Dragon's Origin

Since Wang Sheng consummated his marriage with Mei'er, she seemed to have become much more magnanimous, even addressing Song Yan as 'Sister Yan'.

The letter's seal was intact, the sealing wax unbroken, clearly untouched. Seeing this, Wang Sheng smiled, didn't take it, and said to Mei'er, "Take a look for me, what does it say?"

Mei'er glanced at Wang Sheng, seeing that he was drinking and waiting without any dissatisfaction, her face immediately lit up with smiles. She then happily opened the envelope and pulled out a plain箋.

"Sister Yan is asking you, regarding giving Lizhen Workshop a 50% share, how many gold coins Lizhen Workshop needs to invest, and how much profit can be expected in the future," Mei'er summarized after quickly reading the entire letter, and then repeated it to Wang Sheng.

Wang Sheng wasn't surprised. If the various lords were truly willing to cooperate with Lizhen Workshop, Song State was probably the only one willing to offer a 50% share. This wasn't because Song Yan wasn't greedy, but because Song Yan understood Wang Sheng. Of course, she was also willing to trust Wang Sheng.

"Tell her the truth, grab as much as you can from those lords now. As for making a fortune from real estate, either pretend to do it or just find an excuse to delay it and see what others are doing," Wang Sheng said to Mei'er, not wanting to betray Song Yan's trust. "Figure out the specifics yourself."

"Yes, Master!" Mei'er agreed sweetly. She was happiest with this kind of thing. It would be troublesome if Wang Sheng secretly concealed things from her and flirted with Song Yan.

Mei'er's purchases increased, and the construction of the outer city of the capital alone consumed an unknown amount of materials. On the Lizhen Workshop side, Mei'er also began another revolutionary move.

All settlements for materials delivered were paid by Lizhen Workshop with fixed-amount gold notes, which were then handed over to the suppliers in stacks. The largest denomination of the gold notes was 10,000 gold coins, followed by 5,000 gold coins, 1,000 gold coins, 500 gold coins, 100 gold coins, 50 gold coins, 10 gold coins, 5 gold coins, and 1 gold coin. Silver and copper coins below the value of gold coins were no longer issued as gold notes.

At any time, anyone holding gold notes issued by Lizhen Workshop could go to any of Mei'er's businesses to exchange them for the equivalent value in gold coins.

Who didn't know that Lizhen Workshop's biggest worry now wasn't a lack of money, but having too many gold coins? To store those hundreds of billions of gold coins, Mei'er was forced to quickly build another adjacent ward, tearing everything down and digging large pits to build a massive underground vault using the most solid stone bars and steel plates, supposedly for storing gold coins.

To be precise, it wasn't storing gold coins, but storing storage rings filled with gold coins. A single storage ring held at least hundreds of thousands of gold coins, and many held millions. There were so many storage rings that an entire ward's underground vault was needed to store them.

Those who knew the news were all green with envy and hatred for half a day, then cursed towards the direction of Lizhen Workshop: "Damn nouveau riche!" Their own warehouses were so empty that mice were running around, while this family had no place to put the storage rings full of gold coins. Heaven is unfair!

Did no one have designs on it? Of course, countless people wanted to sweep Lizhen Workshop clean and then go wherever they pleased with the large amount of gold coins. But did anyone dare?

A garrison of three thousand Imperial Guards was stationed around Lizhen Workshop. The location where Lizhen Workshop stored gold coins was guarded at all times by over three hundred highly skilled guards, all elite disciples of the Old Lord Monastery, dedicated to protecting the gold coins.

In Wang Sheng's words to the Grand Master, seeing so many gold coins every day would probably make them sick of gold coins in the future. This was very beneficial for improving the disciples' temperament, because they had to endure the temptation of gold coins at all times. Over time, their hearts would be moved, but they would restrain themselves, which would definitely be more effective than chanting scriptures and worshipping the Dao Ancestor in the Old Lord Monastery.

The Grand Master was, of course, happy. Including the disciples sent out before, a total of at least two thousand disciples were sent to specifically protect the Changsheng Duke's Mansion and the Lizhen Workshop, among other businesses.

In addition to the Old Lord Monastery's guards, the Emperor also sent a team of experts, all eunuchs, absolutely loyal to the Emperor. These experts had been cultivated by the Emperor over the years, and now they were released to be stationed in another direction of Lizhen Workshop, ready to move out to protect Lizhen Workshop at any time.

After all, the Empress had half the shares of Lizhen Workshop, so it was only natural for the royal family to send people to protect it. No one could say a word against it.

All of these arrangements made people feel that Lizhen Workshop was truly impenetrable and extremely safe. The gold coins in Lizhen Workshop were also extremely safe.

Unless someone mobilized a large army to break through the imperial city, Lizhen Workshop would be as stable as Mount Tai, just like the imperial city.

When everyone had this in mind, they would naturally realize that the gold notes of Lizhen Workshop were also as stable as Mount Tai. At any time, as long as you held the gold notes of Lizhen Workshop, you would definitely be able to exchange them for gold coins in full.

Initially, only the small suppliers disliked the trouble of carrying gold coins, so they directly asked for the gold notes of Lizhen Workshop. Later, when Lizhen Workshop guaranteed that it would only issue as many gold notes as it had gold coins, even the large customers began to use the gold notes of Lizhen Workshop.

After all, gold notes were just thin pieces of paper, much lighter than gold coins. Even millions of gold coins were just a few hundred sheets of paper, convenient to carry, easy to calculate, and saved the trouble of counting gold coins.

You should know that directly using gold coins, if it was a small amount, dozens or hundreds, it could be counted in a short time. But if it really reached a large scale, it would be a disaster. The most troublesome process of the feat of one hundred billion gold coins in six days was not anything else, but counting the money.

A team of a thousand people counting gold coins were constantly counting gold coins for a long time. Counting gold coins when receiving them, counting gold coins when releasing them, counting gold coins when the other party took them out, and counting gold coins when receiving them. This ordeal was definitely no easier than those complicated political affairs.

Now it was good, as long as you held the gold notes, the amount on them could be added up, easily and conveniently, as long as you verified the authenticity of the gold notes. This was also simple, Lizhen Workshop posted more than a dozen methods to verify the authenticity of the gold notes. As long as the shopkeepers paid attention, they could master them clearly in one or two tries.

The suppliers who received the gold notes couldn't just hide them, some directly bought houses for investment, and some spent them elsewhere. If you really wanted to say where they became popular, it was on the pleasure boats of those top courtesans.

The top courtesans didn't have so many storage rings. If there were too many gold coins, it would pose a security threat to the pleasure boats. There was no way, they were too heavy. But gold notes were simple, and they were enthusiastically welcomed by the top courtesans as soon as they were launched.

For talented courtesans, it would be such a mood killer to count gold coins with their own hands. But gold notes were different, even the action of receiving gold notes could make people's souls be taken away. In just a few days, the pleasure boats on the moat of the inner city no longer accepted gold coins, only gold notes.