This auction involves several Yamen Ministry of Works, responsible for the handover of machinery and equipment, the Household Department is responsible for the cashier, the South Factory is responsible for security, Changzhou Mansion is responsible for various logistics work on the periphery, as well as an old eunuch named Dai Yi of the Ministry of Ceremonies and the two departments of the household, and the people in charge of auditing and supervising the Metropolitan Procuratorate are of course indispensable, and there are more than a dozen imperial historians, staring at all the details of the auction like wolves all day long, hoping to find some trouble with the Ministry of Industry or Liu Ziguang.

Qishuyan Machinery Factory covers an area of hundreds of acres, across both sides of the canal, the factory building is like a company, machinery and equipment are as many as cattle hair, it can be regarded as the largest factory in the Ming Dynasty, the total assets are worth tens of millions of taels of silver, if the auction is successful, it will increase a huge amount of income for the household, and the military expenses of the Northern Expedition have been settled, so the court attaches great importance to Liu Ziguang, who originally wanted to do something to let the Li National Railway Plant win the bid, I am afraid that it will fail.

Because it is a public shouting, so the opportunity to cheat is not much, everyone is not fuel-efficient, the lamp auction is a little biased, it will be made full of wind and rain by these guys with hands and eyes, if you fight hard for financial resources, the national railway plant does not have much advantage, the recent iron plant funds are not very abundant, barely able to make up more than one million taels of silver, this money is not enough to buy the machine factory, but other manufacturers are not good, who does not have too much cash in their hands this year, if the hard withdrawal of funds is bound to affect their own production and operation, so that a vicious circle will be formed, even if the machine factory is auctioned, there is no start-up capital, the only solution is to borrow money to the world's richest Rishengchang ticket numberFactories, machinery, and land properties will be used as collateral to obtain a loan.

Wuchang Zuo family is so planned, Guangzhou Chen family is also so planned, as long as there are normal business acumen people will think of borrowing, they not only to Rishengchang to borrow, but also to the city's wealthy businessmen and wealthy people to borrow, agreed in advance interest rates, etc., after the operation of the machine factory for a period of time, even the principal with interest returned, so that also raised a lot of funds, each bidder has brought millions of silver, now Changzhou Mansion has gathered a huge amount of money, I am afraid that one-tenth of the silver of the Ming Dynasty is concentrated here, of course, most of them are easy to carry silver tickets and gold ingots of relatively high value, otherwise it will cost a lot of manpower just to transport and store silver。

In this way, a lot of bodyguards were also used to protect the courtyard, and almost all the dart bureaus that could be said to be famous in the Ming Dynasty came, and the officers and soldiers of the imperial court also mobilized tens of thousands of horses to escort the auction.

Liu Ziguang sat on the auction floor, sitting below him is the big eunuch Dai Yi, this guy is Wei Zhongxian's fellow countryman, he is not young, he has always been a small role in the palace, and recently relied on the relationship of Wei's father-in-law to become a five-grade eunuch, and his self-confidence was seriously burst for a while, and after coming to Changzhou, he was even more arrogant, relying on himself to come out of the palace, and with the backing of Dongchang, he didn't put other officials in his eyes at all, that is, among the people in Nanchang, he was only a little jealous of Liu Ziguang, which made everyone very disgusted with him.

The auction officially began, first of all, it was a batch of stock steel and timber, these small-scale auctions did not have any thrilling points, they were thousands of taels of silver, the bidders participated in the bidding, and they were all small manufacturers around Changzhou, the auction process was carried out long and difficult, and the shrewd Jiangnan businessmen never wasted every tael of silver, and the price was fifty taels and ten taels, making everyone drowsy.

Fortunately, Liu Ziguang revised the auction rules in a timely manner, stipulating that each price increase must be half of the starting price of the bid, that is, one-twentieth of the starting price, which reversed the dull situation, and the small hammers of the household officials frequently fell, and a large number of raw material stocks of the Qishuyan Machinery Factory were sold, and the silver was collected in the cash cabinet of the household department.

The little boss who photographed the items he was satisfied with smiled and took the official document issued by the government to the machine factory to pull things, and the rest of the people were waiting for the next round of auctions with great expectations.

Behind the list is a batch of technical data auction, there is nothing too advanced technology, is the waterwheel, boiler, rail forging method and the like, the bidders are still the owners of some small workshops, but in addition to the locals in Changzhou, there are also some outsiders, this round of bidding is carried out more quickly, three times and two times the auction is over, it seems that everyone is prepared, determined to win.

The first two rounds of auctions are warm-up sports, the highlight is still behind, that is, the overall auction of plant equipment of the machine factory, everyone focused on the body of several heavyweights, Wuchang Shipyard is a relative of Huguang Governor Zuo Liangyu, the relationship between Liguo Iron Works and Liu Ziguang is clear, and everyone knows that several others also have a deep official background, only an inconspicuous Shanghainese, everyone does not know, and they also sit in the buyer's seat, drinking Longjing and smoking fashionable cigarettes.

At the beginning of the auction, the household officials quoted a reserve price of five million taels of silver! Immediately caused a sensation in the venue, those small buyers have never heard of it, there is such a huge amount of numbers, what does it mean to have five million taels of silver?

It was a well-equipped army, it was a provincial tax for the whole year, it was the sum of millions of people's annual income, and everyone even inhaled cold air to express their amazement, but those bigwigs who were determined to win the bid did not move at all, and there was no expression on their calm faces, and this reserve price had long been expected by them.

The Chen family in Guangzhou was the first to raise the sign

"Five million two hundred and fifty thousand taels." The little guy next to him immediately shouted, and the official dialect with a Cantonese accent was full of charm.

The Wuchang Zuo family immediately followed up with a retinue holding up the sign and shouted in a louder voice: "Five and a half million taels." Immediately after Huainan Meijia also raised a sign to shout the price, their strength is relatively weak, this time only brought six million taels of silver tickets, simply quoted the price of six million, can be achieved can not be pulled down, it is conceivable that this price code just shouted out was passed, the protagonist of the auction is Wuchang Zuojia and Guangzhou Chen family, both of them are shipbuilding factories, the Qishuyan Machinery Factory's steam engine production capacity has long been coveted, if they can annex the machine factory, it is a great help for them to monopolize the Ming shipbuilding industry, so the two fight very fiercely.

The Chen family is said to have some relationship with the Guangzhou Bo Division, so that the silver is like flowing water, there is no hesitation at all, the Zuo family is not ambiguous, and frequently presses the Chen family, they in addition to the relationship with Zuo Liangyu, but also on Wei Zhongxian's way, for this auction sent a lot of benefits to him, so Wei Zhongxian sipped the emperor sent the eunuch Dai Yi to supervise it in order to ensure that the Zuo family can smoothly auction the Zuo family's silver, it is indeed abundant, and has raised the price to seven million taels, so that the Chen family is about to win, the representative of the Zuo family shoots his eyes on the representative of the Liguo Iron Works, Hu Xiandu, the old Hu has been leisurely drinking tea, once did not raise a card, do they still have a back hand？

As for the inconspicuous Shanghainese, no one paid attention to him, this guy was probably frightened by the reserve price offered, and he didn't dare to speak out at all.

Unexpectedly, Hu Xianju had no intention of bidding at all, he actually stood up at this tense moment and sued him for his crimes, which is clearly abstaining!

Although I don't know the reason, at this moment, the representatives of the Zuo family and Dai Yi are relieved, as long as the Peng family does not participate, then no one can match them.

The price still stopped at seven million taels, and the household official stood on the platform and shouted: "Is there any more bidding?" Is there anything more expensive? No one raised a sign, this Qishuyan Machinery Factory has been surnamed Zuo since then. ”

"I'll give you eight million taels of silver." The mysterious Shanghai guest who had been hiding behind everyone finally raised his card and easily quoted a high price of eight million taels, which couldn't help but surprise everyone, and the thing that was worried finally appeared, Dai Yi's father-in-law frowned, and the representative of the Zuo family also stretched his face, and it was already their limit to seven million taels, and there was still a lot of fund-raising and borrowing in it, but when things came to this point, they could no longer retreat, only persist.

The representative of the Zuo family turned his eyes to Dai's father-in-law, Dai Yi, and said with a dry cough: "What is the identity of this buyer, have you paid a deposit, do you know what you say now, every word is responsible, if you can't take out so much silver, not only will the deposit be confiscated, but you will also be punished." After speaking, he glanced back at Liu Zi and said with a smile: "Lord Liu, our family is right to say so." ”

"That's right, this auction was personally ordered by the emperor, and whoever dares to raise the price will be guilty of defrauding the monarch and will be killed." Liu Ziguang said.

"The villain is the representative of Jiangnan Shipyard, Lin Xiang has already paid the deposit in full, as for whether we can take out the silver, then wait until the picture is taken and see, if it can't satisfy the adults by then, the villain is willing to be killed." The Shanghainese spoke very hard, and he was not afraid of the intimidation of the two adults at all.

"You still dare to be stubborn, I see that you are purely here to make trouble, and I coaxed him out left and right." Although Dai Yi didn't know the origin of this guy, he already faintly felt a danger, and there must be a big man standing behind this so-called Jiangnan Shipyard.

Jiangnan Shipyard, located on the bank of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, is a small factory, few people know about it, and no one knows that the boss behind it is Liu Ziguang, and all kinds of discussions sounded in the hall for a while.

"Stand down." Liu Ziguang said softly, not angry, and his arrogant posture made the two Dongchang fans shudder, looked at Dai Yi and looked at Liu Ziguang helplessly, standing in place and not daring to move.

"Dai Yi Benbo doesn't have your share in front of him, forget it this time, next time you will be so disrespectful and humble, be careful of your head." Liu Ziguang said coldly, and did not give Dai Yi any face between his words, making him blush on the spot.

was reprimanded in front of so many people, Dai Yi was very angry, he felt that he was a person from the palace, and he was a close confidant of Dongchang Wei Gonggong, even if Liu Ziguang was arrogant in Nanchang, he would give himself a little thin noodles, but he didn't expect to come to such a scene, seeing the gloating faces around him, Dai Gonggong's neck twisted and said: "Our family is sent by the emperor, who respects and who is inferior, it's hard to say." Liu Ziguang laughed: "You are a lowly eunuch, and you dare to compare yourself with my first-class earl, it's ridiculous, right, you are sent by the emperor, isn't this Qincha Benbo?" Could it be that Grandpa Wei taught you such a thing? Left and right, drag this unruly minion down and slap me. "Actually, Dai Yi regretted it as soon as he spoke, what kind of person is Liu Ziguang, that is the favorite minister of the emperor of the emperor, the commander of Nanchang, the head of the internal guard, not to mention himself, a five-grade eunuch, even the top boss, Gonggong Wei did not dare to fight him face to face, Dai Yi came back to his senses, hurriedly knelt down and begged for mercy, he slapped seventeen or eighteen big mouths, all of them were real guys with sound bleeding, Liu Ziguang sneered and did not pursue it further, let him continue to sit and supervise the auction.

The South Factory and the East Factory are nominally one inside and one outside, but in fact it is difficult to distinguish the scope of power and responsibility, the two yamen inevitably fight often, Liu Ziguang was better when he was in the capital, recently he toured the Jiangnan East Factory and took the opportunity to suppress the South Factory and bullied the brothers so much that they couldn't raise their heads, Sun Gang had already told Liu Ziguang, so he would take the opportunity to Dai Yibiao, which was also a warning to Wei Zhongxian.

If it weren't for Dai Yi, who really came by the emperor's order, I'm afraid this guy who doesn't know the height of the sky would have been slaughtered by Liu Ziguang a long time ago.

Dai Yi naturally understood Liu Ziguang's intentions, he humbly admitted his mistakes on the surface, but behind his back, he remembered hatred and began to figure out how to fight Nanchang and Liu Ziguang.

The auction continued, taking advantage of the vacancy just now, the representative of the Zuo family had already quickly negotiated with a big shopkeeper in charge of loans in Rishengchang at the venue, and asked for an urgent loan of two million taels of silver, and the big shopkeeper shook his head in embarrassment and said: "The amount is too huge, 100,200,000 can still be discussed, no matter how much it is, it will not be able to call the shots." The representative of the Zuo family hurriedly took out a bunch of land deeds, and asked for a mortgage on the spot, and the big shopkeeper picked up a land deed, looked at it, and shook his head: "These fields and houses are not worth a lot of money, and there is nothing I can do to help." After speaking, he hugged his fists and went out, leaving the representative of the Zuo family who was sweating profusely in place.

The Zuo family only has 7.5 million taels of silver, which is already their limit, so much silver and don't want to smash it all in, if there is no money left, then the funds of the Wuchang shipyard will be cut off, seriously affecting the normal operation, this representative's status in the Zuo family is not low, there is the right to make decisions on the spot, he secretly thought that this time he must succeed, even if he goes back to smash the pot and sell iron, he must ensure that the machine factory is photographed, so he ruthlessly shouted out the sky-high price of 8.8 million taels!

Lin Xiang of Jiangnan Shipyard sneered, put away the sign and stopped bidding, and the household officials asked three times in a row, and then dropped the small hammer and announced that the plant machinery of Qishuyan Machinery Factory was auctioned by Wuchang Zuo's family.