After the banquet, Zhu Cixi came to the back hall and summoned a mysterious businessman.

"Wu Cheng, who holds a humble position and is a guard of thousands of households, pays homage to His Highness the Crown Prince!"

Zhu Cixiang looked at Wu Cheng dressed as a businessman and said with a smile: "Why, you've grown a beard?"

Wu Cheng is the younger brother of Wu Zhong, Zhu Cihong's personal eunuch, and the owner of the first hotpot restaurant in the Ming Dynasty.

Although Wu Cheng is young today, he is already the boss of several brand chain industries. Dozens of Dezhuang hotpot restaurants and Northeastern barbecue restaurants throughout the Ming Dynasty are all industries under his name.

Wu Cheng also plans to open Haidilao and Home Inn as a national chain based on the brands provided by Prince, making them bigger and stronger and creating greater glory!

Not only the Dezhuang Hot Pot Restaurant chain, Wu Cheng also manages the Royal Group secretly built by Zhu Cixiang, which includes catering, inns, pawn shops, mining and other industries. However, the Royal Group is not mainly about profit, but more focused on

For intelligence collection, the shops under its properties serve as liaison points for the Intelligence Department.

With Zhu Cixi's financial support and Jin Yiwei's help, the Royal Group has developed extremely rapidly in recent years, and Wu Cheng has also become a business giant.

The Royal Group is just a name among senior executives within the organization. Wu Cheng's identity has always been a mystery to the outside world. No one knows his true identity except Li Tingbiao and several other senior intelligence officials.

All Wu Cheng's files have been erased. Even if someone investigates secretly, they can only find out that he works in Jinyiwei Qianhu. If there are still people who keep investigating without opening their eyes and investigate a Jinyiwei Qianhu, they can only seek death.

Wu Cheng has traveled to many places over the years, from Liaodong to Jilin and Mongolia in the north, to Guangdong in the south, and to Taiwan in the east. He has also dealt with the Japanese and the Dutch. After these years of hard work, he has matured a lot, and even his eyes show

Showing a hint of businessman's shrewdness.

Wu Cheng used to like cooking the most. Since he went out, he found that there are many more interesting things in the world than cooking, such as making money.

Seeing Zhu Cixiang's question, Wu Cheng bowed and said respectfully: "Returning to Your Highness, I heard a saying when I was doing business in a lowly position. If you have a hairless mouth, you will not be able to do things well, so you have to grow a beard."

After not seeing each other for a while, Wu Cheng is no longer as awkward in speaking as before, and his eloquence has obviously improved a lot. It seems that the more people go out and practice, the change will be big.

Zhu Cihong said: "Wu Cheng, I will give you a hundred shops and properties, can you take it?"

Wu Cheng knew that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince wanted to hand over the property of the nobles in the capital to him and expand the royal group. He smiled and said: "Your Highness, I can take over not only one hundred but five hundred humble positions!"

Zhu Cixiang raised his eyebrows and said, "What if there are a thousand? For example, can you take over all the industries of Shanxi merchants?"

Wu Cheng's eyelids twitched and he hurriedly said: "The Shanxi Merchant's property is too big, and I can't take the humble position right now..."

Zhu Cixiang rubbed his hands, pondered for a while, and then said: "In this way, you will take over all the properties of the nobles and nobles in the capital that were confiscated, and you will take over half of the properties of the eight major Shanxi merchants, and you will choose them yourself. You don't have to worry about the rest."

Wu Cheng was shocked. He was about to make a fortune. After annexing the eight major Shanxi merchants' properties, the Royal Group would be the new consortium of the Ming Dynasty.

Seeing that he was not happy, Zhu Cixiang said again: "How to transfer their property to the Royal Group? You should have no problem, right?"

Wu Cheng immediately said: "Your Highness, don't underestimate Beizi. He has been in the shopping mall all year round and has learned a lot. He also has a large number of professional staff to manage the Royal Group for Beizi. This small thing will not trouble Beizi."

Zhu Cixiang nodded. As long as the Royal Group can swallow up half of the eight major Shanxi merchants' properties, it will be a big profit. The rest should be left to Zhang Dabiao's Hui Gang, and then give some soup to Shanxi Commander Wang Wannian and others. They cannot be allowed to do it alone.

There are no benefits to living.

Zhu Cixiang said: "I will give you a task. After you take over the Shanxi merchant industry, you will open a bank account."

Wu Cheng wondered: "Your Highness, what is a ticket number?"

"As the Royal Group's business expands, does it require capital turnover? Isn't it inconvenient to carry so much gold and silver when traveling thousands of miles from north to south to do business? You can open a bank account and exchange banknotes for silver...

"

Zhu Cixi then gave Wu Cheng a general explanation of the functions and benefits of banknotes and banknotes, and told him that when making banknotes, credibility must come first.

Historically, the ticket number appeared among Shanxi merchants. At that time, Shanxi merchants' firms spread all over the country, forming a commercial network of a certain scale. The profits of the firms in various places had to be transferred back to the Shanxi head office, and then unified settlement and dividend distribution.

The transfer of funds between accounts was troublesome and unsafe. In order to solve the problem of transporting cash, the Shanxi bill account in the form of exchange was created, but that was already in the late Qing Dynasty.

Nowadays, the Ming Dynasty also has money tickets similar to banknotes, such as guild tickets, but guild tickets are circulated among very few wealthy merchants in the capital and cannot become a trend.

There are many benefits to the ticket number. It can beneficially promote the national financial circulation, accelerate capital turnover, and have a great impact on the development of industry and commerce.

Zhu Cixiang's main purpose was to use banknotes to dominate the future financial market of the Ming Dynasty and prepare for the issuance of banknotes, similar to the role of the People's Bank of China in later generations.

Wu Cheng's eyes widened after hearing this, and he said: "Your Highness is really a genius. He can come up with such wonderful methods. I will work hard to do it!"

With the model of the ticket, it was easy for Wu Cheng to understand. Just as he was still thinking about how to open a ticket number, the Crown Prince suddenly asked: "Wu Cheng, what about the orphans that I gave to Wu Daban a few years ago?"

Already?"

In the ninth year of Chongzhen's reign, hundreds of thousands of refugees flooded into the capital. Zhu Cihong was ordered to appease the people. Among them were more than 5,000 orphans who had lost their parents. At that time, they didn't even have a bowl to hold porridge, so they could only watch with dull eyes.

The surrounding refugees were eating porridge, so Zhu Cihong ordered them to be gathered into a porridge factory, which was later placed in the new city for unified management.

Among these more than 5,000 orphans, the oldest is fifteen years old and the youngest is only six or seven years old. Most of them are boys. Zhu Cixiang had already planned to train them. At that time, he gave the money left over from the disaster relief to brothers Wu Zhong and Wu Cheng to supervise the matter.

.

These orphans read, read, and received education collectively in Xincheng, and were instilled with the idea of ​​loyalty to the Crown Prince Zhu Cihong from an early age.

When Zhu Cixiang went south to the south of the Yangtze River, they were secretly taken away in batches and placed in Fengyang Mansion to engage in various professional trainings. Some joined the army, some studied intelligence and became secret spies, and some learned to do business.

....

Now several years have passed, and most of these more than 5,000 orphans are already engaged in various walks of life, with only a few younger ones still receiving education and secret training.

When Wu Cheng saw the prince asking about it, he said seriously: "Go back to your highness, my eldest brother... Wu Eunuch does not allow Beizi to interfere with this matter. He only sends a hundred young men who are engaged in business to Beizi every year. The status of the rest is that Beizi

not sure."

Zhu Cixiang secretly praised Wu Zhong for being measured in his actions and never revealing things that should not be known to others. Very good!

Let Wu Zhong manage this group of orphans. On the one hand, Zhu Cixiang trusts Wu Zhong the most. Secondly, he plans to let Wu Zhong take over Dongchang in the future. Some of these orphans will be the main force of Dongchang's intelligence department in the future...
Chapter completed!