Fan Xian fiddled with his chopsticks in the dish, picked up a piece of sesame oil-soaked beef, placed it on the white rice, slowly brought it to his lips, chewed carefully, savored it, and still ignored Ming Qingda, who was kneeling beside him.

Ming Qingda was not a simple character, and the meaning represented by this kneeling was definitely not that simple either.

Fan Xian needed time to think.

After he finished thinking, he gently put down his bowl and chopsticks and said, "Master Ming, you are much older than me, how can I accept this?"

The Imperial Envoy feebly tried to help him up, but Ming Qingda had to stand up.

The conversation between the official and the merchant began very calmly and steadily. Fan Xian looked at him and said, "What is Master Ming preparing to confess?"

What kind of confession could bring back the lives of Fan Xian's subordinates? How could Fan Xian be willing to let the Ming family go? Ming Qingda didn't know, nor did he need to know. All he needed was for Fan Xian to temporarily spare the Ming family, buying necessary buffer time for the family and the capital. The situation was too unclear, and even if he was prepared to be a weather vane, he had to know where the wind was blowing from...

He was just begging that his posture could make the Imperial Envoy ease up a little, and make the Imperial Envoy believe that he also had a strong desire to lean towards him.

Fan Xian did not wait for the scheming Master Ming to reply, and said, "Your heart is not sincere, so there's no point in surrendering."

Ming Qingda's face was calm, but he sighed and said, "The Imperial Envoy cannot trust me."

"It's not that I cannot trust you." Fan Xian lowered his head and said, "You yourself cannot trust yourself. You've been on that ship for too long, and it's... difficult to get off. You should know this very well. If you are still on that ship, the others on the ship will always want to keep you safe. If you come to my ship, what will happen to the goods you left on the original ship?"

These goods were naturally not literal goods. Ming Qingda understood this in his heart. Listening to Fan Xian's words, he knew that he couldn't convince this young Imperial Envoy. With a hint of fatigue, he mockingly begged, "Please, Your Excellency, point me in the right direction."

Fan Xian's gaze remained on the dishes on the table. After thinking for a moment, he quietly said, "You have many brothers. I recently heard that... Xia, the manager of the Yi Fourth Branch, is also your brother?"

Ming Qingda's expression did not change, but his heart began to ache. His Ming family had followed Fan Xian's enemies for too long. If he wanted Fan Xian to truly believe that the Ming family was willing to turn towards him, unless he could be sure of completely controlling the Ming family in his hands, and Xia Qifei was obviously a pawn used by Fan Xian to control the Ming family. Fan Xian would not accept this agreement with anyone else.

Fan Xian's words were undoubtedly giving his conditions, but Ming Qingda could not accept this condition no matter what. Leaving aside the fact that Ming Qingda could not let go of his family business, just thinking of Xia Qifei's cold eyes and the ghastly whip marks under his clothes, his heart began to struggle.

In the current situation, the Supervisory Council was on the offensive, and the Ming family was on the defensive. Moreover, the Ming family was retreating step by step. Today's sharp rise in the price of the internal treasury was just the head of a chain of events. The events that followed came one after another, and the Ming family was in a precarious situation.

It was not until this moment that Ming Qingda realized that the seemingly young Imperial Envoy in front of him was so conservative, cautious, and insidiously sinister in his bones. Facing such a great temptation that he had offered, he was not moved at all.

It was not until this moment that he realized that what Fan Xian wanted was far more than what he could offer, not just four hundred thousand taels, not just the Ming family's secret cooperation in Jiangnan from now on, but a kind of arrogance, incomparable arrogance, a desire for complete control over the production and sales of the internal treasury.

"Please, Your Excellency, give me a way out." Ming Qingda said with a bitter smile. Earlier, he was talking about a clear path, but now he could only talk about a way out. "If the last four bids continue like this, I'm afraid that tens of thousands of family members in the clan, as well as countless hired servants around them, will not even be able to open the pot next year."

"The Ming family is not short of money."

Fan Xian looked at the head of the Ming family in front of him and admired him more and more. He was clearly threatening him, but his words were so gentle and humble, not at all harsh, but rather revealing a sense of obedience and moisturization: "The last four bids later... just consider it the Ming family spitting out the money they swallowed in the past few years."

He tilted his head slightly, squinted his eyes, and sized up Ming Qingda, whose face was a little dejected. He kept guessing what this Ming family head was planning in his heart, and said, "You should know my past. I don't appreciate the way you sold things in the past. Of course, I'm not an unreasonable bandit. As long as you do things more steadily, I will naturally be more steady."

The so-called steadiness naturally referred to what happened last night.

Fan Xian tapped the edge of the porcelain plate with his chopstick tip, making a crisp sound, and finally said, "Holding the bowl requires the dragon to spit out pearls, and the chopsticks require the phoenix to nod. Eat only eighty percent full, and take away what you can't finish... Doing things is the same as eating. The posture must be beautiful, and you must know the sense of propriety. That's very good."

Ming Qingda knew that he could no longer make progress in front of this Imperial Envoy. After getting Fan Xian's last sentence, he felt a little relieved. Although he couldn't fully believe it, he definitely believed that Fan Xian did not have the intention of forcing the Ming family to collapse. The other party always wanted to control the Ming family, not destroy it.

And to control the huge Ming family... Xia Qifei wouldn't work, his mother wouldn't work, only himself. Ming Qingda had this confidence, so he said that he would definitely vomit blood because of the last four bids later, but he understood in his heart that in the days to come, there was still room for discussion with the Imperial Envoy.

Merchants are most afraid of bargaining; haggling is their strength.

Ming Qingda respectfully bowed to Fan Xian again and then retreated.

Looking at the slightly hunched, slightly old back of the current head of the Ming family, Fan Xian once again gently placed his chopsticks on the table, squinted his eyes slightly, and even at this moment, he still couldn't see the depth of Ming Qingda's character.

The meaning represented by the previous kneeling was too rich: admitting defeat? seeking peace? surrendering? compensation for last night's events? If the Ming family really intended to lean towards him, then today's open and aboveboard occasion of the internal treasury would be the best place to express their feelings...

The problem was that Fan Xian simply didn't believe that this old man would willingly surrender. His cards were not all played out, and the Ming family had not yet reached the end of its rope. Uprooting a big tree that was used to standing on the other side of the river and transplanting it to this side of the river, the painful price that must be paid should not be what the current Ming family was willing to pay.

Why did the other party put on such a humble posture? He still had an old lady above him. Ming Qingda should not be able to make a unilateral decision on such a major matter that concerned the future of tens of thousands of people in the entire clan.

Moreover, this kneeling was not secret, and someone should have already seen it, and it would spread immediately. Fan Xian's eyes narrowed even more. Was the other party preparing to play the sympathy card? In this world where there was no Ah Bian, sympathy might be a feasible move, but kneeling to himself in front of everyone, how could this be sympathetic?

If it were another official, facing the tendency shown by Ming Qingda, he would definitely be secretly delighted in his heart. Only Fan Xian did not think that way, because as Ming Qingda expected, he wanted too much, more than the Ming family could afford. Moreover, he had been preparing for this matter for a long time. He had the confidence to eat the Ming family, rather than accept the Ming family's surrender.

Since Fan Xian could eat the Ming family at any time, why should he bargain with the Ming family to obtain their surrender?

Not that he wouldn't, not that he couldn't, but that he disdained it.

———————————————————

A breeze entered through the door, blowing away the residual aroma of food in the large courtyard of the internal treasury, blowing away the remaining fragrance of firecrackers, but only the solemn atmosphere remained unmoved. Tension permeated the courtyard, like thousand-year-old ice, like giant rocks at the bottom of the river, difficult for spring days and spring winds to melt, and difficult for great rivers and waves to move.

The throat of the transportation department official in charge of announcing the bidding prices was already hoarse, not because he had said too much, not because he had drunk too little water, but because of nervousness.

The giant merchants of each branch who lived along the Jia and Yi corridors had also been unable to sit still for a long time. Through the hollowed-out door lattice, they stood inside the high threshold of the room, nervously staring outside.

The afternoon was the bidding for the last four sections of the internal treasury. After two rounds of bidding, no one cheered, and no one even wiped the cold sweat from their foreheads. The Sun family from Quanzhou, who had been scared away by the Ming family in the morning, listened to the price with a pale face and looked outside with dull eyes. Having been frightened again by the two madmen, all the merchants felt that today's trip had opened their eyes and was also a great shock.

That's silver, that's silver! Why did the Ming family of Jia First Branch and the Xia family of Yi Fourth Branch dare to throw it out like that? Didn't they see the thick stacks of silver notes as being any different from waste paper!

Xiong Bailing of the Xiong family in Lingnan stared outside with bloodshot eyes, somewhat unable to believe his ears. He said to the accountant beside him, "Did the announcer just report the wrong price?"

The Xiong family's accountant wiped the cold sweat from his forehead: "The numbers are calculated by the accounting hall, how could they be wrong... Heavens, Master Xia was killed a few brothers yesterday, and today he started being fierce and crazy... The Ming family is also going crazy with him! Master Ming is not a robber."

Xiong Bailing's saliva was too nervous to swallow, choking in the middle and almost staggering. He grabbed a teacup from a subordinate and poured it down, lowering his voice and cursing, "Xia Qifei is Ming Laoqi. I think the two brothers are having a real fight... When brothers quarrel at home, it's really exciting. It seems that the Ming family are all a bit crazy in their bones."

Not only was the announcer's voice trembling, but the giant merchants of Jiangnan were sweating non-stop. Even the three adults sitting in the main hall were starting to feel nervous at this moment.

Listening to the second round of bidding, Eunuch Huang and Guo Zheng looked at each other, their faces turning pale. The two of them never expected that the final four continuous bids of the internal treasury would be raised to... such a terrifying level by Fan Xian and the Ming family!

The Ming family was bound to lose money on these four continuous bids, and it was a huge loss! For Eunuch Huang and Guo Zheng, the Ming family's income decreased, and the illegal silver sent from Jiangnan to the capital would naturally be less... too much. Thinking of this, the two of them looked at Fan Xian with some resentment.

Although Fan Xian maintained a calm expression with his powerful mind, if there were careful people, they could still see that the starched stiff cuffs of the Imperial Envoy's purple official robe were trembling slightly, his thin and delicate lips were pursed tightly, and the area below his earlobes was slightly red.

After all, such a scene was quite rare today. The Qing Emperor was known as the richest man in the world, but Fan Xian dared to bet that the Qing Emperor, who never entered the household department's treasury, had never seen so many silver notes fluttering in the sky with the announcer's hoarse and trembling voice in his entire life!

Eleven million five hundred thousand taels of silver!

Ten years after the founding of the Qing Kingdom, the country's entire financial tax revenue added up to just over ten million taels! Even in today's prosperous Qing Kingdom, such a large sum of silver was still an incredible figure. If these millions of taels of silver were used to buy assassins in Jiangnan, it would be enough to wipe out the surrounding small vassal states of Dongyi City with a wave of the hand, enough to become a hegemon!

How many beauties could such a large sum of money buy? How many war horses and weapons could be built? If all of it were invested in people's livelihood, how many miles of dikes could be repaired? How many pots of porridge could be cooked? How many halls could be opened? How many people could be saved? And... if all of it were exchanged for silver ingots, how many people could be crushed to death?

The five million taels of silver in the morning was already the highest bid price in the history of the internal treasury, but the afternoon easily broke the record, especially in the second round of bidding, when the Ming family shouted out a price of over ten million taels. This not only broke the record, but also broke through everyone's psychological defenses.

The reason for this was, of course, due to the Ming family's current internal and external difficulties, and the large amount of gold and silver that Fan Xian borrowed from the Emperor of Northern Qi - the Ming family had to grab this bid, but Xia Qifei had the ability to hedge. Various factors were added together, creating such a terrifying number.

Fan Xian took a sip of cold tea, forcibly suppressed his emotions, and made a very secretive gesture.

That's enough, let's stop here, take a break, take a break.

……

……

It was not until this moment that Fan Xian gradually understood Ming Qingda's thoughts, His Majesty's thoughts, and the thoughts of many people.

When Ming Qingda won the bid, he obediently followed Fan Xian's plan. On the one hand, he was under pressure from Xinyang, and on the other hand, he had some mysterious thoughts. Sooner or later, it was just about sending silver. If the bid price was low, a portion of the earned silver would have to be handed over to Xinyang. If the bid price was high, it would be the same as sending silver to the internal treasury... which would be the same as sending it to His Majesty and Fan Xian.

Ming Qingda saw things very accurately. He could see that the court needed his silver, so he simply made a ruthless move, almost smashing half of his family's assets. In this way, he not only won the bid, but also pleased Fan Xian. He didn't offend anyone he couldn't afford to offend on both sides.

It was just a pity to offend money. With so much real gold and silver, he didn't know how many years it would take for the Ming family to recover. The so-called spending money to eliminate disaster, the silver used by the Ming family this time to eliminate disaster was really a huge investment.

And in Fan Xian's view, the Ming family's economic strength had become too terrifying. The Qing Emperor would never allow such an existence to grow stronger, either weakening the other party or destroying them.

This was the emperor's true intention in letting Fan Xian go to Jiangnan.

And Ming Qingda also clearly grasped this intention.

It was just that Shen Wansan still died in the past. Could the Ming family... survive? This was a matter for later. Fan Xian had no way to completely control it, but he was very satisfied with the Ming family's performance, so he made a gesture to let Xia Qifei stop bidding.

It wasn't that he was acting like a petty peasant, nor was it that he was feeling compassionate, but that Fan Xian knew that Master Ming's play was definitely not over yet. Eleven million five hundred thousand taels of silver was already enough. Fan Xian didn't want to cause too much discussion in the court and give himself too much negative feedback.

—————————————————

Seeing that the robbers from the Yi Fourth Branch had stopped bidding, everyone, including the officials and merchants, did not feel regret or anger for not seeing the whole show, but instead breathed a sigh of relief at the same time, feeling as if a heavy burden had been lifted from their shoulders.

The bidding this afternoon was too terrifying, that number was too sensitive. The merchants did not want to cause some bad things to happen, and the officials did not want the situation to be drawn to the point of explosion.

The household department's internal treasury joint review officials in the flower hall began to carry out tense review work, and finally confirmed this bid, carefully and nervously writing the base book in red ink, and handing it over to the front hall.

The announcer walked to the stone steps, swallowed a mouthful of saliva to moisten his hoarse, burning throat, and said in a trembling voice, "The goods of the Yi Fang on the Southeast Road and the Sea Road, four continuous bids, the Jia First Branch, the Ming family, eleven million five hundred thousand taels... done!"

No one cheered, no one roared, everyone couldn't wait to escape from the internal treasury mansion, as far away from this number as possible.

"Father! Father!"

At this moment, a cry of alarm came from the Jia First Branch closest to the main hall.

For a time, everyone was startled and stood up from their chairs, looking in that direction, not knowing what had happened to the Ming family.

"Father! What's wrong with you? Someone! Someone! ...Quick, save him!"

From the Jia First Branch, came the panicked cries for help from young master Ming Lanshi, mixed with chaotic sounds. The officials quickly pushed open the door and entered, only to find that the head of the Ming family, Ming Qingda, was pale and had fainted on the ground!

Whether officials or merchants, they all thought they knew what had happened. Everyone thought that the head of the Ming family had been forced to seize these four continuous bids under internal and external pressure, but was forced to bid a sky-high price. Thinking that the Ming family might decline because of this sky-high price, Master Ming had become anxious and angry, and that was why he had fainted.

Everyone knew who had forced the Ming family into such a miserable situation today, so everyone in the courtyard subconsciously turned their eyes to the Imperial Envoy standing on the stone steps.

Fan Xian was not very alarmed. He squinted his eyes and scolded, "What's the panic? Quickly seal the treasury, deposit the silver, and after the procedure is completed, quickly send Master Ming to the doctor!"

There was a whole set of procedures for opening and closing the internal treasury, and there were a lot of silver notes placed in the mansion, so it took a lot of time. Master Ming, who had been unconscious, was finally carried out and put into the Ming family's carriage, which Fan Xian had specially allowed to drive to the front of the door, and went straight to the medical shop.

……

……

No one had expected that the lively internal treasury bidding, after setting several records and attracting countless dangers, would end so bleakly.

Looking at the Ming family's carriage that was going away, and thinking of the Ming family's head, whose life and death were unknown, the merchants of Jiangnan could not help but sigh, feeling a sense of sorrow for the fall of others.

The Ming family was the first to leave. After inspection, the merchants also withdrew from the internal treasury mansion. The rest were all officials, who began to carry out the final finishing work of the internal treasury.

Since it was a business of selling money, the most critical work was naturally counting the silver notes of the 40% deposit.

The three great figures stood in the flower hall, watching the household department and the transportation department officials register the items and put on the seals.

Fan Xian looked at the stack of silver notes opened by Zhaoshang Qianzhuang at the bottom of the Ming family's final deposit of up to four million taels, his eyes narrowed slightly, knowing that things had finally been completed.

Originally, in the plan, the last four bids would force the Ming family to use the cash notes opened by Zhaoshang Qianzhuang, and Fan Xian would have to deliberately make things difficult for them. After all, Zhaoshang's credit was not as good as Tianxia Hao's. At that time, Eunuch Huang and Guo Zheng would definitely speak for the Ming family. In this way, Fan Xian could clear himself even more cleanly.

It was just that he didn't expect Ming Qingda to act so simply and neatly, so Fan Xian was too lazy to smear the details any further. It was just that Ming Qingda fainted in the end...

"Pretend, continue to pretend."

Fan Xian sneered in his heart, but showed a look of sympathy on his face, and sighed to Eunuch Huang beside him, "The Ming family won the bid with difficulty, but Master Ming is still old after all, and he couldn't stand such a surprise, but fainted instead. I hope this happy event doesn't turn into a funeral."

Eunuch Huang, who was rubbing his fingers, drooling while looking at the silver notes, and still feeling a bit nervous, was stunned when he heard the Imperial Envoy's words, and almost broke his finger. He wanted to curse, but he didn't dare to curse. He thought to himself, "How can you be such a guy who played with people and still said sarcasm?"

Eunuch Huang snorted angrily and didn't say anything. Guo Zheng said with a fake smile, "This year's internal treasury's income is eight times higher than in previous years. When this matter is reported back to the capital, His Majesty will definitely reward Lord Fan a lot. It's just around the corner to be named a king or a marquis."

With Fan Xian's status and the power he now held, it was already a sure thing to be named a king or a marquis in the future. He didn't want to listen to Guo Zheng's flattery, and said with a cold smile, "It's all thanks to you adults, and it's also thanks to the Jiangnan merchants for their consideration of the court. They would rather lose their capital to subsidize the internal treasury... As for this official, he didn't play any role in this matter."

Guo Zheng choked. He thought to himself, "The Ming family almost sold their pants today, wasn't it all because you forced them to do so? How can you still have the face to say that you didn't play any role?" He snorted coldly and didn't say anything anymore, just cursing in his heart, "Pretend, I'll tell you to continue pretending!"

(Monthly votes, come quickly.)