Yamenli, the manager of the Department of Commerce and Trade, is holding an ordinary regular meeting.

The presiding officer of the meeting was Sui Yu, the young eunuch of the Department of Commerce and Trade, and the participants were all businessmen from the capital, as well as some officials from the Yamen, because of the recent cold prevention, the right minister Han Sheng did not attend the meeting.

“…… After the end of the war, the military's demand for weapons decreased, but the demand for grain, grass and medicinal materials further increased, and the Department of Commerce and Trade has purchased more than 60,000 catties of medicinal materials from Jiangnan in the past two months, and this amount is still in arrears from the imperial court. Some medicinal herb dealers in Jiangnan are already a little dissatisfied, after all, it is about to be the New Year......"

Although the Commerce and Trade Department seems to be a commercial organization, it is under the jurisdiction of the imperial court, and the laws of the imperial court have a great impact on the daily operation of the commerce and trade department. A few days ago, it was rumored that the imperial court was going to carry out a major reform of the Department of Commerce and Trade, but the new policy has not yet been implemented, and the matter is still just a rumor for the time being.

Things should be done or done, Sui Yu is comfortable whether she is presiding over her own business or presiding over the Commerce and Trade Division. Now she doesn't care much about the size of the Sui family's business, and now she cares more about the affairs of the court.

"Let's pay this money first." Sui Yu said.

When Sui Yu finished speaking, there was a discussion below, in addition to her position as a young eunuch, there are also many deputy supervisors in the Department of Commerce and Trade, and those deputy supervisors are not as aware of righteousness as Sui Yu, they still care more about their own pockets. Being the deputy supervisor of the Department of Commerce and Trade means that with the support of the imperial court, the merchants who do business with them will squeeze through the lintel of their homes, and they will make a lot of money because of the commercial and trade department of the imperial court. But let them vomit blood a little. They will have opinions. Sui Yu had already expected this.

"Each of you will take out a little, and the big head will still come from our Sui family." Sui Yu said, "After this period of difficulty, the court will compensate you, and the court will treat you badly?" ”

Sui Yu, as a young eunuch of the Department of Commerce and Trade, has a good status in the imperial court, she is a hot civil official in the imperial court now, and even Li Yannian's household secretary cannot be compared with her. And she herself is also a woman who is very inward-looking. Although she looks weak on the outside, she is no worse than a man in handling things.

The deputy eunuchs below were muttering again, Sui Yu knew what they were muttering, now the finance of the Shun Dynasty is more and more dependent on the Department of Commerce and Trade, and the Department of Commerce and Trade is not without money, but the money of the Department of Commerce and Trade will be requisitioned and transferred by the imperial court for various purposes, but when the Department of Commerce and Trade helps the court purchase goods, it will be owed by the Ministry of Household for various reasons. It's like a bottomless pit that can't be filled.

"That's it." After Sui Yu finished speaking, the other young eunuchs could only keep their opinions. After all, the big head is from the Sui family, and they are only a small part. In addition, 60,000 catties of medicinal materials are not too expensive, and they have diluted them to the merchants below who depend on them, and this loss can be minimized. They also understand the principle that if you pay, you will be rewarded. It is precisely because the Department of Commerce and Trade is very cooperative with the imperial court's requests that the imperial court does not dare to easily move the Department of Commerce and Trade, and the independence of the Department of Commerce and Trade is higher than that of the six ministries.

If Sui Yu is a corrupt official, the power in her hands is enough to make her greedy to the point of being rich and rivaling the country. It's a pity that she is not, not only is she not greedy, but she also fills in the money.

"What else?" After saying the matter of paying for the medicinal materials in advance, Sui Yu closed the official document and looked at the other rich deputy supervisors and asked.

"Young Eunuch Sui, there is something I don't know, you don't care." A deputy supervisor complained, "Recently, a lot of businessmen have come from Huaidi, and they have bought properties and some management rights in Chang'an City through some intermediaries, and they have also formed business alliances. You can't ignore this! ”

Sui Yu frowned slightly, these deputy supervisors just said one thing and did another, saying that they were here to ask for instructions, but in fact, they had already discussed it in private, and they might even have done a good job of suppressing these foreign businessmen, and they had to implement it at any time. In the final analysis, the Commerce and Trade Department of the Great Shun Dynasty was composed of the big merchants of Chang'an City, and the phenomenon of regional protection was particularly obvious, which was contrary to the original intention of the establishment of the Commerce and Trade Department, and the goal of the world's commercial harmony.

"If the shore of the land is not the king's minister, the merchants of Huaidi are not the people of the Shun Dynasty?" Sui Yu said with a little anger, "There are business alliances in Chang'an City, and it's not a day or two, and now they want to move their business to Chang'an City, for you, you should raise the awareness of competition, not find a way to suppress them." If anyone dares to defy the rules of the Department of Commerce and Trade to suppress these Huaidi merchants, the Department of Commerce and Trade will be the first to expel them from the scope of protection of the Department of Commerce and Trade! ”

After Sui Yu finished speaking, there was silence below.

Indeed, Sui Yu's authority is now too great, and the court's "connivance" to her has reached a very terrifying level. Some of the deputy supervisors who originally wanted to propose the "monopoly bill" could only send Sui Yu, the young eunuch, to leave first, and then they could talk a few times.

In fact, they regretted that they didn't spend tens of thousands of taels of silver to buy the official position of the young eunuch of the Department of Commerce and Trade at the beginning, and now they can't buy this official position even if they give millions of taels of silver. Sui Yu's young eunuch did a good job, and the court had no intention of replacing her.

Coming out of the yamen of the manager of the Department of Commerce and Trade, Sui Yu entered the warm sedan chair, walked for a while, and got into the carriage directly when she arrived at the carriage and horse shop. Now the transportation industry in Chang'an City has been very developed, horse-drawn carriages can be seen everywhere, and the industry of clothing, food, housing and transportation for the people is no longer in the monopoly of those powerful officials and businessmen, and the market has also entered orderly competition.

"To the south of the city!"

Sui Yu was supposed to ride her own carriage, but today she didn't want to be too special, Chengnan was very lively these days, because Jinchangfang was playing. Today, she was invited to accompany Liu Yu's family to Jinchangfang to watch the opera written by Liu Yuxin.

There are a lot of people along the way, today's play is the "big gong opera", the so-called big gong opera is a public performance, the people don't have to spend money to see it, they only need to find a small bench to sit in the open space to see, but they want to go early, go late can only look at the performance on the stage, and they can't hear the sound.

To the largest open space under the south mountain of Jinchangfang, the people are crowded, today is like a big festival in Chang'an City, the people outside the city are dragging their families to come to see the excitement, even if they are far away from the stage can not hear what is being played on the stage, just to join in the excitement has made the people feel the warmth of winter.

As the initiator of Chang'an City theater culture, Wuyi Hou Liu Yue has the privilege of sitting in the best position under the stage to watch the play, and today Sui Yu can also enjoy this honor by the way. Others, even if they are powerful, can only honestly follow the crowd to find a place.

By the time Sui Yu arrived, Liu Yu's family had already arrived. Liu Yu is just dressed in ordinary Confucian clothes, looking like a son-in-law of any family, and next to him is his wife Xu Xuanzhu on one side, and on the other side is the fourteenth princess Su Qi and her mother Concubine Lin, at the same table, and the Han sisters are sitting opposite Liu Yu in male clothes, leaving a vacant seat next to Xu Xuanzhu, obviously prepared for her.

Sui Yu was a little reluctant to bear this kind of honor, and stepped forward to give a salute, when Sui Yu on the table on the side had already jumped up to greet him: "Old sister, you are really late!" (To be continued......)