Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1794
Shopkeeper Shen said that although this kind of silver has existed since ancient times, there are very few ingots on the market, and it is mostly used to make jewelry heads, which is quite rare.

"This silver is slightly lighter than white silver, but the color of the treasure is good and it is not easy to turn black. There are big families who cast it into small ingots for people to play with." Shopkeeper Shen said, "If you say that it is directly cast into such a large ingot, the small one is still a head." See you soon."

"So it's fake money?" Li Ziyu saw him going around and talking for a long time but didn't tell the truth, so she asked directly.

"I dare not say that," shopkeeper Shen shook his head repeatedly, "Zhu Tiyin has been in circulation since the Han Dynasty, and it has been in circulation in the past dynasties. Even in this Guangzhou market, the price of Zhu Tiyin jewelry is higher than the price of silver jewelry."

Li Ziyu returned to the Municipal Bureau with this information, and Wuxiang heard that it was "not silver", so he told Li Ziyu to take all the gold and silver, including the broken ingots and jewelry, from Widow Wang's house to Jufeng for inspection.As a result, except for the five ingots of ten taels of silver and a few pieces of jewelry that were made of Zhu Tiyin, the others were all silver and gold of different colors.

"The silver and jewelry definitely did not belong to this poor widow, they must have been left by the deceased or the suspect," Li Zhenguo said.

"If it is the suspect, I think he will probably take Zhu Tiyin away. After all, this is not a common thing, and keeping it may be the cause of disaster. I think the silver is likely to belong to the deceased. The suspect thinks it is just ordinary silver. .” Li Ziyu expressed his opinion cautiously.

Overall, it looks like the deceased is highly likely.According to Zhu Tiyin, shopkeeper Shen, although it is not uncommon in Guangzhou, it is not everywhere.And most of them appeared in the form of jewelry, and now the deceased actually brought 50 taels of Zhu Tiyin at once, which forced people to associate the deceased with the area of ​​Yunnan and Guizhou.

Wu Xiang recalled several issues that the Bureau of Mu had recently raised at the meeting of the cadres of the naturalized people, especially the recent issuance of new coins, and everyone should pay close attention to the abnormal phenomena in the financial and economic aspects of the market——Zhu Lifting silver ingots is definitely a suspicious point.

He immediately decided to report the situation to Mu Min first.At the same time, the following series of measures were taken: a notice was issued to all police stations and security checkpoints in the city, asking them to find out if there were any heads in the area under their jurisdiction; a revelation of the identification of the corpse was published in the "Yangcheng Express"-although the corpse did not have a head, he still sent it to the police station. It is hoped that the family members of the deceased can confirm the identity of the corpse through the description of physical characteristics.Finally, continue to investigate the evidence and clues found.

The investigation work inevitably fell on Li Ziyu and Zhao Gui.This time, their task was to investigate based on the victim's clothes.

The evidence of clothes recovered from the scene is not small. There are seven or eight pieces of men's trousers, coats and short shirts, as well as unburned clothing fragments and shoe soles taken out of the furnace.After comparison, the size is the same as that of the headless corpse, so it should be the clothes of the victim.

Although there are clothes, things are not necessarily simple.Guangzhou is a major commercial port and the center of regional politics. There are many officials, gentry and merchants, and "department stores gather".Not only the province produces a wide variety of silks and satins, but also textiles from all over the country, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Japan.All kinds of colors, textures, weaving methods... I am afraid there are thousands of them together.Although there are industry associations such as the Satin Association and the Jibei Association that can inquire, the workload is still huge-not to mention what the store buys, the association may not know everything.Maybe I have to ask each family.Even if you ask which store the item is from, the clerk may not remember who the item was sold to.What's more, if the material is to be turned into clothes, it has to go through the hands of a tailor.There are twists and turns, and any link may be broken due to the forgetting of the parties.

Li Ziyu thought over and over again, and decided to start with the leftover soles of the two burnt shoes.

There are far fewer shops selling shoes than there are shops selling satin cloth.Much easier to check.Li Ziyu immediately went to a well-known local shoe store, and asked the shopkeeper to show him what kind of shoe the sole looked like, and where it might be sold.

The shopkeeper got the two scorched soles, looked at them carefully, and said, "This is not something from a small shop."

"Which shop is that? Can you tell the shopkeeper?"

"Neither of them. It's made by the women in the family." The shopkeeper said, "Please look at it, my lord, the thread used on the sole and the upper and the stitching of the tapered collar are not the method of the store."

Li Ziyu was greatly disappointed, and secretly scolded himself for being confused: not many people can wear shoes in the store, and most of them still make their own shoes—he used to wear shoes made by his mother.

"...But the soles of these shoes do have a name." 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 wore shoes, they were homemade, or straw sandals or cloth shoes.Traditional female celebrity craftsmanship, making shoes is a basic skill.Most of the shoes in the shoe shop are purchased by the wealthy and leisure class.However, those who are really sophisticated also focus on making shoes by their own women and servants, and seldom care about shoe shops.

However, regardless of whether shoe shops or rich families make their own, most of the soles are purchased from outsiders-making soles is hard work.

This business is exclusive to making shoe soles, and it is commonly known as "shoe making".The poor women hired by the shopkeeper will distribute rags and paste, and they will make them at home and get paid on a piece-by-piece basis.

This is to make 袼褙, which is to use scraps of cloth strips to glue them layer by layer with paste, and then dry them with a soldering iron to form a thin cloth board like cardboard.Then cut the 袼褙 into pieces of soles, wrap the soles with new cotton strips, and finally glue the multi-layered soles together with paste and dry them.It is a finished product that can be sold.

"I knew the 袼褙 on the sole of this shoe was from the old Hou's family outside Xiaonanmen. The 袼褙 in his family used rags with linen in the head. The sole material is only six or seven layers. The key is that the paste is mixed with soil. The straw pulp of the paper is hard and thick if you don’t peel it off, and you can even see the straw stems when you peel it off—it’s really a good-looking product. Large shoe shops generally don’t use it, and most of them are sold to small shoe shops doing village gang business And hawkers, there are also a lot of home-grown snacks.”

Li Ziyu took Zhao Gui to Laohou's house outside Xiaonanmen.Lao Hou recognized it as his own at a glance.As for where he will go, I can't tell.He has to sell thousands of pairs of this kind of soles to shoe stores and vendors a month, and he can also sell hundreds of pairs of sporadic ones on the outside.Even if the share of shoe shops that don’t sell soles is removed, the remaining numbers are still considerable, and vendors and shopkeepers can’t 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, and many of the hemp threads on the soles are broken, and holes are almost worn out in some places on the soles.

This is equivalent to saying nothing, Li Ziyu was about to leave in disappointment.A shop assistant suddenly interjected, "Aren't these the same batch of shoe soles that were sold to Changyu?"

When the shop assistant said this, Lao Hou also remembered that these were indeed the soles of the shoes he sold to Changyu.

Why do shopkeepers and bosses remember it?Because the quality of these soles is particularly poor.The price offered by Changyu was so low that most workshops would not accept it. In the end, Lao Hou accepted it, but he made it clear that the quality was not included.Therefore, there is a lot of straw pulp in the sole material of this batch.The cloth cover was only pasted five layers.

As for why Changyu ordered such a batch of low-quality 袼褙 soles, Lao Hou didn't know anything. Anyway, he and Changyu got money and goods, and it was over after they sold it.But what he can be sure of is that all these soles were sold to Changyu, and there are no other customers.

Li Ziyu got this important clue, asked Changyu's address, and quickly took Zhao Gui to Changyu to find out the situation.

However, Changyu's storefront is in Beicheng - on a deserted street near Xiaobeimen, it is a small shoe shop with a front door.The presence of Li Ziyu and Zhao Gui immediately caused a commotion in the shoe store, and the shopkeeper quickly greeted them with a bow and bow.After hearing them ask about the batch of low-quality sausages that the shopkeeper Xianghou had bought, the shopkeeper's face became very ugly, and he offered tea and bowed and took out red envelopes.Li Ziyu finally explained to him that Mianbai was here to investigate the case, regardless of whether his shoes were good or bad.

"You made these shoes here?" Li Ziyu showed two burnt soles.

The shopkeeper took it over, took a closer look and said that it was indeed his family's goods, except that the soles of the shoes were imported from Hou's family, and the hemp thread used for the soles of the shoes was his family's.

Li Ziyu remembered what the shopkeeper of the shoe shop said, and asked, "It is said that the soles of the shoes were not designed by the shop guy..."

Changyu's shopkeeper nodded and said: "It's true that I didn't plan to do it. My shoe shop is small, and I outsourced it to others."

Changyu is a small shop with weak strength, except for the shopkeeper himself, there are only two employees.Business volume is small and unstable.So the business model is to batch the soles, uppers, and twine, and send them out for processing to poor women.Pay as you go.

As for why shopkeeper Hou ordered such a batch of low-quality 袼褙 soles, the shopkeeper said with shame on his face, "It's because the customer's price is too low, and the shop really wants to do this business, so it made such a bad plan."

It turned out that half a year ago, a customer ordered [-] pairs of cloth shoes from him, saying it was a reward for the buddy.But the price is very low, only half of the price of ordinary shoes.

"...For this price, there is still a [-]% rebate," the shopkeeper said with a wry smile, "you have to pay for it according to the usual practice. But it is rare for a small shop to have such a big business. Xinqiao, just... just... agreed."

Since it is so cheap, but also to ensure that it makes money, it is natural to rely on counterfeit and shoddy products.Fortunately, the other party also said that as long as there are no problems after wearing it for ten and a half months, the transaction will be considered successful.He naturally tried his best to think of ways to cut corners.

"Since the store opened, although it is not a time-honored brand, it is the first time to make such shoes. I am really ashamed."

Li Ziyu asked, "Who bought these shoes?"

(End of this chapter)