C61

Chapter 61 - Great Gambling

Just as High Scholar Huang was about to bring his servants around to deliver their gifts, Xiao Letian was happily bringing his subordinates along as he prepared for the opening ceremony tomorrow. The bank used clean water to wipe the whole thing inside and out. The dirt on the door was placed on three layers, and was tampered three times. It was firm and smooth, but the key was to cover up the stench from yesterday.

Tanggu's three hundred foreign banks and the Black and White Society's friends all had to have an invitation card delivered to them. The other party might not come, but they could not refuse this etiquette, otherwise it would be troublesome for them.

There were many things to do at the opening of the restaurant, the Coastal building had to take care of the area, so the seats had to be prepared in advance, and tens of thousands of shots of firecrackers were ordered from Liu Yang, they had to be taken care of by someone, and there were even tea bowls for the guests, including the scattered copper coins to reward the beggars, they had to be prepared well, and not a single mistake could be made during a day of great celebration.

"Higher up on the left, hey, right..." "Useless trash, are you going to hang yourself or hang yourself …"

"Here, here, balance it out. Use more strength! I'll treat you guys to lunch and then ignore it …"

"What?" Let me write two invitations... "Do they recognize me when I write foreign characters? Go play while I write …"

Xiao Letian was obviously very excited today, as he scurried back and forth in his Letian Firm. He didn't help in any way and instead caused quite a bit of trouble.

In his previous life, Xiao Letian never thought that he would be able to start a company one day, let alone a multinational company. In the end, it was Fan Lian who forced Xiao Letian to go out and relax, and everyone finally managed to get rid of this troublemaker.

Xiao Letian brought Dragon Lord and two other clever shop assistants, walking back and forth in the Tanggu Pier in boredom. One moment he was teaching Dragon Lord how to recognize the flags of the various countries, and another moment he was haggling with fishermen who sold seafood, he did not know that a group of people was secretly observing him from within the guest rooms on the second floor of the warehouse.

The one hiding behind the window was the Keeper Niu who had drunk wine with Huang Juren before. He was obviously the leader of this group of merchants.

Keeper Niu watched for a while, then closed the window and whispered to everyone, "Everyone knows what happened last night, right? This Xiao Letian is not someone to be easily bullied, he is a fierce dragon, the Xiao Pi Sun is completely screwed. I heard that a few people surnamed Xiao managed to kill him off … "

Today, the people of Tanggu already knew about the huge fire in High Scholar Huang's house, and the people also knew that the fire was very weird, but only the big figures knew the secret behind the fire. Keeper Niu and the surrounding merchants were the ones who had the qualifications to know this secret.

It took a long time before someone finally spoke out. "Keeper Niu, even if we agreed to work together with Yellow Lord to deal with Xiao Letian, we shouldn't go back on our words. "This really frightens me. In the end, we are still merchants. Is it really good to provoke someone like him?"

One of them opened his mouth and everyone agreed, but there were also voices of opposition, "Then what do we do?" He had already promised Huang Juren, yet he was going back on his words now? What can't he and the Xiao Pi Sun do? When the time comes, don't vent all your anger on us … "The sales have just started to improve, and I can't stop this from happening …"

"Then what do we do? The left side can't afford to offend him. The right side won't dare to offend him. In the end, we'll be the unlucky ones …"

Keeper Niu saw that everyone was discussing and sighed, "Quiet down, complaining won't solve the problem. We are merchants, so we need to use a merchant's method to solve it. I have a plan, but everyone, let's see if it is feasible or not …"

With that, Keeper Niu took a sip of tea to moisten his throat, "Usually on the day of the opening of a trading company, one or two trades will be arranged to get a good reward, this is also a rule. However, this Letian Firm has a lot of fun. Yesterday, Fan Ru actually came to visit me, and wanted to buy some pig hair from me … "

Through the Keeper Niu's introduction, people found out that the Letian Firm had actually received such a large transaction. The pig hair business of the French Merchant Shipping 'Lucky' had actually been won over by the Letian Firm!

In the Tanggu's port, just last month, a French Merchant Shipping Lucky arrived. It took ten days for the cargo to be completely emptied, along with Indian smoke and soil, as well as Javanese spices, including European hot velvet, crystal lamps and other miscellaneous items. Now is the time for big purchases.

In addition to the fixed tea leaves, silk and porcelain, there was also a very important cargo the merchant ship wanted to buy from China, which was pig mane.

The average person might not understand, but how could Pig Hair become an important commodity in the Ocean trade? But in the recent history of mankind, the trade in pig mane is really a very important commodity.

In the absence of the oil and chemical fiber industry, if humans wanted to make a brush, all they could do was choose animal hair. Most of the animal hair was too soft to make a brush. Only the pig's hair was an exception. Not only was it springy, but it was also easily mass-produced due to the animal hair on its body. This was why humans treated it as a very important commodity.

Housewives needed a bristle brush to clean the kitchen, factory workers needed a bristle brush to clean the machinery, and even the seagoing crew needed a bristle brush to clean the deck. At that time, China was one of the largest countries in the world for pig farming. There was no other way but to have pork on the market in China.

Hence, since the Qing Dynasty, the Pig Mane Trade had always been a business that earned a lot of foreign exchange. Although it was unremarkable, it provided a lot of benefits to the Great Qing Dynasty.

This time, the captain of Lucky said that as long as the Chinese merchants had pig's hair, he was willing to buy one piece of Mexican eagle at a high price, no matter how much they bought it, even if Lucky couldn't fill up the ship. He would rather hire a ship than bring it back.

This was a huge merchant ship with a cargo of at least a thousand tons! If it was filled with pig hair, then it would be a huge business deal of one million silver dollars, not to mention the Luck had already said, there would be as many as needed. This way, the business would reach at least 1,400,000 silver coins, which would be equivalent to one million silver taels if converted to Daqing's silver taels.

Countless of pig hair goods started to gather in the Tanggu, even the price of pig hair in Shanxi, Shandong and Henan started to float up. As for the price of the direct form of the pig hair, it had increased by 30%.

However, just as everyone was excitedly waiting for the French merchants to start buying, an unexpected piece of news came. Three days ago, the captain of Lucky suddenly spoke out, and handed over all the authority to entrust the Pig Mane Trade to the newly opened Letian Firm. In other words, everyone's pig hair could only be sold to Xiao Letian.

Keeper Niu let out a long sigh, "I just got the accurate information yesterday afternoon. Xiao Letian has a lot of face, for this business, he actually asked the American embassy to help him, and even if the French from the Americans came, he would have to give them face … Sigh, only now do I believe that Xiao Letian really is like the heavens... "

"Not only that, last night Fan Lian even sent someone to deliver a message to me, saying that he did not earn a single copper from this transaction. He took up a dollar and handed over a dollar, just for the sake of being popular …"

The crowd exploded. This was unbelievable! A deal worth a million taels was going to be wasted? For a normal business to get such a deal, that would already be enough to eat for ten years, but this Xiao Letian was actually so magnanimous!

Seeing that everyone was talking at once, the Keeper Niu knocked on the table. "Quiet, quiet …" That's the plan I'm talking about, tomorrow we'll use this trade to win over Fan Lian. We'll gift him every dollar we buy, no matter how much we want, but … "We have one condition, which is to settle our debt on the spot …"

Keeper Niu said as he sucked in a breath of cold air. Everyone present had at least six or seven hundred tons of pig hair in their hands and had several tens of large warehouses piled up. If this was all converted into cash, wouldn't it be a gold mountain?

"Not only can we not owe them money, we don't even need banknotes and we'll see the cash. I don't believe that they will open the store with over a million taels of silver." "At that time, if he loses face in front of the foreigners, I want to see how he will do business in the future …"

How vicious, this scheme was truly vicious, in Great Qing Dynasty at that time, when it involved such a large transaction, both sides would allow a few days to pass, they did not say that they would settle it on the spot. Back then, there weren't any modern banks in Daqing, so the financial system was very backward. There weren't any transfers or cheques at all. The buyers and sellers would definitely give each other time to raise the money. 1 million taels of silver was 35 tons of silver. How could such a large sum of money be placed in a newly opened trading company?

The Keeper Niu smiled slightly, "We are serious businessmen, we don't do anything illegal, everything must be done according to the rules. If Xiao Letian didn't have that much money, he would quickly leave the Tanggu and take the chance to do business with the bunch of jealous Shanxi Province cultivators. "It's not as simple as he thinks …"

"And if he does get silver?" Someone asked carefully. These words caused Keeper Niu to frown. He pondered for a long time, "If he really can take out that much money, then we should obediently lower our heads and give in. Tell me the truth …"

"But I still don't quite believe it, how many Hu Xueyan are there in the Great Qing Dynasty? If he really could take out that much money, he would be the famous Northern God of Fortune, at least as famous as Hu Xueyan … If he really reaches that level, I'm afraid that the end for the High Scholar Huang and the Xiao Pi Sun will come soon … "

Everyone's heart went cold. If they really offended someone as powerful as Hu Xueyan, how would they still be able to stay in the mall? It would be better to pack up their bags and go home to look after their children.

"This is a gamble, this gamble is too fierce …"

It was not only the merchants of Keeper Niu who made the bet, the Xiao Pi Sun and High Scholar Huang were also making a huge gamble. The Yellow Lord was smiling as he wandered around the government office and the yamen.

As for Xiao Pi Sun, it was even more difficult. He led a group of hoodlums to string together the entire village.

"If you can't trust me, you can't trust the Thousand Medallion High Scholar. You guys did it the last time, didn't you guys get away with it? "As long as this time you guys make it a little bigger, there will be three more buckets of grain left. After autumn, our family will have four more buckets of grain …"

The commoners looked left and right, their eyes filled with excitement and greed. "I've done it, I'll take four more bags of grain, I'll give my grandson a steamed bun to eat during the new year's feast …"