The last time Wu Huaiyu went to the Governor's Mansion, he didn't pay attention to the water jars.
Who would have thought that the water tank was actually made of pure copper, with a layer of gold gilt on the outside.
Of course Li Daozong would not deceive Wu Huaiyu. He had no intention of taking away these eight mouthfuls of copper sea. Wu Huaiyu, Xue Wanche, Dou Lu Huairang, each gave two mouthfuls, and the remaining two were given to the Governor's Mansion.
Huaiyu thought quickly.
A sea of copper weighs eight thousand gold. The copper alone is worth 1,280 guan in pure copper coins. The hundred taels of gold are worth 800 guan. That vat is worth 2,080 guan.
Eight people, more than 16,000 yuan.
Li Daozong is so rich that he has more than 16,000 yuan in his courtyard?
This is not the way to show off your wealth.
After his puzzled inquiry, Li Daozong told him the inside story. Although the copper sea was used to prevent fire inside the house door, who could usually use such a copper sea?
Li Daozong has been in Lingzhou for five years. He has occupied land, sold slaves, sold salt, sold horses, engaged in smuggling business, and engaged in plantations. He has made a lot of money, and a lot of wealth has been gathered. The money of this era is copper.
And silk.
It was difficult to save too much money, so Li Daozong and others used the money to cast bronze wares. Firstly, casting bronze wares would be more profitable, and secondly, they would be easier to store.
After all, there are no banks these days. Although you can save money in gold and silver shops, etc., there is no interest and there are handling fees. It is not safe to save too much money. It is still profitable to cast bronze.
So here in Lingzhou, when the officers and generals make money, they will not transport the money directly back to Chang'an. There are many checkpoints along the way. If you transport money and silk back directly, it will be easily exposed and the source will be difficult to explain.
Therefore, they usually cast the money into copperware and sell it, or transport the copperware back to Beijing or their hometown, taking a little bit at a time without being conspicuous.
You can even make some copperware look old and fake, such as making the outside look like tin, pretending to be tinware.
Li Daozong was the one who made the most money. He accumulated a lot of gold, silver, copper coins, silk, cloth, cattle, horses, and food. In addition to some smaller bronze utensils, he also built these copper seas, which were actually purely used as a storage method.
Even if it weighs eight thousand kilograms and is placed in the courtyard, no one can move it.
If necessary, it can be transported or melted.
Sending Huaiyu and his wife a family home is actually equivalent to sending two thousand laiguan money.
One thousand acres of land, two seas of copper.
Wu Huaiyu accepted it.
Three thousand acres of land were harvested before.
It is said that after three years of clearing the prefecture, Li Daozong earned one hundred thousand silver. Li Daozong served as the governor of Lingzhou for five years, and he didn't know how many thousands of silver he earned.
Wu Huaiyu unexpectedly discovered another black industry in Lingzhou, which was making private money. Li Daozong was also involved in this industry, and it was all done by officials and powerful people.
They not only melted the copper coins they earned into copperware, but also converted the old money they obtained into bronzeware, and even cast copper coins privately. The money they cast was inferior to the materials used in the imperial court's Kaiyuan Tongbao, but it was not the same.
It may be too low-quality, but overall it's still good.
The amount that can be minted is large, and the profit is huge. The money flows into the hands of merchants in Shuofang, Hexi, and even Gaochang in the Western Regions, Turks outside the Great Wall and other places along with trade, and the circulation volume is still very large.
The imperial court has not minted much new money in the past few years. The amount privately minted in Lingzhou is more than the official inflow. Even the market is basically filled with these private money. There is basically no official money. Whenever there is official money,
If it flows in, it is either collected by powerful officials, or it is melted away by them to make copperware or private money.
Bad money drives out good money.
It's simply lawless. Lingzhou really feels like a lawless place. There's something unusual everywhere here.
There are fortification granaries as the foundation here, coupled with smuggling with the Turks, Liang Shidu, and trade with the Hexi Silk Road, this place is extremely prosperous. Although it is often harassed by Turks, Lingzhou has a bit of a special zone everywhere.
a feeling of.
Li Daozong is really a talent.
In other words, Lingzhou is full of talented people. In the special border situation in the early Tang Dynasty, they were able to fight against the Turks and Liang Shidu while developing trade, and even formed a unique cattle and horse slave smuggling trade, and making private money.
, the rise of bronze casting, and the rise of activities such as slave fighting.
Now even if Li Daozong spits out 30 to 40%, he is actually still very satisfied. They have already made a lot of money. If they can land safely and launder their money now if they only spit out 30 to 40%, they may be quite satisfied.
Wu Huaiyu entered Lingzhou City again, this time directly leading a battalion into the city.
He did not live in Li Daozong's governor's office, but remained in the city's central government office in Yanzhou.
Li Daozong sent someone to bring the two coppers sent to him by sea. They were placed in the backyard of Yanzhou Yamen. They are more than 1.2 meters high and more than 1.5 meters in diameter. The copper sea looks a bit dark, but you can scratch it with your fingernails.
Resplendent gilt.
The cylinder is extremely heavy.
Wu Huaiyu had no intention of melting it yet, but asked someone to fill it with water.
A jar weighs eight thousand kilograms and can hold six thousand kilograms of water. Teams of slaves kept fetching water from the well and pouring it into the jar. It took five to six hundred buckets of water to fill it up.
When Su Lieniu saw Wu Chensheng and Li Dejia, they all came to watch these two large tanks.
Huaiyu didn't hide it from them either.
"More than a million dollars just sitting here to fill water?"
"Is there really gold out there?"
No one has ever seen such an object, not even Li Jing's son, their family doesn't have anything like this.
Wei Siren of the Wei family who claims to have gone to Jingzhao Weidu on the fifth day of Tianchi, has two sisters in the palace, and the Wei family does not dare to be so awesome.
"What does this mean? King Ren Cheng also has a big silver ball in his house. Every thousand taels are melted into one silver ball. It is said that there is nothing he can do. When the thief sees it, he can only sigh that there is nothing he can do."
Silver in the Tang Dynasty was very scarce. Although Lingzhou was on the Silk Road, close to the Turks and the Western Regions, many Hu merchants came with silver coins, but one tael of silver could be converted into a thousand and six dollars. A thousand taels of silver balls were also valuable.
One thousand six hundred strings.
It weighed more than 60 kilograms and was round and round. The thief could only cry silently when he saw that he had no way to move it away.
Li Daozong is going back to Chang'an, and the former chief Shi Sima has dismissed his official position and left, but they will not give up their property here easily.
However, Li Daozong and others also knew that if a group of officials were replaced to take charge of the government, the new ones would naturally have to take a share of the pie. This wise king was indeed remarkable.
There is no need to fight, and I am willing to give up 40% of my share.
Whether it is slave trading, money making, salt trading, horse trading, etc., we can recruit Xue Wanche, Wu Huaiyu, Dou Luhuai, these new officers and generals to join the group, and give them 40% of the share, and the original ones will get 60%.
This is a lot of sincerity.
It is also the best way to avoid a lose-lose situation.
After all, Li Daozong was demoted to the court this time, and many other Lingzhou officials were also severely punished. If no blood was shed, they would probably be overthrown by the later governor-general Shi Sima and others, and they might not be able to keep their hands by then.
business here.
Although I have to give up 40% of my money, at least I can keep most of what I earned before, and I can still continue to make money in the future.
Li Daozong's private money industry has actually helped a lot to promote the development of industry and commerce in Lingzhou. After all, industry and commerce cannot do without sufficient currency support. If there is not enough currency, transactions will be inconvenient and everything cannot be bartered.
.
This is like the Lingnan area, which is far away from the Central Plains, but has foreign trade ports such as Guangzhou Port, with a large trade volume. Therefore, as early as the Northern and Southern Dynasties, money in the Central Plains has always been in Lingnan, and Lingnan cannot receive the inflow of copper coins from the country. The market
They all made money privately, or used gold and silver directly. Therefore, gold and silver mining has always been prosperous in Lingnan, and private money casting has also been extremely prosperous. Gold and silver have always been the mainstream currency for large-scale transactions.
Another example is Shuzhong in the Song Dynasty. Due to the shortage of money and the inconvenient road transportation, the circulation of copper coins was not easy, so a special iron coin area was formed in Shu.
Private casting is popular in Lingzhou. Gold, silver, copper coins, silk cloth and even cattle, horses and sheep slaves have become trading currencies here, making the trade here more and more prosperous.
Li Daozong came to Huaiyu to drink tea every day recently. He did not dare to invite Huaiyu to his place to drink tea. Instead, he came to drink tea at home, fearing that Wu Huaiyu would be attacked again if he came out to drink tea.
In the current Lingzhou City, Lingzhou soldiers and Yanzhou soldiers are jointly responsible for the city defense. This is actually the original local gangsters in Lingzhou who have bowed their heads and compromised to Wu Huaiyu, the dragon across the river.
Li Daozong was waiting for Xue Wanche to arrive and take office, but he had already handed over all the errands and Yindu.
Now I am drinking tea and chatting with Wu Huaiyu, and what I talk more about is how the original people in Lingzhou will cooperate with Wu Huaiyu and the new officials after they leave.
It turns out that there is such a huge market and interests here, and it is impossible to just abolish it.
Business still has to be done as usual, farming, slave trading, horse trading, salt trading and even private casting, these will not stop. The key is how to distribute the benefits, take care of all parties, and satisfy everyone.
Although Li Daozong is leaving, he is still the leader of the original gang. He wants to negotiate with Huaiyu on their behalf to avoid conflicts and conflicts caused by uneven distribution of the spoils.
If we unite, we will both benefit; if we divide, we will lose both.
Wu Huaiyu now gets along very well with Li Daozong and no longer has a bad face.
After all, they gave him 4,000 acres of land, and then gave him another 1,000 acres of pasture, then two copper seas, and a helpless silver ball.
That thing really makes thieves do nothing after seeing it. It is a big round silver ball, heavy and has no place to catch it. Not only can it be kept at home without fear of thieves, but if it is transported outside and encounters ordinary horse thieves, it is probably difficult to steal it.
take away.
A thousand taels is worth nothing, but it is worth more than an eight thousand kilograms of copper sea.
Last time he gave Huaiyu sixteen maids and fourteen slaves, and a female assassin came out, and many of the maids and slaves were killed by assassins. Now that the relationship has eased, Li Daozong gave sixteen more slaves each.
Promise Huaiyu that there will never be any more assassins inside.
Huaiyu also accepted it.
Of course, he did not accept so many things from Li Daozong for nothing. This meant that he had reached an agreement with him to take care of Li Daozong's business interests in Lingzhou in the future.
This kind of behavior is called making friends at best, and collaborating with other people at worst. Fortunately, Wu Huaiyu has a six-door identity, so he can now accept everyone who comes.
Li Daozong thought he had a handle on this young upstart, and thought he was lost in the face of money after money, but he didn't know that Wu Huaiyu turned around and wrote down a secret report to the Emperor of Chang'an every time he received a benefit.
The emperor had previously asked Zhang Fuguo to pass on the edict, and asked him to take it all, but he had to write down every stroke, and then divide it into seven parts, seven for the emperor, and three for Huaiyu.
Those three were given to Wu Huaiyu by the emperor, so you can accept them with confidence and boldness.
The emperor also knew very well that it was impossible to want the horses to run and not eat grass at the same time.
The 5,000 acres of land that Li Daozong gave him, Huaiyu could wash away and keep 1,500 acres of it. He could also wash away and keep a thousand guans of the silver ball and copper jar with more than 3,000 guan.
What's more, in the future, he will also benefit from farming, selling horses, selling slaves, selling salt, and minting money. What reason does he have for not being polite to the God of Wealth?
He is even a little reluctant to let Li Daozong leave now, and he doesn't know if Xue Wanche, the dog slave, will ruin this good situation after he comes. Doulu Huairang doesn't worry him, that guy is good at everything and can cooperate.
I'm afraid that Xue Gounu will look ugly when he eats, and because he is the governor, he will eat alone or take the lion's share.
