(The monk was interrogated all night last night and was not allowed to rest on the weekend. Please vote for recommendations and comfort...)
As soon as he got home, Li Jian came to the door. Chen Ke gave him a wink and looked at Chen Xiliang and said: "Boss Li is here to get the wine koji."[]
"Go." Chen Xiliang said with a smile: "I've been away from home for the past few days, and Boss Li has been very anxious."
"It's not in the way, it's not in the way." Li Jian laughed, then followed Chen Ke through the main door and walked to the warehouse.
In the Shu region of the Song Dynasty, ordinary people lived in stilted buildings, while wealthy families lived in mansions...basically the courtyard houses in the north. Of course, in a small place like Qingshen, living in a mansion does not mean you are a person.
The Chen family is a courtyard with three entrances. When you enter the door and turn around the screen wall, you will see five rooms in the north room used as the living room, and a row of seven small rooms in the reverse side room used as the servants' room. There were also east and west wing rooms, but they were demolished under Chen Ke's initiative.
The length of the courtyard from east to west was increased to ten feet. The ground was paved with large square bluestones, stone locks and archery targets were placed in the corners, and horizontal and parallel bars were installed as a place for the brothers to exercise.
You can reach the second entrance from the living room and the ear doors on both sides. There are three main halls in this entrance, two wing rooms on the left and right, a corridor in front, and three east and west wing rooms. Generally speaking, the third entrance
It is the main courtyard where the owner lives, but the Chen family does not even have a female dependent. The five father and son only live in the second courtyard, which is more than enough.
The second room after entering the main hall is the dining room, where Chen Xiliang reviews his homework. The room on the left is the bedroom of Chen Xiliang, Wu Lang and Liu Lang. The room on the right is the bedroom of Erlang and Sanlang, and the two side rooms are study rooms.
The three east wing rooms were basically idle and were only used for storing sundries. The three west wing rooms were converted into distillery warehouses, with iron bars hidden in the doors and windows. The doors were locked on weekdays, and Chen Ke took the key with him.
Opening the doors and windows of warehouse C to allow the air inside to circulate for a while, Chen Kecai and Li Jian walked in. The room was filled with pottery jars of average size in a back shape, and the pottery jars contained the wine yeast that was about to be fermented.
In fact, there is enough koji to make as much wine as you want. There are only so many orange orchards in Qingshen. Even if all the ponkans are used to make wine, it will only produce 100,000 kilograms of raw wine per year. Where is the upper limit of production capacity? According to the government
If you buy it on the same terms, you might as well hang yourself.
It was only three days later. Li Jian had lost a lot of weight and his waist was a little stooped. He held the wine vat and asked: "Sanlang, do you have a charter?"
"Who is the wine merchant in Meizhou?" Chen Ke opened a wine vat, scooped up a spoonful of rich-colored koji with a wooden ladle, and sniffed it gently.
"Pengshan Bi Mingjun." Li Jian said.
"Does it have nothing to do with the Meishan Cheng family?" Chen Ke said a little disappointed.
"Of course. Without the help of the Cheng family, how could he have snatched the glass spring away from the original owner?" Li Jian said matter-of-factly: "Daguan Bi is Mrs. Song's cousin." Mrs. Song is.
Cheng Jun's wife.
"I see..." Chen Ke nodded slowly: "How is the Bi family's business?"
"Most of the world's famous wines are in Shu, so the competition is naturally fierce. But the first-grade Xuequ wine, Jiannanchun and Luzhoujiao have a transcendent status and are not affected. The competition is mainly concentrated on the second-grade Hanzhou E-huang wine, Rong
Zhou Amber Wine, Meizhou Glass Spring, Pixian Pijian Wine, and Linqiong Linqiong Wine. These five are all mainly for public consumption, so they all use low prices to sell sales. It is not clear which one sells the best, but
The worst-selling one is without a doubt Meizhou glass wine!”
"what reason?"
"Bi Mingjun is a layman, and he also likes to be domineering and treat workers harshly. Few of the employees in the winery will stay after their term is over. As a result, the taste of 'Glass Spring' wine is getting worse and worse. If it weren't for the monopoly,
, I’m afraid it’s closed down a long time ago.” Li Jian shook his head and sighed: “What a pity, what a pity.”
“What impact do we have on them?”
"There will be some impact, but it won't be too big." Li Jian thought about it and said, "Because we don't go to stores, but sell raw wine to wine merchants from all over the world, and they distribute it. And our annual output is less than 100,000 jins.
, how many more can be distributed to various places? It will not affect the discussions of those special areas."
The purpose of this sales method carefully designed by Chen Ke is to avoid having too much impact on the government-run liquor industry in a certain area and causing unnecessary trouble. It is precisely because of this method that Huangjiao Liquor Store has been successful.
It developed and grew until this incident happened.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At this time, Li Jian had already understood something, and his face was ugly: "Could it be that they are doing something wrong? We didn't bother them!"
"Every man is not guilty, but he is guilty of having a jade." Chen Ke almost broke the wooden spoon and said with cold eyes: "Be jealous when you see good things. This is the usual behavior of officials!"
"What are the local tributes? But the senior officials in Beijing have the final say. How can the Cheng family be so capable?"
"If the local officials didn't report it, how could the capital know that there is Huangjiaojiu in Meizhou in the middle of Shu?" Chen Ke said with a mocking smile: "Do you really think that in less than three years, Huangjiaojiu will become like Jiannanchun and Xuequjiu?
The world’s famous wine?!”
"How could it be possible? I know it." Li Jian said: "In terms of fame, at best, it is about the same as amber, glass, and goose yellow."
"I asked my dad, no one in Bianliang knows about these so-called famous wines in Shu." Chen Ke said in a low voice: "If there is no obstruction, how could we be 'honored in the tribute list'!"
"Ah..." Li Jian said with a pale face: "You mean, the Cheng family is dealing with us?!"
"It's just a guess." Chen Ke glared at him angrily: "Is this what I did to you?"
"How can we, from a small family, fight with the Cheng family..." Li Jian said with trembling legs.
"Who said it must be the Cheng family!"
"That's good, that's good..." Li Jian took out a handkerchief and wiped his sweat.
"So what if you're not from the Cheng family," Chen Ke sighed, "How can you fight with someone like you?"
"If it's not the Cheng family, I'm not afraid," Li Jianqiang said with a smile: "Not to mention in Meizhou, even in the whole of Sichuan and Shu, the Cheng family is one of the most powerful! If it is really their family, we can still wait and be killed."
Chen Ke really wanted to call him a 'fart', but using his words will not change anything except destroying the relationship between them. He exhaled a long breath and said: "You still have to go to the county government office and ask Song Daling for official documents.
Remember to seal fifty taels of silver and donate it to the county!" One tael of silver is equal to a lot of money.
"So much money?!" Li Jian said in pain. Fifty thousand yuan just to read a document is beyond the scope of ordinary people's acceptance.
"It's just for testing! If we show such sincerity, no matter whether the other party is a corrupt official or an upright official, we will be accommodating." Li Jian said calmly: "If you still don't show it, it means there is something wrong with the document, and our chance of survival lies here.
!”
"What if I show it?"
"It won't be a loss if you show me. In the future, if we want the court to provide accommodations or exemptions, we will have to rely on the full help of the imperial order and take the opportunity to build good relationships." Chen Ke sighed and said, "If you are reluctant to part with it, the money will be deducted from my account.
"
"No, no, no, how can you spend your dividends? You'd better pay it out of the company." Li Jian waved his hand.
"You're welcome. At this time, the most important thing is to get through the difficulties together." Chen Ke said with a smile.
"..." The two of them were about to walk out when Li Jian suddenly asked, "Can we defeat the government?"
"If it were another dynasty, don't even think about it." Chen Ke smiled lightly and said, "But this is the Song Dynasty. Although there is darkness, it is much cleaner than other dynasties."
In order to boost Li Jian's confidence, Chen Ke told him what he had just heard from his elders:
"When I learned about this that day, I thought about it with my eyes darkened, but there was no way... We, the juniors among the tributes, the quickest way is to refer to the examples of tributes from our seniors. So I asked several elders, we
Those things about the Song Dynasty paying tribute, the result is really a relief."
"How do you say it?" Li Jian asked with wide eyes.
"The elders said that almost all tributes would be subjected to similar 'and buying', but over the years, I have never heard of anyone being forced to hang themselves." Chen Ke said: "The Song Dynasty did not have the habit of taking human lives lightly. It was really a big deal.
Well, the relevant officials will definitely not be able to live with it."
"Are we the only ones so unlucky?"
"Of course not." Chen Ke shook his head and said: "The more famous the tribute is, the more powerful it is for Yan Guo to pluck its hair. There are several layers of tax increases, but the money received is exploited layer by layer. This place, inside and outside, can really drive people to the edge.
die."
"Why didn't you force people to death?"
"Because there are always officials who make decisions for the people!" Chen Ke said: "There was also corruption in the officialdom of the Song Dynasty, but there were more decent people. Once something was done too much, there would always be someone who would speak out for justice!"
"For example, ten years ago, the world-famous Duanzhou Duan Inkstone was in a similar situation to us, so that the craftsmen fled there one after another. Later, Bao Zheng, the newly arrived Zhizhou, conducted a secret investigation. It turned out that the palace only asked for 'Duan Inkstone'
The annual tribute inkstones in the state are ten', and including those purchased by the three governments and six ministries, the number is no more than a hundred. Officials at all levels have increased the number of tribute inkstones, and the number of tribute inkstones has increased. As a result, Duanzhou has to turn over nearly a thousand square meters every year. Bao Heizi was furious.
Next, the matter was brought to the capital, and the relevant officials were sacked one after another. Since then, Duanzhou has paid tribute of ninety square meters of Duan inkstone every year, which has become a fixed amount, and no one has dared to blackmail anyone again!"
"Sanlang, what do you want to do?" Li Jian asked with sweat on his forehead.
"I want to see if there is only one Bao Qingtian in the Song Dynasty!" Chen Ke has never been a shy person. He clenched his fist tightly and said: "If there is only one Bao Qingtian, I will go to the capital to complain to him!"
Li Jian was restrained by the young man's fierceness, and after a while he said dryly: "Sanlang, does it have to be like this?" He didn't dare to make such a big deal.
"Alas," Chen Ke was furious when he saw how useless he was, and could only say angrily: "Of course we have to wait until it is absolutely necessary."