 banks cannot afford to lose, the 13 banks implement a joint guarantee system, the merchants guarantee to foreigners, the transaction can be carried out, and the general merchants guarantee to the merchants, and in the end they really can't afford to pay back, and there are also the general merchants to guarantee.

The problem is that this matter has reached the government level, and it has been reported at all levels, and even Qianlong knows about it. This was troublesome, and Emperor Qianlong was very unhappy, and immediately ordered a strict case, directly let the criminal department participate in the case, and finally exiled the two merchants with the most debts to Xinjiang. As for what to do with the money owed, Qianlong waved his pen, isn't it money, pay it back, and pay it back twice, owing 3.8 million yuan, and repaying 7.6 million. Directly let the Guangdong Customs allocate the money from the customs surplus, and then let the merchants return it to the customs in ten years.

Some people attribute this incident to Qianlong's arrogance, of course, there is a truth to this, but few people generally pursue Qianlong's true thoughts. In fact, Qianlong issued an edict on this, and the edict said, "And I deal with it this time, not only for this matter, but also for deep consideration." At the end of the Han, Tang, Song and Ming dynasties, when it was weak and weak, it was neglected and abused, and it was strong and something, and it was afraid to mediate it, tolerated it, and died until it caused a big provocation, and it was irretrievable. …… In the case of the English merchants, the governor thought that the money and debts were fine, and they were careless about it, and they did not know that it was very important, and the so-called trickle would become a river."

Qianlong made it very clear that the purpose of the double compensation was to make the Yi people dare not despise China, because in history, it was often the Yi people who despised China and "despised and insulted them", and Qianlong's political purpose was to continue to deter foreigners and let them see China's strong national strength, and they still viewed foreign trade from a political perspective.

Later, when Magalny met Qianlong, the British government specifically explained to Magalny, asking him not to mention the commercial disputes between the East India Company and the merchants of the Thirteen Lines in front of Qianlong, so as not to anger Qianlong, who knew that Qianlong proudly mentioned these things in front of Magalny, because in Magalny's view, those commercial disputes were unpleasant, but Qianlong thought that his double compensation was to take care of the foreigners and give the other party a favor.

After the bankruptcy of the four merchants in 1780, the Guangzhou government negotiated a plan with Pan Zhencheng, the general merchant at that time, that is, to set up a public bank commission, which would take 10 percent of the profits of the thirteen merchants, plus 3 percent from each trade and put it in a separate account as a reserve fund, in order to deal with such bankruptcies and other events.

However, a perfect financial industry was not born, and the merchants always had the motive to borrow money, so it was inevitable that they would be entangled in usury again and again, and finally after the siege of Canton and the merchants hemorrhaged again, many of them broke their capital chains and once again entered the brink of bankruptcy.

Many people have saved themselves, such as Cai Shiwen, the general merchant, etc., they have increased the volume of trade, desperately trying to do more business, to make up for the loss, Wei Lianli established Lianli Bank is a good trading object, abundant cash never arrears, and in order to grab the source of goods, but also willing to pay a deposit in advance.

But they owe too much this time, and it is not a trade that can be relieved, and all the merchants, except for the Pan family, are basically insolvent.

At this time, the new customs superintendent took office, and he not only did not want to help the merchants get through this difficulty, but also wanted to make a profit. Customs supervision belongs to the direct management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the two departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Household have been in charge of one person over the years, that is, He Shen, and it is impossible to get this kind of fat difference from the hands of He Shen without a sum of blood.

The British, who had studied it thoroughly, described the customs superintendent as "a Manchurian who had always been sent by the Emperor, and who represented the court and court figures." When he had enough to spare after satisfying the desires of his benefactors (and benefactors) in Beijing, he could also have enough to fill up and accumulate a piece of furniture on his own. As soon as he arrives, he must repay something; In this tenure that has never been longer than three years, it is still necessary to constantly serve the service; And before he can return with a full load, he will also repay again. He worked from the beginning to the end. Those successive steps made the external water of this official position dwindle day by day, and it is estimated that the gifts that the superintendent of Guangdong Customs often sent to Beijing every year during his tenure were worth no less than 1 million taels. Other authoritative figures once sarcastically said that after paying the levies to maintain the livelihood of a large number of subordinates, the net profit of the first year of his tenure was used to obtain officials, the second year to protect officials, and the third year to resign and enrich his eunuch pockets. ”

The British say is very appropriate, in fact, it is not only the official position of customs superintendent, but all the power that can be bought with money, there are often such three steps, "the net profit of the first year is used to obtain officials, the second year is used to protect officials, and the third year is used to resign and enrich their eunuchs." ”

The new customs superintendent Su Leng is even more greedy than Sheng Zhu. Historically, when Magarni returned to Guangzhou from Beijing, he even ordered people to collect taxes from Magarni's mission, and as soon as he took office, he asked merchants to repay him with 200,000 taels. However, because when he took office, the city of Guangzhou was besieged, he failed to hand over to Shengzhu, and he didn't want to hand over, because once the handover, he had to be responsible for the siege, so he stayed outside the city until Zhou Lang retreated, and then he showed his identity into the city to hand over and take over as the customs superintendent, and as a result, he missed the story of his tax collection to the Magalny mission, otherwise Magalny would have gone crazy.

But now the merchants told Su Leng that they had no money, and the money was all used to serve the imperial court for military expenses when the Yiren besieged the city last time. Su Leng was immediately furious, he became the customs superintendent but spent a lot of money to give gifts to the adults, the Guangdong customs superintendent is the famous Tianzi Nanku, Lao Tzu is easy to get this errand, you tell Lao Tzu that there is no money! The aunt can endure the uncle's unbearable, and she will be arrested immediately and punished.

The unlucky guy is still Cai Shiwen.

But Wei Lianli continued to be proud, because when Lord Su Leng opened his mouth to ask for money, he didn't even hit a stumbling block, and immediately sent it to Xianyang, which was in stark contrast to those merchants who picked and searched, and Lord Su Leng also invited him to the customs yamen from time to time to enjoy the performance of the troupe he brought from Beijing in order to commend Wei Lianli's acquaintance, which gave him face.

Wei Lianli is also long-sleeved and good at dancing, what does he know, of course he doesn't understand poetry and songs, but he understands opera and women, and the children of powerful people like Su Leng also understand, the relationship between the two is close, as for the identity behind Wei Lianli, Su Leng doesn't care at all, he has some rumors, but the governor of Liangguang and the governor of Guangdong don't care, he is even more lazy to care, the other party sends a lot of silver, he can't turn his face with this kind of God of Wealth.

So from Su Leng'e, Wei Lianli got a lot of convenience.

But there are people who don't know each other, and the second of the thirteen lines is Yixing, who refuses to meet the requirements of the customs superintendent, and threatens bankruptcy.

Su Leng was furious and decided to rectify this and do it.