Chapter 33 The helplessness of the eldest princess
In front of the No. 36 branch of Guochanglong, there is still a busy and busy flow of people, which represents the prosperity of the business, which can even be said to be hot.
In the largest workshop in the backyard of Guochanglong Main Store, which is only two streets away from the Imperial Palace, Shen Ao, who was rolling up his sleeves, finally showed a smile on his originally serious face. With a slight grin at the corner of his mouth, he uttered two words - —It’s done.
For Shen Ao, what he has is not only the identity of a loyal Duke, but more importantly, he has a huge amount of knowledge for future generations. He wants to thank himself for those experiences. He has done almost everything and has never looked back. This ability allows a person to re-create all the things and items that are deep in his memory after coming to this world.
In line with the idea that there is no best, only better, after the success of the perfume, Shen Ao did not stop his research and development journey. Now the success of another item makes him very satisfied.
"Young Master, the eldest princess is here and is waiting for you in the lounge in the inner courtyard." Shi Lei walked lightly to Shen Ao's side and reported in a low voice.
"Oh? I was just about to go find her, and here she comes. It's just right. Come on, please wrap this thing in a small bag." Shen Ao smiled, pointing to the refined salt as white as snow in front of him.
That's right. After perfume, Shen Ao studied the refining of refined salt.
If perfume and soap are for making money, the refining of refined salt is not just as simple as making money. When he came here, he would be disturbed by grains of salt from time to time when eating every day, which made him dissatisfied for a long time. Now he has Guochanglong With 40% of the income and 200,000 taels of silver a day, he had the capital to finally do something he wanted to do, and the refining of refined salt was put on the agenda.
Speaking of ancient salt, it is really terrible. Without qualified refining technology, most of it is extremely rough. For example, there is a substitute called "earth salt". As the name suggests, earth salt is a kind of salt with lower quality than table salt. , this kind of salt can be dug out from saline-alkali land, but because soil salt contains a lot of soil and sand that is difficult to filter, the taste of soil salt cannot be compared with table salt at all. But since it is a substitute, ordinary people can only handle it simply. Use it after washing.
There is another alternative that doesn’t sound so comfortable. In addition to soil salt, the ancients also excavated a substance called “crystalline saltpeter” from the land near the toilet. This crystalline saltpeter looks similar to salt. They are almost the same, and the taste is close to salty. However, neither earth salt nor crystallized saltpeter is essentially table salt, so it cannot be compared with table salt in terms of taste, value, and hygiene.
Due to the problem of production capacity, salt is difficult to refine, and it is rare and expensive. It can only be eaten by the rich. For the common people, the salt controlled by the state is not only expensive, but also generally not allowed to be sold. Merchants sell it in the market, and the trace elements contained in salt are necessary for the human body. Based on this, salt substitutes are still accepted by everyone despite their poor quality. However, no matter from which perspective, salt substitutes It seems that there are big "quality and safety problems", but at that time, people did not seem to care about these problems of salt substitutes. In order to survive, sometimes they had to settle for the second best and choose the most suitable substitute.
Shen Ao's identity meant that he would not use those substitutes, but despite this, the salt at that time was still difficult for him to eat, so he thought of improving it. In the Daqian Dynasty, there were two main ways of making salt. One was Boil salt or sun-dry salt. On this basis, Shen Ao added dissolution, filtration and evaporation. Because of the proportion problem, he tried hundreds of times and used up a lot of salt, and finally succeeded. . Without the help of axial flow pumps and other equipment, the effect of refined salt is somewhat worse than that of later generations, and the production capacity is also much lower, but it is hundreds or thousands of times better than the current table salt, regardless of appearance or quality. The taste is still amazing.
Taking the newly produced refined salt, Shen Ao came to the inner courtyard and saw the eldest princess who had been waiting for him for a long time.
Tea and a plate of dried fruits were already placed in front of the table. When she saw Shen Ao walking towards her, the eldest princess forced a forced smile on her face.
"I have met Her Royal Highness the Eldest Princess." Yi Zhi bowed, and then Shen Ao casually sat down opposite the Eldest Princess. He looked at the other person carefully first, and then asked curiously, "What? Your Royal Highness the Eldest Princess's?" You look so ugly, but you haven’t had any rest recently, okay?”
Shen Ao's concern comes from the heart and out of greetings between friends. He does not put the so-called social class in his eyes at all. If it were anyone else, even if he sincerely cares about Her Royal Highness, considering the status difference, , there still has to be some unnatural elements in it. Unlike Shen Ao, he just says whatever comes to his mind, without any artificiality.
The eldest princess felt Shen Ao's sincere concern and couldn't help but feel warm in her heart. This Shen Ao gave her a different feeling. Whether it was the first time they met or this time, the other person seemed not afraid of her and didn't care about her very much. She has an identity, but she respects herself very much. She says whatever she has to say. She really treats her as a friend or an elder.
With the current status of the eldest princess, how can she have any real friends? Often if you say something wrong, it means some kind of signal and meaning. In this case, if you want to let go of your worries and really make friends, It's not that easy.
Even when facing her brother or her mother in the harem, the eldest princess often has to put on a mask and cannot show her true face to others, let alone treat others. But only when facing Shen Ao When she does, she will unknowingly relax, as if the man in front of her has no scheming at all, and there is no need to be on guard at all.
But if you look at Shen Ao's business methods, his step-by-step plans, and their interlocking plans, how can he be a person without scheming?
If you don't understand, you don't need to understand. The eldest princess knows that after today, it will be difficult for the two of them to meet. This time she came to make it clear to Shen Ao on the order of the emperor's brother. Guo Changlong is about to be replaced by Her hand fell into the hands of the prince, but the same thing was that 40% of Shen Ao's interests could be retained. The eldest princess came to discuss this matter on the emperor's order.
At the beginning of the first year of junior high school, when she heard the imperial brother's instructions, the eldest princess was really shocked. When it comes to how Shen Ao's 40% interest was negotiated, no one knew it better than the eldest princess. At that time, she held her arms to death Ma Dang agreed to Shen Ao's request with the idea of becoming a living horse doctor. Anyway, Guo Changlong was already like this, how could he be worse if he kept going through all the trouble?
Unexpectedly, Shen Ao kept his word. In just over a month from taking over, Guochanglong's income has increased hundreds of times, or even more. At this time, The importance of the 40% benefit is particularly attractive.
To be honest, if the eldest princess had known that Guo Changlong would be where he is today, she would not have agreed to Shen Ao's request for 40% of the profit even if she was beaten to death. Although he was very capable, she saw so much money flowing into Shen Ao's money. In the pocket, she still felt unwilling.
It's okay now. Guo Changlong is about to change his master. In this way, he can terminate the contract with Shen Ao or renegotiate the profit sharing. After all, the eldest princess has said nothing and has already left, so it doesn't matter if she has to. Keep your promises.
This was originally a normal thing. The eldest princess had even made mental preparations. Should it change from 40% to 10% or half a percent? It must be that the best result is to achieve something. After all, Shen Ao just made a mistake. A few ideas and some things developed, but craftsmen are not respected in this era.
If you really want to sell things and create influence, you still need Guochanglong’s big brand and manpower, right?
She had already thought about the worst outcome. But when Emperor Qianwen said that Shen Ao's profits would remain unchanged for 40%, the eldest princess was really surprised and frightened. At that time, she suddenly had an illusion in her mind. In the eyes of the imperial brother, he is not important, but Shen Ao is extremely important.
If not, why can she be abandoned at any time, but Shen Ao's position and interests are untouchable?
Once such a thought appeared in her mind, it would never go away. The eldest princess once again doubted Shen Ao's identity.
His father, Shen Yuntian, and his mother, Zhao Yanyan, both died.
The position of the hereditary Duke of Zhongguo is proof of Shen Ao's identity. He has not left Daliang City in the past fifteen years. This is something that can be easily investigated.
The simpler it was, the more the eldest princess couldn't figure it out. The question mark in her heart became bigger and bigger, and the eldest princess lost her mind for a while.
"Your Highness, the eldest princess, your highness, the eldest princess?" Shen Ao called softly. He didn't understand what the eldest princess meant when she was so anxious to see him and stopped talking now. The refined salt had just come out, and he had to teach other people. Da Gong has a lot of things to do when learning this production method.
"Oh." The eldest princess, who came to her senses after being called, looked embarrassed and said, "I'm sorry, I was distracted just now."
With such status as the eldest princess, she took the initiative to apologize to others. Anyone else would be frightened, and it was possible to even kneel down and kowtow to accompany the sin. But when it came to Shen Ao, he didn't care at all. After all, everyone was The concept of equality has been in my mind for forty-one years, but it cannot be removed by simply removing it. "It doesn't matter, does your Highness the Princess have something to do? You can talk about it now."
"Well, the thing is like this..." Next, the eldest princess told in detail what happened in the court this morning, as well as what the emperor brother said to him just now. She was about to leave Guochanglong, the imperial merchant kingdom she had built with her own hands. This was the emperor's wish, and she could not disobey it. But she could still make her own decision on how she chose to go.
She wanted to leave openly, and she wanted Shen Ao to know that it was not that she wanted to leave, or that she had any opinion on Shen Ao, but that she had no choice but to do so.