Zheng Wenxian followed the shopkeeper of Jushengchuan into the back hall, exchanged names, and took out the letter that Shen Jingdan gave him. The shopkeeper's surname was Zhang, and his name was Zhang Xiuren, who was from Hongdong, Shanxi. He read the letter and immediately He became extremely enthusiastic. First, he was served tea, and then he expressed his gratitude to Boss Shen for saving his brother's life for a long time.
It turned out that when Shen Jingdan passed by Hankou last year to inquire about the tea market, he happened to meet a man in the inn who was suffering from cold and fever, which was malaria. Malaria in this era was a serious disease, and cinchona was the royal medicine of the Qing Dynasty. , ordinary people don’t even think about it.
Usually when an inn encounters this kind of thing, they consider themselves unlucky and want to hide it from all the guests. If the patient is rich, he will be placed in a remote courtyard to take medicine and recuperate. If he has no money, he will be thrown directly into the suburbs. Shen Jingdan saw that the man was going to be killed. The waiter at the inn threw it out, and then asked his subordinates to inquire about it. They found out that he was from Shanxi, his surname was Zhang, and he had gone to Anhua, Hunan to organize tea.
Thinking of what Zhao Xin had told him, Shen Jingdan became more thoughtful and paid for the inn's people to find a remote courtyard to house the man. He also took out the "Compound Dihydrocyanate" from Beihai Town Hospital from his luggage. Artemisia tablets".
Although Beihai Town is located in a cold temperate zone, because of the dense forests and swamps, there are a lot of mosquitoes in the summer. In addition, people who work outside are often thirsty for raw water, so malaria also occurs from time to time. Although Cinchona-- Even quinine can treat malaria, but it also has serious side effects, so Hong Tao chose artemisinin tablets from another time and space as a reserve medicine.
Because Shen Jingdan often went out for business, he always had it in his luggage. The man named Zhang received help from Shen Jingdan. He took medicine for four days in a row, and his condition was quickly under control. After that, he took the Bupleurum Bupleurum prescribed by the doctor. The soup will be almost ready in seven or eight days.
Only then did Shen Jingdan learn that the man's name was Zhang Xiude, and he was the accountant of the Liu Mansion in Hongdong, Shanxi. The Liu Mansion was the home of Liu Bingtian, the Minister of War of the Qing Dynasty, who had served as Zhang Jing of the Military Aircraft Department and as the censor of Fujian Province.
If you don’t ask, you won’t know that this Zhang Xiude is actually the apprentice of “Magic Fist Guo Yongfu” and the younger brother of Chen Jishan. At that time, Guo Yongfu (Chen Youfu) killed someone in Henan and ran back to Shanxi. After an adventure, he took refuge in Liu Bingtian’s house. After that, he accepted Liu Mansion's guard He Huaibi and Zhang Xiude as disciples, and taught them the 108 styles of Tongbei Quan. He and Zhang had only heard their masters talk about Chen Jishan, but they had never See.
Shen Jingdan did not dare to say that Chen Jishan was currently working in Beihai Town. He only said that he had an acquaintance in Xuzhou. As the saying goes, Zhang Xiude had no way to repay a favor. As he was sighing, he overheard Shen Jingdan mentioning that he was involved in tea. Shen Jingdan came up with the idea of trade, so he said that his brother was working as a shopkeeper in a large tea house in Yangloudong. When he completed a letter, Shen Jingdan could go directly to his brother and everything could be done. As for himself, he still I have to rush back to Shanxi to resume my life.
When Zhao Xin listened to Shen Jingdan's story, he lamented that the fate of the world was really strange. Who would have thought that when he kindly saved people in Hankou, the one who was rescued turned out to be Chen Jishan's junior brother.
Chen Jishan is now Zhao Xin's personal guard. He is second in skill in Beihai Town, and no one dares to say he is first. Even Liu Sheng's big, bear-like body was knocked to pieces by Chen Jishan with the help of his strength. After that, He never mentioned the recruitment again.
Zheng Wenxian, Guo Podai and others admired his skills and always wanted to be his disciples. Unfortunately, Chen Jishan followed Zhao Xin to fight against Tsarist Russia last year, and was eventually abandoned by Zhao Xin in Irkutsk. He will probably not be able to return to Beihai Town until this summer.
After that, he talked with Zhang Xiuren for half an hour, and in the evening Zhang Xiuren held a banquet at a restaurant in the town. After Zheng Wenxian had a deep conversation with him, he realized that he was basically a stickler, and he heard many issues involving tea transportation and sales. never heard of that.
In fact, the specific operation of the tea trade is extremely complicated. Even though Shen Jingdan asked about it in advance, he had never dealt with tea before, so what he told Zheng Wenxian was extremely limited. Seeing that Zheng Wenxian was a layman, Zhang Xiuren explained it in detail.
The tea method in the Qing Dynasty followed the Ming system. In the early days, horses were also traded through official tea reserves, which was the "tea-horse trade." In the 13th year of Yongzheng's reign, as Gansu stopped using tea for horses, the tea-horse trade officially withdrew from history. On the stage, the "leading course system" is fully launched.
Tea merchants during the Qianlong period can be roughly divided into purchasers, tea dealers and tea sellers. The three have different functions in tea transportation and sales.
As the name suggests, purchasers go into the mountains to purchase Maocha from tea farmers, and then sell it to tea shops. Tea shops are similar to brokers, and some also deal in Maocha processing. For example, Jushengchuan makes brick tea by itself. As for tea shops, Transporters and sellers rely on the "tea guide" issued by the government to transport tea from the production area to various places.
The two tea gangs mentioned before, Shanxi Merchants and Hui Merchants, basically operate in one line. From trade to tea production, tea factories are involved in everything in order to control the source of tea.
There are roughly two types of transporters and distributors, the "Yinshang" who transport and sell "official tea" and the "customers" who transport and sell "commercial tea".
The tea citations are uniformly produced by the Baoquan Bureau of the Ministry of Household Affairs, and each tea-producing province is expected to claim them once a year, write them off at the end of the year, and start over again the following year. Used residual citations must be turned over to the Ministry of Household Affairs. Among them, the tea citations are divided into long citations, Short Yin, Zheng Yin, Yu Yin, abdominal Yin, Bian Yin, Tu Yin, etc., also perform the ticket method.
For example, "Long Yin" is valid for one year, allowing merchants to sell tea to other places; "Short Yin" is valid for three months, and can only be sold locally. If there is no tea Yin when transporting tea, it is the same as selling illicit salt. Same crime.
The ticket rule is for the tea export trade. All merchants who traffic tea to Russia must go to the Zhangjiakou Director Tongzhi Yamen to apply for a ticket issued by the Lifan Yuan as a special certificate to allow their trafficking. One ticket will be given for every three hundred boxes of tea. Zhang, each ticket is written with the name of the person who receives it and other related matters. The total tax paid is 1,310 taels; calculated based on the total value of each tea ticket of 6,000 taels of silver, the tax rate is 22%.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Whether it is Yangloudong or other tea-producing areas, the tea produced must first be purchased by "introducing merchants", and the rest is given to "customers" Shipping and marketing.
Zhang Xiuren gave a rough explanation, and then said to Zheng Wenxian: "Brother, if you want 50,000 dans of old green tea, it will probably be too much. The tea trade season in Guangzhou is coming soon, and various merchants have already introduced the old green tea produced locally. Ninety percent of it has been settled, but we really can’t get this much. If it’s three or four thousand loads, we still have it.”
Zheng Wenxian smiled and said: "Mr. Zhang, in fact, I am also working for my boss. Before leaving, he specifically mentioned that he wanted to develop the local area and buy mountain-grown tea. In this way, not only the tea source is safe, but also the local tea farmers.
You can have enough food and clothing for it.”
Zhang Xiuren thought for a while and said: "It is a good thing to buy mountain tea, but making tea is extremely complicated. It is impossible to open a tea farm without hundreds of people, and you need to find a good packager."
In the Qing Dynasty, from raw tea to finished tea bricks, it generally had to go through multiple processes such as kicking, sorting, roasting, and sifting. Each process had strict regulations. Before the tea leaves were numbered, the finished tea had to be packaged, whether it was
In Guangzhou and Kyakhtu, tea in foreign boxes is usually made of tin cans or lead barrels, which are framed by crates. On average, each box can hold 50 to 70 kilograms of tea.
When setting up a tea farm, it is most important to hire tea workers, which can be divided into picking workers, sifting workers, kicking workers, dismissal workers, negotiating workers, leadsmiths, and tinsmiths, etc., and the wages vary.
Zhang Xiuren said: "For example, in Lao Qingcha, each gang needs eight people to kick, two people to slap and hang, and the labor for kicking is 160 cash, and the labor for each gang is 100 cash. It is also necessary to hire another gang of kickers.
Eight people, each paid sixty cents... The sifter's daily wage varies from one hundred and twenty cents to one hundred and forty cents."
Zheng Wenxian's head swelled after hearing this. He was focused on sailing. What he thought about every day was when he would become the captain of the Thunder God. If he had the time to think about this, he hurriedly said: "It's better.
First, we can buy a few barren hills according to the owner's requirements, and the rest will be arranged by the owner naturally."
In his opinion, as long as he can buy the barren hills and start growing tea, and let Beihai Town's tentacles penetrate into the bottom of the tea industry, the purpose of this trip will be completed. As for the subsequent tea farms or cooperation with other tea shops, they are all from the Ministry of Trade.
Come take responsibility.
So starting from the next day, Zheng Wenxian, with the help of Zhang Xiuren, first invited the local county government officials to a banquet, then invited the clerk of the household office, and finally the county government master. Fortunately, Zhang Xiuren gave his full help, otherwise
Zheng Wenxian must have been brutally stabbed.
After all the negotiations were settled with the government and the necessary bribes were paid, Zheng Wenxian met with several middlemen under the recommendation of the Hufang Book Office to discuss the purchase of Huangshan.
The procedures and regulations for buying and selling land in the Qing Dynasty generally followed the Ming system with some enhancements. Generally, the owner asked a middleman. It should be noted that selling land does not mean that you can sell it directly as soon as someone buys it, but you must first ask
Ask your immediate family, family and clan members if they want it, and then ask the original owner if they want it. If neither party wants it, you can sell it to an outsider.
Going directly to the buyer without asking about the house first will often lead to disputes and even serious life-threatening cases. The buyer and seller will be ruined, and in serious cases they may even be exiled and executed. Such examples were common during the Qianlong period.
Zheng Wenxian, the seller and the middleman sat down to negotiate the price face to face. In the end, Zheng Wenxian bought three hills and more than 200 hectares from the two middlemen for a price of 6,300 taels of silver, which is 3 taels per mu of land. Finished writing "
"The land must be sold without any written deed". After paying the land price as a deposit, you also have to pay the money for the painting and the money to get out of business; this money cost another two thousand taels of silver.
The so-called "painted silver" refers to the money that the seller and his relatives ask for from the buyer in addition to the regular price of the land. If they don't pay it, they will start a lawsuit.
The "unemployment money" is also called "happy gift silver" or "congratulatory silver" in the north, and is paid to the previous landowner of the land. It was a rural custom in the Qing Dynasty that when land was sold, the first owner
The original unemployment money must be paid, and it will not work if it is not paid.
Do you think it’s over at this point? Don’t worry, there’s more to come!
According to the law, after completing the above, you have to report taxes to the government, change the government's field records, and cut money and grain. After all, people may have planted things on the land, and they have to wait until they have finished harvesting. Even if it is a barren mountain, there is no way to prepare for it.
There are also several wild fruit trees on the property. These must be clearly stated and implemented in the settlement documents.
At this point, Zheng Wenxian and the others have spent seventy-seven or eighty-eight dollars on the banknotes they brought, but this is only the completion of the first stage. After that, they will have to go through three stages of price search, redemption, and absolute sale before they can be considered complete.
The land purchase and sale procedures have been completed. If there is any irregularity during the process, the land sale will be difficult to complete.
Logically speaking, land sales should be the same as other commodities. Once sold, it should belong to the buyer. The seller has taken the money and has no right to interfere. The problem is that as the output of the fields or the amount of land rent continues to increase, the price of land also increases.
Rising. For example, because Yangloudong is rich in tea, the low price of Huangshan is also rising year by year.
It is said that as the most important means of livelihood in feudal society, land showed completely different characteristics from other commodities, so live sales and absolute sales were naturally formed.
The root cause of the "Dongtai Yizhulou" case at that time was actually the redemption of live sales. The Cai family wanted to redeem it at a low price, but the Xu family did not agree. The Xu family was a big squire and the Cai family could not afford to offend them, which ultimately led to
The Cai family harbored a grudge and then accused the Xu family of writing a rebellion. Although the Xu family was ruined, the Cai family did not get their land back in the end.
So what is the difference between a live sale and an absolute sale? To put it bluntly, as long as the land sale deed does not indicate "elimination" in the land sale deed, it is all a live sale.
Since it is a live sale, the seller can seek additional silver from the buyer, or it is called subsidized silver, also known as "price finding." The reason for asking for additional silver is usually that the original price is too low and a subsidy is needed. And often asking for additional silver is not enough.
In the future, as long as the land price rises, you can continue to look for compensation.
The government generally recognizes this situation. If the buyer fails to pay the change price and causes a dispute, the government will punish the buyer.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Under the premise of this rural rule, whether it is officials, businessmen or officials and gentry, can they not collude? If they do not collude, let alone locals,
Foreigners will be swallowed down to their bones.
No one wanted the saline-alkali land that Xu Dayong bought in northern Jiangsu at that time. What he signed was a living deed. The reason why there have been no disputes in recent years is that Xu Dayong bribed the government and the officials of the Funing County Yamen have been bought by him.
They bought it all. Secondly, nothing has been grown in those saline-alkali lands in recent years.
Do you dare to improve the saline-alkali land and plant new crops? OK! The seller will have to come to you in the second year to redeem or ask for a price. As long as you are not the kind of powerful person who needs the favor of the local tyrants and evil gentry from all over the country, you will not be asked to ask for a price.
It means being "unfaithful" and not keeping the local covenant!
What is the basis for the survival of the gentry in feudal society? Rural ethics. If you don't abide by these, no one will do business with you, no one will come to help you as a servant. Do you still want to rise up and make the world follow you?
The reason why Shanxi merchants and Huizhou merchants were able to operate all over the country in these years was that, firstly, they had a large number of their descendants serving as officials in the court, and secondly, their descendants who were doing business donated their official positions. For example, Qu Tonghai of the Qu family was the general of the garrison.
, and Qu Yinghuang holds the rank of sixth-grade Tongzhi of Zhili Prefecture.
Of course, now, businessmen can only donate up to a fourth-grade candidate for an official position, and the price is extremely expensive. Because the Qing court and Beihai Town have been fighting for many years, and they have spent tens of millions of money, the current price of donating a candidate is 16,400 taels.
Silver, the alternate prefect also costs 13,200 taels.
By the time the formalities for purchasing the land were completed, more than twenty days had passed. Zheng Wenxian did not dare to delay any longer. He first sent two people back to Sheyang Lake to report on the situation in order to handle the affairs of the tea garden behind him, while he took Lin Daosheng and others with him.
People are rushing to Guangzhou.
Unexpectedly, on the way to Changsha City, when they passed by a teahouse to rest, they saw some strong men holding swords and sticks passing by on the post road from time to time, and there were also women among them.
Lin Daosheng felt curious and started chatting with one of the men who stopped for tea. As a result, the man told Zheng Wenxian and others a piece of news that both surprised and made them laugh.
A wealthy businessman from the south of the Yangtze River offered a secret reward to anyone who could go to the north and remove Zhao Xin's head, which was worth ten thousand taels of gold.