When Li Longji opened his eyes, he saw Wu Huifei dozing off beside the couch and Gao Lishi looking as though nothing had happened.
Gao Lishi was the first to react. He hurriedly called the palace maids and eunuchs over to serve him while he went to arrange breakfast.
Wu Huifei was also alarmed. Just as she was about to greet him, she was stopped by Li Longji. "Beloved consort, you must be tired from last night. Why don't you take a nap first?"
In fact, Wu Huifei had already taken a nap beside the couch, but she didn't sleep well. It seemed that everyone in the Imperial Palace, except for the Emperor, had mastered the ability to sleep at any time and wake up at any time, and it was difficult for others to notice.
Seeing that the Emperor had woken up, Wu Huifei prepared to ask about what happened yesterday. She wanted to know what could make the Emperor and the ministers so happy.
"Your Majesty, this concubine isn't sleepy. Your Majesty's complexion is so good today. Did you have a good dream?" Wu Huifei couldn't directly ask the Emperor what he said to them yesterday, so she could only beat around the bush.
Li Longji didn't think too much about it. While the others were busy, he took Wu Huifei into his arms and said happily, "I didn't have a good dream last night, but I felt like I was in a dream during the day."
"Ah! Could it be that Your Majesty didn't rest well yesterday? It's all this concubine's fault. "Wu Huifei said in shock.
"No, no, it has nothing to do with my beloved concubine. I had a good rest yesterday." Li Longji chuckled.
Wu Huifei snuggled in Li Longji's arms and patted her chest. She asked curiously, "Could it be that Your Majesty saw immortals yesterday?"
"Yes, although I didn't see immortals in the heavens, I saw little immortals in the mortal world. They were Xiao Bao and Cuckoo." Hearing Wu Huifei's question, Li Longji became even happier. In the future, he would just have to wait to take over other people's territory.
Wu Huifei looked at Li Longji helplessly and said, "How can Your Majesty say that Xiao Bao and Cuckoo are immortals? No matter how great their abilities are, it's still Your Majesty's kindness. What new ideas did they come up with?"
"Mm, yes, this is Our benevolence, not only to them, but also to the people of the Great Tang. Yesterday, the two of them mentioned a major matter."
At this point, Li Longji intentionally paused and looked at Wu Huifei, waiting for her to ask.
"Your Majesty, what's the big matter? Quickly tell me so that I can be happy with Your Majesty." How could Wu Huifei not know what to do? She immediately acted coquettishly.
Li Longji enjoyed Wu Huifei's reaction and continued, "The two of them want to open a bank. It's like this …"
Without holding anything back, Li Longji told Wu Huifei about what Zhang Xiaobao had told Wang Juan yesterday. After he finished, he had a smug look on his face.
Wu Huifei was shocked. No matter how capable she was, no matter how big of a situation she had seen, she would never have thought that a bank could do so many things, and even destroy a country.
At first, she only thought that Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan wanted to open a bank to make money, but now she knew that there were so many people behind it. This was not ordinary. From what she heard from the Emperor, the Emperor was very concerned about this matter. If she directly found fault with the two of them, the Emperor would definitely be unhappy.
Wu Huifei had been thinking about how to use this opportunity to attack Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan. For example, she could mention to the Emperor that Zhang Xiaobao and Cuckoo wanted to take the Great Tang's money to their own families, and that they had bad intentions.
Now it seemed that this plan would not work, because Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan had talked about the pros and cons, and they did not intend to take a lot of money for their own families. Otherwise, it would have been better not to talk about it.
"Your Majesty, Zhang Xiaobao and Cuckoo are really different. They can come up with such a vicious idea. Oh, no, such a useful idea. I just don't know if it will work."
Wu Huifei's evaluation of Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan was indeed vicious. If they were not vicious, how could they come up with such a plan? The surrounding countries might not have thought that someone in the Great Tang was going to attack them.
Li Longji also admitted that Zhang Xiaobao and Cuckoo's plan was vicious, but that was only for outsiders. It was good for the people of the Great Tang.
Hearing Wu Huifei's words, he smiled and said, "It may be a little troublesome, but I have already given them the authority. As long as it has to do with opening a bank and printing money, they can do it themselves. When the time comes, they can just tell me. Whoever tries to stop them will be dealt with."
"Your Majesty is really a good Emperor. I think Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan will do their best to do this. But Your Majesty, if there are too many people who oppose or want to take advantage of this, will Your Majesty really let them deal with them?"
Wu Huifei suddenly had an idea, so she said to the Emperor.
"Of course. Whoever stops them will be dealt with. Well, I am hungry. My beloved concubine, eat with me." Li Longji had made up his mind. His stomach suddenly growled, and he walked to the restaurant with Wu Huifei in his arms.
Wu Huifei thought as she walked.
"If the benefits of the bank are released, there will be many people who want to take advantage of it. No matter how powerful Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan are, if they offend too many people, will the Emperor be able to protect them? Besides, the people who want to take advantage of it can be the princes or the aristocratic families.
Well, this matter bypasses other departments. Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan are directly responsible for the Emperor. What will Zhang Shuo think? What will the officials of other departments, such as the Ministry of Revenue, think? Let's see if they can work together to deal with Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan.
There's no need to do anything to the two of them immediately. As long as we delay them, they won't be able to open the bank and print the money. Then, in three to five years, as long as they don't make any achievements this year, the Emperor will definitely be angry.
The more Wu Huifei thought about it, the more she felt that an opportunity had come. The smile on her face became more and more brilliant, making Li Longji think that Wu Huifei was happy with him.
Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan didn't know that Wu Huifei was thinking of a way to scheme against them. In fact, the two of them already knew that the battle with Wu Huifei wouldn't be easily extinguished. One was to defeat Wu Huifei, and the best would be to have Li Longji throw her into the cold palace. This idea was probably very difficult to achieve.
There was no need to say how much Li Longji valued Wu Huifei. Otherwise, he wouldn't always want to remove Empress Wang and let Wu Huifei take the throne. Since this didn't work, they could only distance themselves and make Wu Huifei feel that they couldn't do anything. That way, things would be easier.
Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan had been paying attention to Wu Huifei recently. Unknown dangers were the most difficult to guard against. In the morning, they ate with their younger siblings and left them to study in the inner courtyard. The two of them went to arrange things.
Otherwise, the two of them would be teaching Little Bei and the others in the morning. They were too busy today.
Under the discussion of Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan, letters were written and sent to various places. They even sent a letter to the frontline of Tubo's Jinchuan.
This was a major matter. If they made a move, they would have to make a move as well. Otherwise, someone might have taken advantage of them.
Lu Zhou's matter was of the utmost importance. Hence, there were more things to be done. They could make a move on Xinyuan Island now. They still had to persuade the merchants from other places to continue exploring the sea.
Wang Juan rubbed her wrist that was sore from writing letters as she said to Zhang Xiaobao, "Aiya, it's almost noon. Let's go. I think Li Longji should be leaving soon."
Zhang Xiaobao was so tired that his head was buzzing. There were too many things to consider. Even he and Wang Juan could not finish everything after working the whole morning. They still had to wait until the evening to think about it. When he heard Wang Juan's words, he put down the pen in his hand and said, "Just hang in there.
We'll be fine after a few days. Lu Zhou hasn't sent any letters for half a month. I wonder how the munitions factory is doing? They can already make rear-firing bullets, but they're still lacking in terms of guns. I hope they can hurry up.
Even if they did not use copper coins, they still had to prepare more gold and silver. America had already left the gold standard, but they still had a lot of gold in reserve. Moreover, there was no harm in preparing some gold. One day, they would be able to use it in electronic circuits.
If a country without gold and silver wanted to make good electronic circuits, they could only buy them from other countries. Now is a good time. Let's stop mining in our country and transport them from other countries. Fortunately, there are coal and oil. We can't mine from the sea. As our industrial revolution slowly matures, we can mine the land from other countries first.
When will a large amount of oil be used? When our refining technology gradually matures, we must remember not to let people from other countries get their hands on our technology. When we were developing, other countries blocked our technology for a long time. "
Wang Juan agreed wholeheartedly. If they could keep it a secret, they should keep it a secret. It would be best if they could occupy more land while they were still alive. When the time came, they could mine all the good ores without restraint. They would do the same even if it was coal. Although coal was not valuable now, it was still the same.
"Xiao Bao, if someone really wants to take a share of the bank's business, do you think we should let them? It's easy to deal with one or two people, but if there are too many of them, can we really deal with them all? When the time comes, all the forces will join forces. Even Li Longji will have to compromise, right? "
Wang Juan suddenly thought of the problem that Wu Huifei also thought of.
Zhang Xiaobao blinked and said to Wang Juan, "Deal, we must deal with them. We don't have to worry about many people going against us. After we deal with a few people, we will cooperate with other people who want to take a share. A bank is not a restaurant. You can open it with a little money. You need to have a part of the money first.
I think that as long as a bank loan appears, there will be many people who are worried about not having enough money but have a way to get rich coming to get a loan. If they don't have a foundation, how can they get a loan? Not only do we have to pull others in, but we also have to pull the imperial court in as well. However, the businessmen who cooperated with us first can't be involved in the bank's business.
If that's the case, it will make people suspect that we, who are close to each other, did something. It will be easy for people to use this as an excuse to attack us. However, after we open the bank, we can give a certain discount to those who have been cooperating with us and let them deposit their money in the bank. "
"So that's how it is. Then, are we going to let others take a share? With our family's financial resources, it seems that we can't open banks all over Great Tang. At most, we can take a share of 10%. This is still under the constant transfer of funds. There is a time difference between opening banks. "
Wang Juan felt that her family's share of the bank was too small. If Li Longji wasn't in such a hurry, he could have done it bit by bit. However, Li Longji wanted to see results in a short period of time. Three to five years was indeed a short period of time.
Zhang Xiaobao wasn't anxious about this matter at all. He chuckled and said to Wang Juan, "What was the problem that Li Yu encountered at the beginning? Isn't it just raising funds and increasing shares? We can do the same. Even if we take a share of 10%, it will be more than other people. Who has more money than us?
We don't care about the money from the imperial court, but as long as other people dare to fork out money, they might take more shares in the beginning. For example, if dozens of people fork out money for a region, we might not even be able to take a share of 10%.
However, we can still continue doing other business, and we will earn more money in the future. Even if each of our banks only takes a share of 5%, it won't take long for us to accumulate a lot of money. Then, we can pool our money and invest in the banks one by one, diluting the shares of others. "
"That's right, that's right. Let's do that. First, we'll open a bank and let Li Longji see hope. Then, we'll squeeze the shares of others bit by bit. Is there any other good method?"
Wang Juan asked excitedly.
"There is. There is another method. When lending money, there has to be a rule. Will they set this rule? If they really do it, the bank will easily lose money. After all, it's different from lending money in the past.
We can take advantage of this loophole. For example, we can send people to look for projects and borrow money. During the estimation, we can make use of the rules. Originally, we can only borrow 1,000 strings of coins, but we can only lend 5,000 strings of coins and use the extra money to raise funds.
When the time comes, we can declare bankruptcy and let the bank take back the project. In this way, whether the project is profitable or not, it doesn't matter. Or we can open a separate bank and strictly ask the local government to lend, increase the reserve ratio, and use the new bank to borrow from the old bank. Then, we can raise the interest a little. This is using the old bank's money to make money for our new bank. "
Zhang Xiaobao said another method.
"No. Why are you using such methods again?" Wang Juan immediately rejected.
"That's right. I just said it. We can't go overboard even if we borrow the chicken to lay the eggs. When the time comes, we can try it in other countries. There are many other methods. I haven't used them for many years, and I'm itching to use them."
Zhang Xiaobao reacted. He had an agreement with Wang Juan that he could not use too harsh methods on his own country.
As the two of them chatted, it was time for lunch. The team was almost done with their preparations and was ready to set off after lunch.
Li Longji called Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan over and asked if the two of them had done it. After getting an affirmative answer, he had a peaceful meal.
Just as the team set off and walked halfway, many people from the Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan came from Luoyang and found Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan.
Steward Zhang personally came and pulled Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan into a carriage. He got someone to bring over a large box and opened the lock with a snap for the two of them to see.
Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan became nervous the moment they saw it. There were many parts in the box, and the two of them were very familiar with the functions of these parts. The two of them even drew the blueprints for the production. It was built purely by hand. Pa! Pa! Pa! Pa! It was quickly assembled.
The parts in front of them were gone. There were two short guns and two long guns. All that was left were bullets and rods.
After wiping the oil on his hands, Zhang Xiaobao touched the guns excitedly and muttered, "It's finally done. I didn't give the craftsmen so much money for nothing. Such good treatment. Although they don't have personal freedom for the time being, with this thing, who would dare to use force when we trade on boats outside?"
"Why are you so happy so early? We still don't know the shooting range and accuracy. Can the effective range of a handgun be 30 meters? I don't think so. The same goes for a rifle. Can it shoot out 1,000 meters? Find some time and find a place to test it. Unfortunately, there's no silencer. Should we let Li Longji know? "
Wang Juan poured a bucket of cold water on Zhang Xiaobao.
Zhang Xiaobao curled his lips. He also knew that this kind of weapon was not easy to make. Not only did it have to be made with good steel, it could only be made by hand. It was estimated that only a few could be made in a day. After saving up for a year and discounting the scraps, it would be good enough if they could form a team.
Touching the handgun and the long gun, he gestured a few times and said, "As long as the trajectory of each bullet is not different, it's fine. At most, we can just get used to it and find the deviation when aiming. Who knows how many good steel pipes have been damaged by pulling the chamber. We can only make new ones."
"What about the bullets? It's not that easy to purify gunpowder. I estimate that one in ten will fail. Steward Zhang, did you send a letter saying how many people were injured while making the bullets?"
Wang Juan wiped the oil off the handgun and covered the holster with her clothes. She inserted the handgun and disassembled the long gun and put it back. She asked Steward Zhang.
Steward Zhang took out the letter and handed it to Wang Juan while saying, "The letter says that because they weren't familiar with it in the early stages, a few people were injured, but no one died. Little girl, can you let me see the power of this weapon?"
"Then you can follow the team. When we reach Jinyang, Xiao Bao and I will find an excuse to go somewhere where there's no one and try it." Wang Juan took out the handgun again and stuffed the bullets into the magazine. After checking the safety and seeing that the firing pin could be blocked, she put it back in with ease.
As for whether the bullets could misfire on their own, there was no need to consider this. It was impossible under normal circumstances. Unless there was an impact or it was too hot, there was no need to sell firecrackers.
Steward Zhang thought for a moment and finally felt that he was still needed in Luoyang. He did not follow Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan.
When Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan returned, Li Longji even asked out of concern if something had happened at home. Zhang Xiaobao casually found an excuse to brush him off.
How could Li Longji know that Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan had returned with an additional weapon? In addition, the two of them also had something in their backpacks that could shoot further than ordinary bows and arrows.
Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan couldn't hold it in any longer. They wanted to find a chance to test the gun. Speaking of which, the range of a handgun wasn't as good as that of a crossbow. If it was accurate, it would be able to shoot down a person within a hundred meters. If it was accurate within fifty meters, it would be able to take down a person with one arrow.
The only advantage of a handgun was that it could fire continuously and was convenient to carry around.
Everyone returned to the boat and the team continued forward. At this moment, they were not far from Jinyang. They would definitely reach their destination in another ten days, and this was even when the boat was not moving that fast.
Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan did not have much time to accompany Li Longji to enjoy the scenery. As long as the two of them had time, they would perfect the bank.
When lending money, there had to be an evaluation standard. Naturally, the two of them did not expect that the bank would not suffer any losses. After all, business was not something that could be decided by manpower.
The most important thing was the management. This was the most difficult part, as it was impossible to prevent others from tampering with the system. After all, when the two of them were constantly perfecting the system, the things that they were worried about would still happen.
In fact, the two of them were most worried about the bank's management. After receiving bribes, they would lend money to people who did not have the qualifications to lend money. When the time came, even if they killed the person, it would be useless. They would not be able to get back the money that they lost.
Li Longji also knew that the two of them were busy and did not have time to spare. Thus, he spent more time with Wu Huifei. Looking at the scenery of his country and having the company of a beauty, he was very satisfied.
Wu Huifei was also waiting for an opportunity. Right now, she could not let people send out letters, nor could she find Zhang Shuo to sow discord. She could only wait until they reached Jinyang.
Time passed very quickly. While Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan were busy, and while Li Longji was enjoying himself, eight days had passed. The team did not take ten days. At noon today, they could see Jinyang City in the distance. According to the speed of the boat, they would be able to enter the city in two hours.
At this time, Jinyang was already under martial law. There were not many people coming and going. Occasionally, one would appear. They were either a plainclothes officer or a relative of an official. After all, it would be too fake if the emperor did not see a single person. If he saw a few, it would be even better if he had the opportunity to talk.
Zhang Xiaobao and Wang Juan also came out of the cabin. Using a telescope, they saw the situation ahead and knew that the local officials did not listen to their orders and made such arrangements in private.
Now was not the time to find out who was responsible. The two of them only hoped that the local officials would not be so stupid as to make hundreds of dishes. At that time, Li Longji would think that it was arranged by the two of them.
"Let's go greet Li Longji first and let him understand that this is a matter of the local officials. It has nothing to do with us." Just as Zhang Xiaobao was preparing to return to the cabin, he saw that countless people had gathered outside Jinyang City. There were also people hanging things and placing things there.
In addition to raising the flag, the only other thing to do was to set off firecrackers. He had to tell Li Longji in advance so that he would not be scared when the firecrackers went off.
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