Speaking of this, Liu Fan straightened his face and said, "Don't always think about how to make money, sometimes some things are actually more important than making money." If you talk about its wealth www.biquge.info how many people in this world can surpass you two salt merchants? I'm afraid I can count them on one hand! But why don't you have a status to match your wealth? The reason for this is that your reputation is too bad, everyone knows that the salt merchants are rich, the salt merchants are rich and unkind, and the salt merchants are poor and luxurious. But they don't know the suffering of you people! Yes, you are rich, but there are even more people staring at it! If you do the math, do you really get all the money you get from the salt industry every year? I'm afraid there aren't many! Have you never thought about why? ”

Liu Fan's words can be said to have said that the hearts of the three of them are on the line, and even Wu Zhi, who is very disgusted and hateful to Liu Fan, can't help but feel a sense of meeting a soulmate at this moment. Zhao Yan, who had a good relationship with Liu Fan, asked with red eyes, "Does Lord General Know how to help us get out of this predicament?" ”

Liu Fan smiled and said, "Actually, what you lack most now is strength, a strength that is enough to protect yourself." If you have the status of me or the Xu family, who else dares to bully you? ”

"Uh" Zhao Yan smiled bitterly when he heard this, and said helplessly, "Lord Commander, don't be joking, why don't we understand what you said?" But does it work? This is how salt merchants have survived for generations, and it is the same with us. Compared with our predecessors, we are the luckiest group, at least we have not become slaves of others, and we still have a certain degree of autonomy! ”

Liu Fan rolled his eyes, and said with a look of hatred: "Don't you know that sometimes fame and status are also a kind of strength? Look at those people in the Donglin Party, what do they have? Richer than you, or smarter than you? No, neither, they're just more famous than you. The Donglin party controls the public opinion of Shilin and even the entire Jiangnan, and their words represent the words of the entire Jiangnan, such a group of people dare not provoke them at will even if they are the governor, and even if they have a bad relationship with them, they have to work hard to sell them well. If you had the prestige of someone in the family, you wouldn't be as miserable as you are now! ”

Miserable? Are you miserable? They know their own affairs, they are rich salt merchants and seem to have unlimited scenery in the world, but in fact, in addition to their material superiority, they can only be said to be unsatisfactory in other aspects. In the whole Jiangnan and even the whole world, the social status of businessmen is still extremely low, and any scholar can wantonly scorn or scold them in public, and it is not uncommon for such things to happen from time to time. And they don't dare to take revenge on these people at will, in the eyes of others, maybe they think very highly of themselves and disdain to retaliate against others for this little thing. But in fact, only they know that they don't dare.

Looking at the three people who were in deep thought, the corners of Liu Fan's mouth curled slightly, and he said with a smile: "Of course, this is just a little bit of Bendu's own superficial opinion, as for whether it is right or not, it depends on what you think in your own hearts!" Actually, I think it should be very simple for you to spend a little money to do good deeds and brush up your reputation, and this kind of thing that benefits more than you pay is actually quite good! ”

Fame is also a type of strength? The three of them couldn't help but fall into deep thought when they heard this, maybe Liu Fan's statement was a little unreliable, but as long as there was a slight chance to get out of the current predicament, the three of them would not give up. Just as Liu Fan belongs, it's just spending a little more money, 10 million taels are out, do you still care about the tens of thousands of taels of silver, what's the harm in trying?

No matter what the three of them were thinking, the etiquette on the surface was still very sufficient, and I saw that after listening to Liu Fan's words, the three of them saluted in unison, "Thank you Lord General Soldier for your concern, I am grateful to the three of us!" ”

"Hmmm! The Governor just said it in passing, you just listen to it, there is no need to say anything like gratitude! Let's talk about it! In fact, Liu Fan also came up with such a method of "brushing prestige" with the intention of separating the relationship between Donglin and the two Huai salt merchants, but from the current situation, although the three of them looked a little moved, they were not resolute, so the role they could play was very limited. Seeing this, Liu Fan didn't bother to continue to bother with words, it would be best if he could add some blocks to the Donglin Party, if he couldn't, Liu Fan wouldn't lose anything, anyway, it was just one more sentence.

Thinking of this, Liu Fan clapped his hands and interrupted the three of them's contemplation, and then said, "Since you have all agreed on the matter of salt prices, then let's talk about the next cooperation!" The salt market in the south of the Yangtze River is already so big, and it is close to saturation to be able to accommodate you and me. If we continue to fight, I'm afraid it won't do us any good. So I think it's important for us to redefine our business scope, so as to avoid some unnecessary friction, don't you think? ”

Zhao Yan nodded when he heard this, and asked Liu Fan, "What Lord General Bing said is extremely true, since it is cooperation, then these things are also very necessary to discuss, but I don't know how Lord General Bing wants to delineate this business scope?" ”

Zhao Yan kicked the ball back to Liu Fan again in a word, and Liu Fan had no choice but to say, "The idea of this governor is that Nanjing City belongs to me, and Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Yangzhou belong to you." As for the rest of the states and counties in the south of the Yangtze River, they are jointly operated by the two of us, and as for the profits, it all depends on their own means. ”

"This.." Zhao Yan hesitated for a moment before he said, "Lord Commander, you should be very clear about the current situation, if you follow your method, I'm afraid that we people will have no room to survive." Can you modify it a little, can you directly limit the number of shops, how about you and me split half? ”

"Hehe," Liu Fan couldn't help but say when he heard this, "Are you sure you want this?" If you limit the specific number of shops, it will be very disadvantageous to you, how many shops are there under my command? It would be nice to have a third of you! If they take half of each of them, then the Governor will continue to expand the scale of the shop, are you really willing to do it? ”

"Uh," Zhao Yan laughed awkwardly and said, "Is this so, Zhao didn't expect this, since that's the case, forget it!" According to the method of the chief soldier, each according to his strength! ”

As soon as Zhao Yan's words came out, Liu Fan couldn't help but roll his eyes again, this guy is really thick-skinned. The words I just said were taken back so quickly!