"Listening to your words, it is better than reading for ten years, and Ding admires it so much. Brother Chang, Ding still has official business, so I'll be here today, and we'll talk about it another day. Ding Baozhen stood up and said goodbye.

"Congratulations to Brother Ding, let's meet again another day." Yang Xiaoshan also returned the salute.

Ding Baozhen suddenly walked to Yang Xiaoshan's side and smiled mysteriously, and said in a low voice: "Brother Chang, the guy surnamed Hu outside the door always wants to bribe me." Let him bleed today. ”

Before Yang Xiaoshan could react to what Ding Baozhen meant, Ding Baozhen suddenly said in a loud voice: "Hu Xueyan, come in." ”

The young man, who was still strange before Yang Xiaoshan entered the door, immediately walked in when he heard the voice, and said ecstatically: "What does Lord Ding command?" ”

"This Kung Pao Chicken Ding official likes to eat it very much, so I asked Chang Duwei for a recipe just now, you can settle the account." Ding Baozhen said to Hu Xueyan with a straight face, "Brother Chang, I will leave first, so I don't have to send each other." Then he went out of the room.

Yang Xiaoshan was stunned, it turned out that the person who had always wanted to bribe Ding Baozhen was Hu Xueyan, this is the famous red Qi of the late Qing Dynasty, this Hu Xueyan is also a legend, he was born in Huli Village, Jixi County, Anhui Province, when he was a child, his family was very poor, and he made a living by helping people herd cattle. When Hu Xueyan was 12 years old, his father died of illness. 13-year-old Hu Xueyan began to go out alone, successively worked as a young man in Hangzhou Miscellaneous Grains Store and Jinhua Ham Commercial Bank, and went to Hangzhou "Xinhe Qianzhuang" as an apprentice. started from sweeping the floor, emptying urinals and other miscellaneous labor, and after three years of division, he became an official partner of Qianzhuang because of his diligence and steadfastness. 19-year-old Hu Xueyan was accepted as an apprentice by the shopkeeper of Hangzhou Fukang Qianzhuang, who had no descendants and regarded Hu Xueyan as his own son. When the shopkeeper was dying, he entrusted all the money to Hu Xueyan, which became the starting point of his career.

After continuous development, Hu Xueyan later got acquainted with Wang Youling, the "alternate Zhejiang salt ambassador", and borrowed 500 taels of silver from Qianzhuang to help Wang Youling fill his official position.

In the first year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty, Wang Youling was ordered to act as the prefect of Huzhou, and was transferred to the prefect of Hangzhou soon after. During Wang Youling's tenure as the prefect of Huzhou, Hu Xueyan began to act as an agent for the Huzhou Public Treasury, set up a silk store in Huzhou, used the cash money from the Huzhou Public Treasury to help farmers raise silkworms, and then purchased the Huzhou silk on the spot and shipped it to Hangzhou and Shanghai, took it off for cash, and then handed it over to the "domain treasury" of Zhejiang Province, making a fortune from it. He then persuaded Huang Zonghan, the governor of Zhejiang, to set up a pharmacy as a shareholder, and arranged for the drug supply business among the grain transport personnel from all walks of life, so as to develop the pharmacy rapidly and become the local "medicine king".

It can be said that Hu Xueyan's career developed by relying on the combination of government and business, and he relied on bribing officials to develop his own business empire. This time, I came to Ding Baozhen to get the transportation right of Zhejiang's taxes, silver, and grain to be handed over to the imperial court. Once you get this right, you get a huge amount of interest-free loans, and the profits are amazing.

That's why Hu Xueyan will stare at Ding Baozhen like a little follower, although he is a small official, but the county official is not as good as the current management, people are responsible for specific affairs, and the first step must go through Ding Baozhen. Moreover, he heard that Ding Baozhen's reputation in the Ministry of Officials is good, and his future is limitless, and he also wants to get acquainted as soon as possible and invest in future connections.

In this era, no matter how big a businessman is, he is inferior when he sees an official, although Hu Xueyan, who is in his twenties, is rich and well-known, Ding Baozhen just doesn't take him seriously. So when Ding Baozhen beckoned Hu Xueyan to come in and settle the bill, he was ecstatic, knowing that Ding Baozhen, who had always refused before, was giving himself a chance.

"Lord Duwei, little Hu Xueyan, come to settle the bill for Lord Ding, how much silver do you want?" Hu Xueyan is very polite, and can even be said to grovel, businessmen are the most statusless, and they can only pretend to be grandsons when they see officials.

"Brother Hu doesn't have to be so polite, come on, give Brother Hu a plate of kung pao chicken, I've been standing outside for so long, I'm hungry." Yang Xiaoshan, as a traverser, knew that this Hu Xueyan was not simple, and deliberately befriended him.

When Hu Xueyan heard Yang Xiaoshan greet him like this, he was so moved that tears were about to fall, when did those officials look at themselves, in their eyes, they were just tools to use, slaves to do things for them.

"Lord Commander has tormented the villain, the little one can't afford it, how dare he call him a brother and sister." Hu Xueyan didn't dare to sit down, and was still standing next to the table.

"There are no outsiders here, so you don't have to be so polite, Brother Hu, please sit, sit." Yang Xiaoshan pressed Hu Xueyan and sat down.

When Hu Xueyan sat down tremblingly, Yang Xiaoshan smiled and said, "Brother Hu is running a money bank." ”

Yang Xiaoshan didn't think there was anything wrong with this, but in Hu Xueyan's ears, he always felt that this Chang Duwei wanted to blackmail himself, so polite, and he knew that he was running a money bank, did he want to take the opportunity to extort a sum of money?

"Yes, the villain has some small money." Hu Xueyan specially said the small words very seriously.

"This money bank is a money business, absorbing deposits at a relatively low interest rate, and then lending out at a relatively high interest rate to earn the difference, do you think I'm right?" Yang Xiaoshan analyzed.

"Yes, yes, I didn't expect Lord Captain to have studied this." The more Hu Xueyan listened, the more frightened he became, this Chang adult is powerful, not a master who is easy to fool.

"Brother Hu just asked the price of the checkout, so let's count it." Yang Xiaoshan stretched out a finger.

"A hundred taels of silver?" Hu Xueyan asked hesitantly.

Yang Xiaoshan shook his head.

"A thousand taels?" Hu Xueyan began to feel uneasy, his qi and blood were surging, this Chang adult was going to slaughter himself.

"Ten thousand taels of silver." Yang Xiaoshan directly reported the number, and he said in his heart: "It's not that I want to kill you, it's that I really want so much money to marry a wife." ”

Hu Xueyan's face turned the color of pig liver, he was 10,000 entanglements in his heart, and he could still bear 1,000 taels of silver, this 10,000 taels was too much. This is no longer a lion opening his mouth, but slaughtering himself as a dead pig.

But in the end, he gritted his teeth, took out a silver ticket from his arms and said: "Lord Chang, this is a silver ticket of 10,000 taels of silver from our Fukang Money Village, please accept it with a smile." As he spoke, his lips trembled with distress.

Yang Xiaoshan took the silver ticket, patted Hu Xueyan on the shoulder and said with a smile: "Brother Hu, do you think that Chang Mou deliberately killed you, the recipe for this dish is worth a thousand taels of silver, but the words I want to give to Brother Hu are far more than 10,000 taels of silver." Yang Xiaoshan knows that the recipe of Kung Pao Chicken is actually not valuable, although it is selling very well now, but it is impossible to make such a profit after the freshness has passed, and the top cooking people don't have to ask themselves if they really want to learn, buy one and go back to taste it and smell it to guess the recipe, and the secret can't be hidden for long.

"Oh? I would like to hear about it. Hu Xueyan raised his head in surprise, he really wanted to listen to the words worth 10,000 taels of silver.