Dong Kangping and his family really came to the West Mountain of Linjiang and settled down in the West Mountain Villa.
Today, Xishan has long lost its former prosperity. Of course, this is Dong Kangping's first time in Xishan, and he has no idea how prosperous it was in the past.
The buildings are still there, but many are empty.
There are still thirty guards left in the Xishan Villa. They are Xishan people who were eliminated from the Divine Sword Army. They received the favor of Fu Xiaoguan and are still guarding the villa carefully.
The building of Xishan Research Institute has become an empty shell. Yu Wendao seems to have no intention of reopening the institute, or perhaps he simply doesn't know how to start doing this.
Only Xishan Academy, which once had thousands of students, now has only a hundred or so left.
These children stayed behind because their families did not go to Wu Dynasty - these families still guarded the young master's fields.
For some unknown reason, Yu Wendao did not take back the land that Fu Xiaoguan once owned, and he did not even take back the Xiacun land that was once granted to Fu Xiaoguan by Emperor Xuan.
Did he forget?
Obviously not.
Perhaps he kept this place and the Holy Duke's Mansion in Jinling City as a memory of the past.
In the wing room of the inner courtyard of Xishan Villa, Dong Kangping and Qin Bingzhong sat opposite each other by the warm stove.
"Mr. Qin...it's almost time for the students to go on holiday. I heard Mo Wen will be returning to the capital this year, and Ding Fang will probably be coming back too. Why don't you go back for the New Year?"
Qin Bingzhong stroked his beard and grinned, "Dingfang, I sent him a letter telling him not to come back. What's the point of coming back? Chengye and Ruoxue are both in the Wu Dynasty now. Wouldn't it be awkward for him, as a father, to come back and meet the emperor?"
Dong Kangping also laughed and shook his head. "To be honest, it was all because of the involvement of this humble official."
"That's not right. It was Cheng Ye's own idea to follow Xiaoguan, and now Cheng Ye has become the director of the scientific research institute... Tell me, is this his good fortune? Where did this good fortune come from? It came from Xiaoguan Fu."
"Chengye occasionally wrote to me, saying that although he was very busy over there, he felt that his life was very fulfilling and that it was the life he wanted. He never regretted it."
"Ruoxue seems to be free and is currently working at the research institute. Last time she wrote me she was researching something... cylinders or something. Anyway, I don't understand what she's talking about, but she seems to be very happy. It means she's found the path she wants to take, and that's the right thing to do."
Dong Kangping nodded slightly and said, "Master Qin, please move in with me. Now that I am free from official duties, I would like to ask you for advice on the Neo-Confucian Code."
Qin Bingzhong said without pretense, "If I really move here, will it cause you any trouble?"
"You're being a bit polite. It's just a matter of having an extra pair of bowls and chopsticks. Besides, we can always have tea and chat. Isn't that better?"
"I still have a few jars of good wine. They were left to me when I left. They've been cellared for three years. The taste is incomparable to Xishan Tianchun. I'll ask a few people to bring it over later."
"Hahaha……!"
Xishan Villa, which had been silent for two years, came alive again.
Dong Kangping brought only a few people with him, just his wife, three maids and five servants, but laughter could often be heard in the yard.
Dong Kangping was once a talented scholar in Jinling. Now he and Qin Bingzhong sat and discussed philosophy, talking about the Neo-Confucian code and the ancient books of sacred learning. Although his days were ordinary, they were extremely peaceful.
During one of these days, an old man came to Xishan Villa one day. He was Cai Xi, the old manager of Yu Fu Ji.
He came to the wine-making workshop in Xishan to buy a batch of wine, and chatted with Dong Kangping in the study in Xishan Villa for a whole night.
The next day, Cai Xi left Xishan Villa and returned to Linjiang. The shop called Yu Fu Ji closed for the first time. No one knew where the old shopkeeper had gone, but the aroma of wine in the shop was still strong.
…
…
The current manager of Jinling Sitong Money House is Chang Yu, the cousin of the Minister of Revenue Chang Huan.
Chang Yu, who once managed the Chang family's huge business in Jiangnan Road, has been in charge of Sitong Money House for more than three months. He has a general understanding of stocks, but after careful study, he has discovered many problems.
He really wanted to cancel this thing, but Chang Huan did not agree, because the three main stocks of Sitong Money House are Chen's Salt Industry, Zhou's Mining and Lu's Shipping.
These three families raised tens of millions of taels of silver by issuing stocks. If the stocks are closed, they must buy back the stocks from the shareholders.
But now they have invested a lot of money in their respective industries, and they also hold at least 30% of the shares of each.
If they are closed and cannot compensate, more than half of the people in Jinling City have bought their stocks. If they lose their money for no reason, they will definitely cause trouble.
And what His Majesty is most annoyed about now is people causing trouble, so Chang Yu had to give up this idea and never paid attention to it again - anyway, no new stocks will be issued, so let them mess around with these things in the pool.
He did not notice that these three stocks had changed in recent days. Ten days ago, these three stocks were rising steadily, and ten days later they were falling slowly.
The stock investors in Jinling City have long been accustomed to this phenomenon. The stock market is always up and down. Now that the New Year is approaching, some people must be selling. So they might as well buy some more while it is falling.
This situation continued, but there was not much abnormality. Occasionally, it would rise a little one day, and then fall for two or three days, and it would repeat this process until December 28th.
The stock market was closed, and Sitong Money House was closed. Chang Yu took a look behind closed doors and found that these three stocks had traded more than 10 million shares in just 20 days.
This was perfectly normal, and Chang Yu didn't take it to heart at all. Following his instructions, all the account books and documents were stored and sealed, and the market closed for the holiday, with the market set to reopen on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year next year.
The imperial study in the Yu Dynasty palace.
The court is also preparing for a holiday.
Today, the Ministry of Revenue sent a detailed statement of income and expenditure for the year and placed it on Yu Wendao's desk.
This data was of course extremely unflattering, so Yu Wendao frowned and looked at Chang Huan and asked, "Hasn't the white salt market already been taken back by Chen's salt? How come the total tax revenue this year is only over 18 million taels?"
"Your Majesty, the tax revenue from white salt has recovered, but this year's commercial tax revenue is 40% less than last year. This is because Wofengdao abolished the tax-free policy, otherwise it would be even lower."
Yu Wendao was very depressed. "Ordinary people don't have money to spend? I think they are very rich if they buy stocks."
Chang Huan continued, "There are two reasons for this. First, the five former commercial families of our dynasty have almost all moved their businesses to the Wu Dynasty. Second... a lot of goods have flowed into our dynasty from that Free Trade City, and the vast majority of these goods were produced by our dynasty's former merchants."
"Their taxes remained in the Wu Dynasty, but their goods were sold to the Yu Dynasty."
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