Looking at the sneer on Liu Cheng's face, Ma Ziyi couldn't help but feel a chill. All along, Liu Cheng has shown a kind of bamboo in front of him, advancing and retreating in a disciplined manner, although the means are ruthless, but even if he has a winning hole card in his hand, he is quite measured, and always leaves room for the opponent. Ma Ziyi is very familiar with this style of acting, because in the circle of the Ming gentry, it is in accordance with the rules of the game: the winner is up to the point, don't think about it, and the loser also admits defeat, and will not be entangled to the end, and will come again next time. This is also one of the reasons why Ma Ziyi happily cooperated with Liu Cheng after reaching out to him. But the Liu Cheng in front of him is completely different, although he is smiling, he is like a beast in a desperate situation, and he looks like he chooses people to devour. I tried to persuade a few times, but when the words came to my mouth and I swallowed them back, Ma Ziyi's understanding of Liu Cheng was very clear, and saying something at this time was just an insult to the other party's wisdom.

"In that case, the old man has nothing to say. However, please also ask Lord Liu for the sake of the people of Shaanxi, there are some things to be allowed to give up one or two! With that, Ma Ziyi arched his hand towards Liu Cheng and walked away quickly.

As soon as Ma Ziyi went home, she asked the housekeeper to go to the Pitang Bureau to find Ma Rencheng to see her, but when it was time for dinner, Ma Rencheng returned home.

"The child meets his father!" Ma Rencheng kowtowed to his father twice before standing up: "There are a few things in the bureau today, and I will go home after I finish disposing of them, so my father will wait for a long time." ”

"Hmm!" Ma Ziyi nodded vaguely, looked up and down for a while, and saw that compared to the previous son, he was a lot darker, but his waist was straight and his expression was decisive, and he was no longer the light and incapable squire's son a few months ago. No matter what Ma Ziyi's attitude towards Liu Cheng is now. But as a father, seeing his son's growth, he can't help but feel a burst of joy in his heart.

"You haven't done a bad job in the Pitang Bureau in the past few months, have you?"

"Father!" Like most young people who have come into contact with new things, Ma Rencheng replied excitedly: "I have learned a lot in the bureau in the past few months. ”

"Humph!" Seeing her son's excited appearance, Ma Ziyi couldn't help but feel angry in her heart: "It's because you don't have to work hard to study." Otherwise, if you are admitted to a jinshi, you can be a high-ranking official, and a good horse can be ridden, how can it be boring? ”

"Father, under the window, there is no paper, who can say clearly in this scientific examination? I didn't put in a lot of effort back then, but I really couldn't pass the exam! Ma Rencheng sighed: "But my father also said that as long as I do well in this Pitang Bureau, I can be regarded as having a family business." ”

Seeing that his son took out all the words he had said before as a shield. Ma Ziyi couldn't speak directly, so she had to make a detour and asked casually: "I heard that Lord Liu trains all day long, I don't know if the trained soldiers can fight?" “

"If you can fight, you can definitely fight!" Ma Rencheng's answer was categorical.

"I see that your soul has been hooked away by that Liu Cheng, and you haven't used a knife or gun, how do you know that you can fight? If you can't tell you what happened, be careful of the family law! “

"Father. I'm not talking nonsense! Ma Rencheng smiled, and he took out a booklet from his arms. handed it over: "I wanted to talk to my father a few days ago, but I never had the chance, but today is a coincidence." “

Ma Ziyi took the booklet and opened it to see a page of tables, the first vertical line of the table was written with the names of dozens of commonly used commodities such as "cotton, rice, iron", etc., and the last two lines were recorded in regular script with numbers. It seems to represent the meaning of the price, but not every line in the back has it, and many of them are blank. Ma Ziyi looked at it for a while, but still didn't understand what it meant, so she asked, "Little beast." What's written on this? ”

"Tell my father! The first row is the price of these commodities in the Jiangnan area, which Lord Liu asked me to ask my relatives over there to inquire, but the back row is guessed by children. “

"Guess? Guess what? “

"Guess the cost unit price of these produced in Lord Liu's handicraft workshop."

After her son's mention, Ma Ziyi saw a little eyebrow, and saw that the figures representing Liu Cheng's production costs were much lower than those representing Jiangnan, and many were even only one-fifth to one-third. Ma Ziyi looked at it for a while, and sneered and threw the pamphlet on a few cases: "Didn't you deceive him, how could it be so cheap, could it be that Liu Cheng can't do it?" ”

Ma Rencheng said with a smile: "Absolutely can't be wrong, the numbers on it have been verified by the children one by one, Lord Liu will not be able to do demon law, but there will be a lot of immortal law." For example, this cloth. Ma Rencheng turned the book to the second page: "For example, one piece of Songjiang Sansuo cloth in the south of the Yangtze River is worth six dollars of silver, and one or two pieces of silver are the finest twill. In Liu Cheng's workshop, the cost of the finest flannel cloth and the finest one is only two or three cents of silver. “

"Hmph, how do you know that Liu Chengyu didn't lie to you?"

"Father, this is the child's back, for example, the robe on the child's body is made of cloth in Lord Liu's workshop, and the texture will be known by the father when he touches it."

"Oh, let me see." Ma Ziyi reached out and touched the clothes on her son's body, sure enough, the flannel cloth was uniform and tough, straight as a mirror, the tentacles were warm, and only when you looked carefully could you see the tight warp and weft on it, compared to the finest Songjiang cloth, it was not inferior, and the warmth was still excessive.

"It's really good." Ma Ziyi nodded: "You said that this kind of fabric only costs two or three cents of silver for a horse?" How do you know? “

"Father, Lord Liu already has 15 hydraulic yarn machines next to the canal, and according to the calculation of 120 spindles per spindle, there are 1,800 spindles, and these yarn machines need to use five bales of wool every day to spin 50,000 spindles of wool yarn. And sixty spindles of yarn can spin one piece of cloth, and each bag of wool on the grassland is only three horses of cloth......" Ma Rencheng spoke, while reaching out to dip his cup in water on a few cases to write and draw on the table, at this time Ma Ziyi did not scold him as harshly as usual for being rude, but just sat aside without saying a word and listened to his son's calculations, and asked a few words from time to time.

"What about the wages of the workers?"

"The food that the workers eat when they go to work belongs to the owner, and the wages they receive are cloth, and for Lord Liu, how much does this cloth cost?"

"Those workers are willing?"

"Why not? These workers were originally rural women. When I came out to work in the factory, there was naturally no one to weave cloth at home, so instead of spending money to buy it outside, it was better to take it directly from the factory, so that Mr. Liu would convert more. Even if you don't need it for a while, it can be used as a gift, to exchange rice and grain with neighbors and relatives, or to hire workers. It is not more difficult to use than copper coins and silver. And in the case of cloth, Mr. Liu pays his salary once a month, and he never defaults, unlike other shops, workshops, and grain households, where the wages are not counted until the end of the year, and he also uses lead money and small money to deceive people. Many people say that Lord Liu is a benevolent and righteous person. “

"I see." Ma Ziyi nodded, as Ma Rencheng said, although the government at that time had changed to the silver standard in the central finances. That is, silver is the main currency, but in the rural market, especially in the northwest countryside where the commodity economy is not so developed, a large part of the transaction is still in the form of physical exchange, in other words, the grain and silk monetary system. The reason is simple: both copper and silver were concentrated in the hands of the gentry and merchants, and the peasants did not have enough small money in their hands as a medium of exchange. In this way, Liu Cheng's water-powered textile factory is more than just a textile factory. It also served as a rudimentary version of the banking function, as long as the stable-quality, neatly sized cloth was accepted by the farmers of the Ming Dynasty in the rural markets of the northwest. Then he doesn't have to worry about overproduction, because even if a farmer doesn't need to add clothes to himself or his family for the time being, he is willing to accept the exchange of cloth for his goods—anyway, the next time he lacks something, he can exchange it for this cloth.

After learning about the cloth, Ma Ziyi asked about the prices of leather shoes, ropes, and many other goods, and his expression became more and more solemn, and in the end. He suddenly asked Ma Rencheng: "Rencheng, if Lord Liu leads the troops to battle, will he win or lose?" “

Ma Rencheng glanced at his father in surprise, why did he suddenly ask this question? But he still obediently answered his father's question: "The child doesn't know much about the war, but the child still thinks that Lord Liu will win." “

"Why do you say that?"

"Father. The children's Pitang Bureau is more than a dozen zhang away from Mr. Liu's workshops, and every day when the roosters crow, they hear the tinkling sound there, and the sun goes down before stopping, and sometimes those blacksmith shops are still rushing to work at night. The workshop has hydraulic machinery, and it is many times faster than other workshops. I heard that in Lord Liu's storeroom, there were two or three thousand pairs of leather boots for the soldiers alone, and only more armor, firearms, weapons, gunpowder, and lead were prepared. You also know what those thieves look like, not to mention leather boots, even straw sandals are not worn by everyone, many people simply wear barefoot, at most get a cloth bag. Even if Lord Liu is a fool, he will not lose the battle with such a soldier to fight the thieves. ”

Ma Ziyi stood up, reached out and grabbed her son's shoulders and pulled him up, and carefully looked at her son from top to bottom, as if it was the first time she saw him. Just when Ma Rencheng felt uncomfortable up and down, Ma Ziyi suddenly said: "I can't imagine that you have grown so much these days, it seems that you are the right move to send you to Liu Cheng." ”

"A little growth of the child is all the benefit of the father's daily life!" Ma Rencheng just wanted to be humble, but heard Ma Ziyi continue: "But the next thing is to wronged you, you don't have to blame your father, I am also for the foundation of the Ma family!" ”

Just when Ma Rencheng was inexplicable, Ma Ziyi picked up the teacups on several cases and slammed them on the ground, pointing at Ma Rencheng and scolding with his loudest voice: "Bastard, get out of here, I Ma Ziyi don't have your son!" ”

The servant waiting outside the door was stunned by the noise in the study, he cautiously walked to the window, approached the crack in the window and peeked inside, and then was stunned by the scene in the house, only to see that the ground was full of broken teacup fragments, Ma Ziyi pointed at the second son Ma Rencheng and scolded.

"Someone, someone!"

Hearing the shouts of the old master inside, the servant hurriedly pushed the door and rushed in, and answered, "Master, master, what's wrong!" “

"Give me the family law and drive this rebel out for me, I don't have this son Ma Ziyi!"

The servant had been following Ma Ziyi for more than 20 years, and he was very close on weekdays, so he hurriedly persuaded him: "Master, why are you bothering? How can I get angry and get my body! “

"Even you don't listen to me anymore, okay, okay, you don't take me!" Ma Ziyi seemed to be mad, he pushed away the servant who stretched out his hand to invite him to support him, rushed to the window and picked up a wooden fork used to support the window, and hit Ma Rencheng with a wooden fork. At this time, Ma Rencheng came back to his senses, and hurriedly turned his head and ran outside the house, Ma Ziyi couldn't catch up, and he didn't hit his son, but broke a lot of potted plants and bird cages in the windows and corridors. Ma Ziyi saw that Ma Rencheng was running away, so he stopped, panting and shouting loudly: "I want to open an ancestral hall and remove this rebel son from the Ma family, our Ma family in Dunzhou does not have this bastard thing!" ”

I don't know what the reason is, the news that Ma Rencheng was kicked out of the Ma family and removed from the Ma family tree soon spread throughout the entire city of Yanzhou, but the reason is not accurate. It is said that Ma Rencheng did some ugly things outside that ruined the door style, which angered his father and was kicked out; It is also said that Ma Rencheng is disobedient and unfilial; Some people also said that Ma Ziyi got the news that Liu's guerrilla was going to be finished, so he asked his son Ma Rencheng to go home from the Pitang Bureau to avoid causing trouble, but Ma Rencheng was reluctant to take advantage of the main work, and he didn't let go, so Ma Ziyi drove his son out of the house to avoid disaster to the family. But Ma Rencheng, as a party concerned, acted as if nothing had happened, and still ran errands in the Pitang Bureau every day, the only difference was that he no longer went home, but moved to a Zhuangzi not far from the office.

Yi Hong House

As the most upscale nightlife venue in Yanzhou, Yihong Mansion not only provides sound and entertainment services for the local wealthy class, but also has another role in providing public living space for the upper class. In the Ming Dynasty, there was no telephone, no Internet, no art salons, no theaters and other public life that only appeared in modern times, but this does not mean that the gentry at that time did not have similar needs, of course, they could also achieve a small range of information exchange by holding family banquets and other ways, but the family banquet was too formal, in an ancient society with a strict hierarchy, not everyone could be invited to the home of a noble gentleman. Therefore, a place like Yihong Mansion has become a very good choice, where anyone can temporarily put down the identity shelf, as long as you are willing to pay money, the noble sons of the nobles, the Jinshi master of Qingsuke, and the wealthy businessmen can sit around the table, and most men will become very good at talking under the lubrication of music, wine, and **. (To be continued.) )