The trouble was solved and Fang Chen was in a good mood, but he soon remembered another thing.
Tonight, on the night of the full moon on the 15th day of the month, he wanted to fulfill his agreement with Zhao Sen.
Fang Chen returned to the palace.
It was past midnight that night, and the full moon was in the sky.
Fang Chen held the written note in his hand and came to a courtyard overgrown with weeds.
This is Fengyi Hall.
Fang Chen placed the written note under the second stone pillar. When he was about to leave, he found another note under the stone pillar.
After he took out the piece of paper, it read: See you at the Chenghuang Temple outside Beicheng tomorrow afternoon.
Obviously Zhao Sen wants to see Fang Chen.
…
The next morning, Fang Chen arrived at Ye Mansion in a carriage.
Ye Fan and Hu Yanzhuo welcomed him warmly.
"Master Fang, you are here, please take a seat!"
"Master Fang, I miss you so much after not seeing you for a long time. Let's have a good drink today."
The two of them had already set up a banquet and were waiting for Fang Chen.
Both parties saluted each other.
Fang Chen walked over and held Hu Yanzhuo's hand, smiling warmly and saying, "Brother Hu Yan, seeing how radiant you are, you obviously brought me good news."
Hu Yanzhuo also held Fang Chen's hand tightly: "Yes, this time it is indeed good news! Last time Master Fang proposed, I will discuss it with our Majesty and all the ministers after I return home, and the matter has been settled."
Next, the three of them took their seats, exchanged glasses, and toasted to each other.
Regarding the sale of black gunpowder, Fang Chen and Luo Ningxin had already discussed it and sold it to the Western Empire at a price of one hundred taels per catty.
"Master Fang, in addition to signing a contract with you this time, I also brought one million taels of silver as a deposit!" Hu Yanzhuo took out the drafted contract and showed it to Fang Chen.
Fang Chen's eyes lit up when he heard the one million deposit!
Before he brought it up, Hu Yanzhuo had already brought it over.
This is what Fang Chen wants.
Last time Huyanzhuo wanted to buy Fang Chen away, and the offer he made to Fang Chen was to give him one million taels of silver per year.
This shows the importance of Fang Chen and black powder.
Soon, Hu Yanzhuo took out one million taels of silver notes.
The largest denomination of the banknote is ten thousand taels each, and there are a total of 100 of them.
In the entire Great Yan Dynasty, there was only one bank with a banknote of 10,000 yuan, and that was the largest bank in the imperial capital, Wancai Bank.
All banks across the continent are run by private merchants and have nothing to do with the imperial court.
The bank's business is mainly prepared for businessmen and merchants, and ordinary people have almost no contact with the bank.
Merchants do not get any interest at all after depositing money in the bank, but instead have to pay custody fees to the bank.
For business people, traveling thousands of miles all year round requires a lot of money.
Transportation in ancient times was also relatively backward. It was basically fast horses and walking. Carrying a large amount of money, such as hundreds of thousands of taels or even a million taels of silver, would have to be carried in dozens of cars. It was easy to be targeted by robbers.
The bank can provide deposits and loans, as well as various mortgage exchange services, which also solves various problems for merchants carrying money.
There were many money banks in the Dayan Dynasty, and each city had different money banks.
However, in some bank alliances, their banknotes are interchangeable, and the banknotes issued by some banks cannot be used to withdraw money from other banks. This is entirely determined by the banker's reputation.
Even for the largest bank in the Great Yan Dynasty, their banknotes were only circulated in seven or eight cities near the imperial capital, and the circulation rate of some small banks' banknotes was even smaller.
Banknotes from the South and the North do not circulate with each other.
The factors causing non-circulation of banknotes are extremely complex, mostly natural conditions, political and social environment, import and export trade, etc.
Just like the last time a disaster occurred in the south, the imperial court allocated funds for disaster relief. If the silver from the north was to be transported to the south, because silver notes were not interchangeable, they could only go with a large amount of silver. This gave Zhang Yu and others an opportunity to take advantage of the disaster relief.
He embezzled the money and then told His Majesty that the ship sank due to overloading, bad weather at sea and other problems caused by the money being loaded on the ship.
If there is interoperability of bank notes, these problems will not arise.
Hu Yanzhuo smiled and said: "There is nothing wrong with these banknotes. Our Western Empire is a vassal state of the Great Yan Dynasty, and we have a large amount of funds."
"This one million tael of silver notes can be withdrawn at any time at Wancai Bank, and it is also fully circulated in our Western Empire."
Fang Chen checked the contract and after there were no problems, both parties signed it!
Three copies of one book, with Ye Fan as the guarantor.
Hu Yanzhuo was very relieved about this cooperation, because he knew that it would not be possible to cooperate with Fang Chen, and it would be a direct cooperation with His Majesty's court, so there would be no problems.
After signing the contract, Hu Yanzhuo took out another 200,000 taels of silver notes, gave 100,000 taels to Fang Chen, and gave 100,000 taels to Ye Fan.
"The two adults are our own people. They have also bothered with the black powder and other things. These small coins are also invited to the two adults to drink tea."
Fang Chen was shocked, this is such a good person!
Even if a favor is given, a few hundred or a few thousand taels is still a huge sum of money. I didn't expect that Hu Yanzhuo would spend one hundred thousand taels.
Fang Chen was short of money now, so he accepted it without hesitation: "I will use all the money on our business to ensure that our business is prosperous and our wealth is abundant. I give Brother Yan a toast."
When Ye Fan saw that Fang Chen accepted the bank note without politeness, he was no longer polite, and kept the bank note in his arms very excitedly.
"Master Huyan is so polite. We are all good brothers. We make money together and do things together. Come on, I will even toast Master Huyan three times!"
Ye Fan has been an official for so many years, and no one has ever given him so much money.
This shows the importance of black gunpowder to the Western Empire.
Not to mention a hundred thousand taels of silver notes, as long as Fang Chen opens his mouth, even millions of taels can be obtained by the Western Empire.
With a large amount of black powder, if you make a powerful weapon, you can dominate the empire and even expand the territory.
These horrific things cannot be measured with money.
A business worth millions was settled in just a few words.
Next, the three people chatted away from each other.
As the cups and cups were exchanged, the names of the three people also changed. They all called Brother Yanzhuo. If the three people had different identities, they would definitely become sworn brothers.
The three of them drank until the afternoon. Fang Chen used his own skills to force out a large amount of alcohol because he still had things to do in the afternoon.
Ye Fan and Hu Yanzhuo were drunk. Fang Chen asked his servants to settle them down, then left Ye Mansion, rode a fast horse, and headed to the City God's Temple in the north of the city alone.
The Chenghuang Temple is more than ten miles north of the city, and it is extremely remote.
There used to be a small village here. There was a flash flood and all the people in the village moved away.
Walking into the ruined temple, Fang Chen saw a man sitting on the steps nearby, and his cold eyes shot towards him.