Hu Chuyuan and Tan Zhonglin were discussing, and other people's voices came from the courtyard, and after a while, a girl with an extremely beautiful appearance hurriedly walked in, and when she saw Hu Chuyuan, she smiled and said, "Young Master, the matter has been done." ”

The person who came was Pan Limei, who was sent to Yuben by Hu Chuyuan.

As soon as he heard her say this, Hu Chuyuan couldn't help laughing out loud and said, "Oh, it's all done?" ”

"yes!"

Pan Limei also took out a letter with a smile and handed it to Hu Chuyuan, saying: "This is a letter from the shopkeeper Tan to you, he will not come back in a few days, but the salt that should be bought has been put on the ship!" ”

Hu Chuyuan took out the letter and looked at it, and saw that the letter was written by Tan Yiyun himself, and he had already purchased 40 million catties of salt at a price of 45 wen yuan per catty, and bought 16 million catties of salt from North Korea at a price of 52 wen yuan per catty.

Counting the tariffs, the price is not cheap either.

Hu Chuyuan handed the letter to Tan Zhonglin and said, "My lord, it's almost time to close the net." ”

Tan Zhonglin glanced at it and sneered, "Just waiting for this day...... Okay, Captain Hu, I'll leave first and go back to the governor's yamen to do business! ”

"Tired Lord!"

Hu Chuyuan got up to send him off, and when Tan Zhonglin was sent out of the Humble Administrator's Garden, he came back and wrote a letter, asking Hu Rong to send it to Shanghai overnight and hand it over to Liu Chengxiang.

……

Sautéing salt is a no-brainer.

The annual salt consumption of the five provinces in the south of the Yangtze River is only 400 million to 450 million catties, and the normal selling price of 100 million catties of salt is only 2.3 million taels of silver.

Tang Yanshu and the others did not actually invest much money in the salt market, even if Hu Chuyuan sold another 200 million catties of salt, they could still eat it.

Of course, Hu Chuyuan understands this truth, so he has always followed the market price, and he will wholesale to middlemen according to how much money is sold to the takeaway.

With the salt purchased by Tan Yiyun and the salt hoarded by Tan Zhonglin and Mei Qizhao, Hu Chuyuan began to amplify his courage and quickly let the local branches open for wholesale, 600 yuan per catty, all of which were resold through middlemen.

Within more than ten days, he sold out 60 million catties of salt again.

At the same time as he returned the funds, the Yamen, the governor of Liangjiang, issued an official document stating that in order to stop the speculation and sale of salt in the market, the salt industry was controlled, and the Jiangnan Commercial Bank issued a "salt sales notarization" to wholesale salt from the Jiangnan Commercial Bank for retail sale, but anyone without a license was not allowed to engage in the sale and transportation of salt.

This is the embargo, the embargo.

It doesn't matter if it's a ban, the embargo is terrifying, which means that all merchants will continue to hide in the warehouse as much salt as they speculate.

As soon as this official document came out, Hu Chuyuan published news in the "Declaration", stating that he had purchased 70 million catties of salt from overseas, and another warehouse hoarded 60 million catties of salt, which was enough for winter expenses.

The notarization of salt sales has already been printed, and the branches of the commercial bank quickly issued certificates to local grocers, each certificate is valid for three years, and 100,000 catties of salt can be imported every year.

In Zhejiang, Mei Qizhao has already taken the lead in inspecting and frying salt in Huzhou.

In Shanghai, Yang Changjun finally got the official title of Shanghai Daotai and began to inspect salt speculation in Shanghai.

Under the high-pressure policy, local prefects have sent people to investigate salt merchants.

The people and the officials fight.

It's never the best option.

Generally speaking, the response of the local government axe in the late Qing Dynasty was unusually slow, even indifferent, but that was a prerequisite - the higher officials did not care, and if the governor and the governor cared, things would be done as quickly as a breeze.

Tan Zhonglin quickly arrested more than a dozen businessmen involved in salt frying and asked them to explain that everything was premeditated, everything was planned by Tang Yanshu, Zhang Songxian and others behind their backs, and they also discussed it with foreigners, and even foreigners also funded salt frying and refused to sell salt to Jiangnan Commercial Bank.

The goal is to crush Jiangnan Commercial Bank.

Perhaps, those businessmen had already confessed to Tan Zhonglin, so they were arrested on the same day and confessed on the same day, perhaps, these people are Tan Zhonglin's eyeliner.

Officialdom is always cruel, Tan Zhonglin personally went to Shanghai to arrest people, and Tang Yanshu had already gotten the news and hid in the concession and refused to come out.

Zhang Songxian was arrested at home.

It was not until this time that Zuo Zongtang officially folded his sentence and set Tang Yanshu and Zhang Songxian the crime of "fornicating with foreign countries and harming the country and benefiting themselves", and believed that they were extremely evil, colluding with foreigners, and wanted to cause the country to lose its territory by plotting to disturb Jiangdong and bring disaster to Xinjiang Province.

As soon as this fold is on, Tang Yanshu and Zhang Songxian must be capital crimes.

Even if you don't die, at the very least, you will be exiled from your home.

After Zhang Songxian was arrested, he successively confessed to other people in order to protect himself, Gu Shousong, who served as a comprador in Jardine Matheson & Co., was also on the list of "fornicating with foreign countries", and Liu Yong and others were successively on the list of "plotting to disturb Jiangdong and causing trouble to Xinjiang Province".

In just one and a half months, Zhang Songxian and other Nanxun Sixiang hoarded 40 million catties of salt, Tang Yanshu hoarded more than 20 million catties of salt, and the amount of salt hoarded by merchants from other places was not low.

This is the "salt disaster case".

The late Qing Dynasty was a dynasty with many mysteries, and the salt disaster case was a typical example, whether Zuo Zongtang intended to blame the trouble, or whether the businessmen deliberately colluded with foreigners, no one could say clearly.

Because of the wide range of involvement, the imperial court urgently transferred Zeng Guoquan, the governor of Shanxi, to serve as the secretary of the criminal department and the minister of the Qincha, and investigated the case together with Rong Lu, the governor of Anhui.

I'm afraid it will take some time to know what the outcome will be.

However, one thing is certain, that is, the price of salt quickly stabilized, and more than 60 million catties of salt were found in Huzhou alone, because the case has not yet been finalized, these salts cannot be seized immediately, but they are first allocated to the Jiangnan Commercial Bank to stabilize the price of salt.

As for how to settle the accounts of these salts in the end, that is a matter of the future, the big deal, Jiangnan Commercial Bank will give people more than 60 million catties in the future.

When the two governors, Tan Zhonglin and Mei Qizhao, were personally in charge of the case, and Zeng Guoquan and Rong Lu were in charge of the trial, Hu Chuyuan, who was to some extent one of the culprits in the skyrocketing price of salt, was at ease.

But he did not return to Hangzhou immediately, nor did he go to Shanghai, so he stayed in the Humble Administrator's East Garden in Suzhou.

Yan Shizhang was not there, Wang Yirong was not there, Liu Chengxiang and Tan Yiyun were both in Shanghai, and Hu Chuyuan and Pan Limei played chess together to kill time, waiting for the final trial.

It's really pitiful to say, his Go skills are not as good as Pan Limei.

At night, the two of them lit kerosene lamps and continued to sit on the couch and play chess.

There was a noise outside the door, and after a while, Hu Rong led a group of rich gentry in, and Hu Chuyuan didn't need to ask much to know what they were here for.