The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Chapter 19 Wei Tianjue and the cornucopia

Li Guangjin couldn't help but become happy when Wang Wenlong asked about the royalties.

""The Scholars" has been published and printed. Shuangfengtang and Yuxiong's bookstore are working hard to get the printing done and sold out. Many customers are rushing to buy it, but they just complain that there is no stock. Now more than 1000 copies have been sold. It's still because of Xian My novel is so well written!"

Wang Wenlong nodded and felt quite satisfied. According to the share ratio of several people, he has now earned more than 200 taels, and this is just the beginning, and it will only increase in the future.

Seeing that Wang Wenlong wanted to withdraw money, Li Guangjin smiled and said: "Brother Yu Xian asked me to pay you the subsequent royalties for the lithographic version of The Scholars, as well as the profits from the embroidery copy."

"This bookstore is my property. If Brother Xian has no place to put his money, you can store it on the cabinet of Brother Yu's bookstore. You can withdraw it at any time for use, and you can earn eight percent interest every month."

Wang Wenlong was quite surprised that the interest rate was so high.

After Li Guangjin explained, Wang Wenlong remembered that at this time, these stores had a small deposit business, absorbing deposits from ordinary people and giving high interest every month.

All because the Ming Dynasty was unable to enter the silver standard era after destroying its own treasure by issuing excessive banknotes.

As the business of the Ming Dynasty gradually prospered, transactions all over the world could not be completed with that little silver stock.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the entire Ming Dynasty was in a state of silver shortage. In the decades after the Longqing Switch, the Ming Dynasty absorbed more than two-thirds of the world's silver production.

From the national court to the merchants in the market, there is a lack of liquidity.

As long as the market is not too chaotic, you will not lose money if you really have money to invest in business in this era.

Without such confidence for commercial prosperity, Emperor Wanli would not have had the chance to institute an exaggerated tax supervision system. In other dynasties, such arbitrary taxation would have long since confiscated the profits of industrial and commercial businesses.

In other words, this means that the commercial potential of the Ming Dynasty has not been fully developed at all. As long as the ruling method of the Ming Dynasty can be slightly modernized, such as setting up a central bank to invest and lend money to these small business traders and promote trade, the Ming Dynasty will It is possible that the fiscal and tax revenue will directly increase by [-]%.

It's just that the bureaucrats were happy to rule inefficiently and take less responsibility, while Emperor Wanli only wanted to receive money and didn't want to reform the system, so everyone in the court just sat back and watched the Ming Dynasty make do with it.

Li Guangjin had already guessed that Wang Wenlong was going to get money today, and had already prepared his more than 500 taels of manuscript fees and more than 200 taels of dividends.

The 700 taels of silver weighed more than 40 kilograms. Wang Wenlong would not be stupid enough to carry them back to Gao Yin's house, so after taking them out, he directly asked Li Guangjin to store them on the counter of the bookstore, which could be regarded as helping Li Guangjin's business.

I wrote notes on both sides, and it was already noon when all the work was done.

Just after ordering the waiter to run out and order food, the three of them sat down when they suddenly heard a commotion on the street.

Several strong men were carrying a sign that said Gao Yin was collecting taxes, and they pulled a man dressed as a gentleman and pushed him to the car.

"How dare you deny the money you owe our Mr. Wei! I must go to the Yamen and show you!"

"Sir, please forgive me, there is really no gold or silver coming out of that basin!"

The fat gentleman cried for his father and begged repeatedly, and finally asked the store clerk to bribe him with several large gold ingots before he was finally let go.

Then I saw a group of gangsters carrying a sign and breaking into the shop outside the shop, and in a moment they took out a tattered bronze tripod.

"You dare to play tricks after using our Master Wei's cornucopia. You are impatient with this kid. If you don't know how to raise him, I will give it to someone else to raise him!"

The group of people cursed and left carrying the cauldron, fearing to be avoided by pedestrians on the road.

Wang Wenlong couldn't help but ask: "Who are these people?"

Li Guangjin glanced at Li Bajin and said with a sneer: "He is not a subordinate of Eunuch Gao."

Li Bagjin suddenly felt embarrassed and stood aside.

Li Guangjin explained: "After Gao Yin arrived in Fujian, he attracted many scoundrels. The biggest one among them was Wei Tianjue. He was a deceitful sorcerer. He became jealous after being favored by Gao Yin." "He said that he There is a cornucopia, as long as you put one ingot into the basin, it will become two in two days, and four ingots in four days."

"Then he forcibly sent the cornucopia to the merchant's home and asked them to raise it. When he sent it, he put one ingot into the basin in front of the merchant. After a few days, he asked the merchant to get one and a half yuan back, pretending I kindly said that the other half is a reward for the merchant."

Wang Wenlong was stunned when he heard this: "What's the difference between this and robbing money?"

Li Guangjin smiled bitterly: "There seems to be no difference."

……

"Where is the beauty of the sky in a good time, and who has the pleasure of enjoying it..."

A few days later, at Gao Yin's mansion, Gao Yin listened to the rehearsal of "The Peony Pavilion" performed by the Fuzhong theater troupe and asked the maid to serve him while drinking a cup of thick bird's nest soup.

He hooked his fingers and said to Wang Wenlong, "The drama was changed well. How did you go about catching Li Dan?"

Wang Wenlong smiled and said: "Father, that woman is at Li Dan's house. I must find an opportunity to seduce her."

"Well, this part is sung well..." Gao Yin nodded, "You should also hold on tighter."

Wang Wenlong didn't know what Gao Yin's purpose was in troubling Li Dan, so he delayed it as long as he could.

Gao Yin squinted his eyes while watching the play, and then said: "Wang Wenlong, when will you finish the entire "Peony Pavilion"?"

Wang Wenlong said: "I'm not very good at singing. If my father-in-law can hire two string masters for me, it will be much faster for me to teach those actors how to sing."

In the past few days, when Wang Wenlong taught these actors to learn and sing Kun Opera, he realized how troublesome it was.

The "Peony Pavilion" in Wang Wenlong's memory is Bai Xianyong's version. After hundreds of years, the tunes of Kun Opera are somewhat different.

Although the opera singers Gao Yin brought him had excellent singing skills, their cultural level was poor and they even had difficulty memorizing the lyrics. If some Kunqu tunes had been changed, they would need to be corrected one by one to bring them out. .

It is difficult for Wang Wenlong to sing the arias accurately by himself, let alone teach his disciples. It would be much easier if there were a few string players who knew the temperament to help.

"The figure here needs to be changed. It's not charming enough. Let's go back and think about it. Should we add some sleeve skills here?" Gao Yin nodded and said, "Just follow your method. I must perform this play before I celebrate my birthday. When the time comes, It will be sung at the birthday party.”

After the explanation, Wang Wenlong was about to retreat when Gao Yin waved him closer again.

Gao Yin said: "You grew up in the West, and you must know a lot of stories about Western countries. Do you know Jiyi Mountain in Luzon?"

Wang Wenlong was stunned. He knew that Luzon was the largest Luzon Island in the Philippine Islands in later generations. Jiyi Mountain was probably a translation. He also traveled to Luzon Island in his previous life, but he tried hard to think about the name in his mind. He called the place by name, but found that he found nothing.

Wang Wenlong shook his head.

Gao Yin looked at him and said, "I guess you don't know. By the way... is it true that people in Luzon are extremely rich?"

Wang Wenlong explained:

"Luzon was a trade transit point for the Spanish. The products there were not rich, but because many Ming merchants went there to trade, it left the impression that the products were rich. In fact, most of the goods sold in Luzon They are all sent from Tianzhu."

Wang Wenlong felt that his description had been simplified as much as possible, and he did not mention the concept of a colony or the Spanish Governor's Palace.

But Gao Yin still looked puzzled.

(End of this chapter)