The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

"Fifty thousand taels!!"

After shouting out the number that Li Xianfeng had repeatedly warned not to say until the end, Ge Wenyou hooked his foot firmly on the threshold of the hall.

"Bring him in."

Liu Sheng's deep voice came from the hall.

Ge Wenyou was forked back by the guards again.

When he saw Liu Sheng again, Ge Wenyou felt that his life was saved, but he was already limp and sweating a lot.

He was afraid that Liu Sheng would still be dissatisfied, so he took the initiative and said: "Chief Liu, Marshal Liu, this is really the most money the court is willing to pay!"

Little did he know that Liu Sheng knew from the beginning that it was impossible for the Ming court to negotiate with him about redeeming King Chong.

He didn't understand others, but Chongzhen was known to be obsessed with saving face.

Therefore, as soon as Ge Wenyou raised this matter, Liu Sheng guessed that it was probably Li Xianfeng who wanted to resolve the matter privately.

As for where Li Xianfeng got the money and food, it was not something he needed to consider.

But he still felt that adding only five hundred thousand taels of silver was too little, so he said: "Two hundred thousand shi of grain plus five hundred thousand taels of silver."

Ge Wenyou said with a bitter face, "Nowadays, all the northern provinces are suffering from famine. It is really difficult to get so much food. If Leader Liu wants too much, it will only make the court angry and shameful, and it will no longer care about the safety of King Chong."

Liu Sheng still wanted to negotiate this matter, so he said: "The food must cost two hundred thousand dan, and the silver can be reduced to three hundred thousand. If you can't agree, you can die first by worshiping the king."

Three hundred thousand taels of silver?

Isn't this equivalent to exchanging 200,000 taels of silver for 100,000 shi of grain?

If it was in the early years of Chongzhen, this exchange would be okay, because at that time, most of the north had only two taels of silver per stone, and in major grain provinces such as Huguang and Sichuan, it was even as low as one tael of silver per stone.

But now in Huguang and Sichuan, the food price has increased to 20 taels per dan. Including the freight and losses of transporting it to Henan, it costs at least 3 taels of silver per dan.

Calculating that the price was higher than 100,000 shi of grain and 500,000 taels of silver, Ge Wenyou did not dare to bargain any further.

All I can say is: "I'll try my best to convince the court to give it a try."

Liu Sheng stopped pretending to be stupid and said with a cold smile: "What do you mean by convincing the court? Just convince Governor Li.

The price must not be any lower, and one hundred thousand shi of grain and three hundred thousand taels of silver must be delivered before the New Year.

The other 100,000 shi of grain can be sent after the new year. When will it be sent to Ruyang? When will I release King Chong's family? Do you understand? "

"I understand."

Ge Wenyou knew that this was probably the best negotiation result he could obtain.

Later, Ge Wenyou was "sent" out of the Generalissimo's Mansion as a gift.

Ma Jinshui came over and said: "Commander, I have sent three groups of people to follow him secretly. I believe we will be able to find out where he lives soon."

Liu Sheng nodded, "Don't alert the enemy, the key is to understand who he contacted during his stay in Ruyang.

I can say with certainty that there must be someone in Ruyang City who has secret connections with the Ming Dynasty officials. Just treat this as a counterintelligence exercise, do you understand? "

"My subordinate understands."

After Ma Jin left, Li Changwen said thoughtfully: "That means the commander-in-chief guessed that it was Li Xianfeng who redeemed King Chong, so he agreed to exchange 200,000 shi of grain and 300,000 taels of silver for King Chong's family, right?

If the imperial court really had this intention, the commander-in-chief would definitely ask for more than this amount of money and food. "

"That's right." Liu Sheng nodded, "Anyway, we only plan to postpone it until next spring. If we ask for too much, Li Xianfeng may not be able to get it.

It's better to ask for less and let them deliver it before the New Year, so that we can add another batch of food reserves. "

In the past few days, Liu Sheng has continuously sent troops to Wangzhuang in Ruyang County to seize grain and other supplies.

It turned out that the actual grain stored in each Wangzhuang warehouse was not as much as what was shown in the Wangfu's accounts.

Some Wangzhuang stewards even emptied the warehouse, leaving only a small amount of grain on the surface of the warehouse, while the inside was actually filled with straw and sand.

Liu Sheng was not polite when he learned about this, and directly ordered that all Wangzhuang stewards whose accounts were not up to date had their homes confiscated and the whole family was used as hard labor.

Even so, the final amount of grain confiscated from various Wangzhuangs in Ruyang was only more than 70,000 shi, which was 20,000 to 30,000 shi less than what was shown in the accounts (there were also a small number of Wangzhuangs outside Ruyang County and even outside Runing Prefecture).

The warehouses under the Ming government, such as the Treasury, Taicang, and military grain depots, also had less grain in stock than on the books.

The combined warehouses of the prefecture and county only amount to more than 30,000 dan.

On the contrary, the grain stored in Prince Chong's warehouse is not much less than the book, only a few thousand dan is missing.

Then, the rebels raided five large households that had committed many crimes and fined seven or eight large households in money and food.

In accordance with the standards set in Queshan, all landowners in the city whose fields were recorded in the fish scale register of the Ming Dynasty as more than 500 acres were donated to support the rebels in exchange for "letters of thanks" from the rebels.

A total of 118,000 shi of grain and 370,000 taels of silver were obtained (the silver mainly came from confiscated houses and fines).

Even though Ruyang is a prefectural city, because King Chong is a vassal here, there are not many big landowners in the city than in Queshan County, but there are more wealthy businessmen.

Therefore, these large households often used silver instead of food to express their support for the rebels.

In total, the Hua Department obtained more than 47 shi of grain in Ruyang.

As for silver, not counting the nearly two million taels from Prince Chong's Mansion, there are more than 70 taels in total.

47 shi of grain was naturally a lot, but considering the situation in the late Ming Dynasty, Liu Sheng naturally hoped to get more.

···

Three more days passed in the blink of an eye, and it was the fifth day of December.

Liu Sheng is finally leaving Ruyang City.

When bidding farewell, Liu Sheng smiled and said to Li Changwen: "Sir, I will entrust you with all my life-long affairs."

"Don't worry, Commander. In just a few days, the political hall here in Ruyang City will be less busy. I will leave for Queshan immediately." Li Changwen also had a smile on his face.

He was so happy.

Because Liu Sheng finally remembered the marriage, he asked him to take time to go to Queshan the day before leaving to propose marriage to the Matchmaker on his behalf.

Li Changwen suddenly decided that this would happen, and that night he asked Song Xiance to pick two auspicious days. While preparing to propose marriage, he also set the wedding date for Liu Sheng and the Red Lady.

On the fifth or seventh day of the first lunar month next year, the two people will get married.

Although Liu Sheng has many mysterious auras such as "immortal reincarnation" and "true disciple" and cannot be regarded by ordinary people, after all, not everyone in the Yi tribe knows about it.

Therefore, Liu Sheng still had to get married and have children to make the people of Guibu more stable.

Besides, Li Changwen had another consideration.

If Liu Sheng's descendants can inherit his magical power of sending people through the "immortal gate", Liu Sheng's children can be asked to help share the immigration work in the future.

In this way, it is naturally better for Liu Sheng to have children earlier...

"Snowing."

Just over an hour after Liu Sheng rode his black horse out of the south gate of Ruyang City, snow began to fall in the sky that had been gloomy for several days.

Fortunately, the snow was not too heavy.

He stretched out his hand to catch a piece of snowflake and watched it melt in his palm. Liu Sheng then said: "Send the order and tell the team to speed up!"