There are dozens of salt shops of all sizes distributed in the capital with a population of one million, and basically have powerful and official backgrounds.

In the backyard warehouse of a salt shop in Dongcheng, Zheng Laowu, the foreign manager of the Duke of Cheng Guo’s mansion, was directing the work of the shop’s staff.

Cheng Guogong's Mansion did not participate in this salt merchant conference. Although the Jinyiwei also posted a post to the salt shop in the mansion, Zheng Laowu threw it directly into a corner after receiving it.

When will the Zhu family, the dignified Duke's Mansion, have become a noble leader, obey the assignment of Jinyiwei? I will sell whoever I like to sell salt, and I have to get salt from your Jinyiwei's way? Which Jinyiwei is a green onion?

Zheng Laowu represented the ideas of some salt shop owners in the capital. Most of them were in charge of the Duke and Marquis’ mansion, and they had a big backer behind them. They usually had good waters with the Jinyiwei, and they did not take the recent rise of the Jinyiwei seriously. They were a wealthy family with the same country. The Jinyiwei could speak to the emperor, and their masters also had face in front of the emperor.

Other salt shops with civil servants' backgrounds, such as the distant relative of the Shuntian Prefecture, bought fresh white salt with fresh silver after receiving the owner's advice. In fact, even if the owner did not give instructions, whether it was the appearance, taste or cost, the new salt was much stronger than the original bitter big salt. Although there was no salt, it was almost private salt, but if you could open a salt shop, was it still afraid that the government officials would be able to check for private salt?

Zheng Laowu asked his friend to mix sand into the salt entering Lianghuai Salt Field. According to the rules, the salt shops are operated in different regions, and the three salt shops in Chengguo Duke's Mansion are all in Dongcheng. There is a saying in the capital that the east is rich, the west is noble, the south is poor, the north is cheap, which means the rough distribution of the population of the capital. There are many gentry and huge merchants in Dongcheng, so it is the easiest to do business here to make money.

Take salt as an example. Many of the wealthy families here have hundreds or even hundreds of families. Every time they buy, they count stones. They are not like poor people in the north and south cities. How many pounds can they buy at a time? How can they make money by relying on those cheap bones? How many lifetimes can their own masters accumulate millions of dollars in their family?

Relying on his own power, the Duke Cheng Guofu won three of the five salt shops in Dongcheng, and the other two were given to the Xiangcheng Bo Mansion. Who told the two masters to be as good as one person?

Because he monopolized Dongcheng Yancheng, Zheng Laowu was still not satisfied with his extremely high profits. He wanted to pay more bank payments to the Duke's Mansion. First, it would win the Duke's happiness and would be more beneficial when he was promoted in the future; second, Xi Liu, the maid who came from home, was thinking about the Duke's seventh concubine for a long time, and paying more bank payments meant he could be more greedy. At that time, as long as he gave the seventh concubine five hundred taels of silver, Xi Liu could be a concubine for himself. When he thought of Xi Liu's white skin and soft waist, Zheng Laowu couldn't help but feel hot.

It was almost noon, and the guy who had more than a dozen stones of sand mixed with hundreds of stones of salt was finished. Zheng Laowu was drinking tea while supervising. After seeing the guys finish, Zheng Laowu went to the shop in front, and a guy in the shop was napping. Zheng Laowu coughed loudly, and the guy shuddered and woke up from his sleep. After seeing Zheng Laowu, the guy hurriedly saluted.

After looking around, Zheng Laowu pulled a long voice and scolded: "I dozed off in broad daylight. If a thief enters the store, you don't know that the money is stolen! If this is the case, I will report to the butler who has turned you down!"

The guy was frightened immediately. He worked as a guy in a salt shop. Although the monthly money was only a few dollars, he was also very brisk in charge of a meal at noon. Most of the big customers who bought salt came once every half a month, buying stones at a time. Several guys just needed to carry a few stones of salt onto the carriage, and they had their own servants to carry them back to the mansion. They also entrusted several layers of relationship to find a manager in the Duke's Mansion and found this good job. If they lost their job because of napping, their parents would not beat themselves to death after they got home.

The guy hurriedly fell to the ground and swore that he would not commit the crime again in the future. Zheng Laowu snorted and asked him to get up.

Zheng Laowu sat on a chair in the store and then asked: "How much is the income today? If he were as good as last month, the man would definitely be very happy! Then he said he would not have a reward!"

The guy lowered his head and said angrily, "Bastard! Hear it!"

The guy mustered up his courage and looked up, "If you go back to Butler Zheng, it has not opened this morning yet!"

Zheng Laowu was stunned for a moment, and waited for a while and continued to ask, "It has not been opened yet? Are you saying true or false? It must be impossible!"

The guy replied: "The truth I told! Not only today, but it didn't open all day yesterday!"

Zheng Laowu stood up from the chair and said anxiously: "A grain of salt was not sold a day yesterday? Why is this?"

The guy nodded quickly and said, "Butler Zheng doesn't believe it, please ask others! We don't know why!"

Zheng Laowu reacted very quickly. He called out a few guys in the backyard and went to the other two stores and the store in Xiangcheng Bo Mansion to check it out to see if the situations were similar.

As expected, the several friends brought bad news after turning one after another: the salt shops in the Duke's Mansion and the Xiangcheng Bo Mansion have not been sold since yesterday. Not only did the old customers not come, but even the individual customers have not seen each other.

Zheng Laowu couldn't sit still, so he hurriedly rushed to the mansion in a carriage. This was not a good sign, so he had to report back to the butler immediately.

After hearing Zheng Laowu's reply, Zhu Gui, the steward of the Duke's Mansion, was also surprised. He was born to the Duke's Mansion, and his ancestors were marvelous and duke's mansion. He has been with Zhu Chunchen since childhood. Because he was smart and studious, he was very popular with Zhu Chunchen. He was promoted from a close friend to the position of manager of the foreign government until the death of the previous generation of the Duke's mansion and Zhu Chunchen became the new Duke's mansion, and he was promoted to the position of manager of the Duke's mansion.

There were more than 300 people in the Duke of Chengguo's mansion, including more than 200 people in charge of business, servants, maids, chefs, coachmen, and guards of the yard. This did not include wài    wéi's business owners, shopkeepers, etc.

He had to manage the food, clothing, housing and transportation of so many people, eat, drink, defecation and urination, and coordinate various relationships with the Duke's government and handle some privacy matters of the public service. Zhu Gui was busy from morning to night and had no time to spare every day.

Because of this, Zhu Gui had great power. With Zhu Chunchen's trust, Zhu Gui's status was quite high in the Duke's Mansion, except for the few masters of the Zhu family.

Even Zhu Chunchen's concubines who had been several concubines would curry favor with Mr. Zhu. Zhu Gui controlled the human rights and financial powers in the mansion, including the monthly money and daily expenses of Zhu Chunchen's concubines. If he accidentally offended him, as long as he talked, the monthly money of the monthly money of this month would be deducted, and the daily expenses would be cancelled directly.

After such an example happened several times, the Duke's mansion had learned about the methods of Mr. Zhu. Since then, no one dared to gently stroke the tiger's beard. People in the mansion were respectful when they saw Zhu Gui, even more respectful than Zhu Chunchen.

Zhu Gui had time to rest in the room today, and Zheng Laowu's report made him unable to sit still.

Salt is a relatively important income of the Duke's Mansion. It is not because of the high income, but because of the stability of selling salt. The three salt stores in Dongcheng can bring in tens of thousands of taels of income every year, which is equivalent to free picking up the money. The three stores only require less than ten servants and one manager. What kind of business can you make such a high profit?

He asked, "This matter is a bit strange. Did any news come before?"

Zheng Laowu wandered for a while before bowing and replied: "When you go back to the butler, the Jinyiwei sent a few days ago to the salt shop, saying that it was a conference held in Jingchunlou and selling high-quality salt. The young man was afraid that it would lose face to our Duke's Mansion, so he didn't go! Could it be related to this matter?"

Zhu Gui frowned and asked, "The Jinyiwei sent a post to sell salt? What happened?"

Zheng Laowu lowered his head and replied, "I don't know how small it is. Manager Li from Xiangcheng Bo Mansion has never gone!"

Zhu Gui ordered: "Come here! Riding a horse to find out about the nearby salt shop and see what the situation is right!"

The servant outside the house left, and Zhu Gui sat on the chair, his eyes closed slightly without a sound.

Zheng Laowu was sweating profusely and felt very upset.

On the way back home, he had already figured out that this matter was probably related to Xinyan.

If this is true, then I would be dereliction of duty. Although the reasons are sufficient and I did not lose face to the Duke's Mansion, I was afraid that it would affect the business of the salt shop. I would be very guilty. Let's not talk about Xi Liu, and it would be a big question whether my position in charge can be kept.
Chapter completed!