I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 247: Taihang Mountains
"I don't know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing for the Ming Dynasty to have such a shrewd and capable King Jing who can make things happen at will and does not play by the rules!" Yang Tinghe continued.

Then he and Yang Yiqing fell into silence. After a long while, Yang Yiqing spoke up: "I benefited a lot from Jiefu's words today. I now know what to do."

The masters of Shunde City naturally had no idea of ​​what was happening in the capital, thousands of miles away, as they were already busy with their own affairs.

"It's all your fault! What a stupid idea!" Mr. Zhou said angrily.

"Why blame me for everything? You didn't say anything when I came up with this idea! Now you're starting to talk back on it." Master Li said, not wanting to be outdone.

They were tit-for-tat, neither of them giving in, and the room was filled with an anxious atmosphere.
Mr. Shen listened to their quarrel silently. He liked the current atmosphere very much. It was this anxious atmosphere that made them desperate and tried all kinds of methods, which led them to use a bad idea yesterday.
As more and more farmers came from all over the country after hearing the news, He Kui became increasingly busy. In order to facilitate the villagers' purchases, he opened a sales point directly in the warehouse outside the city, gradually shifting the sales focus outside the city, and subsequent salt was also transported to this warehouse.

The masters' idea was to burn down the warehouse, and they expected that the salt would be burned along with the warehouse.

As a result, they made a huge mistake in a hurry, that is, they mistook salt for food, thinking that salt would burn like food.
As a result, the fire burned for more than an hour and the warehouse was burned down, but a salt mountain was left in its place. Although it was a little black, the salt was packed in sacks, and the sacks were burned, leaving only some wood ash in the salt.

For the villagers who wanted to buy salt, they were not picky about these things, so it did not affect the sales at all. However, He Kui still decided to reduce the price of the burnt salt by one penny per kilogram.

This made the villagers even more grateful. They handed the warm copper coins with body temperature to He Kui and his friends, and then packed away the salt with residual temperature.
The masters' actions this time really shot themselves in the foot, making the Royal Group's reputation even worse, and their reputation became worse because of it. Everyone knows who is behind this.

The old men argued for a long time, but still could not come to a conclusion, so they all left in anger.
After everyone else left, Master Shen sat in the chair blankly. He looked calm on the surface, but his heart was in turmoil. Hatred continued to devour his heart, causing him immense torment.

In fact, even without the profits from the salt industry, the Shen family would not be unable to survive. They could live comfortably by collecting rent from the fields around Shunde City. However, Mr. Shen could not get over the hurdle in his heart.
At this moment, Mr. Li, who had already left, suddenly came back.

"Brother Li, why are you back?" Mr. Shen asked woodenly.

"I feel so bad, and it's torture to go home, so I just want to talk to you." Master Li sat down next to Master Shen, "Do you have any wine? I want to drink some."

Mr. Shen asked the servants to bring up a pot of wine and some side dishes, and poured them for Mr. Li himself.

Mr. Li was not polite either. He drank the wine in the glass in one gulp, and then poured a few more glasses and drank them in one breath. Naturally, Mr. Shen drank with him.

They both drank half a pot of wine before they slowed down.

"Brother Shen! This matter makes me feel very sad! I have never felt so sad before!" Master Li started talking.

Mr. Shen did not speak, but drank a glass of wine silently and continued to listen.
"I have grown up so big, in Shunde Prefecture, I am the only one who can bully others, no one can bully me!" Master Li said with spit flying everywhere. "It's okay for the Royal Group to bully me, after all, they are powerful, but those mud-legged people, who are so humble that they are in the mud and smell of dirt, actually dare to bully me. I really can't swallow this breath! How can I gain a foothold in Shunde Prefecture in the future!" Master Li said with a painful face.

These words really touched Mr. Shen's heart; he thought the same way.

"We not only lost face, we also lost our substance. The 80 million jin of salt in our hands could have been sold for 144 wen per jin, which could have brought in 10 million taels of silver. But now the price of salt is 18 wen per jin, and we can only sell it for 126 taels of silver. That's a full million taels of silver difference! It is said that cutting off a person's financial resources is like killing his parents. The Royal Group has made us lose so much silver, which is equivalent to killing our parents so many times?" Master Li said, beating his chest and stamping his feet. His tongue was a little big.

According to the actual situation, Mr. Li and his men bought 20 million kilograms of salt at the price of 1300 wen per kilogram, and lost 12 taels of silver. Previously, they bought 50 million kilograms of salt from salt merchants at the price of 500 wen per kilogram and hoarded them without selling them. This part is equivalent to a loss of 20 taels of silver, for a total loss of 32 taels of silver. However, according to Mr. Li's most greedy calculation, they lost 126 million taels of silver.

As soon as Mr. Shen heard it, he understood Mr. Li's way of calculation and quickly accepted this most greedy way of calculation.

"Stop talking!" Mr. Shen felt even more distressed when he thought of the loss of 126 million taels of silver. He picked up the wine jug and poured it into his mouth in an attempt to ease the pain in his heart.
"Things have come to this point. There's nothing we can do. Just accept the defeat and don't talk about this anymore. Bringing this up again will only increase the pain in your heart." Mr. Shen said drunkenly.

"Who said there is no solution? We still have a way! I came back just to talk about this with Brother Shen." Master Li slammed the table and said.

"Brother Li, do you have any good ideas?" Master Shen was in high spirits and said, "Tell me quickly."

"I think the Royal Group's most vulnerable point is that railway. Once the railway is cut off, they won't be able to transport the salt. As long as they can't transport the salt, the price of salt will go up, and it will also buy time for the salt merchants." Master Li said in a low voice.

"What do you think this is? I've thought about cutting off the railway, but we can't do it!" Mr. Shen said with some disappointment.

"We can't do it ourselves, but we can drive those who are capable to do it to help us!" said Master Li, pointing meaningfully to the west.

"You mean the mountains?" Mr. Shen sobered up all of a sudden, and he suddenly understood why Mr. Li came back alone, because only he and Mr. Li knew what happened in the mountains.

"Yes, Brother Shen, don't tell me you don't have any contact with the mountain anymore?" Mr. Li picked up the wine pot and took a big sip of wine.
"Contact. But won't there be any problems if we ask Zhang San to help? If Zhang San is arrested, it is very likely that we will be implicated," Mr. Shen said hesitantly.

"That Zhang San has been active in Taihang Mountains for ten years. He has four or five hundred men under his command. They come and go like the wind, with strong soldiers and horses. The government troops went into the mountains to suppress him five times but returned empty-handed, without catching a single hair. How could such a man be caught?" said Master Li.

Mr. Shen was so excited by what he said that the more he thought about it, the more he thought this idea was feasible.
He made the decision under the influence of alcohol: "Let's do it! Let Zhang San help us vent our anger."

(End of this chapter)