Chapter 610: Hidden Dragon Wealth

The wealth accumulation of the Yinlong Society began during the Zhenguan period. The eighteen families fled to the Crown Princess Jiancheng to Suiye, and also brought a lot of wealth. Although these loyal family generals vowed to retake the throne, for them, they had no army, no strength, no support, and were far away from a foreign land. It was a dream to regain the throne that Li Shimin had already been deeply rooted. However, these families did not give up their dreams. They used another way to accumulate the power they believed could overthrow Li Shimin. This power they believed was wealth.

If you have wealth, you can organize your army, bribe ministers, and cultivate power. From the third year of Zhenguan, these generals began to accumulate wealth for a long time. They formed the core Yinlong Society and formed the outer Han and Tang Society. They used the name of the Han and Tang Society to do business and buy industries in the Central Plains. He conducted the Silk Road trade with extremely high profits and once monopolized the trade of tea, wine and spices on the Silk Road.

More than a hundred years have passed. Although each family has made huge wealth, they still strictly enforced the oath of their ancestors and handed over 90% of their profits to the Hidden Dragon Society every year. Year after year, ten years and hundreds of years. Although they are constantly developing members, the Hidden Dragon Society's wealth is still accumulating at an astonishing speed. Now, the Hidden Dragon Society's wealth has become a mystery. Where is it hidden? How much wealth has it accumulated?

Some people speculate that the wealth of the Hidden Dragon Society is hidden in the Shattered Leaf, but Dumozhi occupied the Shattered Leaf and the Hidden Dragon Society retreated to Anxi. They did not carry a lot of wealth. Many people guessed from this that the wealth of the Hidden Dragon Society is not Shattered Leaf.

Some people speculate that the Yinlong Association accumulates wealth of 100,000 yuan per year. They have now accumulated at least 10 million yuan of wealth, which has exceeded the annual fiscal revenue of the Tang Dynasty. Its wealth is as good as the country, but every member of the Yinlong Association is simple and self-disciplined. Their personal life is even less than that of the rich family of the Thunder Leaf.

How much wealth does the Hidden Dragon Society have? Where does it hide? These secrets that have been hidden for a hundred years are only known by a few core members of the Hidden Dragon Society.

The biggest problem facing the disbandment of the Hidden Dragon Society is how to deal with the wealth they have accumulated for a hundred years. Three months ago, Li Qing'an generously told Chang Jin, Luo Pinfang and others that the wealth of the Hidden Dragon Society came from the accumulation of the Eighteen Family for a hundred years. He did not take any penny and gave it all to the Eighteen Family as their capital to establish a new consortium, and it was also a reward for the Eighteen Family for a hundred years of loyalty.

However, Li Qing'an's suggestion was unanimously rejected by all members of the Yinlong Society. Their reason was very simple. The wealth of the Yinlong Society was to achieve the great cause of the Yinlong, rather than the family accumulation of the eighteen generals. If they accepted them all, they would have no face to face their ancestors.

They made a resolution and left at least half of it to Li Qing'an. Li Qing'an finally accepted their wishes. Today, Li Qing'an returned to Chang'an on the first day. In addition to sacrificing Pei Zunqing, the most important thing was to check the century-old wealth of the Yinlong Society.

Chang Jin brought Li Qing'an and Hu Peiyun to the backyard. He pushed open doors after door. This was also a strange thing that made Li Qing'an puzzled for many years. Rehaiju occupies a considerable area. From the outside, its doors are very small, but in fact it covers dozens of acres, which is equivalent to a giant house for high-ranking officials. Part of its winery covers only five acres in size, and the rest are densely packed rooms.

Li Huichun told him back then that there were warehouses, but he found that only a few rooms contained goods, and the rest were closed empty. What exactly these rooms are used for was puzzled. Now Li Qingan has guessed that the wealth of the Yinlong Society is hidden in Rehaiju.

Hu Peiyun also had the same doubt. Although he was a member of the Hidden Dragon Society, he didn't know what the role of Rehaiju was. He wanted to ask several times, but when Chang Jin was very focused on opening the door, he stopped asking. The three of them walked into a yard. The yard was very dilapidated, with five or six rooms full of tattered tables and chairs, covered with dust, as if no one had come in for many years.

Chang Jin took them into the room at the edge. The room was empty, with only a row of iron frames against the wall, and there was nothing on the iron frame.

Chang Jin smiled mysteriously. He squatted down in the corner of the wall, took out a copper key, reached out to penetrate a hole like a rat hole, and fiddled with the key in the hole for a long time. He faintly heard a slight sound, "Okay!"

Chang Jin stood up and pushed the iron rack to the left. The iron rack beside the wall moved to the side, which scared Hu Peiyun. At this time, he realized that the wall in front of him was astonishingly thick as one foot thick, and the wall was five feet thick. Behind the iron rack, there was a square depression, and there was an iron ring on the ground. Chang Jin walked up and pulled up the iron ring, and a big dark hole suddenly appeared on the ground.

Li Qingan smiled slightly. As he guessed, this was an authentic entrance, and the iron rack was an iron gate. It turned out that hundreds of rooms on the ground were all to cover this authentic entrance, and the real mystery of Rehaiju was underground.

"This land in Rehaiju was bought by our Yinlong Association when Li Shimin passed away. For more than a hundred years, it has been the stronghold of the Yinlong Association in the Central Plains. It was only twenty years ago that the Yinlong Association's stronghold was changed to the Huichun Tea House in Xishi from a security perspective. However, the wealth accumulated by the Yinlong Association over a hundred years is hidden here, and we, Chang, Li and Luo families, have been guarding this treasure for generations."

Chang Jin lit an oil lamp and smiled and said, "Everyone has visited last night. I thought my lord would not come in a few months, so I took a lot of effort to get back to its original state. I would have known that I would not have worked so hard. Please follow me, Peiyun, you can also visit it."

Hu Peiyun was a little excited. The Yinlong Society has been using business as a cover for more than 100 years. It has more than 300 industries in various places, basically with high profits and has an amazing profit in the Western Regions trade. After experiencing the Zhenguan rule and the Kaiyuan prosperous era, I don’t know how much wealth I have accumulated over the past 100 years. It is certain that it is rich enough to compete with the country, but how many are there? He also guessed for many years, and now the answer is finally revealed.

Chang Jin walked in front with an oil lamp. Li Qing'an ordered his personal soldiers to guard outside and followed Chang Jin in. The tunnel was not long, the sides were very narrow, and the top of his head was not high. The bearded cat was holding the stone wall with his waist. After walking for more than a dozen steps, it ended. The basement was dark and gloomy, but the air was still fresh, and there was no feeling of being unable to breathe. It seemed that there was a ventilation vent hidden somewhere.

But Li Qingan was a little stunned. This was just a basement slightly larger than an ordinary family, with thirty or forty wooden boxes piled up. This is the treasure house of the Hidden Dragon Society? It was completely different from what he imagined.

Seeing that there was doubt in their eyes, Chang Jin smiled and said, "Last night, everyone was as surprised as the lord. There were thirty-six large wooden boxes here, with a total of 100,000 yuan in savings and land deeds. As a Rehai Iji Restaurant, it is normal to save money. If one day the entrance of the cave was found when the house was raided and the family was raided to move the 100,000 yuan in moving the 100,000 yuan in the money, the basement would be empty, but this is just a passage for the treasure of the Hidden Dragon Society."

Li Qing'an was excited, so that's it! He smiled and said, "Don't say it, let me find out, where is the real entrance?"

He searched everywhere, not even on the ground, but found nothing special. Hu Peiyun also searched for a long time without any gain.

Chang Jin shook his head and smiled, "Lord, you can't find it with your eyes, you have to find it with your hands."

Chang Jin took out an iron pick from a box. He quickly walked to the northwest corner of the ground wall and slowly pried out along the cracks of the wall. The whole surroundings were made of square stone, which looked very strong.

"Peiyun, come and help me."

Hu Peiyun hurried forward and carefully moved a square stone down. Chang Jin smiled at Li Qing'an and said, "The last time the wall was sealed was in the ninth year of Tianbao, and the three Chang brothers were responsible for carrying money and goods. Li Huichun and Luo Pinfang were both older. They were doing supervision records next to them, and only the five of us knew this secret."

The wall was very solid, and Li Qing'an also came to help. The three of them worked hard for a quarter of an hour before taking off more than 30 bluestone wall tiles and put them aside. Behind the bluestone was a normal mud wall, without any abnormality. The only suspicion was that the mud was newly applied, which was just applied last night.

Hu Peiyun glanced at Chang Jin and saw him spitting on his palm, swinging an iron pickaxe and digging hard towards the mud wall. He dug dozens of times in one breath. The soil was one foot thick. Just when Hu Peiyun wondered if he had found the wrong place, he heard a crisp sound of "Damn!". This was the sound of the iron pickaxe knocking on the metal. Hu Peiyun was excited and saw a dark iron door. At this time, Chang Jin used a small shovel to shovel the yellow mud down the iron door. After a long time, he cleared out an iron door. He was so tired that he was out of breath. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and smiled bitterly: "If I had known that my lord would come today, we wouldn't have done it last night."

Li Qingan smiled and said, "For the last time today, I will send troops to station in Rehaiju tonight, so I won't have to build walls anymore."

"Thank you lord!"

At this time, Hu Peiyun cleaned the iron gate and saw that the iron gate was about six feet high and four feet wide. Under the dim light, it was a complete piece of pig iron, with a special layer of oil on it, without any rust spots.

Chang Jin took out a big key from behind his waist, inserted it into the keyhole and twisted it, "Click!"

"Peiyun, come and help me again."

The two of them put their shoulders together, and the iron door was silently pushed open. It was pitch black in front of them. Li Qing'an touched the iron door. The iron door was one foot thick. He secretly praised that it was even thicker than the bank vault gate in later generations.

"Be careful and follow me!"

Chang Jin held the oil lamp and walked downwards. Li Qing'an held the wall and walked downwards. It was cold and it was also a stone wall. There were steps under his feet, slowly lowering down. Chang Jin lit up an oil lamp on the wall, and a halo spread. In front of him was a stone path, five feet wide and one meter high, extending slanted forward about twenty steps. The highest point was two feet, and there were bare stone walls around. The stone path alone lit five lamps.

"This underground treasure house was built by three hundred stonemasons invited from Khwarezm for a full ten years. Unfortunately, after repairing, they were poisoned and given their families a generous amount of money to compensate them."

Chang Jin sighed and said, "The Yinlong Association stipulates that every ten years, the family of Li Huichun and Luo Pinfang's family will be jointly inspected by Li Huichun and Luo Pinfang's family. The three families signed by Li, Luo and Chang to prove that the inventory is correct. Originally, the Chang family only had the top iron door key, the Luo family held the second iron door key, and the Li family held the third iron door key. Every time they bought the goods, three families must be present at the same time. Finally, our Chang family is in charge of this treasure. This is the origin of Rehaiju, but they gave me all the keys last night."

Changjin walked to the third door and opened an iron door at the end of the aisle with another key. A smell of copper came to his face.

Oil lamps were ignited. Although Li Qing'an had imagined the spectacularity of the underground stone warehouse, the scene in front of him still shocked him. He saw that the treasure warehouse hiding two meters underground was like an underground palace, with an arc-shaped dome, all made of huge stones, without beams or stone pillars, but it seemed extremely solid, as if it was natural. Li Qing'an had seen the construction level of Khwarezm stonemason, and he couldn't help but secretly admire that such an underground palace was actually ventilated, very dry, and not damp at all, which was completely different from the dark and dampness of other underground palaces.

The underground palace gradually became brighter, and the underground palace was rectangular, about sixty steps long and forty steps wide. There was a long walkway in the middle. On both sides of the walkway were a half-open stone house. In fact, it was simply separated by stone walls, fifteen on each side, a total of thirty stone houses.

Most of the stone houses are neatly stacked with large boxes, dense and spectacular, with iron boxes and wooden boxes. Many wooden boxes have been passed through a hundred years but have not decayed.

Chang Kuan introduced on the side: "Although there are many boxes, they are actually not valuable. They are all top-quality copper coins, a box of 600 guan, a total of 3,000 guan, totaling 1.8 million guan. The ones that are really valuable are the last four warehouses."

Li Qing'an walked to a large box and looked at it. He saw a bronze medal on it, saying, "In the fifteenth year of Zhenguan, Luo Ying gave 500 stagnants of money."

He offered more than a dozen boxes around him, but the ages were different. Some were from the eighth year of Zhenguan, some were from the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, and some were from the twelfth year of Zhenguan, and some were from the box that read, "In the fourth year of Yonghui, Luo Xun offered 500 stags of money."

"Luo Ying is Luo Pinfang's grandfather, and Luo Xun is Luo Pinfang's father, that is, the lord's......"

Chang Jin didn't say the following words, but in fact he wanted to say that he was the lord's great-great-grandfather.

Li Qingan nodded silently and followed Chang Jin to continue watching. Each box was filled with large boxes full of copper coins, densely packed. I don’t know how many of them were. The amount of coins minted in the Tang Dynasty in a year was 300,000 guan. Here, the amount of coins minted in the Tang Dynasty for six years was piled up, which was also quite a lot.

"We realized this problem later. Copper coins are heavy and occupy too much space. Since the reign of Emperor Gaozong, we have changed the way of hiding wealth. Money is used to purchase various industries and hiding wealth in real estate. We have more than 300 industries in various parts of the Tang Dynasty, worth tens of millions, and only some gold, silver and precious treasures are stored here."

Chang Kuan walked to the last four grids of warehouses, and pointed at one of them and said, "Master, please look here!"

Seeing that there were many small iron boxes inside, which were completely different from the big boxes in front, Li Qingan carried a box casually, which was very heavy, and smiled and said, "Is this gold and silver?"

"Yes! There are 600,000 taels of gold here, mainly from Dashi and Byzantine. Based on the value of one tael of gold, the value of the gold here is 6 million taels, and here..."

Chang Kuan pointed to the warehouse filled with large boxes again and said, "There are two million taels of silver here, all of which are silver ingots, mainly from Dashi."

At this time, they walked to the last cubicle, but there were three rows of shelves, and there were separate items on the shelves.

"There are some antiques and treasures here, and the value is inestimable."

Li Qingan walked to a palace lantern and saw that it was inlaid with various gems and pearls, dazzling and colorful under the light.

Chang Jin stepped forward and smiled and said, "It is said that this is a colorful thousand treasure lantern hanging in the palace of Emperor Yang of Sui. It is made of 1,080 precious gems, but the rarest is that there are seven night pearls under it. Each night pearl has a different color. Please see, lord."

Chang Jin raised the lamp high, and Li Qing'an looked to the bottom and saw seven night pearls as big as pigeon eggs, seven colors, and fantasy.

He asked in surprise: "Where did this lamp come from?"

Chang Jin smiled and said, "The lord may not believe that this lamp was obtained from a Turkic man. Li Huichun exchanged it for 500 sheep thirty years ago."

"Only five hundred sheep!"

Li Qingan laughed, "A sheep is worth a total of 500 guan, but a piece of gem on it is worth at least 100 guan. If this Turkic man knew about it, wouldn't he regret it's green?"

"That's not necessarily. The Turks may think that this lamp cannot be eaten or used, but it's just good-looking. In their eyes, it may not even be worth 500 knots, and they think they have made money."

"It makes sense! What else?"

"This is a fairy pillow, carved from the best Khotan jade. It is said that it can sleep in the three mountains and five mountains with it; this is a luminous cup, made of three hundred small diamonds, and drink with it, without getting drunk for a thousand cups; this iron box contains more than a dozen authentic works of Zhang Xu, which were purchased from his son when he died in the ninth year of Tianbao...."

There were at least hundreds of treasures in the three rows of shelves. Chang Jin knew them all and introduced them one by one. Hu Peiyun listened with relish, but Li Qing'an had no time to continue listening. Zhang Yun was coming to meet him tonight.
Chapter completed!