Chapter 894: Donating money to build a navy

"See Your Majesty." The heads of the aristocratic families saluted Li Er one after another.

Li Er nodded and said, "You don't need to be polite."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Everyone thanked him.

Li Er asked curiously: "If you don't go pick spices, why do you come to me?"

Cui Wen, the head of the Bolin Cui clan, said: "Reporting to Your Majesty, the little people are here to thank Your Majesty."

"Thank me?"

"Yes, we are here to thank His Majesty. Without Your Majesty, we would not have such a vision. Let's not talk about the current Spice Island. Let's talk about the transactions in Yangzhou, Mingzhou and Guangzhou. We have made a lot of money.

Pen.

This is the greatest good thing for our family, and we all decided that we are willing to invest one million yuan to the court to build a navy." Cui Wen said.

Li Er and others were stunned, and looked at Cui Wen and other leaders of a group of aristocratic families in surprise.

Cheng Yaojin couldn't help but joked: "It's really rare. Your family has always been stingy. Every time the court asks you to borrow some food, you don't hesitate. You even openly ask for favors from the court."

Cui Wen and a group of people in charge were immediately embarrassed. This was true before, and it was always like this when the court borrowed food.

It’s just that after being destroyed by Li Feng last time, no one dared to use food to embarrass the court and the people. What’s more, Li Feng also obtained many new food varieties, especially high-yield food such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn.

Now the people can be said to be completely hungry, but the taste is too simple.

"Are you really willing to give one million yuan to the imperial court to build a navy?" Li Er broke the embarrassment.

Cui Wen immediately said: "Yes. A villain would never dare to deceive His Majesty."

Li Feng said at this time: "One million is too little, let's say three million."

"Hiss~~"

Everyone couldn't help but take a breath, this was too cruel.

Li Er's lips twitched involuntarily and he said, "Three million strings, isn't it too much?"

"Your Majesty, not much."

Anyone could tell that this was what Li Er said to Li Feng, but it was Cui Wen who answered, and everyone couldn't help but look at Cui Wen.

Li Er said without reason: "Three million is not enough? What about five million?"

Where’s the million?”

Everyone couldn't help but look at Li Er, this is even more cruel, three million is not enough, two million more is needed.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty." Cui Wen wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, "Can we discuss this?"

Li Er was surprised. The price was negotiable, but there was no expression on his face. He said slowly: "Okay, you can discuss it slowly. After you have negotiated, come to the village to find me."

"yes."

Li Er nodded and slowly walked towards the village, followed by Li Feng and others.

Cheng Yaojin asked puzzledly: "Why is this happening? Those people from aristocratic families are obviously very stingy. The court asked them not to borrow a grain of rice. Why are they now able to come up with so much money to support the court's construction?"

navy."

Li Xiaogong said: "This is indeed very curious. What makes me even more curious is that when Li Feng said three million guan, the other party agreed without blinking. Your Majesty asked for five million, but they didn't refuse. It's really suspicious.

.”

"Li Feng, please help everyone clear up their doubts." Li Er said, he also wanted to know the reason.

Li Feng smiled and said: "It's very simple, because they got a lot of wealth from this trip to sea, especially this spice island, they saw a lot of wealth from it.

But they also saw the danger, which would cause them to go to sea and cause a lot of dangers. The biggest danger was pirates, which would not only make them lose all their money, but they might also be blackmailed by the other party.

Maybe I haven't said it before, but pirates also engage in extortion and kidnapping. When they see a big shot on a merchant ship, they won't kill him and then blackmail him.

People from aristocratic families are very precious to their own people, and if they can pay some money to bring them back, they will still do it.

However, the only person who can defeat the pirates and deter them is the imperial navy. The current navy is too small. Everyone has seen that there are only a thousand people, and the rest are Lao Xiao's navy.

Only ten of these warships were equipped with artillery and muskets. Although the remaining naval forces also had firearms, they were not comparable at all.

Therefore, this group of aristocratic families wanted to help the imperial court quickly expand its navy. As long as they had a navy, they would be able to go to sea more easily.

One million guan, there are so many aristocratic families, each family can only produce 100,000 guan, or even 100,000 guan. In addition,

There are so many officials in the imperial court, so asking for five million guan is actually not too much.

In addition, after the navy of the Tang Dynasty was established, in order to facilitate the rapid communication of news with each other, I have to quickly set up the telegraph machine, so that even if we are on the Spice Island, we can immediately know the situation in Chang'an."

"Okay, you have to hurry up and do this. I can't wait for your telegraph machine. This is simply clairvoyance and ears." Li Er said.

"Your Majesty, I think this is more like a message transmitted from thousands of miles away." Cheng Yaojin said.

Li Er smiled and said: "You old fool, you have been reliable for once. You are right, this is indeed a sound transmission from thousands of miles away."

"Haha..." Everyone laughed.

On the other side, after Cui Wen and others saw Li Er and the others leaving, they all angrily said that Li Er was too greedy. One million was not enough, so three million. Now they want five million. They are simply greedy.

"Everyone, please be quiet," Cui Wen said immediately.

Everyone vented for a while and then became quiet.

Seeing that everyone was quiet, Cui Wen immediately said: "Enough venting, what do you think of these five million?"

Cui Yin, the person in charge of the Cui family in Qinghe, said: "What else can we do? I can only agree. Five million is a huge sum of money for any of us, but we have so many aristocratic families. If we divide it up, it will only cost less than two hundred thousand."

arrive.

Everyone present should not think about not paying this money, everyone knows the real purpose of paying this money."

"It's okay to provide money, but how to ensure our interests at sea, in case the emperor uses our money to do other things.

Or maybe he has trained a navy, but what’s the use of the navy if it doesn’t protect our merchant ships?” said Wang Dao, the head of the Wang family in Taiyuan.

"That's right, if we don't have this guarantee, then the money we pay seems a bit redundant. I don't really want to spend the money." Li Huai, the person in charge of the Longyou Li Family, said.

Immediately afterwards, everyone expressed their ideas. Some were willing to come up with it, and some were not willing to come up with it. Those who came up with the idea needed a commitment from the court, while those who did not want to come up with it were afraid that the court would not take the money to do the work.

For a time, no one could agree on donating money.

Cui Wen sighed and said: "If this is the case, then we can't pay the five million guan. Let's give it 3 million guan. I hope the emperor can accept it."
Chapter completed!