Chapter 119: One Loss, One Gain
Not only can they eat and live well here, but they can also get money?
In the ordinary corvee labor in Qin State, the servants usually had to provide their own clothes and food. The government only provided basic meals and no wages.
Being able to receive wages for performing labor service was a special regulation made by the Qin State in order to attract more young and middle-aged men to Qin.
But this rule has disappeared for a long time, and they didn't expect to encounter it again here.
Xu Yi ignored their shock and calmly placed the bundle on the stone table in the middle of the yard. When he opened it, he saw a pile of copper coins.
"These are your wages for this month, ten skewers per person. Line up and come collect them!"
Everyone's eyes were green with envy as they looked at the copper coins piled up like a mountain. This was really money! So much money! They probably couldn't save up this much money in their entire lives.
One thousand coins a month. The price of grain in Qin was about thirty coins per stone. One thousand coins was enough for them to buy more than thirty stones of grain. One acre of land only produced ten stones of grain now, which was more money than they could get from farming at home.
Snap——
Tu couldn't help but slap himself hard, grimacing in pain, "I really wasn't dreaming!"
He rubbed his face, his facial features distorted but he was still laughing, making everyone laugh.
Xu Yi laughed, "The Queen Mother has always been generous. As long as you are willing to work hard here, I will definitely not treat you unfairly."
"Yes! Yes! We promise to listen to the Queen Mother." Tu quickly agreed.
Chen He was also very happy. If he got this money, his wife and children at home would not starve to death even if they did not have the strength to farm.
"Mr. Xu, could you please let us send this money back home?"
"Of course you can. You can decide for yourselves. If there is anything you like in Yongcheng, you can send it back." Xu Yi said with a smile.
Military service has always meant asking family members for money, food, and clothing, but they never expected that one day they would actually be able to send money home.
Everyone was so excited that they were almost in tears. They knelt on the ground and said, "Mr. Xu, please express your gratitude to the Empress Dowager on our behalf!"
When one person knelt, everyone else followed suit.
"How could Xu Yi deserve to receive such a great gift on behalf of the Queen Mother? Don't worry! I will tell the Queen Mother the truth. Get up quickly, get up quickly!" Xu Yi was extremely panicked and hurried forward to pull them.
Yet he couldn't help but admire the Queen Mother's decision.
Although nobles do not care about this money and often spend it lavishly, they rarely spend it on ordinary people.
He was right about the person.
What he didn't know was that as soon as Zhao Yuanxi paid out a sum of money, he earned it back on the other side.
After being away for several days, Gao Sheng finally returned to Yongcheng safely. He brought back the rare things he bought from Han and Wei and returned to Liyang Palace in a grand manner.
When Zhao Yuanxi heard the news, he couldn't help but feel happy and simply waited for him at the palace gate.
Gao Sheng got off the carriage and saw the Queen Mother standing there. He was startled and quickly knelt on the ground and saluted, "Greetings, Queen Mother!"
"Get up quickly! We haven't seen each other for a long time--" Zhao Yuanxi looked Gao Sheng up and down, and really couldn't say that he seemed to have lost weight.
How could he have lost weight? He had clearly gained weight. Seeing that he took good care of himself, Zhao Yuanxi felt relieved.
"You've worked hard!" Zhao Yuanxi said with high emotional intelligence.
Gao Sheng wanted to show Queen Dowager Zhao how hard he worked, but he had been eating too well these days and his body shape was a little out of control.
"It is a blessing for me to serve the Empress Dowager."
After being out for so many days, Gao Sheng still couldn't change his accent. Zhao Yuanxi had gradually gotten used to it. "Tell me! What interesting things did you encounter on the road?"
"Not many interesting things, but a lot of good news. I sold all of the dozen or so carts of celadon that Your Majesty had prepared. I also met a merchant from the State of Zhao and got in touch with Prime Minister Guo Kai. He seemed to like the celadon very much and wanted to do business with me."
"He said that if the Queen Mother was willing to set up a porcelain workshop in Zhao State, he would be willing to sell the celadon throughout Zhao State and only give her a 10% share of the profits!"
As the official porcelain of Qin State, the Celadon Workshop needs to share half of its profits with the Qin State's Shaofu, but if another workshop is set up in another country, it seems that it can indeed make more money.
Zhao Yuanxi did not directly agree with Gao Sheng's idea.
Especially after she got to know Guo Kai's character, she became even more distrustful of him.
Guo Kai was corrupt and accepted bribes, and extorted money from the people everywhere, but he was quite trusted by the current King Zhao Yan, who even appointed him as prime minister.
If you try to get the skin of a tiger, you must be careful that the greedy tiger may bite you back.
"If he likes it, you can have someone deliver it to him, but it's just a matter of payment and delivery. I won't do anything else for now."
Qin was strong, so there was not much risk in selling celadon to other vassal states. However, if a workshop was set up in another country, it would not be protected by Qin. At that time, we would be at the mercy of others, and how much profit we could make would depend on what others said.
Gao Sheng was somewhat disappointed, but he couldn't help but argue, "Guo Kai is the Prime Minister of Zhao, he will certainly keep his promise. Moreover, since you are negotiating with him as the Queen Mother of Qin, he will certainly not dare to go back on his word."
"You are right! But just because he dares not does not mean he cannot. What's more, money can move people's hearts. I am just the Queen Mother of Qin who is under house arrest. How much of a deterrent can I be to him? We should not earn money that does not belong to us. We should just do our own business!" Zhao Yuanxi reminded.
The State of Zhao was rich and its nobles were extremely extravagant. In particular, the current King of Zhao employed treacherous officials, which exacerbated the corruption among the upper class of Zhao. Rare items like celadon were naturally highly sought after, and even reached the point where they were hard to come by.
If she could open a porcelain workshop in Zhao State, the money she could earn would probably fill up the hall in front of her. It would indeed be a profitable business, but the risk was too high.
If she were Guo Kai, she wouldn't be able to guarantee that she wouldn't take action, not to mention that Guo Kai wasn't a good person, so there was no need to bet that he would abide by the rules.
Zhao Yuanxi would never do such a stupid thing as putting his lifeline in the hands of others.
Gao Sheng lowered his head and said, "The Empress Dowager is right, it is I who am stupid!"
"It's a pleasant surprise that you can reach a cooperation with him. When the time comes, just find a team to deliver the celadon he wants. You will also get a share of the profit." Zhao Yuanxi said with a smile.
Originally, we just wanted to open up the trade route with Han and Wei, but now we can unexpectedly connect with the Prime Minister of Zhao. How can this not be considered a great thing!
Just because Guo Kai has evil ambitions doesn't mean he can't earn himself some gold coins.
Gao Sheng's frown softened slightly, and he took out another thing from his arms. "There's one more thing. The Queen Mother asked me to deliver a message to the old lady of the Zhang family. When I left Korea, she sent me a reply."
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