I am an immortal in heaven and earth

Chapter 308: Sacrifice Food, Return the Elixir

Sun Bao pulled a few big merchants together and all of them made offerings to Jin Chan: "The food for these twenty ships was not provided by me alone. These few people are all big merchants overseas. Together with me, we built a transit supply port near Siam and put them into the sect."

Jin Chan noticed that they were forming cliques, but he did not refuse. Instead, he was very happy because these merchants were able to go out to sea because they all had at least medium-sized ships.

Besides, it is not uncommon for Xu Jia's subordinates to form cliques and factions. This wave is not the only one. There are merchants in one group, scholars in another group, gods and spirits in another group, Xu Jia's direct descendants in another group, and those without roots who huddle together for warmth in another group.

Many merchants wanted to acquire shares in Jin Chan, so that they could install cannons on their ships, arrange fire guns, and build a figurehead of Nanlong Aojia to avoid maritime disturbances and sea monsters.

There is nothing wrong with this. Instead of paying tribute and being exploited, it is better to pay protection fees on a fixed basis. Or your own business will belong to others. Even if you make less money, you can make it back by making a few more trips. Stability is the most important thing.

Jin Chan saw that they all had prosperous fortunes by sea and dared to go out to sea to do business. Each of them was very courageous and resourceful. They were not the kind of people who would follow the trend to go out to sea. Most of them would become pirates or sink to the bottom of the sea to be fed by sharks. Only a few would be able to make a success.

In other words, sometimes these merchants are pirates, sometimes these pirates are merchants, and some even work part-time as Japanese pirates or members of the Longevity Cult.

However, those who can come here have all been checked, and at least they are not the kind of people who go along with the corrupt, but are people who truly want to do stable business.

"We have treasures to offer!" Several merchants chattered in unison, offering to the Golden Toad. One of them took out a seven-foot red coral, which was as big as a room, fan-shaped, with a tree and a rocky foundation under the tree. They flattered him, "I heard that Grandpa Golden Toad has a treasure bowl, but no money tree. This coral treasure tree is made of pearls and other treasures. If you put it on the treasure bowl, it can attract wealth from all directions."

Another person presented a pearl that was as big as a human head and hidden in a giant clam. “This is a thousand-year-old pearl. It was created when a giant clam swallowed up the moonlight in the sea, creating a mirage that has deceived countless people. We recruited brave boatmen to risk their lives to deceive the clam girl and then stole it. It is a top-notch treasure from heaven and earth.”

"This is a map of the nautical geography that I drew for our business route, and I present it to you, old man, along with three pirate ships."

"These are five giant trees from the South Sea that are between fifty and sixty feet long. They can be used as the keel of a treasure ship or to build a palace."

"This is ambergris, camphor, dragon's breath, dragon's blood... several dozen kilograms each, a total of 180 kilograms, the ingredients for making incense, can reach the highest level..."

"This is……"

Including the ten people led by Sun Bao, a total of ten treasures were presented. Each of them was very proud, and it was obvious that they were very proud of these things.

Duobao did not refuse. After all, more gifts are better. He opened his huge mouth and swallowed all the treasures into his stomach, leaving only the large objects outside.

"Since you have become my accomplices, you are merchants under my protection. If nothing else, I guarantee that you will be given the status of an outer sect disciple, which is not bad. You will be considered one of my own."

"Since you worship me, you should know that I only earn good fortune and do good deeds. You should do the same."

"It just so happened that a few days ago, a few treacherous merchants drove up the price of rice and collected money without paying. I took back all my money, including the principal and interest, and left me in debt. In the blink of an eye, the high buildings went up and then collapsed. The victims who looked down on me before, wishing that more people would starve to death, suddenly encountered misfortune and ended up on the streets, becoming victims themselves."

"There were a few who were not worthy of me and couldn't think straight. They hanged themselves and became debt ghosts. They came to me to claim their lives. I showed mercy and transformed them into debt ghosts called golden toads. I made their bodies out of gold and dotted their eyes with gems. Now it's just right for these golden toads to practice with you. Come, come, I'll teach you a fortune god scroll!"

After hearing this, several sea merchants shook their heads and did not dare to accept the talisman. They felt that they had been cheated. This man was not a good person at all. He came to intimidate them right away. This was probably the talisman of the God of Wealth, but rather the talisman of the ghost of debt.

But before they could say anything, ten winged golden coins flew out from the golden toad's back and flew into their brows. Then several green-eyed golden toads with long tongues flew out from his mouth and landed on their shoulders, croaking. At that moment, they immediately understood each other's minds.

"Boss! I'm here to help you make a fortune."

Sun Bao couldn't help but ask, "Great God Jinchan, what do you mean?"

"What do you know? This is called double insurance. It will make you feel more at ease, so will I, and Master. I plan to invest a large sum of money in you, several times more than your net worth. You should keep this money for yourself. In the coming days, if you have families, wives, children, and elders, send them all to Yushan or Dexing. It will be much safer than hiding outside!"

"We offered our treasure out of kindness, but you...you did something like this, which really chilled our hearts!"

"It's all speculation, it's just for profit. I'm the ancestor of merchants. You worship the God of Wealth, but I don't understand what you're thinking. Where can you find something that is risk-free and completely good? Take food for example. If we rely on you for everything, and if something happens next time, you'll probably all be the ones who have invested in us. Wouldn't that cut off our lifeline?"

"As the saying goes, it's easy to get on a pirate ship, but hard to get off. We are not pirates either, but we still have to cooperate with you in depth, so that you don't make money on both sides. There is not much risk, and it is also called prevention. As for the treasure offering, I will give you hundreds of thousands of taels of business to do. Many people beg for treasures, and I have accepted them all. But do you have to do it? There are so many people in the world who worship the God of Wealth, but I have never seen anyone who really gets rich."

The skill that Xu Jia gave to Jin Chan was the ultimate skill for capital circulation, which made him see clearly the nature of businessmen and capitalists. In the early stage, they would give small favors to divide others, and in the later stage, they would swallow them all in one gulp... Even a powerful empire was nothing more than a big piece of fat meat on the table to be shared.

When it comes to the person who understands businessmen best, Jin Chan can be said to be the best, and no one dares to say he is second.

"Don't make a fuss, don't make a fuss. If you continue to make a fuss, I will get angry. What I said before doesn't count anymore."

The long-tongued golden toad sticks out its long, thin tongue, which is like a golden rope, and can hang people alive on the old crooked tree.

Sun Bao and others were very angry, but they did not dare to say anything, nor did they dare to go to Xu Jia or Xu Jidi to complain - they were in the same group.

I had no choice but to accept the constraints and listen to these orders carefully.

"We have opened a factory here recently, freeing some women to work as female workers. We have 20,000 rolls of high-quality silk here, all of which were made by collecting raw silk and raising silkworms and catching cocoons. I want you to sell these 20,000 rolls of silk, and at the same time, collect raw silk and silkworm cocoons from all over the country and send them here."

"Second, there are several crops grown overseas, such as corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and cotton... There are atlases here, and you need to find them. These crops can relieve famine and bitter cold. There is also a kind of wool-producing sheep grown overseas, which also need to be imported. You also need to continue to bring food from Siam and other places here. When the summer crops are harvested over there, you have to continue to bring people over there."

"Third, there is no shortage of copper and iron here, but there is a great shortage of coal. We need to transport more coal here."

"In addition, there are quilts, ready-made clothes and the like. The cheaper the better, and the larger the quantity, the better."

Although Xujia produces silk, silk is not for the common people to enjoy. It is both a commodity and a currency. Moreover, these silks cannot solve the problem of cold weather.

As for planting hemp, retting hemp, spinning hemp, weaving linen cloth..., it is also in progress here. For fields that cannot be used for planting and are uneven, pumpkins can be planted. Pumpkins can grow very large and are also good as a staple food. For fields that are flat, hemp can be planted. Hemp grows fast and does not consume much fertilizer.

However, linen is only suitable for summer clothes and does not keep you warm in winter. Linen quilts are often filled with reed fluff, willow fluff, dry straw, and the better ones are chicken feathers.

Only wealthy families have silk quilts, goose down quilts, or blankets made of fur, which are also very warm.

If there were cotton, or sheep that produced a lot of wool, many problems would be solved.

As for raising ducks and collecting duck down, it can only be said that this is a delicate physical job. There are people doing it, all of them are half-grown children. Not only raising ducks, but also raising cows and other livestock are all done by these half-grown children.

Sun Bao and ten other businessmen remembered what happened here and felt that these were indeed big and stable businesses.

So he stopped being emotional and started talking one by one, answering all these questions, especially asking about the silk production and quality: "Yushan and Dexing counties don't have many mulberry trees planted, even if you include the Poyang area..."

"There weren't many mulberry trees before, but now there are more. Mulberry trees are planted around ponds, and fish are raised in the ponds. Silkworm feces are used as fish feed. When the ponds are dry, the mud at the bottom of the ponds is dug to fertilize the fields. In this way, fish are raised, mulberry trees are planted, and silk is obtained." "These 20,000 rolls of silk have been produced with the combined efforts of the two counties. If we can provide a continuous supply of silk cocoons or raw silk, let alone 20,000 rolls, we can produce 100,000 rolls or even a million rolls."

A piece of silk is worth between 1,200 and 1,800 coins, about two taels of silver, with the difference being the difference between ordinary silk and high-quality silk.

The products made by the textile machines were all of very high quality, but Jin Chan only offered them a price of 800 coins per piece. So even if they only sold it for 1,200 coins per piece, they would still have a profit of more than 8 million coins.

Eight hundred coins for one tael of silver means a profit of 10,000 taels of silver, and that's just the profit here. Just buying raw silk and pulling it from one side to the other also makes a profit, although not much, but a few thousand taels, not to mention buying a large number of quilts and ready-made clothes.

In ancient times, quilts and ready-made clothes were all valuables that could be taken to pawnshops for money. Many people pawned them as winter clothes when summer came, and summer clothes when winter came, in exchange for some working money. Mending was also a tradition passed down from father to son.

This is also why, after a person dies, the custom of giving the deceased a shroud made of paper clothes and avoiding the deceased's clothes is only popular among the upper class and wealthy people. However, they would not burn the clothes. Instead, burning all the clothes became the custom of later generations, because there was no shortage of clothes to wear because the light industry was so developed.

There is a saying: Marry a man to provide you with clothes and food.

If you can solve these two problems, you are already considered a "rich peasant".

"Isn't winter over? Why do we still need these thick clothes and quilts?" Sun Bao said puzzledly: "Next year, it will probably be normal. It's not certain that the south will have heavy snow and freezing temperatures every winter."

Jin Chan said meaningfully: "Do you think you can know what God is thinking?"

Sun Bao was also a perceptive person, and was somewhat shocked when he heard this: "Is it possible?"

Jin Chan said: "The secret of heaven cannot be revealed. We can only do our best to prevent it. You just need to collect it. Take as much as you want. We will take it all and use silk or other things to offset it. If there is still a shortfall, we will give you more money."

"Sure, sure. Just use silk and other things as collateral." Sun Bao's expression changed now.

……

After Jin Chan sent Sun Bao and others away, Xu Zhiyuan met with them again and asked about everything in Nanyang. Especially after they pulled twenty ships of grain, Xu Zhiyuan also realized that Nanyang was a treasure land.

Master Xu is rather aloof, and to meet him, one has to climb a mountain. As Master Xu's father, he is a juren (a scholar) and a typical gentry scholar, so they feel much more comfortable dealing with him. These businessmen also feel that Master Xu is much kinder than Jin Chan, so they try to please him by presenting him with many books, pens, ink, paper, and inkstones, and expressing their concern for local education.

After all, they were threatened by Jin Chan, and all their children and family members would have to move here. It was always a good idea to establish a good relationship with the chief official.

Xu Zhiyuan affirmed their righteous act of sending food, calling them righteous merchants, and sent people to clear the way with drums and gongs to unload the food at the dock. He told everyone that they had food and there was no need to worry, in order to reassure the people, and he returned all the twenty ships of food to the granary one by one.

After all this, the people who had been filled with sorrow and worry suddenly became happy. The grain price, which had previously been twice as high as the previous price (still the result of the regulation by the Golden Toad), also returned to the normal price in peacetime. Some grain stores even panicked and offered 10% or 20% discounts. The people all took out their money to buy grain, and the grain merchants also rushed to release the grain. If they kept it any longer, it would rot in the warehouse.

Grain traders do not have a God's perspective to know that next year will still be a year of great disaster or famine. From today's perspective, continuing to hoard grain will only increase costs. Once the new grain is on the market, the old grain will be even less sellable.

People in the surrounding counties knew that grain was cheap here, so they all came here to buy it, which in turn forced grain merchants from other places to lower their prices as well.

Therefore, although Father Xu only beat drums and gongs, praised the righteous merchants and commended them, he actually also had the effect of educating the people, calming the people's hearts and expanding his influence.

Just like this, it has saved tens of thousands of lives and has done immeasurable merit.

While waiting for the grain to be stored in the warehouse, Xu Jia also received sacrifices from Tongtian Temple.

Li Rentai and his team spent three months building a large altar in San Francisco, America. The altar was on the top of a mountain, three stories high, and made entirely of white marble, with carved railings, the Eight Immortals, and lions...

They followed Professor Xu Jia's sacrificial ritual combined with the Huangtian Sect's "Seven Secret Mantras", piled a large amount of grain on the altar, and began the sacrifice.

Xu Jia wanted more than a year's worth of food for a million people, but they couldn't get it in a short time, so they could only buy several trucks of each type of food, including wheat, flour, soybeans, dried corn kernels, soybeans, rice, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, which added up to about 700 to 800 tons. There was even some sugar, not much, but there were ten sacks.

They all knew that the master was teaching in another world, so they did not dare to neglect it.

There was a flash of white light, and Xu Jia accepted the sacrifices. He sensed a will of the world, and all the food was "deactivated". Alien species were not allowed to come. They could not be used as seeds for cultivation.

I don’t know if it’s because these are crops from the technological age, genetically modified, or polyploid, or if it’s simply the world’s will to resist external influences and maintain its own advantages.

But let it be inactivated, it doesn't matter. As long as it can be eaten and filled up, that's fine.

After the sacrifice was completed, Xu Jia put all the food in the "Rice Bowl". There was a space inside that could even seal a thousand-year-old centipede monster, so it was more than enough to hold all the food.

But this matter is not over yet. People have offered sacrifices, and you have to give rewards in return. Only after give and take can the transaction be completed.

Xu Jia thought about it and opened his mouth, only to see the Ganoderma lucidum pony being spit out from the inner world. After being nurtured by the inner world, as a spiritual root, it cultivated in the fertile field. It was very diligent and had planted many Ganoderma lucidum medicines to supply Xu Jia's practice.

The Lingzhi pony had grown up a bit now. When he saw Xu Jia, he was furious and rushed over to knock Xu Jia over. Xu Jia grabbed him and said, "Come on, spit some saliva!"

Lingzhi Pony couldn't believe it, so he pooped and spit, without any manner, until his legs became weak, his mouth became dry, and his body became weak, and he was swallowed by Xu Jia again.

Xu Jia added some dragon blood essence, and spiritual liquid from boiling water of black fish essence's inner elixir to the body fluid of the immortal mushroom, rolled it into a pill, and exhaled five kinds of Qi. It was so perfect, although it had not been refined by fire, but it was all essence. After reciting the blessing mantra and the Xuanyun mantra a few times, it had incredible power. Although it could not be called a "golden pill", it was comparable to a "lead pill".

This was returned to Ci as a reward.

But unexpectedly, the status of this world is higher. When the pill fell there, it immediately emitted aura and fragrance. The fragrance of the pill filled the air, attracting all the monsters around San Francisco, America, and making them very restless.

Xu Jia also gave back a pair of dragon horns as an encouragement.

Of course, this is the first time, so we are giving a sweet treat. Next, we still have to think about getting something stable and precious to reward them.

"Magic pill!" Li Rentai was surprised that the pill was so magical. He felt refreshed just by smelling it. Even his little brother wanted to get up. You know, he was almost seventy years old.

Then I saw a dragon horn falling down, and it emitted purple electric light and faintly heard the roar of a dragon. Although there was no spirit attached to it, its natural power was undiminished. Moreover, dragon objects were natural magic tools, especially good for feng shui, and could be used to light the dragon veins.

They put the elixirs into glass jars, put them in a safe, and took them back to the temple for research. The altar on the top of the mountain was still guarded by armed men to prevent others from entering by mistake.

(End of this chapter)