Xiangfan, a prefecture, which is a place where military strategists must compete for, has left several brilliant strokes in Chinese history.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, heroes emerged. Cao Cao first captured the land of Jingxiang before he could reach Jiangdong, and then the Battle of Red Cliff. After the Battle of Red Cliff, various forces even started a series of battles around Jingxiang, leaving behind wonderful stories such as Liu Bei borrowing Jingzhou, Guan Yu flooding the seven armies, and Lu Meng crossing the river in white clothes, causing Guan Yun to be defeated and left Maicheng...

Even if some of the interpretations are excluded, only those famous people who have been fighting for these cities are enough to show the importance of Xiangfan.

As for later generations, in that normal long river of history, Xiangfan became the most important line of defense for the small Southern Song Dynasty court in a peaceful corner to fight against the Yuan people. For this reason, many heroes sacrificed their lives here, and some novelists even created a legendary story about Guo Jing defending Xiangyang for the country and the people.

So, when Li Ling, who had seen these wonderful stories, stood in front of Xiangfan City and looked at the ancient state city in front of him, his mood was still quite strange.

Although under the rule of Dayue, Xiangfan is no longer a place for military strategists, nor is it a frontier, the city with towering walls and novel structures is still amazing, and I can't help but take a closer look.

This Xiangfanzhou City is actually formed by two cities, one is Xiangyang and the other is Fancheng. The two cities stand together across the river and are connected by a stone bridge. In this way, two cities and one city make the image of the entire state city become three-dimensional.

Perhaps the scale of a city is not as large as Suizhou, but when the two cities merge into one, it will be lively and bustling, and the scale is far beyond the size of a small Suizhou city.

When Li Ling looked into the city gate, he saw the bustling market at a distance, and there were countless shops set up along the street. As for the people on the street, they were even more crowded and crowded. In it, it made people unable to believe that there had been or were famines here. People lived here and never had to worry about food or anything else.

Walking on the bustling streets, Li Ling and the others were a little dazed. Is this still the land of Huguang that he knew? Is it true that even Xiangfan had reported that more than 100 victims died of hunger and cold?

Such questions came to the peak when they came to a grain shop where many customers entered and left. Because the price of grain on the sign outside the store was 18 ounces, it was as conscientious as the price of grain offered by the Shen family in Suizhou.

Several people watched and walked along the way, and finally stayed in an inn that was not very conspicuous. Then when there were no one else around, Yang Zhen couldn't help but express his doubts: "Sir, this is too strange. This Xiangfan is completely different from the Xiangfan we thought. What's wrong with this?"

Although the others were not in a hurry to speak, they could only look at their expressions and infer that they had the same idea, so everyone turned their eyes to Li Ling and waited for him to give an explanation.

After pondering for a while, Li Ling laughed and said, "Actually, this is not unexpected. Today's Xiangfan may not be the Xiangfan yesterday. Don't forget that the court reported to the court that there were disaster victims in Xiangfan who died of hunger and cold, but last year, it was almost half a year. Isn't the local government still responding?

"And after that, the court has sent officials to investigate. No matter how brave they are, at least they must do their best on the surface. If a big city like Xiangfan and Wuchang needs to be stable, they must remain stable. In the worst case, people will have to see nothing wrong from the surface."

After thinking about it carefully, they nodded: "What the adults said is that, as the court sent people to Huguang for inspection, the first thing they had to go to was Wuchang and Xiangfan. As for other prefecture cities, they could make arrangements after knowing the whereabouts of the adults."

"That's the case, so they asked Xiangfan to restore it and did not dare to do anything like blatantly seizing the people's land. So, Fan Cai, the two big families in Xiangfan, extended their hands to Suizhou. Since they could not get any benefits in their hometown, they naturally had to extend their hands longer." Li Ling sneered, "We will investigate the things they do. Now the first thing I have to do is to solve the problem in Suizhou."

As he said that, he looked at Li Moyun again: "How about it, have all the things arranged by those people before done?"

Li Moyun smiled and nodded: "Don't worry, young master, the person we sent to first will naturally have done this little thing, and they will never notice it."

"Very good, then let's start to act as planned." Li Ling grinned and showed her white teeth, "Just start with the three money houses in the Fan family!"

...

As one of the top wealthy families in Xiangfan and even Huguang, the Fan family has a lot of industries in the city, involving all aspects. Among them, three money houses divided into various parts of the city are considered one of the pillar industries of the Fan family, and are not even under the trading of grain.

As a specialist in this industry, Fan Changyuan has a very high status in the family and is a strong competitor to the next generation of heads of the family. He is shrewd and has outstanding abilities. In addition, his versatile methods of making friends have indeed won over a large number of uncles and brothers in the clan, and he is a real power figure.

However, recently, Fan Changyuan was not in the mood for the queen mother, just because his clan brother Fan Changyue actually got an opportunity to make a lot of money and make great contributions to the family. That is to go to Suizhou and control the local land through grain trading. Once it is really successful, it can at least bring back thousands of acres of land to the entire Fan family, which is enough to make him work hard for decades.

It is obvious that the old patriarch is favoring Fan Changyue. He is obviously not a direct descendant of the eldest son, but he can still get such an opportunity to show his face. And at the critical moment when he is about to decide the candidate for the next generation of patriarch, isn’t this going to push him to the position of patriarch?

What made Fan Changyuan even more dissatisfied was that recently, Fan Changyue even asked his money house to cooperate with him to buy grain in Suizhou. To this day, he has taken out more than 200,000 taels of silver, which completely exceeded the bottom line of the money house's expenditure. If someone hadn't deposited 100,000 taels of cash in the money house before, I was afraid that the store would not be able to deliver the money to the customer.

But even so, the family asked me to cooperate with Fan Changyue. I don’t know what those uncles who were the decisions were thinking, and whether they were all confused!

Fan Changyuan, who was full of complaints, sat in the account room in the backyard of the money house, looking through the several account books from time to time, but after a while, he threw them aside. The upset in his heart made him unable to calm down and do things.

And just then, the shopkeeper of the money shop knocked in and said: "Sixth Master, a guest came in front of him and said he wanted to withdraw the money."

"Just give it to him. Do I have to ask about this little thing?" Fan Changyuan said angrily. When did this capable subordinate become so troublesome?

The shopkeeper hesitated for a moment before saying, "But... but what he wants to bring in is 100,000 taels of silver, which is not enough in our warehouse."

"What?" Fan Changyuan changed color suddenly, and his body, who was leaning against the chair, was straightened. "You said he wanted 100,000 taels? Did he use jade pendants or silver notes?"

Generally speaking, today, the transactions of bank accounts in various places are similar to those of later banks, which rely on savings and lending. However, unlike later banks that rely on certain interest to absorb private funds, today's banks do not pay interest, but give the people who save money a security guarantee. Then they lend the money they absorb and get more profits, which is a huge profit without capital.

However, such a transaction is difficult to do after all, and only aristocratic families or huge merchants with considerable status in the local area can enter, because only in this way can the people believe that you can ensure that you will not be able to pay back your money.

In addition to having a very high entry threshold for practitioners, the money shop itself also has a series of regulations and arrangements for safety. For example, in addition to issuing silver notes that can be exchanged for silver, customers with huge deposits will also issue jade pendants that can prove their identity. Generally speaking, the role of jade pendants is still above silver notes.

The customer who had to take away 100,000 taels of silver like today obviously had a jade pendant to rely on his trust. Fan Changyuan asked this question to beware of possible actions such as false claims or forgery of silver notes.

But the shopkeeper replied, "He has a jade pendant, and I still remember the appearance of the customer, but he would not be wrong. Half a month ago, he escorted a hundred thousand taels of silver to deposit it into my bank."

"Is that right..." Fan Changyuan really had nothing to say, but then frowned again, "Why did he suddenly come and bring the money?" Seeing the shopkeeper shaking his head, he couldn't sit still, so he immediately stood up and walked out, "I'll talk to him, you can invite someone to the living room to talk." This matter is of great importance, and he dare not be negligent at all.

A moment later, in the living room beside him, he met a subordinate who accompanied Li Ling and a subordinate who was naturally the one who deposited the silver in the Fan family's money house before, but now the decision was changed to Li Ling, who had just arrived in Xiangfan.

"Dare you dare to ask the guest's name?" Fan Changyuan asked casually after the ceremony.

"I am not worthy of being the surname Ling." Li Ling still used his pseudonym and responded casually, "I came here today just to withdraw silver. I wonder if there is any specialty for the expensive number? If not, please take out the silver quickly. I still have urgent needs."
Chapter completed!