According to the agreement, Lu You arrived at Xichun Tower on time.

Su Changsheng is a very emotional person and nostalgic person, so after making a lot of money in Jiaxing Mansion, he entered Hangzhou, opened a Beiguolou branch, and returned to the place where he once fought.

In Hangzhou, after making a lot of money and gaining fame because Zhao Gou likes Kaifeng-style mutton, he quickly bought Xichunlou, which was once famous in Hangzhou but was on the verge of bankruptcy due to poor management.

Speaking of which, the reason why Xichunlou went bankrupt was also a good thing Su Yonglin did.

Because he let Sun Yuanqi, who was then the doctor of the Jinbesi, die in Xichun Tower.

As a private high-end restaurant, an official died in the restaurant. It was a very unlucky thing. Many officials felt that Xichun Tower was ominous and were unwilling to come.

For a time, Xichunlou lost a large number of high-quality customers, and ordinary civilian customers could not afford the high-end catering services of Xichunlou. In addition, Beiguolou's strong rise and dispersed a large amount of passenger flow, the situation of Xichunlou became even worse.

After struggling for several years, the old shopkeeper of Xichunlou finally couldn't hold on and died in internal and external troubles.

After he died, his incompetent son, as his family property became increasingly scarce and could not support his high expenses, looked for people everywhere to try to eliminate the negative assets of the Xichunlou family.

However, the colleagues in Hangzhou knew this well and no one was willing to buy a restaurant that was destined to lose a distinguished guest. They believed that buying Xichun Tower at this time would be like doing charity.

This group of exquisite egoists will not do charity.

The unscrupulous son was in a state of turmoil, his price dropped again and again, and in the end he was almost desperate, Su Changsheng finally appeared.

Of course, Su Changsheng was not here to do charity, so he slashed his price and bought the entire Xichunlou at a very low price.

Afterwards, Su Changsheng spent some money and selected the best materials from all over the country to renovate the entire Xichun Building, and then used tricks frequently.

The royal family of the Song Dynasty believed in Taoism, so the people also preferred Taoism. The famous Taoist priest Huangfu Tan often went to and from the palace and had a close relationship with the royal family. He had a great reputation throughout Hangzhou Prefecture.

At that time, Su Changsheng took advantage of the opportunity that he often delivered food to Zhao Gou and met Huangfu Tan in the Hangzhou Palace. He gave gifts and treated them to dinner many times, and established a relationship with him.

This time, Su Changsheng used his own connections to invite Huangfu Tan to Xichun Tower to perform two grand rituals.

First, it is a sinister ritual used to save lives and is very recommended to the ancestors.

Another yang affairs and ritual will be used to pray for blessings and disasters, eliminate disasters and resolve disasters.

The two rituals were circulating for six consecutive days, with great momentum and a lot of manpower and material resources, so that the whole of Hangzhou knew about this.

After the ritual, Su Changsheng beat gongs and set off firecrackers, making the red flags fluttering. Under the attention of everyone, he untied the plaque of Xichun Tower written by Huangfu Tan himself, and then invited Huangfu Tan as the first distinguished guest of Xinxichun Tower to enter Xichun Tower for dinner.

So there is no doubt that Xichunlou has resumed its previous business prosperity, and it is even better than Xichunlou in its heyday in the past. Countless officials and nobles came in a flock of money to show their pursuit of Xichunlou.

Although the high-ranking officials also like the rough northern flavor of Beiguolou due to Zhao Gou, as a Jiangnan person who has grown in the south for decades, he is of course more suitable for the soft and delicious taste of the hometown of fish and rice.

After Xichunlou recovered, many Jiangnan cuisine chefs were recruited and many new dishes were created, which attracted the attention of the officials and nobles to enjoy the food one after another. Su Changsheng made a lot of money for this.

After experiencing the turmoil of the Ming and Song wars and several turmoils in Hangzhou, Beiguolou and Xichunlou both stood firm with official and personal relationships. Su Changsheng used his secret power and official relationships to protect the basic structure of the restaurant.

After Zhang Shi became the Privy Councilor, all this will be even simpler.

He relied on Zhang Bai's power to protect Beiguolou and Xichunlou, making Beiguolou and Xichunlou an important point of contact together. While making money as the activity funds for the Second Operation Group of the Skynet Army and the Liangzhe Branch of the Revival Association, he also provided important information.

Win-win.

Lu You usually meets Su Changsheng in the private room on the third floor of Xichun Building.

This time, when Lu You arrived, Su Changsheng had already purchased his favorite wine and food and invited him to eat more.

Lu You was not polite either. He sat down with a smile, picked up the chopsticks and feasted, and then talked about what Zhang Feng hoped that Su Changsheng could cooperate with him this time.

"In other words, Comrade Jingfu needs us to play the show together and perform a play for Shen Qiao and Zhou Linzhi to watch?"

"Yes, Comrade Jingfu said that if this action is successful, it will help him gain the military power in Hangzhou openly. In this way, when the army goes south, he can assist the army and successfully control the entire Hangzhou and all the high-ranking officials of the court, and end all this."

Lu You swallowed a piece of mutton and smiled and said, "Jingfu has been waiting for this day for a long time, so Comrade Changsheng, no matter what, please help to make things easier and continue to perform this drama so that the comrades in the army will not be angry."

"I am not an army commander, and I can't control the military affairs."

Su Changsheng smiled and said, "But I can submit Kaifeng for this, please order the Chairman to cooperate in Kaifeng. Don't worry, the whole process will not take a long time, and there will be a result in about ten days. Then... have you eaten a little too much? Comrade Wuguan?"

Seeing Lu You eating Xichunlou’s special dish - Jiangnan-style braised lamb, Su Changsheng found it funny.

This dish was jointly created by the chef Jiangnan and chef Beiguolou North after Xichunlou reopened. It combines the roughness of northern cuisine with the fineness of southern cuisine. It is known as a dish that brings the deliciousness of mutton to the extreme and becomes the dish of Xichunlou Town.

Almost no dignitaries in Hangzhou have eaten this dish. Many dignitaries are very fond of this dish and are obsessed with it. Even if they don’t have time to come to Xichunlou to order takeout, they have to eat it several times a month.

Lu You is not a noble man, but after being entertained by Su Changsheng once, he became deeply obsessed with this dish.

"Every time I eat it, I feel that this dish is extremely delicious. Lamb is the most wonderful meat in the world... It's just that it's too expensive. With my current salary, I can only eat it once a month's salary. Then this month, the whole family will have to drink the northwest wind, so I can't take this opportunity to eat more?"

"Is that so low now?"

Su Changsheng smiled and said, "The finances of Xichun Tower and Beiguo Tower are calculated independently. The income must be used to support the activities of the Tianwang Army and the Revival Association. Although I am in charge, I cannot eat and drink privately. So I have to spend money on this table of food. I am planning to ask you for the money for food."

"ah?"

Lu You was stunned and loosened the chopsticks holding a piece of mutton, and the mutton fell directly into the bowl.

Seeing him stunned, Su Changsheng couldn't help laughing.

"I'm fine, I'll treat you to food. So many times, which time did I pay for the payment? But you have to figure it out that I also live on my salary."

"Does the dozens of acres of thin fields in my family be the same? After that, I wanted to go to Zhongdu to be an official. If my family goes there, Zhongdu will also allocate land. I am not worried about this."

Lu You felt relieved and shook his head and said, "Besides, the salary of the Ming Dynasty has always been very real. With your position, the salary will be low? I am the worst. The salary is still enough to spend. After the war was over, the salary was dropped sharply. I can't blame me, right?"

"You can't blame me."

Su Changsheng nodded with a smile.

As far as he knew, after the nominal destruction of the Southern Song Dynasty and the end of the Second Ming and Song War, the Hangzhou court faced great financial difficulties.

On the one hand, the losses caused by the war need to be compensated, and on the other hand, the state capital of the Ming Dynasty went south to control high-quality commercial resources in Jiangnan and control the maritime trade routes, so that the Hangzhou imperial court's finances were almost exhausted and could not be sustained.

It's all up to the money of selling salt to support it.

I felt that life would be difficult to go on like this, so the Hangzhou court, whose finances were almost exhausted, had to lower the salaries of officials to make ends meet. Starting with the head of Shen Ge, the salaries of all officials were collectively reduced.

However, this decline is very distinctive to the Song Dynasty.

The decline of senior officials was relatively small, and Shen and others only dropped by about 10%. The higher the official positions, the less they dropped, and the lower the official positions, the higher the decline. It is said that the salaries of officials in Hangzhou City generally dropped by about 60%.

This is very fatal.
Chapter completed!