Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1793 Dumping shop

The dumping shop is actually the furnace room of the Qing Dynasty, and all kinds of disadvantages are also indispensable.What kind of scissors eat silver, oil wax, flat size, color improvement, and added weight are all there.However, this is still within the tolerance range of ordinary business people.What's more, it's not easy to open this kind of business, it's about money, there is no threshold, hard background can't open it, and you have to have a strong ability to identify, such things as filling lead ingots have a long history, and it is difficult to identify them before they are broken. of.In reality, sometimes it is not possible to cut the ingots, and it all depends on the hands of the shop assistants.

There are not many dumping shops in the city of Guangzhou, the oldest and the brightest signboard is "Jufenghao".This dumping shop is an authentic century-old shop. In the past, Franji came to do business, and the cross silver cakes that were brought out for payment are said to be presided over by his family.Not only are many big-name merchants in the city dumping silver ingots from him, but most of the chief secretary's treasury silver in Guangdong comes from his family.

The front door of the dumping store was not big, and a heat wave rushed to the face before entering the door.Although gold and silver were sold in the workshop behind the gate, in fact it was only the distance between the front and back rooms.Can't play the role of heat insulation.

The counters of dumping shops are taller than normal shops, but not so tall that you have to raise your arms to reach them.One is to let customers see the scene of cutting and melting the money inside, so as to avoid disputes, and the other is to prevent strongmen from jumping into the counter to rob the money-so there are no tables and chairs in the store for entertaining guests that are often found in other large stores .

Shopkeeper Xiaoshen, the son of old shopkeeper Shen, is in charge of the counter today.His neck was a little crooked, so he was nicknamed "Shen Gongbao".Although "Shen Gongbao" is not very old, his eye for color is not inferior to Naifu's. He only needs to take a look at most of the silver, and he can tell the approximate quality of it, which is almost the same.

Shopkeeper Xiaoshen was busy at the counter.The dumping shop business is very busy.In the process of circulation, silver is cut smaller and smaller, and in the end it becomes a pile of broken silver pieces with messy color and weight, which is very troublesome for both accounting and payment.Therefore, merchants everywhere have to send the scattered silver taels received to the shops for ingots every other day.All kinds of scattered silver taels received in the yamen had to be converted into official ingots.

Seeing an Australian "official messenger" coming, "Shen Gongbao" hurried up to greet him.

"... I don't know if the official came to the small shop, what can I do for the small shop? Our shop sells, and I am very self-made..."

Li Ziyu said that you're welcome, I'm here to ask you to identify the origin of the silver ingot, and take a look at the quality of the silver ingot by the way.Then he took out the silver ingot.

"Shen Gongbao" took it and saw something wrong, why, because he didn't recognize the name on the silver ingot.

According to the rules, as long as the silver ingots from the dumping shop will be cast with the name of the shop and the fineness of the silver ingots.This is equivalent to a trademark, but also a guarantee of reputation.But he had never heard of the name cast on the twelve ingots.

There were not many dumping shops in the society at that time, and it goes without saying that there were no small places with little circulation of silver ingots. Only big commercial ports and administrative centers had dumping shops.As far as the entire Guangzhou prefecture is concerned, only this prefecture and Foshan town have dumping shops, and there are no more than fifteen shops in the same industry.Even in the whole country, there are not many dumping shops.Therefore, most of the shopkeepers of dumping shops can tell where the silver ingots are cast by identifying the name on the silver ingots, and know the reputation of the name.

Shops and common people are willing to use a name with a good reputation. If the reputation is mediocre or the name is unfamiliar, you will not be at ease when you receive such silver ingots. If you want to come to a dumping shop or a pawn shop, please ask the staff to look at it. .

Since the name is so important, there are criminals who forge the name stamps of well-known dumping shops and forge silver ingots.In order to maintain their credibility and facilitate peer identification, each trade name has a secret mark on the stamp, which cannot be seen by outsiders, but real and fake peers can tell at a glance.

The name on the silver ingot is "San Jiang Mao", which is the first time Xiao Shen has seen it.As far as the city of Guangzhou is concerned, apart from the silver ingots cast by the same industry, the foreign silver ingots are either from the two capitals, or from Suzhou, Hangzhou, Hankou, Jiujiang and other major commercial ports.Basically, shopkeeper Xiaoshen knows the names of these silver ingots.Only this one has never been seen.

Unfamiliar brand names often contain risks, and shopkeeper Xiaoshen has to be cautious.

"The name of this silver ingot has never been seen in this small shop." Shopkeeper Xiaoshen said, "It should not be made by a local trader. It is also not a common foreign trade name in the local area. It is probably dumped by a new trader from other places."

"How is the color?"

"Shen Gongbao" looked at the silver ingot, the fineness and color on it were marked as [-].This is roughly in line with his first impression: this silver is by no means full color.Put it on the stamp and weigh it, and the weight is exactly the same.

"Master, just look at the silver like this. It's not a big problem to see the color of [-]." Shopkeeper Xiaoshen said, "However, I always feel that there is something wrong. I don't know if I can let the shop open this silver ingot and take a closer look." ?”

Li Ziyu had obtained permission in advance and agreed immediately.

Shopkeeper Xiao Shen took the silver ingot to the clipper.These clippers are specially used for cutting silver ingots.At that time, wherever there was money coming in and out, there must be this thing.This is a pair of scissors with a short blade and a long handle. The handle on one side is fixed to a large and heavy wooden stool, and the other side can be opened and closed. "Shen Gongbao" put the silver ingot on the scissors blade with his left hand, held the scissors handle with his right hand, and sat down on the scissors handle suddenly with his body bent.With a sound of "clang", the silver ingot was broken into two halves.

Shopkeeper Xiaoshen picked up the silver ingot and took a closer look. It was not filled with lead, and there were also honeycomb-shaped faults in the gap, and the silver was not bad at all.

However, holding this ingot of silver in his hand, shopkeeper Xiaoshen always felt a little "not worth it", which was probably the intuition of their profession.

Now "Shen Gongbao" is in a dilemma. If he says "no problem", not to mention that if something goes wrong, the government will hold him accountable and he can't afford to walk around. The reputation of "missing his eyes" will have a great impact on his reputation .

But when you say "there is a problem", the other party will naturally ask what the problem is.He couldn't speak again.

"Shen Gongbao" thought it over and over again, but he decided to call his father out.Immediately, he called an apprentice and asked him to drive away and call the old shopkeeper back.

Shopkeeper Shen was not in the shop at all—he went out to visit customers.Hearing that the money that his son didn't dare to make a conclusion came to the store, he hurried back.When I went to the store and saw that there was an official in Australia, I had to perfunctory again.Only then did he come to the side and listen to his son say such a thing.

Shopkeeper Shen took the broken silver ingot, closed it again and looked carefully at the font size, with a strange expression on his face.After looking at it for a long time, he put down the silver ingot and asked, "Dare to ask the messenger, where did you get this silver ingot?"

Li Ziyu said: "This is stolen goods recovered during the investigation. I'm here to ask you to identify the origin and fineness." Seeing the expressions of shopkeeper Shen and his son, he felt that there might be something wrong, and asked, "Why? Silver Is it fake?"

"Whether it's true or not, I don't dare to say." Shopkeeper Shen said, "However, I know the origin of Sanjiangmao's name."

It turned out that this "Sanjiangmao" was also a dumping shop, and the store was not in the city, but in Foshan.Foshan is one of the "Four Great Towns in the World", with prosperous industry and commerce and a large population.Naturally, the circulation of money is also very developed. Sanjiangmao has the right time and place, and the business is doing very well.

However, "Sanjiangmao" encountered a fire several decades ago. Not only was the store burned to the ground, but the shopkeeper in the shop did not escape their lives, and even the shopkeeper's family members were said to have died in the fire.The shop was completely wiped off the ground.Not a trace was left.

The shop is gone, and the silver ingots stamped with its name are naturally less and less.Gradually, it completely disappeared from the market.However, the older generation, especially the people around Foshan, still have the memory of "Sanjiang Mao".Old shopkeeper Shen naturally also remembered this matter, and recognized the stamp of this name.

"...The stamp is real. I can see it." Shopkeeper Shen said, "But this silver ingot may not be from Sanjiangmao."

Silver is a metal that is easily oxidized. Although the ancients did not understand the physical and chemical changes of metals, they knew that silver would turn black over time.Shopkeeper Shen said that the silver ingots of the Sanjiang Mao brand reappeared after decades, or someone had saved these silver ingots to no avail - this is possible, and it is not uncommon to store silver for decades or hundreds of years.But the "old silver ingots" that have been going on for a long time are completely different from the silver ingots that Li Ziyu brought.

The second type, which is also the most likely, is that someone somehow obtained the original "San Jiang Mao" stamp and cast a batch of silver ingots by himself.

"Is the color true or false?" Li Ziyu wrote down shopkeeper Shen's words in his notebook.

Shopkeeper Shen remained silent, picked up the silver ingot and looked at it carefully, played with it for a long time before saying, "This is Zhu Tiyin."

"What silver?" Li Ziyu didn't understand, so he asked.

"Zhu Tiyin." Shopkeeper Shen said slowly, "It is said that it comes from the caveman's silver in Yunnan and Guizhou. It is said that it was there in Han Dynasty, but it has not been much. In this dynasty... after the She'an Rebellion in the Ming Dynasty, the Zhu that flowed out The mention of silver is also almost cut off, and the little old man also followed his father to see a piece of silver jewelry used by the noble chieftain of Dongman."

"Master Shen, is this Zhu Tiyin silver?"

"It's not our silver." Shopkeeper Shen spoke very cautiously, because the jewelry made by Zhu Tiyin is also in circulation in the market, so it's not appropriate to cut off other people's money with one sentence, "I just heard that Dongman used a few Different kinds of ores are mixed and smelted, but I don’t know what kind of ore and how to smelt it. It’s all a secret method passed down from generation to generation by the barbarians in those stream caves. We are a businessman in Guangzhou’s mansion. No way to figure it out."

(End of this chapter)