Wu Kecheng carried a package on his back and tried his best to shrink his body into a ball and ride on the horse to resist the cold wind ushered in when the horse galloped. After nearly nine days of traveling, he finally saw the outer walls of the city of Beijing.

When he arrived at Chaoyangmen, he was still in time to enter the city. The long rush made both of his legs limp.

At this time, there were still people rushing to the capital from other places, which surprised the soldiers guarding the gate.

Wu Kecheng led the horse into Beijing from the empty city gate, and the soldiers in the city gate cave didn't even bother to come over and interrogate him.

When he entered the city, the feeling of coldness disappeared instantly. Pedestrians on the road come and go, busy preparing for tomorrow's Lantern Festival.

According to the information provided by the two brocade guards, there are two banknotes exchanged, one is in the Tongzhou warehouse, and the other is the Sihai Commercial Bank in the capital.

Wu Kecheng didn't even have to think about it, so he chose to come to the capital, after all, businessmen are always easier to talk than officials.

When he walked into the city, he grabbed a pedestrian and asked, "This brother, may I ask if there is a four-sea trading house in the capital..."

A quarter of an hour later, under the guidance of pedestrians, he found the nearest trading house in the four seas. Completely different from the shop he remembered, this business house did not have a small storefront room against the street.

It was almost the best Qinglou he had ever seen, and there were actually two doormen in dresses at the door.

As if seeing his embarrassment, one of the servants took the initiative to come up to him and asked, "This guest, do you want to go in and have a look?" It doesn't cost a penny. ”

"No money? Is this the Four Seas Firm? Wu Kecheng asked in some surprise.

"Of course, isn't there a sign on the lintel?"

"Is there a place to keep the horses?"

"Just leave it to me, then take this wooden sign and come back and take your horse."

Wu Kecheng handed the reins in his hand to the servant, and took a wooden plaque from his hand, he looked at it carefully, and there was nothing special on it except for the number 34 written in ink.

He glanced at the horse that had been led away by the servants, and walked towards the gate of the Four Seas Merchant House. After entering the door, what Wu Kecheng saw in front of him was no different from the cross-courtyard of other large households. After entering the Hanging Flower Gate, he realized that this place was different from other mansions.

The place that was supposed to be the courtyard in front of the lobby was built with square timber to build an overhead floor on the ground. There seems to be a fire dragon set up underneath, making the whole space much warmer than outside.

The whole courtyard has been transformed into a hollow-shaped building, but there is a small patio in the middle of the hollow, and in the middle of the patio is a rockery, which is obviously an old thing left over from the original courtyard.

A wooden fence is set around the patio, and against the wooden fence is a row of long chairs, apparently for customers to rest.

Lanterns of all sizes are hung all over the store, apparently prepared for the Lantern Festival.

What surprised him the most was that in a space of nearly one acre, there were dozens of wooden shelves full of goods. This is so different from the shops he remembers, clean, tidy, and people replenish goods from time to time.

Wu Kecheng was just stunned for a while, and then remembered what he was here for. He grabbed a guy in a red uniform and asked, "Man, excuse me, is there a place to exchange banknotes for silver?" ”

"It's in the room to the east, the one with the sign on it." The man pointed to the east and departed.

Wu Kecheng was about to walk into the exchange office, when a person suddenly rushed out from the side. This made him nervous and made a defensive gesture.

"Do you want to exchange banknotes?" A young man whispered to him.

"Exchange banknotes, no, I'm going to exchange silver taels." Wu Kecheng, who was protecting the package on his chest, subconsciously shook his head and said.

The young man named Xue Lingtang showed even more joy on his face and said, "How many banknotes do you have?" I'll exchange silver taels with you. ”

"You?" Wu Kecheng suddenly became vigilant, he can be regarded as a person who has seen the world, and knows that not all people in the capital are good. What's more, there are now one thousand and a few hundred yuan in his package, which is equivalent to more than 800 taels of silver.

Xue Lingtang saw Wu Kecheng's suspicious eyes, and hurriedly explained: "I'm not a vagrant, I'm a Liyuan pawnshop buddy..."

Before Xue Lingtang finished speaking, a person walked out of the room with the sign of the currency exchange office, and he immediately reprimanded Xue Lingtang: "What's the matter, all the guests have been pulled to our door, do you really want us to prohibit your Liyuan pawnshop from entering the shop?" ”

Under this person's reprimand, Xue Lingtang immediately apologized and left. Then he said to Wu Kecheng: "If you want to exchange, hurry up, in two quarters of an hour, we will be off work here, and it will not open until the day after tomorrow." ”

With that, the man departed. Wu Kecheng was a little surprised, he didn't understand why there were people robbing both of them by exchanging paper money for silver.

With doubts, Wu Kecheng walked into the room where the coins were exchanged. A row of long tables divided the room into two, and Wu Kecheng sat down at the table under the beckoning of the guy sitting behind the table.

The man carefully counted the banknotes he took out of the package, and without discussing with him how to exchange them, he quickly took the silver taels from the silver box behind him, measured them clearly, and pushed them in front of him.

This was completely different from what he had imagined the exchange, he had been prepared before he came, and he had to fight to prevent the Four Seas Merchant House from fooling himself with the black silver of poor quality, but now it seems that he will not need it.

"This guest officer, you have to make an inventory, and we won't be responsible for whether there is a shortage of quantities after leaving." The guy reminded Wu Kecheng, who was still in a daze.

"No, it's not..."Looking at these 93-color silver, Wu Kecheng was a little speechless. He didn't think that this banknote could really be exchanged for silver, and it was still such a high-quality silver.

You must know that the silver exchanged by the Juyuan pawnshop is mostly variegated silver, and a small part is coarse silver. According to the regulations: 55 taels of variegated silver for 50 taels of silver, and 52 taels of 4 coins of thick silk silver for 50 taels of silver.

"Even if it's a one-to-one, there's money to be made." Wu Kecheng thought so in his heart.

"If you think it's too heavy to take away, you can open an account first, and then you can use it as you go." The guy looked at the nearly 50 catties of silver on the table, thinking that Wu Kecheng was worried because he couldn't hold it, so he mentioned it loudly.

"Account?" Wu Kecheng asked a little blankly.

"That's right, it means that you can save money temporarily, which is similar to pawning things at a pawn shop, but we don't charge you for depositing them. Moreover, at any currency exchange point in the capital, you can withdraw money from your account. ”

Wu Kecheng just thought about it, and immediately decided: "Then I will save an integer of 800 taels, and I will take the scattered silver and copper coins on your cabinet." All right? ”

"Of course, there is no problem, then you can fill out this form..."

For Wu Kecheng, his most important task was to bring back the news that paper money could be exchanged for silver, rather than carrying such a heavy amount of silver on his back, so he accepted this guy's suggestion without hesitation.

After the New Year's Day court meeting, Zhu Youzhen rarely gave himself a few days off, and he did not go out in the palace.

The atmosphere of the New Year in the palace is very strong, everyone has changed into the clothes of the gourd complement, and there are various stalls set up by eunuchs on the royal streets of the imperial city.

Of course, all these tricks are because the emperors of the past dynasties could not enter and leave the palace freely, and let the eunuchs learn the folk arrangement, so that the emperor could pretend to go out of the palace and live as an ordinary person.

For Zhu Youzhen, it was as if he was acting in a real Truman world specifically for him, which made him very fresh.

When he was free, he naturally moved around intensively with the two concubines Zhou Hou, Tian and Yuan, and added Princess Le'an and the Portuguese girl Isabella.

Zhu Youzhen was bored and invented the card games and checkers games in his memory, so that these girls finally found fun.

However, this lazy life ended in only three days, because the Four Seas Trading House finally opened.

In order to prevent the Sihai Commercial Bank from closing due to various problems, he led people to formulate a scheduling plan for the store when various materials were in short supply, as well as logistics arrangements for various materials, etc.

At first, he asked the household to use paper money instead of silver taels as a monthly salary for the same officials of the Gyeonggi army.

Almost the first thing these sergeants and officials did after receiving their monthly salaries was to quickly go to the Four Seas Trading House to exchange them for tattooed silver.

But soon, the rich variety of goods in the Four Seas Trading House and the prices were 15% lower than those of other shops, which quickly attracted the people of the capital.

According to accurate calculations, the Four Seas Merchant House set the ratio of silver taels to paper money at a ratio of 105:1 for silver.

The middle and lower classes of the capital soon discovered that it was more cost-effective to exchange the silver in their hands for paper money and then buy daily necessities at the Sihai trading house than to buy the silver in small shops.

In the past, after the grain shops in the capital entered the winter, the price was basically one price per day, until March and April of the following year were the highest.

Although Sihai Commercial Bank was established not long ago, the price of rice has not changed, which made the reputation of Sihai Commercial Bank open up at once.

Although the grain merchants in the capital were quite dissatisfied with this, considering that there was an emperor behind the Four Seas Trading House, they could only endure it for the time being.

If it weren't for the fact that it was still a holiday, these grain merchants would definitely invite a few imperial historians to come out and criticize the emperor for competing with the people.

The shareholders of Sihai Commercial Bank originally had a lot of opinions about Chongzhen's lowering the price of food and other necessities.

For these merchants, hoarding is a serious businessman's business, especially food, a commodity that everyone must consume every day, and should be sold slowly at a higher price in the form of hoarding.

However, it is obvious that Chongzhen did not intend to reason with them, and from the beginning, he used his own will to build the business philosophy of the Four Seas Commercial Bank.

Sihai Commercial Bank has 27 stores in the capital, and its daily turnover has risen from a few hundred taels to more than 18,000 taels in ten days, which can be said to have risen more than these merchants imagined.

So the merchants, who were originally only thinking about being able to keep their capital, quickly went to study the account books of the Four Seas Firm. As a result, they found that the most profitable thing was actually the new gadgets and coin exchange business that the palace had come up with.