Throughout the afternoon, there was an endless stream of people who came to visit Wang Xian, and Wang Xian still treated him differently, and he received all the merchants, and only a few of the gentry who were kind to him, and most of them were rejected by Erhei.

In the evening, Wang Xian borrowed flowers to offer Buddha, and asked Master Dong to burn a table of famous dishes in Jinling, and feasted Lu Yuanwai, Hou Yuanwai, Li Yuanwai and Boss Zhou.

Needless to say, Li Yuanwai was really flattered that Wang Xianneng invited him. He couldn't help but be proud that he saw the opportunity early, and went to Hangzhou to apologize to Wang Xian, so he escaped the catastrophe and was absorbed by the Wang group.

Li Yuanwai has already realized that Fuyang in the future is the world of this small group, and once Wang Xian personally invited, the former gentry leader of this county, his bones were three points lighter, and he promised to come down, Yu Kui did not go home, and ate tea and chatted with Lu Yuanwai in the backyard, waiting for the family banquet in the evening.

One is to enhance the relationship, and the other is to understand more about the situation, so that you won't understand what people say when the time comes.

Before it was dark, Wang Xian came over, and several people hurriedly got up to greet each other and said, "My lord, I have worked hard." ”

"It's tiring for the New Year." Wang Xian sat down with a smile and said to Li Yuanwai: "Yuanwai has not left? ”

"It's a big New Year, it's easy for everyone to get together," Li Yuanwai hurriedly bowed and smiled: "I won't leave." ”

Everyone said that this guy was thick-skinned enough, Wang Xian smiled and waved his hand, signaling him not to be polite: "Yes, I'm usually busy, so it's not good to talk about it during the New Year, by the way, what are you talking about?" ”

"Speaking of this year's market." Zhou Yang said: "Everyone is not very optimistic. ”

"How?" Wang Xian put on a posture of listening.

"Let's talk about the grain number first, last year's development was due to a catastrophe that had not been encountered for decades, and this year, with the return of the victims to their hometowns and the resumption of production in various places, the decline in sales has become a foregone conclusion." Lu Yuanwai said: "Adults must be mentally prepared. ”

"Hmm." Wang Xian nodded and said, "I'm afraid the situation is worse than you think." ”

"How?" Now it's their turn to ask.

"I don't know if you have studied the supply and demand of grain in Zhejiang?" Wang Xian asked.

Everyone shook their heads, they didn't have this overall concept, so they could only listen to Wang Xiandao: "I took the time to ponder last year, and found that in fact, in terms of quantity alone, the grain output of this province is no problem to feed the population of the whole province. ”

"Then why is there always a shortage of food? What about making food the highest in the country? The crowd asked.

"This is caused by imbalance," Wang Xian said, "You can't distribute all the food to everyone according to your needs, and in some places there is a surplus of food, and in others there is a shortage of food, and the grain merchants are not thinking about what they have, but they will try to perpetuate this imbalance in order to make a profit." Therefore, where there is a surplus of grain, the grain is cheap and hurts the peasants. High food prices in food-scarce localities......"

"What do you mean by your lordship......" Lu Yuan and the others are all insiders, and they understand a little when they hear this: "The shortage of grain in this province is artificially caused by the grain merchants. ”

"Hmm." Wang Xian nodded and said, "Because food cannot be distributed according to demand, there is always a food shortage in places where there is a shortage of food. Once there is a grain shortage in a certain place, it will cause panic in the neighboring prefectures and counties, and the government will not allow grain to leave the country, and the people will work hard to stock up on grain, and as a result, the grain shortage will be even greater. After a pause, he said: "This kind of psychology is called 'chasing up, and it is expected that the price will rise to an outrageous price when the price rises." ”

"The other side of 'chasing up' is 'killing down,'" After taking a sip of tea to moisten his throat, Wang Xian continued: "Of course, when people expect that food prices will fall, food prices will fall endlessly, far beyond people's imagination. ”

"It's a good one to chase up and kill down" Li Yuanwai is a long insight today. He finally knew that Wang Xian was able to play with the Fuyang gentry in the palm of his hand, not by relying on small cleverness, but with great wisdom.

"In this way, we continue to import grain from Huguang, and the impact on Zhejiang's grain prices is much greater than imagined." Several shareholders of the grain number also understood, and their faces were very ugly: "If the price of grain falls sharply, the profit will be very thin." ”

"It's not impossible to cut it in half." Wang Xian nodded slowly and said: "The huge profits in this industry have come to an end, everyone must take precautions." ”

"That's what my lord said." Lu Yuanwai echoed: "Now we are a big tree, whoever catches it wants to take a bite, and there are still people who are worried about driving us away, this day is actually far from being as beautiful as it seems." After a pause, he said, "If even the profits are thin, let's change careers as soon as possible." ”

In fact, these words were said to several shareholders, and although Wang Xian was angry in advance, he had never talked about them directly, and he was not clear about their attitude. Lu Yuanwai's task is to help him convince everyone together.

"Changing careers...... the grain number has brought countless wealth and honor to the shareholders, and it is only a year before it is established to change careers, and it is difficult for anyone to accept: "It's not easy to say."

"It's not easy to turn around, otherwise you will be controlled by others everywhere in the future, and you will be burdened by it." Wang Xian said in a deep voice: "What's more, we will inevitably have a more ambitious future"

"Where are we going?" Zhou Grain Shang was also in the know, so he said.

"Yunshe" Wang Xian said categorically: "You should know better than anyone how great the potential of this industry is. ”

"Hmm." Everyone's eyes lit up and they nodded. Yes, the bulk of their profits last year came from the freight earned by purchasing grain. At that time, Wang Xian insisted on renting a boat for self-transportation, rather than hiring a boat, and he hired it for a year, and he still didn't understand it at that time, and felt that this would not save money and energy, but Wang Xian's decision had never been questioned, and everyone had to do it.

It was only later that they realized what a heroic decision it was. After becoming the officials and businessmen who purchased grain in the province, they traveled back and forth between Huguang and Zhejiang many times a year, and later brought them to the tea merchants, paper merchants, and silk merchants in the county to transport goods, and settled at the end of the year, and the freight income was as high as 200,000 taels.

The reason for this profiteering is very simple - merchants have an urgent need, and the goods and goods from all over the world, transported to the provincial market for sale, often make several times or even ten times the profit. However, this line of work is particularly difficult to do, and the officials and soldiers who pass through the gate have to pluck the feathers of the geese, and if they do not satisfy their greed, they will make it difficult in many ways, and they will delay it at least and arrest the ship at the worst. There are also local snakes on the docks, who will also make trouble and extort money unreasonably. This is just a trouble on land, there are still water bandits and robbers in the rivers and lakes, and if they encounter it, they will ruin their wealth and lose their lives if they encounter it.

Therefore, since ancient times, those who have been engaged in this line of work have all had a high-ranking person as a backer, and in the Song and Yuan dynasties when commerce was developed, there were more than a dozen powerful boat gangs active in the country, and there were countless smaller transport societies. However, the Ming Dynasty has been heavy on agriculture and suppressed business for 40 years, and merchants and commerce have only recovered in recent years.

"We have a year of experience accumulation, and the conditions for the establishment of the transportation society are ripe," Lu Yuanwai said in a deep voice: "There are two Zhejiang salt transportation divisions to protect the banner, not at this time, but when."

"Yes." All the members nodded in agreement. What experience conditions are ripe is still secondary, and their confidence comes from the flag of Yang Tongzhi, the salt transportation division

On the bow of the ship, the banner that reads 'Ming and Zhejiang Salt Transport Divisions and Zhiyang, the magic happened, the gate tax card is respectful, the ruffians never harass, even the rivers and lakes are not close to the bandits, can this business not be done?

Wang Xian felt that the reason why this flag could ward off evil spirits was not only because of his cheap brother's official position, but also for other reasons, but what about him, he was a small person with a small nose and eyes, just pay the protection fee on time...... There is no good thing in this world that light can not go in, and if this flag wants to be used for a long time, it will naturally have to be paid tribute regularly. When Lu Yuanwai passed through Suzhou a few years ago, according to Wang Xian's instructions, he gave Yang Tongzhi 20,000 taels of silver, and said that he wanted to establish a Yun Society.

Yang Tongzhi saw that the money was open, and the 20,000 taels of silver made him happy. He has two sides of this flag, only one side is used for travel, and the other side is idle for the whole year, so it is good to use it to make money. Hearing that this entry can become a regular practice in the future, Yang Tongzhi is more active than the Lu Yuan, and he also equips them with the survey of the Salt Transportation Division, so that they can also meet more serious officials on the ship for inspection.

With Yang Tongzhi covered, the shareholders naturally had the confidence to change careers, so they nodded and agreed.

Seeing that the matter was so decided, Li Yuanwai finally couldn't help it, and said with a calm face: "Count me as one?" ”

Everyone looked at Wang Xian, and Wang Xian said crisply: "Those who see it have a share to turn around and sum it up, so that the outside staff can also enter a share."

The shareholders naturally looked forward to Wang Xian's horse, not to mention that the background of the Li family was very beneficial to Yunshe, and it was estimated that this was also the reason why Wang Xian greeted him.

Seeing that they agreed to join by themselves, Li Yuanwai was overjoyed, and when he didn't have the time to thank him, Erhei came in and said, "Jiang Zhixian is here." said that there was a big thing, and he must let the adults see him. ”

Everyone looked at Wang Xian, Wang Xian pondered for a moment and stood up: "It's not early, let's start the banquet." As he spoke, he stretched out his hand and said, "Everyone, please." ”

"Your Excellency, please." Everyone got up and gave way, but they were all a little apprehensive in their hearts, after all, the one outside was the lord of the county, how could Wang Xian turn him away?

No one dared to touch Wang Xian's moldy head, they all obediently entered the table, toasted and ate, but the atmosphere was inevitably a little dull, and several members of the staff tried to tell jokes, and the banquet became relaxed.

Just as he was staggering, Erhei came in again, leaned behind Wang Xian and whispered: "Jiang Zhixian said that if the adults don't go out of the road, he will die outside......"

"He's not gone yet?" Everyone was a little surprised, they felt that Jiang Zhixian had eaten the closed door, and they must be so angry that they would go home, which Cheng thought that it had been more than half an hour, and he would not leave here. I can't help but be secretly surprised...... What did Jiang Zhixian do? How did you scare him like this?

Wang Xian pondered for a moment before standing up and said, "I'll see you sooner or later, let's see what he says." As he spoke, he bowed his hand to everyone and said, "You drink slowly, and I'll go back as soon as I go." ”

"Your Excellency, please." Everyone stood up and watched Wang Xian go out.