prosperous age

Chapter 198 Chapter 197

"Lubu, Lubu."

Standing at the door of his public house, Wei Guangde couldn't see the clerk, so he simply yelled twice.

After he finished speaking, he saw that Lu Bu had already rushed in from the courtyard door, holding a stack of rice paper and ink sticks in his hand.

"Master Wei, I went to the warehouse to get something."

When Lu Bu ran in front of Wei Guangde, he took a few breaths before speaking hastily.

"Put down your things and go outside the gate to see if my entourage is there. Zhang Ji, you should know him. Bring him in."

Wei Guangde ordered.

Lu Bu entered the room and put the things on the desk, then turned around and ran out.

These clerks in the Hanlin Academy usually do this kind of errand work, so they have nothing to complain about.

"Wait a minute, I'll ask my servants to send a letter there first, and ask them to collect the money. I'll go over there in the afternoon and bring the money directly to you."

Now Wei Guangde turned his head and said to Yin Shizhen.

"Guangde, thank you very much for your help, please don't tell me when the time comes."

Yin Shizhen was relieved at the moment, but he did not forget to remind, "Oh, by the way, the 1000 taels silver is still a bit eye-catching. If possible, please exchange it for a meeting ticket from several money shops in the capital."

"Okay, I'll ask them to exchange it for a meeting ticket, 1000 taels a piece. I'll give you 1000 taels of silver today, and I'll ask them to raise more money for backup."

Wei Guangde readily agreed, he had already agreed, and it would be futile to think about anything else.

After a while, Lu Bu took Zhang Ji into the public house, and when they arrived, Yin Shizhen had already left.

"Zhang Ji, go to Huitong Commercial Bank to find Erye Lin, and tell him that I'm going to pick up some money in the afternoon and ask him to prepare a meeting ticket for 1000 taels of silver for me."

After Lu Bu went out, Wei Guangde gave instructions to Zhang Ji.

"Yes, master, I'll go right away."

Zhang Ji agreed, then turned and went out the door.

In the afternoon, Wei Guangde left the Imperial Academy in advance in the name of going to Shuntian Mansion to check the pen and ink money, but he asked Li Shuli to deal with it himself, and he got into the carriage driven by Li San by himself.

Li Shuli didn't have much to say about this. In fact, most of the masters of the Imperial Academy would run around under various banners on weekdays, which is no surprise.

"Go to Huitong Commercial Bank."

Wei Guangde got into the carriage and gave instructions to Li San who was driving.

As the carriage started running, Wei Guangde was very uncomfortable sitting in the carriage. Although the carriage had already been padded with thick cotton cushions, it was still uncomfortable.

When the carriage arrived outside Huitong Commercial Bank, Wei Guangde jumped out of the carriage immediately.

Young people, it’s okay to suffer from a little bumps, but they just feel uncomfortable, and there is nothing else to do. It’s no wonder that the old men in the capital prefer to take sedan chairs instead of horse-drawn carriages.

As for the shock absorption of the improved carriage, Wei Guangde knew about it, but there was nothing he could do about it.

In fact, when he was in Jiujiang Mansion, he asked someone to try to make a spring, but obviously it was unsuccessful. As for the steel plate shock absorber he had heard of, he didn't understand how it was made.

These days, materials and crafts are still lacking. Many things he proposes are beyond the reach of craftsmen, and can only be made into soft cushions. It is no wonder that Chinese people like things like carpets in the north, and they are spread in carriages and sedan chairs.

When Wei Guangde entered the door, he saw Zhang Ji, followed by Second Master Lin.

"Master Lin's business is booming."

Wei Guangde walked over with a smile and said.

This store is not far from the Hanlin Academy, that is, the new store in Chongwenmenli Street mentioned last time has opened. On the day of opening, Wei Guangde not only called Jiujiang Mansion and other Jiangxi students of the same year, but also Jinshi from other provinces. He and his colleagues in the Hanlin Academy called a lot.

Although everyone's rank is not high, there are indeed many people, and they have made enough momentum.

"Master Wei, please, the newly arrived Yuqian tea, I will make a bag for you to take home and try it later."

When Second Master Lin saw Wei Guangde, he smiled like a chrysanthemum on his old face, and hurriedly welcomed him into the back room.

After sitting down, Wei Guangde tasted the Yuqian tea, which is West Lake Longjing, Wei Guangde prefers to drink, then nodded, "Good tea."

"Hehe, as long as you like it, I don't know if you have finished the Mingqian tea given last time. If it's not enough, get some more later."

Second Master Lin happily answered.

"Then thank you, let's get down to business first, are you ready for the meeting ticket?"

Wei Guangde nodded, and then began to talk about business.

For Huitong Commercial Bank, it is really not difficult to take out a thousand taels of silver, as long as Wei Guangde does not withdraw tens of thousands of taels of silver at one time, it will be easy to handle. If the amount is large, it will still take a few days to raise it.

"My lord, wait a moment."

Lin Erye took out a few sheets of paper from a box on the bookshelf. It looked like high-quality rice paper, but the color was slightly different, and there were complicated patterns, characters, and seals on it.

"My lord, you said you need to prepare 1000 taels of silver, and the little ones have prepared some more, but I don't know if the adults will use it or not."

As Lin Erye said, he handed over the meeting ticket in his hand.

Wei Guangde took it over and took a look. Three tickets of 1000 taels were issued by Shengyuan Pawnshop in Beijing, so Wei Guangde was relieved.

The Shengyuan Pawnshop is actually the Shengyuan Money Shop. The identity of the owner behind it is very mysterious, and no one knows who it is, but the power is first-class and powerful in the capital.

They opened their doors to do business, in fact, they were doing money business, not only doing pawnshops, but also doing money lending, and there was an industry that was less noticed by later generations, that is, exchange.

At this time in the Ming Dynasty, copper coins were mostly circulated among the people. There were good money minted by the government and bad money privately minted by the people. The exchange business was actually the exchange between silver and copper coins.

According to Wei Guangde's knowledge, this business is actually very profitable.

Think about the big banks in later generations who are very keen to engage in intermediary business, and you can come up with one or two from the handling fees.

What needs to be explained is that there were no bank notes in the Ming Dynasty, and what Wei Guangde used in his hand was a meeting ticket, which is a kind of bill with restrictions, just like the one sent to him by Lin Erye last time. Tiaozi, deposit the money in the Lin family in Jiujiang Mansion, and the Lin family will issue a meeting ticket and specify to cash it in the capital. In fact, it is also a kind of meeting ticket, and he needs to pick up the money himself.

As for the three conference tickets in hand, they can actually be understood as pawn tickets. To exchange a specified amount of silver taels or stored items at a designated store is similar to the silver tickets in Wei Guangde's cognition.

This means that in the capital, only some people will recognize the bills issued by a few powerful money, and such bills cannot be circulated outside the capital.

In this era, commercial credit has not been established, so most people do business and generally do not accept this kind of meeting ticket. When trading, they will ask customers to go to the money shop to exchange for cash transactions, so Lin Erye asked Wei Guangde for a meeting ticket Still very curious.

Wei Guangde collected the meeting ticket, then took out the note from his pocket and handed it to Erye Lin. Erye Lin picked up the note and went to the table, took the brush on the table and dipped it in ink to write the money withdrawal instructions on the blank space below the note. The quantity and date, and finally stamped his own seal, took out an account book from the bookshelf and turned it to a page for recording, and then returned the note to Wei Guangde.

"Second Master Lin, if I still need money, how much money can you scrape together for me in one day?"

Thinking of the unknown of doing that, Wei Guangde asked one more question.

"Two or 3000 taels of silver a day is no problem. If there are too many taels, you need to give the little brother some time to prepare. If it is tens of thousands of taels, it will take about five days."

Lin Erye immediately said with a smile.

"By the way, as I said last time, if someone in the capital needs to borrow money, please pay attention to it. I don't have much use for that money in the short term. If someone wants to borrow money, I also want to earn some interest."

Wei Guangde remembered that when the store opened last time, he and Lin Erye had mentioned the matter of letting the money go out, but there was nothing to say later, since we are here today, we naturally have to ask.

"Master Wei, there are many people in the capital who want to borrow money, but they are generally not very safe. Most of the people who have mortgages go to the money shop to borrow money. After all, they are in the shop and have a good reputation."

Lin Erye hurriedly explained.

"That's okay, just help me pay attention, as I said before, collateral, you can borrow if you have collateral, and it doesn't matter if the interest is moderately low."

Wei Guangde laughed.

When he was in Jiujiang Mansion, he released 6000 taels of silver at a monthly interest rate of 5 cents. According to later generations, the monthly interest rate is 5%, and the annualized interest rate is 60%. This is also the market interest rate in Jiujiang, and it has not increased by a single star.

When he arrived in Beijing, Wei Guangde thought at first that the interest rate here would be higher than that of Jiujiang Mansion, but after communicating with Lin Erye, he realized that the interest here is only 3 or 4 cents, which is lower than that of Jiujiang Mansion. to be less.

There are also those with high interest rates, but they are not insured.

Well, the most important thing when borrowing money is safety. Wei Guangde is naturally unwilling to do such a high interest and risky business.

When Wei Guangde walked out of Huitong Commercial Bank, Zhang Ji behind him was already holding a large bag of freshly packed tea, Longjing Yuqian tea, which had just arrived in the capital.

Chongwenmen Li Street is very close to where Wei Guangde is going. When Ming Chengzu Zhu Di built the city of Beijing, he built ten palaces on the east side of the palace, that is, ten palaces. Later generations here were called Wangfujing.

The Ming Dynasty implemented the enfeoffment system, and the princes lived here before they reached adulthood, and they would naturally be entrusted to various places to serve as vassal kings after they reached adulthood. Therefore, when the sons of the emperor grew up and could not continue to live in the palace, they would move here to live. .

Because it is going to be released, it is natural not to build a palace for every prince, that would be too wasteful.

It's just that the present is a bit special. Although the two sons of Emperor Jiajing have grown up, they still live here because they haven't established another prince.

Of course Wei Guangde would not swagger to the door of Prince Yu's Mansion, he did not want to offend King Jing.

Emperor Jiajing had eight sons, but these two are the only ones who have survived to this day. Who knows what will happen to King Yu and King Jing in the future?
King Yu just took the title of eldest brother, but if he died young like his other brothers, everything would naturally change.

Ask Li San to drive to a teahouse near Ten Princes' Mansion, Wei Guangde gets off the car and walks in, and is soon ushered into a private room.

There were quite a few people in the private room, besides Yin Shizhen, Gao Gong and Chen Yiqin were also there, and there was a man Wei Guangde didn't know, who was an eunuch by his clothes.

"This is Li Fang, Eunuch Li, Guangde, you should know him too."

After paying respects to Gao Gong, Chen Yiqin and Yin Shizhen, Gao Gong introduced.

Wei Guangde knew in his heart that after Yin Shizhen went back to talk about it, Gao Gong also realized that it seemed a bit unkind for them to ask Wei Guangde for money with empty words, so after ventilating with King Yu, he also called out the eunuchs around King Yu, at least to make Wei Guangde feel better. Don't worry, the money was borrowed by Prince Yu's Mansion, not them.

From their point of view, Wei Guangde was nothing more than worried that there would be no guarantee for loaning out the money. They were all officials in the Qingshui Yamen, so naturally they had no ability to repay.

Even though Gao Gong and the others belonged to both the Hanlin Academy and the Zhan Shifu, they were all unprofitable departments, and they could only live on a meager salary.

The money was borrowed by Prince Yu's Mansion, so naturally there is no need to worry about not being able to get the money back.

"Meet Eunuch Li."

Wei Guangde actually understood what the other party meant, but he didn't know what Li Fang was doing in Prince Yu's Mansion.

King Yu Zhu Zaiyi's presence in the capital's officialdom is very low, and he doesn't often show up in public. The people around him may only be known by the high-level court officials and King Jing.

After exchanging pleasantries, several people took their seats, Wei Guangde didn't intend to stay here for too long, so as not to be noticed by interested people, so he simply took out two conference tickets from his pocket.

"This is 2000 taels. It's from Shengyuan Money Shop. There should be no problem in the capital."

Wei Guangde handed the meeting ticket to Gao Gong, he is the highest official among several people here, and also the earliest Hanlin to enter the Yu Palace, so he is naturally their leader.

"Thank you Guangde."

Gao Gong didn't hold back either, he took the ticket and handed it to Li Fang, and then passed it to Chen Yiqin.

"I'll also give Guangde an IOU, so we can talk about it later."

After receiving the meeting ticket, Gao Gong stood up and wanted to go to the desk in the corner of the private seat to write an IOU, but Wei Guangde waved his hand and said: "That's unnecessary, Mr. Gao and the others are all seniors of the Imperial Academy. Could it be that Guangde still Can't you trust a few adults?"

Hearing what Wei Guangde said, Gao Gong didn't make a fuss, and sat back on his seat, "We have received Guangde's heart, and here I thank you on behalf of King Yu."

Before he finished speaking, Wei Guangde got up and bowed: "Sir Gao, don't say that, it's a subject's duty to do something for the lord. In fact, after hearing about this incident, my colleagues and I also felt sorry for the lord. .”

Speaking of this, Wei Guangde let out a long sigh, "It's a pity that we are all soft-spoken. It's like the same year when we were watching the government in the Ministry of Household Affairs. We had intentions but were powerless. We couldn't even say a few words to the court officials."

After saying this, Wei Guangde glanced out of the window, bowed to the other four people in the room and said: "It's getting late, and I have to go back to the Imperial Academy, so I won't talk much, if there is still need, please feel free to send someone Contact me, as long as I can, Guangde will try my best to do well for the prince."

Wei Guangde didn't want to get too involved with the people of Prince Yu's Mansion, not because he didn't want to, but because the officialdom in the capital is indeed a bit complicated.

As far as Wei Guangde feels now, King Yu really can't compare with King Jing in the capital, the difference in strength is too great.

The purpose of coming here today has been achieved, he only hopes that Yin Shizhen did not deceive himself, and that eunuch is not a trust they found.

What Wei Guangde wants is nothing more than to leave an impression on Yu Wang, if he really can ascend to the Great Treasure in the future, no matter what, he should return his love.

(End of this chapter)