"His Highness wants to lead us Suzhou merchants to do this business."
"I just don't know what we Suzhou merchants have to pay?"
Zhao Yunyan said respectfully. Hearing him ask this, the rest of the excited businessmen immediately calmed down.
Yes, who doesn't know that a trip to the sea and a return trip can be a hundred times a thousand times more profitable. Although traveling to and from Liaodong may not be that profitable, you only need to pass through Ryukyu and Korea on the way.
A hundred times may not be achieved, but if you follow this route again and again, a profit of dozens of times is more than enough.
Since he has such advantages, why doesn't His Highness the Fifth take over all the positions on the grain transport ship himself? It's amazing, just bring a Shen family member with you.
With the current wealth of the Shen family, what kind of fleet cargo hold could he not be able to fill?
Why do you want to take advantage of businessmen who are strangers to you?
In the compartment below, Shen Wang was also anxious and had hot sweat on his forehead. The prince knows such news, why don't he and the Shen family make a fortune in silence, but tell these people?
On normal days, he, Shen Wang, would definitely try his best to disrupt this banquet, and then explain the pros and cons to the prince, so that the prince's palace and the Shen family could monopolize this big business. Only yesterday he was reprimanded by Zhu Su, but today he did not dare to act rashly. In my heart, I just thought that the prince was still angry with the Shen family and deliberately divided the business to make him anxious.
"Of course there is a price." Zhu Su said. In my heart, I have a great affection for this businessman with Chinese character face who is always frowning.
It is very rare to be able to remain calm despite the current interests.
Such people are the ones who know how to advance and retreat.
Seeing that the businessmen below were looking forward to it, they all looked at me eagerly. Zhu Su smiled slightly, crossed his legs, and lay facelessly on the chair. He unfolded the folding fan in his hand, and the four words "Convince people with virtue" appeared on the fan.
"I heard that you and other Suzhou merchants hoarded a lot of food when the flood first started?"
"I believe that I, a businessman from Suzhou, would not be so unkind and do such hoarding in a year of disaster, right?"
"..."
After all the talk, the topic finally turned to stocking up on food!
As soon as these words came out, the atmosphere in the venue suddenly turned cold. Many businessmen who were originally fascinated by the profits from shipping froze, looking a little unnatural.
"Don't panic, everyone." Seeing that the situation was cold, Zhu Su continued.
"I am not trying to plunder your food reserves. I have always hated those barbaric methods! I use my virtue to convince others." He shook the folding fan in his hand.
"only……"
His eyes flashed.
"After all, the remaining cargo space of the imperial court's grain ships will be limited."
"How we allocate it depends on your sincerity."
"Now that I have been entrusted by my father and His Highness the Crown Prince, the only things I care about are disaster relief and flood control."
"And both of these are inseparable from the word 'grain'!"
"Therefore, in the future, the location of the cargo hold of the grain transport ship will have to be obtained through this 'auction' method, where everyone can bid."
"And the capital for this bidding... does not require copper coins, nor gold and silver. I, the king... only need food!"
"Whoever produces the most grain can occupy the largest share of the cargo hold... Everyone, do you have any bids?"
Zhu Su smiled, shook his folding fan, and looked at the Suzhou merchants below with an inexplicable smile on his face. A group of businessmen were stunned. You looked at me and I looked at you, with strange expressions on their faces.
You said you can't take advantage of others and go around in circles, why don't you ask them to hand over the stored grain?
At the beginning, they talked about the Maritime Silk Road, but it turned out that they were just polite before fighting... If the bidding was really based on shipping space, you should tell the specific number of shipping spaces!
A group of wealthy businessmen below were communicating silently with their eyes. Under Zhu Su's gaze, there was not even one person who took the lead in bidding.
For a while in the field, apart from the sound of Zhu Su flapping his fan, you could actually hear a needle drop.
"Your Majesty, I don't know." The same horse salt merchant stood up and bowed to Zhu Su. He sighed with a bitter look on his face and said, "Every time there is a disaster, the rich people like us are also panicked!"
"Those people have no permanent property, so they have no choice but to take care of their children and become refugees in the direction of Yingtian to escape famine. We have already taken root in Suzhou, so how can we leave?"
"There are so many people in my family, so I have to stock up on more food to feel more at ease. Who knows whether this flood will continue for ten to eight years?"
"Yes." Another businessman stood up. "Your Highness doesn't know that we are not hoarding it maliciously."
"Earlier, Censor Ru came to ask for food from us, and we also donated it."
"My family alone donated five hundred stones of food and grass!"
"The food we are hoarding is also collected with real money and silver. If we are not loyal and patriotic, how can we donate such food and grass to Yu Shi?"
"Yes. In order to collect these grains, I have completely bankrupted my family... I don't even have a hundred taels of free money at home." The horse salt merchant continued to talk miserably. "I donated 600 stones to Yushi Ru. My Ma family has spent all it has."
"Yes, yes..." A group of businessmen all nodded in agreement. They are all shrewd people. How could they not see that after all the prince said, he was actually still planning to seize and hoard food?
Even if the shipping cargo hold is real, it still has no shadow. How can the food already held in one's hands be safe?
Now that there are horsemen who stand out, a group of people naturally have an excuse. At this time, they all followed the limelight and frowned, showing off to Zhu Su miserably.
"Oh? So you are hoarding food because you are worried that your family will be hungry in this disaster year, and you don't have any intention of hoarding?" Zhu Su had a smile on his face.
"Exactly, exactly." A group of wealthy businessmen all nodded.
"That's it." The smile on Zhu Su's face did not change. The words "Conquer people with virtue" were suddenly closed in his hand, and he opened his hand and stretched it to the right. The dog standing on the right naturally understood and handed an account book to Zhu Su's hand. Zhu Su flipped through it briefly, leaned on the chair and read aloud:
"Huang Shiyi lives in Huangfu in the east of the city. There are more than 54,000 shi of grain stored in the mansion."
As soon as these words came out, a short fat man in the crowd suddenly trembled and opened his mouth wide as if his throat was being strangled.
"Shi Daoyuan lives in Shiyuan in the east of the city. He has more than 61,000 shi of food stored in his house."
"Hong Benxiao lives in Guangyuan in the north of the city. He has more than 48,000 shi of food stored in his mansion."
"Zhai Jian lives in Zhai Mansion in the north of the city. He has more than 26,000 shi of grain stored in his mansion."
"Ma Fengsun lives in Zhuoyuan in the south of the city. He has more than 81,000 dan of grain stored in his house..."
…
Every time he read a line, there was a wealthy businessman in the crowd who seemed to have been cast a spell and could no longer speak. By the end, no one in the group dared to cry another word. In the hall, except for Zhu Su's chanting, it once again returned to its previous state where the needle could be heard.
At the end of the reading, Zhu Su got tired of reading and threw the account book down.
"Who are you waiting for to explain this?"
"With so much food...are all the relatives in your family just ricers, or are they all demons?"
"You opened your mouth in front of me... Do you want to test whether the king's sword is sharp?"
Zhu Su finally found out. His face showed a bit of the same majesty as Lao Zhu.
Although he is sitting at the top, his voice seems to come from Jiuyou!
By the way, some people say in the comment area that I am a studio mass-produced writer, and some people simply slander me as an AI?
Please! I also wish I was ai! With just a few clicks, millions of words can be generated directly. Why am I still working so hard to look up information, words and sentences?
As for me being from a studio, Shen Te Miao’s studio, which studio has I ever seen that endures as much pain as I do and only updates it when I get home from get off work every day?
Just because the title of my book sounds like a studio, that doesn’t mean I am a studio, right? As for the title of the book, I am also very helpless, otherwise it would not be popular...
It's really a studio. I've already told you about steam engines, tanks, rocket launchers, and even things like cultivating immortals that can directly crush the whole world.
Don't worry, everyone. I am not a studio and I am not an AI. This book will not be written randomly or cut into pieces. I have one foot in writing online. Although my grades are not good, I sincerely want to start well and finish well.
The story has just begun. The Zhu brothers have not yet begun to travel across the world. I also know that there are some things that were not written well before. I did learn a lot when writing a book for the first time. I will try my best to write better in the future!
Originally I didn’t write the author’s words for the sake of perception, but now that I have written them, I would like to thank Kirihara Ryosi, Blue Devil Pluto, Cowardly Dragon and other big guys for their rewards! Thanks to Yushu Feidu, Xiaoyao Commander, Wentian Shengzun and other big guys for your monthly ticket rewards!
There are also many recommendation votes and comments from experts! I really learned a lot, and the novice author thanks me!
(End of chapter)
