King Li Tai of Wei has been living a very cool life recently. As the fourth son of Li Shimin, and more importantly, he is the second son. He has shown extraordinary talents since he was a child. Not only his literary attainments are far beyond ordinary people, but also his calligraphy and painting skills are as well.

Extraordinary.

In the past few years, many nobles in Chang'an City could feel that the influence of King Wei was rising, but the reputation of Prince Li Chengqian was declining.

There are even secret rumors among the public that His Majesty has the idea of ​​reinstating the Crown Prince?

"Your Majesty, Abdul from the Western Market sent another load of pepper this morning. He said it was the latest fresh product arriving from Nanyang."

Li Tai trusted Li Tai, the chief minister of Wei Palace, Shi Duchu, and he was responsible for many things that won people's hearts.

In the same way, [.] like these businessmen attached themselves to him, and he took care of all kinds of filial piety given by them.

"Oh? Abdul is so generous with his money. Does he always deliver pepper by the load?"

Although Li Tai has never met Abdul, as the most valuable filial businessman in the Chu Palace this year, Li Tai still has an impression of him.

"Hey, Your Majesty, Abdul has resorted to many tricks in recent months, forcing several merchants to die. If it weren't for the guidance of his subordinates, how could his spice shop be in the situation it is today?"

Although Du Chuke received a lot of benefits from Abdul, he still looked down on this barbarian from the bottom of his heart.

It was precisely because the merchants Abdul had to deal with were Hu merchants that he was willing to help.

Otherwise, if you really have to open several Tang Dynasty shops for a Hu businessman, even if Du Chuke himself can accept it, it will easily cause trouble.

After all, barbarians are barbarians.

If dogs bite dogs among the barbarians, not many Tang people would care.

But if they bite the wrong person, hey, someone will teach them how to behave in minutes.

Abdul should be considered self-aware. As soon as he arrived in Chang'an City, the first thing he wanted to do was see if he could get into the lap of any noble nobleman of the Tang Dynasty.

"It's just a bunch of barbarians fighting on their own, so don't worry about it. For the sake of Abdul's boldness, as long as it's not too much, you can come forward and help."

This is when Li Tai needs money.

In order to give himself a better chance of winning in the fight for the heirloom, Li Tai has frequently made moves to win over courtiers in the past two years.

Although ministers like Fang Xuanling and Wen Yanbo could not be won over for the time being.

However, for some second-generation nobles, especially those who were not the eldest sons in the family, many people gathered around him, and they had quite a bit of momentum.

However, this also comes at a cost.

Rights cannot be given at present, so we can only think about money.

But Li Tai was not like Li Kuan, who had a workshop with so much money, so it became an inevitable choice to recruit some dependent businessmen.

Anyway, this can be regarded as an unspoken rule among the nobles in Chang'an City, and it is not too out of the ordinary.

Which prince or prince's house doesn't have a few businessmen working in their own name?

"Don't worry, my lord, this Abdul is now the largest spice merchant in the West City. It is said that he also has shops in Quanzhou and Guangzhou. He has strong financial resources and is really worthy of our win over. He is also considered to be knowledgeable and pays filial piety every month.

The warehouse in the mansion has several tons of pepper alone, which is more expensive than gold."

Du Chuke was now betting on Li Tai, so he naturally tried his best to plan for him.

"I heard that the price of pepper is still rising recently?"

Li Tai rarely asked about business affairs, which made Du Chuke stunned for a moment.

However, he is considered competent and has an understanding of the value of the gifts he receives.

"Your Majesty, it's true. In fact, the prices of pepper and cinnamon have dropped in the past few months, but after Abdul screwed over several other Hu merchants, he immediately raised the prices back up.

Not only that, the price is also a bit more expensive than last year.”

"I heard that my second brother recently set up some kind of Royal Bank of the Tang Dynasty and issued gold and silver coins, making copper coins less scarce?"

Since money matters were mentioned, Li Tai simply had a good exchange with Du Chuke.

"Yes, that's true. My lord, in my opinion, why don't you just exchange all the copper coins in your house for pepper?"

As soon as Du Chuke finished speaking, he felt that his proposal was really good.

If copper coins are placed in the warehouse, they will not produce copper coins.

But for pepper, it is obvious that the price has been rising. According to Abdul's attitude, it will continue to rise tomorrow.

And based on his relationship with Abdul, he bought pepper...

Hey, although it's not like you don't have to pay, it's definitely not the price on the market.

Thinking of this, Du Chuke couldn't help but add: "Your Majesty, spices have always been in short supply in Chang'an City, and they are much more valuable than cotton. Now that Chang'an City is becoming more and more prosperous, the demand for spices is increasing.

If we exchange the copper coins for car pepper now and exchange them back next year, we might be able to get several percent more money out of thin air."

I have to say that Du Chuke's suggestion is actually a good one.

Selling high and buying low is the essence of investing.

So after Li Tai heard this, he naturally would not refute.

"Okay, you can figure it out."

…

Five residences.

Pan Wang sat leisurely in the backyard, sipping Longjing fragrant tea.

Since the beginning of winter this year, the restaurant business has been significantly better than in previous years.

Although there is still some gap with the restaurant opposite Diandu De, compared with the restaurant's peak in previous years, this year's customer flow and income have increased.

Pan Wang was very satisfied with this.

In particular, the braised chicken with pork belly and the braised lamb with cinnamon and nutmeg have become popular from Dianthut last year, making the restaurant's business even more popular.

However, his good mood did not last long and was interrupted by a sad-looking waiter.

"Shopkeeper Pan, the price of pepper has increased by another half percent today. In just one month, the price of pepper has increased by 30%."

The guy in charge of purchasing has been a little frightened these days, for fear that Pan Wang will think that he has enriched himself.

"The price has increased again? Is it over?"

Pan Wang frowned. A few days ago, due to the increase in pepper prices, Wuheju had just raised the price of pork belly and chicken.

You can't just raise the price again in a few days, right?

Some customers who don't understand the situation think that Wuheju is deliberately trying to rip off customers.

However, without raising prices, Wuheju cannot run a business at a loss.

Be it pork belly or chicken, they are not very expensive things in themselves.

Especially the pork belly, if the Chu Palace had not taken the lead, no one would have eaten it.

It can be said that the most expensive ingredient in the dish of pork belly and chicken is pepper.

"I also argued with the guy at the spice shop, but they said that less pepper arrived this year and the demand increased, so the price was increased. If we don't like the price, I suggest we buy less."

Pan Wang took a deep breath and said, "Go to the accounting office to withdraw more money, and buy more for this month at once today."

The situation is stronger than people. As a businessman, Pan Wang will not be unable to deal with business no matter how dissatisfied he is.

Anyway, if it doesn't work, then the wool comes from the sheep.

…

Snow fell heavily, and the city of Chang'an once again turned into a blanket of snow.

Before the twelfth year of Zhenguan, the Royal Bank of the Tang Dynasty officially began operations.

However, Li Kuan may have taken it for granted before. Although the opening of the bank attracted the attention of countless nobles, there were no customers for several days in a row.

Even the newly produced gold and silver coins in the bank did not arouse the enthusiastic response as expected.

"Mr. Lang, I've been standing guard in front of the Royal Bank of the Tang Dynasty for three days, and I haven't even had a few customers at all."

In a luxurious mansion, Wang Jie was heating the stove while listening to his servants' reports.

"So, no one exchanges copper coins for gold and silver coins at all?"

Wang Jie was secretly happy, it seemed that this copper coin panic situation would not be relieved for a while.

The Wang family in Taiyuan has been inherited for hundreds of years and has a profound heritage. They even have precious copper mines.

In the past, the copper refined from these copper mines was sold to the Ministry of Revenue. In recent years, I have found that I can almost double my profits by minting coins privately.

The copper mine, which had made great efforts to expand its production, was about to experience a small explosion in copper production. As a result, the Wang family immediately dealt with the increase in production privately.

Of course, the Wang family of Taiyuan cannot come forward in this matter, the dirty work must be done by reliable businessmen attached to the family.

If something really happened, someone would be there to help.

Although Wang Jie is not responsible for the copper mine, as the eldest son of the eldest son, he still knows many secret family information.

"Lang Jun, no, I haven't seen any of them. Even in the east and west cities, people who have left the Prince of Chu's Palace are using silver coins. It's easy to see people using other coins. Even people from the Prince of Chu's Palace, I heard that they are all forced to use silver coins."

Yes, because the silver coins these people receive are the wages of some craftsmen with relatively high wages, and they have no choice but to accept them."
To be continued...