It is said that when Sun Yiheng, the young proprietor of Yicheng Lufu Quanshou Material Shop, was taking account of his shop, a guest dressed as an outsider hurriedly came to the door to ask for a donation to his ancestors, and gave a deposit of thirty taels of silver with a flick of his hand.

However, when Sun Yiheng took out a pen and paper and invited someone to leave a nobleman who wanted to donate patterns, he got three names that didn't sound like a person's name.

Sun Yiheng was surprised for a moment, and then he opened his mouth to ask if the guest was joking with him.

Who knew that as soon as the words fell, the guest on the other side said angrily with a hesitant face: "Young owner, don't be joking, how can there be such a joke in this world as buying a coffin in a coffin shop and donating it to the underworld?"

Do you want to check who the noble person in my family is, so that you are willing to go to the household department to donate silver taels, if there is no fellow Beijing official to protect this underworld official, you can't donate it? ”

Seeing that the person was angry, Sun Yiheng hurriedly stepped forward and kept making amends: "It's all because the villain is inappropriate, and the guest officer is angry."

As the honored guest said, this household donation is not limited to the name of the nobles in the family, as long as the silver arrives, it can be lacking.

It's just that the household department is very stingy with the letter of commission with the name of the elder, and this piece of silver can only be exchanged for a letter of commission, and there is no spare.

The villain was also afraid that the guest would change his mind in the future, so he spent money in vain, so he asked what he said, and if there was anything inappropriate, he hoped that the guest would be honored. ”

After listening to Sun Yiheng's explanation, the man's face softened, and he nodded and said, "It turns out that for this reason, what the shopkeeper said is not unreasonable, so it doesn't matter!" ”

As he spoke, the man took out three hundred taels of silver tickets from his arms and handed them to Sun Yiheng, who was staring at him with round eyes.

"That's three hundred taels of silver. With such a small number of proprietors, there is no need to worry that I will regret and change my mind, right? I also ask the proprietor to handle this matter for me earlier, and I will send it after the matter is completed. ”

On that day, Sun Yiheng recalled to Yang Congxun that he was like a dream at the time, and he couldn't believe that there was still a master in this world who asked for two hundred and seven but countered for three hundred and three.

However, as long as you dare to open a store, you are not afraid of high rollers coming, Sun Yiheng stretched out his hand to invite customers into the room to watch the tea, and quietly handed the more than 300 taels of silver tickets he had just accepted to the account office behind him, and at the same time handed him a look, signaling the other party to quickly find a guy to find a silver number to check the authenticity of these silver tickets.

Seeing that the bookkeeper nodded in understanding, Sun Yiheng finally put his mind at ease, led the guest to the coffin in his shop where he was placed as a sample, and boasted about his carpenter's craftsmanship, and then cautiously asked the other party if he needed to order a few pairs of 'four-cornered' longevity wood.

Unexpectedly, the guest did not step forward to carefully check the condition of the coffin, but just raised his hand and patted the coffin, and when he saw that the material was indeed thick, he turned around and nodded.

"Yes, I have this intention right now, but I wonder if the young proprietor can complete three pairs of 'four-cornered' longevity materials for me before the pattern donation is made? This price is left to the proprietor, and there is no counteroffer. ”

Sun Yiheng almost choked on a mouthful of saliva at that time, and said in his heart, Guest Officer, your temper is too anxious, right? When you make a coffin the same as picking up wood and building a box, you can get it done the next day?

However, Sun Yiheng slandered this in his heart at most, and he didn't dare to show it in front of others.

He stood in place and hesitated for a long time, and finally spoke: "Since it is urgently used in the guest officer's family, then the contempt will try his best to think of a way for the guest officer, but I don't know if the length of your nobleman's body can be sued, and the contempt can raise a coffin according to this?" ”

As soon as the words came out, Sun Yiheng saw a trace of embarrassment on the face of the person opposite, and hurriedly said: "If you are a guest officer, you are difficult to make a decision for a while, and you also hire a tailor for the garment, why don't you let him go to the house with the honored guest to tailor the clothes for the nobles?" ”

Who knew that after these words came out, the guest's face was even more embarrassed, and he saw that he had to stand in place for a long time, and then he raised his hands and compared them in front of his chest, and said very uncertainly: "It can probably be so long?" ”

Now Sun Yiheng almost gave him a smile, and said in his heart that you are buying a coffin for your family, why do you still come to ask me for the specific length?

But when Sun Yiheng looked carefully at the guest's hands raised in front of his chest, he couldn't laugh, because the distance between the guest's hands was too short, at best, it was only one foot four or five.

Only babies who have not left swaddling clothes are of this size, not to mention that no one in this world will donate to a baby who has not had time to become famous, how can this family die three babies under the age of one after another in just a few days?

No matter which wife or concubine the baby in the family comes from, he will die when he lands, and you are clearly a sign of desperation!

However, Sun Yiheng could only hide this kind of words quietly in his stomach, and at the moment he still pretended to have a sentimental and sad look on his face, asked the address of the guest's mansion, and agreed on the day to deliver the longevity materials.

Shortly after the guest left, a nervous-looking fellow came back and forth with a large heavy burden in his hands.

"Shao Dongjia, the silver tickets given by the guest are all genuine tickets, and the money village in the city has paid a total of three hundred and fourteen taels of silver after deducting the level. These silver are all here, and the young owner is also asked to check them with the steward of the counter. ”

Seeing that the guy really took the silver back, Sun Yiheng breathed a sigh of relief.

After explaining to the account manager on duty to hurry up and arrange for the man to donate the coffin, Sun Yiheng left his own longevity shop humming a little song.

In fact, Sun Yiheng originally planned to find other nearby longevity shops to temporarily borrow his coffin as a sample for emergency.

However, when he learned from the guest who had arrived in a hurry that the size of the noble man in his family was short, he immediately dispelled this idea.

The ordinary 'four-cornered' coffin is difficult to beat, that is because the size of ordinary people is here, this coffin is not nine feet and one zhang long, not three or four feet wide, and ordinary people can't stuff it in.

This five-foot-long plank must be a towering tree that is decades old to be completely made, and there must be no tree holes in the trunk, this kind of material is not easy to find.

However, the three 'four-cornered' coffins ordered by the guest today are only two feet long and more than half a foot wide.

This kind of plank can be made by finding a small tree as wide as a palm, and the required wood abounds, and it can be made in half a day, and then it is nothing more than arranging for the carpenter in the shop to work overnight.

However, Sun Yiheng was still very curious about what was going on at the house of the guest who spent a lot of money to donate money to buy longevity materials, so before leaving, he quietly called a clever guy in the shop.

After shoving a piece of silver into his hand, Sun Yiheng instructed the fellow to go to the address left by the guest.

Who knew that the guy's departure would lead to a shocking strange incident!

(Note:

In fact, the silver stamps of the Qing Dynasty are more like today's inventory lists, and the usual process is that the merchants deposit a certain amount of silver taels into the official bank of the imperial court, and then the official village is responsible for counting the fineness of the silver taels and then issuing the corresponding denomination of silver bills to the merchants who deposit the silver.

After that, the merchant who deposited the silver can take the silver ticket to do business in other places, and then he can go to the local official village to exchange the silver ticket for locally minted silver taels and take it out.

The problem, however, was that the fineness of silver ingots cast across the country at that time varied significantly!

Generally speaking, the Caoping silver ingots cast from the Jiangnan Domain in Nanjing and the salt ingots minted by the Yangzhou Salt Tax Yamen are in the best condition, while the Songyuan silver ingots outside the Guanwai are the worst!

The fineness of these silver ingots may sometimes vary by more than two percent.

Therefore, there were two professional terms called "premium" and "leveling" in the ticket number of the official bank, which meant that the face value of the silver ticket was floated up and down according to the fineness of the silver ingot minted in the bank treasury where the bank ticket was issued.

Good silver goes to the territory of bad silver, and the face value of the silver ticket will rise, which is called "premium"; On the contrary, if the silver goes to the territory of the good silver, the face value of the silver ticket will shrink, which is called "leveling".

Three hundred taels of silver is not necessarily three hundred taels of silver, it is good to know this. ）