Today's Chen Tao and Chen Dalei are much calmer than a year ago. For the various requests from the Daming Palace, they no longer have the excitement they had at the beginning, but just treat it as a business transaction. Of course, this is not an ordinary business after all, and it is always more careful than ordinary trading.

In the Ming Dynasty, paying tribute to the royal family was never an enviable task, especially when it came to food - it was too risky. A bag of food is sent from the place of origin to the stable, to the imperial dining room, and finally to the mouth of a noble person in the palace...... During this period, as long as there is a mistake in one link, or someone does something, it will be a big trouble immediately. Even if the food itself is fine, no one secretly stumbles, but if the noble man has a headache and brain fever during this period, most of the doctors will take "eating something wrong in season" as one of the causes in order to shirk their responsibility, which is still a big trouble.

So although Chen Tao and the others urgently needed to open up the situation in the stable at this time last year, they didn't plan to shoot the royal fart. Later, if it hadn't been for the palace's request, they wouldn't have come up. But now that the palace has taken the initiative to contact them, it is obviously not appropriate to shirk it. It's just that in order to ensure their own safety and not be inexplicably buttoned up, Chen Tao and the others first discussed internally for a long time, and then communicated with the Hainan headquarters several times, and finally agreed on a more secure way:

-- We can meet the demands of the court, but the method of rolling is up to us. So there was a large warehouse: dedicated to storing goods from the south.

In fact, there are not just one or two warehouses here, but a large group of warehouses - in the past year, Chen Tao has bought more real estate in the North Stable, than just the "Mingguangtang" shop, he and Chen Dalei bought a dilapidated Li Fang here, and then according to the reference drawings sent by Pang Yu and others, it was renovated into several large storage spaces connected into districts.

In fact, the houses in this area are quite simple, that is, large roofs supported by continuous beams and columns, in order to rush the construction period, except for the surrounding high masonry walls for anti-theft, the warehouse itself is only separated by reed mats and wooden fences. Not even a single brick is useless. But compared to the simplicity of the appearance, the things inside surprised Wang Chengen, who came in for the first time-those who flocked to the rich families and high-ranking officials and nobles in the stable, and even the palace had to put down the southern seasonal fresh food that Xia Zi came to ask for in person, and all kinds of melons, vegetables, fruits and vegetables that could not be seen outside at this time. Here they are stacked in bags and baskets on the ground, some of them until they are close to the roof, giving the impression of being in a rural market in the countryside - things that can be seen in a regular market if they are in season. But in this season, in this north stable, there are only short-haired warehouses that can be stacked casually and in large quantities like this.

Although there are many things in the warehouse, the items are neatly arranged, and the passage left can even be used to push a cart - there are many people picking and choosing in it at the moment. From time to time, put the things they like on the small flatbed they push. In addition to the eunuchs in charge of purchasing in the imperial dining room, there are also many housekeepers and servants of large families - for example, Qian Qianyi was very surprised to see his own servants in charge of purchasing here, and he was also pushing a small cart walking between the large piles of vegetables and fruits, picking and choosing. When he saw his master, he hurriedly wanted to come over to salute, but the latter hurriedly stopped him with his eyes - the highest-ranking eunuch in the audience was himself a waiter. You can't put the master's score in front of him.

Wang Chengen looked around, and his eyes fell on a particularly eye-catching counter in the front row, on which a large yellow banana was neatly placed - this kind of southern fruit that was both beautiful and delicious, and was suitable for the New Year's festival to decorate the fruit bowl, was obviously very popular with the stables, and almost everyone in the past had to take a few skewers to take away. So the originally full goods counter quickly thinned out, but immediately someone pushed out more goods from the back warehouse to replenish it, so the counter remained full all the time.

"How many of these bananas did you ship?"

"This batch of goods from Hainan has been sent out of ten tons...... It's about 20,000 catties."

Ignoring Chen Dalei's gesture quietly towards him next to him. Chen Tao checked the account book and reported a real number, which made Eunuch Wang's eyes shrink slightly:

"So much? I remember that it was only two hundred catties sent to the palace, right?"

"That's the amount we give away for free, and if the palace thinks it's good, you can buy some more with the parity quota. If you want more, you have to use the market price...... But there don't seem to be many people in the emperor's family, two hundred catties of bananas. I can't finish it all in winter."

Chen Tao's naïve and arrogant tone made Wang Chengen not know how to respond for a while-who paid tribute in these years only thought about the emperor's family? There are tens of thousands of people in the Forbidden City! Even if you don't consider those who have no status, have heads and faces, and can be qualified to share one or two profits from the tribute, it is better to say the least. If something is so rare that even the royal family is not enough, then it is fine, the master is not enough. Slaves don't dare to think about it. But your short hair sends a few hundred catties at a time, it looks like a big car, and it will be a headache when you really divide it - the twenty-four eunuchs of the inner court are in charge of the yamen, and none of those eunuchs in charge are easy to offend. Zhang San has Li Si's indispensable, if someone is negligent for a while, turning back the flue to block the manure pit and the roof is leaking, these small troubles will happen "often", although it is not a big deal, but it is enough to make people disgusting.

Of course, this evil can't be said publicly, but outsiders who are usually qualified to deal with eunuchs of Wang Chengen's level will take the initiative to consider this, and they don't need to bother with it at all. The evil in front of Chen Tao was just that, and when the last sentence came out, Wang Chengen immediately gave him a label of "less and no more" in his heart

[,！ But then again, as for this representative of the Qiong Navy stationed in the North Stable, everyone in Jingzhong who has dealt with him has a similar evaluation of him, and they all think that this young man's own foreign affairs skills alone are not enough to represent a big force like Qionghai Town. Even if it is the branch manager of some large merchants stationed in the stable, his ability to deal with the world is probably stronger than him.

But Shorthair has one big killer: wireless telegraphy. As long as the relevant people in the stable know that there is such a thing, they are all extremely envious of it - being able to transmit messages in real time thousands of miles away is simply a treasure in mythology, but in the hands of the shorthair, it is a physical object that can be used freely, and the huge advantage this brings to them cannot be overstated.

This time, the Short Mao sent people to Beijing to negotiate, and several bigwigs of the DPRK and China gave great priority to obtaining wireless telegraph technology as much as possible and at least the right to use it in the pre-planned negotiation goals. Of course, this is a later story, just for now: although Chen Tao is not very good at foreign affairs, it is difficult to be perfect in some small things. But thanks to the wireless telegraphy, he could get guidance from the rear at any time on big things, and he almost never made a mistake. Including this action to "pay tribute" to the imperial court for winter fruits and vegetables - Wang Chengen knew the whole plan. Although Chen Tao said it bluntly, it sounded a little uncomfortable for him, but he had to admit that the plan that Shorthair came up with was perfect, and it maximized the benefits of both the court and themselves.

First of all, it completely met the requirements of the palace - in fact, there were not many requirements in the palace, that is, Empress Zhou casually said when managing the affairs of the palace on a certain occasion, saying that the vegetables and vegetables for this year's festival should be prepared in advance, and they could not be like last year, but the imperial banquet was not as good as that of the courtiers outside - they bought it from Qiongzhen? Then let's go buy a few pounds.

The lady at the top spoke, and the eunuchs in charge immediately began to act. Although the mother only said "a few catties" in her mouth, if you really dare to get only a few catties, it is definitely an idiot, and you will definitely not be able to mix it in the palace. Of course, the word "buy" was also automatically ignored, and people were directly paid tribute. However, because of the anti-thief background of Qiongzhou short-haired, and the kind of unafraid of the sky and the earth that they have always shown Xiàn, the stewards and father-in-law in the palace did not dare to sharpen the knife too brightly, that is, they gave them a hundred catties of several out-of-season fruits and vegetables that appeared in the stable last year, and it was almost the same for them to pay a hundred catties for each - Wang Chengen thought before when determining the type, although a hundred catties is not much, but more than a dozen kinds add up to a few thousand catties, and when the time comes, I am afraid that I will have to fight with the short-haired side, and it is not bad to actually get half of it.

However, the response from the short-haired side was diametrically opposed to what he thought - they quickly brought a pamphlet, and it was said that the list of melons, vegetables, fruits and vegetables that could be provided in the south had many varieties and names on it that even Wang Chengen, the head of the palace, had never heard of, or even if he had heard of it, he never thought that it could be shipped to the north - such as those big bananas. After hearing that all these things could be brought to the stables, it was only natural that the prince asked for some of everything. And the other party actually agreed to be extremely refreshing, so when asking about the amount of tribute, Wang Chengen also deliberately made it a little difficult for the other party, thinking that since you dare to magnify it so much, then our family does not have to be polite, and doubled the original amount, which was only one hundred catties, all became two hundred catties - two hundred! As a result, the other party didn't even hit a grid, so he wrote the words "give away 200 catties of samples", as if it was really just a small difference between the number one and two.

ps:

This month is really anxious, but fortunately, the most difficult time has finally passed, and everything is recovering. I752