In the house of Zhou Jing, the former minister of household affairs in the capital, Zhou Jing was lying leisurely on the master's chair, drinking tea and reading the newspaper. He seemed to be alone, but in his heart he was still looking forward to the day when Emperor Hongzhi would meet.
I remembered that I had reinstated my official position.
So I didn’t go back to my hometown in Shanxi, and simply retired here in Beijing.
I drink tea and read newspapers every day, which is quite relaxing. From time to time, my disciples and former officials come to visit me. My days are more leisurely than when I was the Minister of Household Affairs.
"Sir, Fan Hanshi, Wang Wentian and Huang Liwen came to visit with great gifts!"
At this time, the housekeeper at home came over and said, emphasizing the following content.
"Take them to the living room~"
He twirled his goatee slightly, and began to guess in his mind what the three people came to see him for.
There is no way, it is a habit developed after many years of being an official.
Most people who come to you have something to ask for, and you will habitually think about why the other person comes to you first.
Especially since the housekeeper has said that the three of them came with heavy gifts, so what they are asking for is bound to be very difficult.
If it is a general visit, the gift will be more casual.
Soon, Zhou Jing came to the living room with a smile.
"Gong Zhou~"
When Fan Hanshi, Wang Wentian and Huang Liwen saw Zhou Jing, they immediately stood up and shouted.
"Sit down~"
Zhou Jing nodded slightly, they were all old acquaintances. In the past, when he was still the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, these Shanxi merchants would often come to visit, and the benefits were huge.
"Gong Zhou, you must save us~"
Fan Hanshi and the other three were still in the mood to sit down, so they immediately shouted out anxiously.
Everyone was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot, seeing that the huge foundation built by several companies was about to collapse, so even the greeting process was avoided.
"What happened?"
Zhou Jing looked at the anxious expressions of the three of them and asked quickly.
Thinking about it carefully in my mind, it seems that nothing big has happened recently. Looking at the anxious look of the three of them, something big must have happened.
"We don't know which true god we have offended. Since this morning, our Jinshang Bank has had many big customers come to withdraw their deposits, which has made our Jinshang Bank's treasury suddenly in a hurry."
"Both the Beijing and Tianjin branches are out of money, but there are already long queues outside, all coming to collect money."
"At the same time, our cement factories, textile factories, ocean trading companies, ocean fishing companies and other local industries have also been blocked by everyone. Not only can our goods not be sold, we can't even buy raw materials. All of a sudden
Everything is at a standstill."
"Originally, there was a batch that was going to be sent to Nanyang today, but the ships we agreed on were not willing to help us carry the goods."
Fan Hanshi said anxiously, roughly telling the cause of the incident.
"Someone is indeed blocking you~"
After listening to his words, Zhou Jing pondered carefully, thought for a while and said.
"Have you offended anyone recently?"
"No~"
"When we do business, one of the things we value is peace. Harmony brings wealth. We will never offend anyone, especially those who are true gods."
Fan Hanshi shook his head and said.
"That's strange. You have been banned in all walks of life. There are only a handful of people with such energy in the entire capital. If you hadn't offended someone, how could you be targeted like this?"
"Haven't you ever found out who is targeting you?"
Zhou Jing thought for a moment that there were too few people with such great energy, not even a few in the entire capital. Of course, it was also possible that they had done something so outrageous that no one could stand it anymore.
"No~"
"Even people with whom we had good relationships in the past have remained silent about this, and have even drawn clear boundaries with us and are unwilling to have any contact with us."
"This is also what is strange about us. Naturally, we have never offended them. Even if we have offended others, we cannot say that we have offended everyone who has a good relationship with us."
Fan Hanshi shook his head and said, this is what really scares them. They don't even know who they have offended. The other party's energy is so powerful that he feels desperate.
"Then have you done anything outrageous recently?"
"Or maybe he did a lot of unscrupulous things to make money, and then everyone knew about it, and then he was blocked by the business community?"
Zhou Jing nodded slightly, thought for a while and asked again.
He still knows some details about the people in front of him. They have always done business by unscrupulous means. In the past, they often smuggled into the grassland, selling tea, salt, ironware, grain, etc., and then sold the horses, cattle and sheep from the grassland back.
It is true that he was extremely rich, and Shanxi merchants relied on this to make their fortune.
"It's unreasonable?"
"Something that makes people angry?"
When Fan Hanshi, Wang Wentian and Huang Liwen heard this, they looked at each other and immediately frowned slightly.
It seems like a lot of bad things like this have been done.
"We haven't done anything too outrageous or outrageous~"
Fan Hanshi thought for a while and said weakly.
"Didn't you do anything too harmful?"
"Does that mean you've done something?"
When Zhou Jing heard this, he couldn't help but raised his beard in anger. It was exactly what he had guessed. These Shanxi merchants must have done something and offended someone. Otherwise, why didn't they ban Hui merchants, Zhejiang merchants and the like?
Yes, I just want to ban you Shanxi merchants.
"Mr. Zhou, when it comes to business, everyone is somewhat unclean. We are just about the same as everyone else."
Wang Wentian touched his head in embarrassment.
"If you don't want to say it, forget it. Anyway, I am now without an official position and I can't help you much. I just carry my things back."
Zhou Jing looked at the three of them and knew that these three people must have done a lot of immoral things.
"Gong Zhou~"
"We said, we said~"
As soon as the three of them saw Zhou Jing's order to expel guests, they immediately became more anxious, and gritted their teeth and began to explain.
"I don't know where we offended people~"
"Let's start with the grassland. We purchase wool and sell cattle and sheep on the grassland. In other words, we are short of jin or liang, passing off inferior goods, and deliberately lowering the price. These are normal trading methods, and they will not make people miserable.
God is angry and people are complaining, let alone being banned by people."
"As for the cement plant, we just infiltrated some sand, gravel, soil, etc. into the cement. In addition, we also lost some processes and so on, but this is also to reduce the price and increase competitiveness~"
"Perhaps in the plantations in Nanyang, we deceived many people into going to Nanyang to cultivate fields and plant sugar cane and rice for us, but we didn't say it was too harmful. Food, clothing and housing were guaranteed."
"Our factory has longer working hours and poorer food~"
"And...and~"
The three of them began to explain some of the things they had done, but in their eyes, these were nothing.
As they explained everything one by one, Zhou Jing's expression couldn't help but change.
"Sure enough, since ancient times, there has been no businessman without treachery~"
"These people are really evil~"
Zhou Jing couldn't help but sigh in her heart. She looked down on businessmen from the bottom of her heart.
Listening to the things they recounted, each one sounded light and indifferent, and it seemed like something that businessmen would do as a matter of course. But if you think about it carefully, these three people are all masters of eating people without spitting out their bones.
.
Since there were no people in the Nanyang plantations, they actually deceived their Shanxi fellow villagers to go to Nanyang, then trapped them and forced them to cultivate fields and plant sugar cane and rice.
They are able to do this kind of thing and use their own Shanxi people as slaves.
Zhou Jing knew from the newspapers that as long as someone is willing to immigrate to Nanyang, dozens of acres of fertile land will be directly allocated to Nanyang Province. Coupled with his hard work in reclamation, he can easily have hundreds of acres of fertile land.
It would be better for them to directly use people as slaves. You can imagine what happened to these people. They originally went to Nanyang with beautiful dreams, but suddenly they entered hell on earth.
"Also, we recently built a real estate project here in Beijing. After we sold the real estate, we took the money and left, and it was completely unfinished~"
Huang Liwen looked at Zhou Jing's stern face, thought for a while and then hesitantly explained the recent situation of making money from real estate.
"You guys~"
"This is all retribution~ It's all the evil you have done yourself, and now you are reaping the consequences~"
"You go away, I can't help you with your matters."
After hearing Huang Liwen's words, Zhou Jing couldn't help but close his eyes.
When he was just reading the newspaper, he happened to see a report about the unfinished business of Shuxiangyayuan in Xicheng District. The newspaper wrote about the miserable scenes of many people who bought this house.
The family worked hard to save money and bought a house, but the house was in ruins and they still owed a lot of debt to the bank. They even cried dryly.
Just now, he felt extremely angry and wanted to know who had done such a thing. Unexpectedly, when he turned around, the person who had done this appeared in his house and wanted to help them.
"Gong Zhou~"
"Duke Zhou, you must help us. If you don't help us, we will really be doomed. We Shanxi merchants will all be doomed in the future~"
When Fan Hanshi heard this, he shouted anxiously and glanced at Wang Wentian. The other person immediately took out a stack of banknotes from his arms, a total of 50,000 taels of silver, one hundred and one of which were the first of the Ming Dynasty.
Bank notes.
"Gong Zhou, this is our little wish. Please help us, help us find out who is targeting us, help us beg for mercy, and everything else is easy to talk about."
Wang Wentian also said with tears in his eyes that if Zhou Jing didn't come forward to help, he would definitely die this time, and he would definitely die without a complete body.
