500,000 taels, a lot of money, and for Li Shi, it's not enough to stuff his teeth.

In the past few months, not to mention Tian Da by Guan Fengsheng, Lin Dashu, who has been buried in the field to take care of the farm, knows that Li Xi has an extraordinary calculation, and the 500,000 taels of silver really have to be spread out and used, but there is not much left. Carefully calculated, there are as many as two or three thousand people under the Qingtian Company, and nearly 10,000 indirectly related ones, and it is only fifty taels of silver per person this year, not counting the dots for Li Zhushou, Bai Daolong, Zhou Ning and others, as well as making up for the tax and silver holes that may appear in the Hun Factory.

Therefore, the faces of the five directors are a little heavy, the gold mine in Jiguan Mountain has always been mined by Si Wei in the amateur, and in the past half a year, the accumulated amount is only known to Li Xi and Guan Tian, but the value should not exceed 500,000 taels of silver, these gold are the root of life, and they will never be moved until the last resort.

"500,000 taels ......"

Li Xi revealed the truth to those who did not understand the situation very well.

"Those officials, merchants, and royal businessmen who were in the Chongguan Pass before had more than 500,000 taels of silver in a fleet, and we compared them with them, that is, an ant."

Li Xian's words are not alarmist, Zhang Yuanlong, the maritime merchant in Jiangnan who was killed by Zhang Boxing before, has a sea ship worth more than 500,000 taels of silver [1], and his biggest backer is just Kali, just an official businessman, not a monster like an imperial businessman, otherwise how could Zhang Boxing kill so casually.

One of the topics of today's conference is how to make money.

"Some people say, if we pinch the banknotes, can we be reversing the goods and become merchants? No, we won't be pure businessmen, everything has to be held in our own hands, and the commercial goods that can make money are salt, iron, tea, rice, raw silk cloth, these are all controlled by the imperial merchants, officials and businessmen, and we can't touch them. ”

The conference room was a large round table, and Li Xi spread out a map on the table, a very rough map of Guangdong.

"I have things, but the business route is not in my own hands, and our strength is not enough for others to treat each other equally.

Li Xian's words were all nodded by everyone, An Hetang's actions are an example, if Qingtian Company is just an ordinary glazed workshop, An Hetang is a little softer, spends money to poach the craftsmen, is tougher, and takes the official relationship from Guangzhou, and forces them down, and there are countless means to force them to bow their heads.

Li Shi's finger was on Yingde on the map: "The Lianjiang River where Xun Huan is located, from the banknote pass to the boat gang, we roughly hold it, and at the same time, we also suppress the other businessmen who take this line." ”

He moved to Shaozhou City again: "Yuxian Bridge Pass blocks Wushui from Hunan, and Taiping Pass blocks Zhenshui from Jiangxi, these two points are an obstacle, but this is just a side, you can ignore it for the time being, the most important thing is ......"

Move your finger down in the center of the map, and a dense annotation is stamped on it.

"Guangzhou!"

If Xun Huan is compared to Ren Mai, then Shaozhou Liangguan is the Du Mai, and Guangzhou ...... It's Baihui, if he doesn't gain a firm foothold in Guangzhou, the trade route will not be connected to the line, the trade route will be unstable, and he will take out anything at great risk.

"Guangzhou...... That's a tiger's den in Longtan. ”

This is everyone's impression, and it is also Li Shi's assessment, if you want to turn over the sea in Guangzhou, you have to have great power.

Therefore, Li Xiancai will make a unified deployment at the annual meeting, so that the leather shoe store, the Qingtie hardware store and the horse lantern store will go to Guangzhou to open a shop first, and how to enter the glass shop depends on how much can be discussed with Anhetang.

These are tentative tentacles, and then Li Xi did not continue the topic of Guangzhou, but discussed with everyone the topics of annual expansion and year-end benefits. When the annual meeting was over, when he met with Duan Hongshi Yiming Lao Dao, he talked about further planning.

"The officialdom of Guangzhou, that is a small court without an emperor, it is not good to rush over. Especially you, you can't go now, you can only consider it if you have an official body, otherwise a small team leader can rectify you in the official face. ”

Duan Hongshi also has some scruples about Guangzhou officialdom.

"Let's stretch out the tentacles first, and then Anhetang's side should be a help."

Li Xi nodded and was taught, now is indeed not the time to go to Guangzhou, unless it is just for tourism.

"The boat gang, even if it can get along in the officialdom of Guangzhou, if you don't deal with the boat gang in Beijiang well, if you want to go to Beijiang for business, it will be a big trouble."

Yiming Lao Dao cultivated in Danxia Mountain, and somehow, he still knew a lot about this boat gang.

"Cope? It's not just about coping, I'm thinking about how to deal with them. ”

Li Shi had previous experience in accepting the Lianjiang Boat Gang, and he had a deeper understanding of the important surname of this boat gang in commercial affairs.

"That's not just an official matter, but a matter of rivers and lakes."

Yi Ming shook his head, obviously thinking that Li Shi was too big.

The boat gang is the people who travel to and from the rivers to pull fibers, and when they gather together, there is an organization of the boat gang. But unlike the gangs in martial arts novels, there is no strict organization such as the main hall and branch altar such as the helmsman, and the people who control the boat gang are all self-employed boatmen and shipowners.

During this Kangxi period, the imperial court was under heavy pressure, the grassroots surname of the boat gang was still very strong, and there was no order, a river was churning, and the shipowners of all sizes held together for the purpose of friendship and mutual assistance, which was a guild that worked hard.

Since it is a guild, it is determined that they have a monopoly surname, and once a pattern of getting along with each other is coordinated, which is passed down from generation to generation, it becomes a rule and must not be crossed. For example, there are rules for who runs which routes, what business they take, what goods they ship, and how much freight they charge. If the gang itself violates this rule, it will be punished, and it will be difficult for the outside merchants to find a way to save freight and change the situation they are manipulating, unless it is a giant like the official merchant and the emperor who can support the fleet by himself.

Another major feature of this boat gang is that they have intricate ties with the grassroots level of the government along the road, and the so-called grassroots level includes the local inspection department, the local tax customs, the county government Jiangxun, and the water patrol of the Luying Flood Pond, and so on. It's okay to rectify sporadic ship owners, but if you want to break the rules of the boat gang, from small disgusting things to big black-hearted things, with these government grassroots cover up and even helpers, it is very difficult to deal with it.

Previously, Li Shi was able to control the Lianjiang Boat Gang in the Yingde section, and even to the entire Lianjiang Boat Gang, for many reasons. On the one hand, many of the river cargosters have their own cargo ships and self-maintenance boatmen, and the power of the boat gang is not strong. On the other hand, Li Shi suppressed the Xunhuan factory, and then with Li Zhushou's helper, Liu Xingchun was put into the Xunhuan Inspection Division, and at the same time, he also held Yingde Lianyong, and used several prongs to work.

The Beijiang Boat Gang is completely different, the traffic volume of the Beijiang River is several times that of the Lianjiang River, the dragons and snakes are mixed, and the Beijiang Commercial Route has no important pass in the Yingde section, and Li Xi is an outsider.

To put it simply, the boat gang is another society with another set of rules, which is the so-called "rivers and lakes". 【2】

If you don't control the boat gang, you can raise your own fleet, and even if you have money to build a ship, you won't have anywhere to find a boatman. Besides, Li Xi has no intention of being a businessman, and he has ulterior motives to deal with this boat gang.

"To deal with the affairs of the rivers and lakes, you have to be the people of the rivers and lakes."

Lao Dao shook his head and said a word, and a pretty face with angry phoenix eyes jumped into Li Xian's mind.

"It depends on whose rivers and lakes it is."

Li Shi muttered to himself in a low voice, waving that face away, he didn't have that kind of thought about Yan Sanniang, let alone relying on women to fight the country.

He didn't finish saying this, the second half of the sentence was "Of course it's my rivers and lakes", and he didn't expect that his own rivers and lakes hadn't been accumulated, but another one was faintly sprouting, which was a woman's rivers and lakes.

"I'm not a charlatan...... Little sister. ”

In the dungeon of Li Zhuang, two beauties, one big and one small, looked at each other through the iron fence, and their eyes were full of curiosity. And Pan Shiyu stood aside, looking left and right nervously.

"Are you also caught by Li Shi? It's really pitiful, at such a young age, is it enough to be bullied by him? ”

Yan Sanniang looked at this little girl with deep eyebrows, and felt that although she was ugly, she looked like a fine porcelain doll carved by God, and there was another indescribable cuteness. Seeing that this little girl was "escorted" by Pan Shiyu to bring her food, she subconsciously thought that she was also a victim.

"Yes, the fourth brother can bully people, the annoying dogleg, the bad man who does bad things, and the bad official who harms people, he has to bully."

Guan Xuan said crisply, scribbling something on a piece of cardboard. Yan Sanniang didn't pay attention to what she was doing, and her words made her flutter for a while, fourth brother? Bullying the dog's leg, the bad official, the master?

He ...... Is it true that he is a thief? ”

Li Shi's words, she chewed back and forth for a long time, but she always couldn't believe it, who would say that she was a thief so big?

"What the fourth brother says is what he says, and he also said that he is a god descending to earth."

Guan Xuan obviously doesn't think there is any taboo about the word "anti-thief".

The corners of Yan Sanniang's mouth twitched slightly, she really lied to her! But it sounded like the little girl hadn't been captured by him, but was with him at all.

"Your name is ...... Guan Xuan? Good name, look, you four...... Don't you think it's wrong for my brother to put me in prison and my dad somewhere else? ”

Looking at Pan Shiyu, he looked uncertainly, not noticing himself, Yan Sanniang lowered her voice and began to work on Guan Xuan's body.

"Oh...... It must have been you who did something bad to let the fourth brother punish you. ”

Guan Xuan's words were extremely smooth, and Yan Sanniang also burst with green tendons on her forehead when she heard it.

"Bullying weak women, is it what your fourth brother likes to do!?"

She asked hatefully.

"Sister Yan, you're not weak, listen to the pan boy, you can fight thirty of them one by one."

Guan Xuan grinned, and Yan Sanniang suddenly felt that she might have miscalculated the situation.

"That's not a reason to keep me here!"

She couldn't help but get hairy.

"I see......"

Guan Xuan suddenly put on an adult appearance and sighed leisurely.

"Although Sister Yan was born beautiful, she is not feminine at all, just like the fourth brother said, whether God creates people or things, it is fair, and there is no perfect existence."

Yan Sanniang clenched her fists and made a loud noise.

"I haven't grown up yet, and the fourth brother is ...... It's really annoying to miss a woman, what kind of woman does he like? ”

Guan Xuan's fugue was too empty, Yan Sanniang wanted to shout, what is this little girl's mind stuffing.

(To be continued)