Shopkeeper Shen said that although this kind of silver has been around since ancient times, there are very few ingots on the market and it is mostly used to make jewelry headsets, so it is quite rare.
"This silver is slightly lighter than silver, but the color is good and not easy to turn black. Some wealthy families make small ingots for people to play with." Shopkeeper Shen said, "If you want to directly cast such a large ingot, the small one is still the first.
See you soon."
"So it's fake money?" Li Ziyu asked directly after seeing him going around and talking for a long time but not telling the truth.
"I dare not say that," Shopkeeper Shen shook his head repeatedly, "Zhu Tiyin has been around since the Han Dynasty and has been circulated in all dynasties. Even in the Guangzhou market, the price of Zhu Tiyin jewelry is higher than that of silver jewelry."
Li Ziyu returned to the city bureau with this information. Wu Xiang heard that this was "not silver" and immediately asked Li Ziyu to take all the gold and silver stolen from Widow Wang's house, including broken pieces, ingots and jewelry, to Jufeng for inspection.
The result was that except for the five ingots and ten taels of silver and a few pieces of jewelry that were made of Zhu Ti silver, the rest were all silver and gold of varying qualities.
"These silver and jewelry definitely do not belong to this poor widow, they must have been left behind by the deceased or the suspected murderer." Li Zhenguo said.
"If it is the suspect, I think he is likely to take Zhu Tiyin away. After all, it is not a common thing, and leaving it here may be the source of trouble. I think the silver is likely to belong to the deceased. The suspect thought it was just ordinary silver.
." Li Ziyu expressed his opinion cautiously.
Overall, it seems that it is very likely that it is the deceased. According to Shopkeeper Shen, Zhu Tiyin is not rare in Guangzhou, nor is it available everywhere. And most of them appear in the form of jewelry, and now the deceased actually brought it here
Fifty taels of Zhu Tiyin, so people have to associate the deceased with the Yunnan and Guizhou area.
Wu Xiang recalled several issues that Mu Bureau had recently highlighted at the meeting of naturalized citizen cadres, especially the recent issuance of new currency, and asked everyone to pay close attention to financial and economic anomalies in the market - Zhu
Picking up silver ingots is definitely a doubtful point.
He immediately decided to report the situation to Mu Min first. At the same time, he took the following series of measures: issuing notices to all police stations and security checkpoints in the city, asking them to search for heads within their jurisdiction; publishing a corpse identification revelation in the "Yangcheng Express" -
Although the corpse had no head, he still hoped that the family members of the deceased could confirm the identity of the corpse through physical description. Finally, he continued to investigate the evidence and clues found.
The investigation work inevitably fell on Li Ziyu and Zhao Gui again. This time, their task was to investigate the victim based on his clothing.
There was quite a lot of clothing evidence recovered from the scene. There were seven or eight pieces of men's trousers, jackets, and shirts, as well as unburned clothing fragments and shoe soles taken out from the furnace. After comparison, the size was similar to that of the headless ones.
The corpses were consistent, and they should be the victim's clothes.
Although there are clothes, things are not necessarily simple. Guangzhou is a major commercial port and a regional political center. There are many officials, gentry and merchants, and "departments are gathered here." Not only are there a wide variety of silk and satin cloths produced in the province, but also from all over the country and even
There are probably thousands of textiles from Europe, Southeast Asia, and Japan with various designs, colors, textures, and weaving methods. Although there are industry associations such as the Yarn and Satin Association and the Jibei Office for inquiries, the workload is still huge.
There are no boundaries - not to mention that the public office and guild may not all know what the store buys. Maybe they have to ask each store. Even if they ask which store the goods are from, the clerk may not remember who the materials were sold to. What's more,
Before the material can be turned into clothes, it has to go through the hands of a tailor. There are twists and turns here, and any link may be broken due to the forgetfulness of the person involved.
Li Ziyu thought over and over again and decided to start with two remaining burned shoe soles.
There are far fewer shops that make shoes than those that sell satin fabrics. It is much easier to check. Li Ziyu immediately went to a well-known local shoe shop and asked the shopkeeper to tell him what kind of shoes the soles were like.
Maybe it was sold somewhere.
The shopkeeper took the two burnt soles, looked at them carefully, and said, "These are not from a small shop."
"Which company is that from? Can the shopkeeper tell it?"
"It doesn't come from any store. This is made by the women in the family." The shopkeeper said, "Please look at the threads and tapered stitching on the soles and uppers of these shoes. They are not made by the shop."
Li Ziyu was greatly disappointed and secretly cursed himself for being confused: not many people know how to buy shoes in stores, and most people still make their own shoes - he used to wear shoes made by his mother.
"...But the soles of these shoes do have font sizes," the shopkeeper said.
"Oh, which one is it?"
Not many people wore shoes in medieval society, and most poor people did not wear shoes. Even if they did wear shoes, they were homemade, either straw sandals or cloth shoes. In the traditional red handicraft, making shoes is a basic skill. Most of the shoes in shoe shops were bought by wealthy people.
They were only purchased by the idle class. However, the really sophisticated families also focused on making shoes for their own female servants and seldom visited shoe shops.
However, whether shoe shops or wealthy families make their own shoes, soles are mostly purchased from outside - making soles is a hard job.
The sole-making business is exclusive to the business, and is commonly known as "the sole maker." The shopkeeper hires poor women and gives them rags and paste, which they make at home, and they are paid on a piece-by-piece basis.
To make 袼褙, just use scraps of cloth and stick them together layer by layer with paste, and then use a soldering iron to dry them into a thin cloth board like cardboard. Then cut the 袼褙 into pieces of shoe soles, and then use new cotton cloth
The soles are wrapped with strips, and finally the multiple layers of soles are glued together with paste and baked to dry. The finished product is ready for sale.
"I can tell at a glance that the cassocks on the soles of these shoes are from Lao Hou's family outside Xiaonanmen. His cassocks are made of rags with linen in the ends. The soles are only made of six or seven layers. The key is to mix the paste with soil.
The straw pulp of the paper is hard and thick when it is not peeled off. When you peel it off, you can even see the straw stems - it is really a real product. It is generally not used by large shoe stores, and is mostly sold to small shoe stores that do rural business.
And hawkers, there are also a lot of in-house retail sales.”
Li Ziyu took Zhao Gui to find Lao Hou's house outside Xiaonan Gate. Lao Hou recognized it as soon as he saw it. As for where it was going, he couldn't tell. He had to sell these soles to various shoe shops a month.
Vendors sell thousands of pairs wholesale, and they can sell hundreds of pairs here and there on the storefront. Even if you exclude the share of shoe stores that do not retail soles, the remaining number is still considerable. How can vendors and clerks remember who bought them.
What's more, judging from the wear and tear of the soles, the shoes have been made for more than half a year. Many of the hemp threads on the soles are broken, and holes are almost worn out in some places on the soles.
This meant saying nothing. Li Ziyu was disappointed and was about to leave. A shop assistant suddenly interrupted: "Aren't these the same batch of shoe soles sold to Changyu?"
When the store clerk said this, Lao Hou also remembered that these were indeed the soles he sold to Changyu.
Why do the store clerks and bosses remember this? Because the quality of this batch of shoe soles was particularly poor. The price Changyu offered was so low that most shoemaking workshops were unwilling to accept it. In the end, Lao Hou took it, but he made it clear that the quality was not guaranteed.
.So the material used for the soles of this batch of shoes contains a lot of straw pulp. There are only five layers of cloth lining.
As for why Changyu ordered such a batch of low-quality shoe soles, Lao Hou had no idea. Anyway, he and Changyu had money and goods, and it would be over once they were sold. But what he was sure of was that all the soles of this batch were sold.
Gave it to Changyu, no other customers.
Li Ziyu got this important clue, asked Changyu's address, and quickly took Zhao Gui to Changyu to learn about the situation.
Changyu's store is in Beicheng - on a deserted street near Xiaobei Gate. It is a small shoe shop with one opening. The arrival of Li Ziyu and Zhao Gui immediately caused a commotion in the shoe shop, and the shopkeeper hurriedly came out to greet them.
They nodded and bowed politely. When they asked shopkeeper Xiang Hou about the batch of low-quality rice coats, the shopkeeper's face turned ugly. He offered tea and bowed and took out red envelopes. With great difficulty, Li Ziyu finally asked shopkeeper Xiang Hou.
He explained that he was here to investigate the case, regardless of whether his shoes were good or bad.
"Did you make these shoes here?" Li Ziyu showed two burnt soles.
The shopkeeper took it, took a closer look and said that it was indeed his product. Except that the soles were imported from the Hou family, the twine used to hold the soles was from his family.
Li Ziyu remembered what the shopkeeper said and asked: "It is said that the soles of these shoes were not made by the shop assistant..."
Changyu's shopkeeper nodded and said: "It's true that it's not made by my staff. My shoe shop is small and all the work is outsourced to others."
Changyu is a small shop with limited strength. Apart from the shopkeeper, there are only two assistants. The business volume is very small and unstable. Therefore, the business model is to wholesale the soles, uppers, and twine and outsource them for processing to women from poor families. Press a pair
pay.
As for why he ordered such a batch of low-quality 袼褙 soles from shopkeeper Hou, the shopkeeper said with a guilty look on his face: "The price given by the customer is really too low, and the shop really wants to do this business, so he made this move."
It turned out that six months ago, a customer ordered 500 pairs of cloth shoes from him, saying they were a reward for his workers. But the price was very low, only half the price of ordinary shoes.
"...For this price, there is still a 95% rebate," the shopkeeper said with a wry smile. "We have to follow the common practice and have to pay a small fee to make it. But it is rare for a small shop to have such a big deal. The shopkeeper was confused for a while and became obsessed with money.
Xinqiao, just... just... agreed."
Since it was so cheap and he wanted to make money, he naturally had no choice but to rely on fake products. Fortunately, the other party also said that as long as there were no problems after wearing them for ten and a half days, the sale would be considered a success. Naturally, he tried his best to think of it.
I found a way to cut corners.
"Since the store opened, although it is not a time-honored brand, this is the first time that it has made shoes like this. I am really ashamed."
Li Ziyu asked: "Who bought these shoes?" (To be continued.)