Chapter 2003
Yang Chengye's response was very candid and he did not try to deliberately conceal his attitude. It wasn't that he didn't think of being friendly to facilitate the deal, but he subconsciously felt that those cover-up methods should not be able to deceive the seemingly shrewd boss Gong in front of him. The other party's purpose of coming to Yangzhou was not simple in the first place, and he would definitely be wary of himself. If he tried to deliberately show his kindness, it would be counterproductive. So Yang Chengye simply expressed his thoughts directly to see if the other party was willing to accept it.
Gong Shiqi did not expect that this man who visited in the middle of the night was so upright and actually had the idea of buying these two ships of salt and then sending him out of the country. Compared with the groups of people who came in the morning, this salt merchant named Yang was obviously much more kind. He was at least willing to buy these two shipments of salt at the market price, and he did not show any intention of buying or selling by force.
But from Gong Shiqi's point of view, we can't just give him the salt and walk away. These two ships of salt are just tools. Gong Qi Qi needs to use these salts to achieve his own goals, and the other party is trying to resolve potential conflicts through acquisitions. Gong Qi Qi can only say that this man thinks things are too simple. .
"Boss Yang, I'm afraid I won't be able to meet your request." Gong Shiqi shook his head and said: "If you really want to buy a large amount of salt, then I can help you match up and supply it in sufficient quantity at a low price for a long time. The price is even better than what you get from Jianghuai. It’s even cheaper to collect salt from local salt farms!”
Instead of agreeing to Yang Chengye's proposal, Gong Shiqi used this opportunity to persuade Yang Chengye to join the Ningbo Salt Merchant's sales system, which made Yang Chengye dumbfounded.
For salt merchants, changing the purchase channel actually means changing their own camp. It is impossible for Huizhou salt merchants to go to the salt fields controlled by Shanshan and Shaanxi salt merchants to collect salt. As for changing the source of goods to the salt fields in Ningbo, it is even less likely. It's possible.
When Haihan first started building new salt fields in Ningbo, Yangzhou salt merchants tried to contact him, hoping to completely monopolize the production of these salt fields and participate in the daily production and operation of the salt fields. But it is obviously difficult for both parties to reach an agreement on this issue. When operating the salt farm, Haihan has always firmly controlled the supply of goods in its own hands. Even the local salt merchants in Ningbo can only act as regional distributors. As for participating in the management of salt farms, these are privileges that only local officials with a certain level of real power can enjoy. No matter how rich the Yangzhou salt merchants are, they still cannot cross this status threshold.
Being able to only be a regional distributor means that you have to act based on the faces of the Haihan people. This is of course an unacceptable condition for the Yangzhou salt merchants. Therefore, neither the Huizhou salt merchants nor the Shanshan-Shaanxi salt merchants ended up with the same situation at that time. Agreements have been reached at several Ningbo salt farms that have not yet started production. In their view, even if these new salt farms can be put into operation within one or two years, their scale will be limited after all. Their production capacity will at best meet the local demand in Ningbo and will not have much impact on the traditional market of Yangzhou salt merchants. The worst is to lose the market of one or two state capitals.
Of course, what happened later was completely beyond the expectations of Yangzhou salt merchants. After the Ningbo Salt Farm was put into operation, its production capacity not only satisfied the local market, but also soon began to spread to surrounding areas. The market that was originally controlled by Yangzhou salt merchants was soon affected by the low-price and high-quality Ningbo salt, which gave them a strong sense of crisis, which led to the subsequent attacks.
Yang Chengye shook his head and said: "Forget about long-term supply, I am only interested in these two shipments of salt. If Boss Gong can give Yang this face, then this transaction can be regarded as making a friend."
Gong Shiqi said: "Then I might as well put it bluntly. If you want to mediate the conflict between Yangzhou salt merchants and Ningbo salt merchants in this way, it will definitely not work."
Seeing that the other party had seen through his true intention, Yang Chengye simply asked directly: "Then according to Boss Gong's intention, how can we solve the current situation?"
Gong Shiqi said: "It's very simple. The Yangzhou salt merchants hand over the real culprits behind the previous attacks, and we can talk about other things slowly. If this condition cannot be met, then don't mention other things first. ”
Gong Shiqi believed that the other party might represent a certain camp of Yangzhou salt merchants, so he also wanted to take this opportunity to send out a signal and clearly inform the other party how to resolve the matter. Of course, he didn't have too many expectations for the Yangzhou salt merchant's response, and the other party was far from reaching the end of the rope, so they would definitely not cooperate as he requested.
As expected, Yang Chengye immediately got a headache after hearing this. He originally wanted to come here to solve the problem, but he didn't expect that the Ningbo salt merchant was so stubborn and instead raised a new problem for him. Things did not develop in the direction he expected, and the situation became increasingly complicated.
Yang Chengye shook his head repeatedly and said: "I can't understand what Boss Gong said. I have never heard of any attacks, and I don't know what you mean by the real culprit behind the scenes. Boss Gong probably has something. Misunderstood? ”
Of course, it was impossible for Yang Chengye to betray his friend Lu Kangtai to an outsider he had never met, but from this he also realized that the purpose of this group of Ningbo salt merchants in Yangzhou was not as simple as selling salt. They were indeed well prepared and had a clear purpose. , obviously trying to use the excuse of selling salt to stimulate local salt dealers to come forward. But the funny thing is that all the influential local salt merchants are still hiding in the dark and watching. The only one who came forward to negotiate a peace with the other party was him, who originally wanted to stay out of the matter.
Yang Chengye also knows his shortcomings and is not good at negotiating with others. Being able to muster the courage to come here to meet with the other party is the best he can do. He simply couldn't meet the conditions proposed by the other party, and had to respond carefully to avoid being taken advantage of by the other party.
"It's so difficult for me!" Yang Chengye could only lament his difficulty in his heart. Whether it was Lu Kangtai, the Hui salt merchants, or the new Ningbo salt merchants, it seemed that everyone he met today was trying every means to make things difficult. The questions he, and everyone, asked were beyond his capabilities. Ever since he took over the Yang family business, it seems that he has rarely encountered such a difficult situation. As for how to solve it, he is now in a bit of a mess and it is difficult to consider more issues.
"Since the conditions can't be negotiated, I don't think there's any need to waste everyone's time. Boss Yang should have understood our attitude. We might as well take this news back and discuss it with others to see if there is a better solution. Solution." Seeing that there was basically no possibility of reaching an agreement, Gong Shiqi didn't want to waste time on this kind of conversation. Gong Shiqi only regarded Yang Chengye as a lobbyist sent by a certain salt merchant. He did not expect that this man was a big salt merchant with one of the seven surnames of Huizhou salt merchants. Otherwise, he probably would not have dismissed him so easily. leave. This is also due to his habitual thinking, thinking that local salt merchants will not show up easily. Who would have expected that Yang Chengye, an outlier, would sneak up in the middle of the night to negotiate peace. He felt that he couldn't get much valuable information out of a lobbyist who was running errands, and even the master behind it might not be able to find out. Little did he know that among the entire group of Yangzhou salt merchants, Yang Chengye was probably the only one who had a clear understanding of the two major salt merchant camps. There are people who understand the situation.
Of course, Yang Chengye did not dare to reveal his identity. This visit was extremely dangerous. If his identity was exposed, he might be detained directly by the other party. At this point in the negotiation, Yang Chengye seemed to be unable to offer any other conditions to bargain with the other party, and the other party's attitude seemed to insist that the attack should be resolved first. This was a knot that was difficult for him to untie.
Yang Chengye left the dock with disappointment and took a boat across the river to go home again. This bold late-night visit did not achieve the purpose he expected, but it was not nothing. At least he had confirmed the other party's special intention from Gong Shiqi, which might play some role in subsequent negotiations. But what he is more worried about now is that this group of people will not leave Yangzhou. Then Lu Kangtai and the Huizhou Business Council will continue to put pressure on him. How should he deal with it next?
"Perhaps you should have been more patient just now, so that you could get more information out of that person." After Yang Chengye left, Ji Yuanqing appeared. He had just listened to the entire meeting between the two in the dark. Regarding He still thought that Gong Shiqi's performance was a bit too hasty.
"You are right, but don't we have another source of information? One is more hostile to us, and the other is less hostile. Of course, the more hostile person is more suspicious of the attack." Gong Shiqiyan explained his thoughts concisely and concisely: "Of course, the most important thing is that I have pried open the mouth of this guy we caught earlier. Who wants to use force against us, we will know when we ask next time."
Ji Yuanqing said: "With only one source of information, it is still a bit one-sided after all. The person just now was not hostile to us, so it is more worthy of a trick. Even if it can provide us with some information with reference value, it would be good."
Gong Shiqi thought for a while and admitted that Ji Yuanqing's view was reasonable. Since the man just now was not obviously hostile, we should really chat with him for a while and learn more about the information related to the local salt merchants. After finally getting in touch with such an "industry insider", he was let go so easily. It was really a mistake that was not too big or too small.
But now that the decision had been made, there was no turning back. The two of them went to the bottom cabin to interrogate the person they had caught earlier. Sure enough, Gong Shiqi's previous verbal offensive worked. The man knew that there was no hope of escaping from these ruthless people, so when he saw Gong Shiqi again, he took the initiative to ask to ensure that he could leave Yangzhou Mansion and settle down somewhere else.
This trivial matter was naturally not difficult for Gong Shiqi. He immediately promised to send him to a very safe place and give him dozens of acres of land, so that he could live an honest life farming the land. Nowadays, the agricultural reclamation and development zones on the island of Taiwan are in need of a large number of laborers. Even if hundreds more people come, Gong Shiqi can arrange them easily.
Although the man was dubious about Gong Shiqi's promise, he had no choice but to believe that Gong Shiqi would fulfill his promise, and immediately told everything he knew. The owner he works for is the Wang family among the Shanshan-Shaanxi salt merchants. Its economic strength is also ranked among the richest among the Yangzhou salt merchants. The purpose of coming here tonight is just to intimidate Gong Shiqi and others. Force them to leave Yangzhou as soon as possible.
When this gang of gangsters came to cause trouble, they didn't bring many weapons with them, so Gong Shiqi quite agreed with this man calling his behavior "intimidation". Of course, it is also possible that the other side has underestimated its own strength, thinking that as long as there are more people, it can scare the Ningbo salt merchants from resisting. Who knows that there is an experienced ruthless man like Gong Shiqi sitting here, and as soon as he comes up He didn't say three sentences before he started taking action.
But no matter what, in Gong Shiqi's view, the other party has fully exposed its hostility and chose to use force to solve the problem. This is already highly suspected to be related to the previous attack.
"Wang Yu? This name seems a bit impressive..." Gong Shiqi thought for a moment and then remembered: "He is a person from the Shanshan Salt Merchant."
The name given by the prisoner is also briefly recorded in the information held by the Ministry of Security. The three most powerful families among Shanshan and Shaanxi salt merchants are the He, Lu, and Wang families, and the current head of the Wang family seems to be Wang Yu. As for the reason why Wang Yu wanted to attack them, the prisoner could not tell. He only admitted that if he could drive Gong Shiqi and others away from Yangzhou, he could obtain it from Wang Yu. He received half of the reward of three hundred taels of silver, and the remaining half was distributed to his subordinates.
As for the previous attacks that occurred in several nearby state capitals, the prisoner refused to acknowledge them, and he did not know who was the real culprit behind the scenes. And according to what he said, the thugs under Wang Yu were actually just a bunch of gangsters like them, and there was no special team equipped with muskets. The clues Gong Shiqi was looking forward to seemed to come to an abrupt end.
"You're right. We should have had a good chat with Boss Yang who came to buy salt. Although this guy provided a lot of information, not much of it was what we needed." Coming out of the cold and stuffy bottom cabin Afterwards, Gong Shiqi couldn't help complaining about his previous mistakes in judgment again.
Ji Yuanqing said: "Brother Gong, there is no need to be too pessimistic. Since this low-level trick has hit a snag here, maybe they will use some more radical methods next. It's just that the enemy is hiding and we are showing. There is no more accurate intelligence source to determine when they will launch, so be more careful.”
Gong Shiqi nodded and said: "Brother Ji is right. Obviously many local people don't want to see us stay here anymore. The struggle will probably escalate next!"
(End of chapter)