Daming: At the start of the showdown, Lao Zhu was stunned

Chapter 857 Selling Pearls
As Xie Jin worried, until the market was actually opened, only seven Han chieftains, including Ye Shangren, were willing to invest in it.

It seemed that the local people and households had made an agreement long ago, and no one came to Lianzhou city, as if they had ignored the bustling Lianzhou Prefecture in the past few months, as if His Royal Highness King Zhou had never been to Lianzhou from the beginning to the end.

"Brother Tian, ​​Brother Gao." It was still the Dongpo Tower. In the past few months, as Lianzhou City attracted investment, many businessmen came and went in Lianzhou Prefecture, and the only restaurant in the city became more and more prosperous. Although many restaurants and wine shops opened one after another with the sudden increase in foreign population, when it comes to the only restaurant in Lianzhou Prefecture that can be shown off, it is still the Dongpo Tower where His Royal Highness King Zhou once invited Lianzhou officials.

Today, three distinguished figures arrived in the private room on the top floor of Dongpo Building. The middle-aged man who was obviously the host stood by the door and bowed to the two guests, with a warm smile on his face: "My two brothers are late, and I am sorry to have kept you waiting for a long time. Come quickly, come quickly, the wine and food are already ready, and we are just waiting for you two brothers to come!"

"Brother Qin, you are too polite." The two middle-aged men surnamed Tian and Gao bowed and returned the greeting with a smile. After exchanging pleasantries, the three of them sat down in the private room. As soon as the door of the private room was closed, several burly men blocked the door to prevent the conversation of their masters from being eavesdropped by outsiders.

"Brother Tian and Brother Gao, I haven't seen you for a long time. I wonder if your clan has been doing well recently?" The middle-aged man surnamed Qin said with a smile.

"Hahahaha, not bad, not bad. The weather has been good in recent years. Although my two families have been digging for food from the land, we can still have some surplus food at home..." The man surnamed Tian laughed. The man surnamed Gao said, "Brother Qin, you... now that Yuan Ting is no longer exploiting you, your family's business must be more prosperous, right?" He said with a smile. "I wonder how many good pearls you have produced this year?"

"Not much, not much..." said the middle-aged man named Qin modestly. But from the smug look on his face, it can be known that the number of pearls they produced this time must be quite a lot.

The middle-aged man surnamed Qin was a Tusi in Lianzhou Prefecture. The two brothers, Tian and Gao, were Tusi of the Li people in Lianzhou Prefecture. They wore Chinese clothes, spoke Chinese, and even behaved in a manner that made them look like Han people. However, they were indeed Tusi of the Tu people in Lianzhou Prefecture.

Although it is located in the southwest coast, it is actually not a barbaric place where ethics and morals are not prevalent. Lianzhou has been under the rule of China for more than a thousand years. As for the Han education, it has actually been popularized in Lianzhou a long time ago.

When Zhu Yuanzhang was fighting for the world, in order to deal with the Mongols who fled north, he granted native officials to all the frontier tribes who were willing to submit to the Ming Dynasty, whether they were tribal leaders in the north, local tyrants in the west, or chieftains in the south, and allowed them to inherit their positions and govern their people. This is the policy of "control". This relaxed ethnic policy, to a certain extent, ensured the smoothness of the Ming Dynasty's unification of the world, reduced the difficulty of the Chinese court in governing the border areas, and also enabled the Ming Dynasty to save a lot of military expenditures, which can be said to be a great profit without any investment.

However, even in that situation, Zhu Yuanzhang still issued a death order to these native tribes who surrendered: they must take Chinese surnames, wear Chinese clothes, learn Chinese, and learn Chinese culture. As for the northern tribes that posed the greatest threat, Zhu Yuanzhang also required them not to marry within their own tribe, but to marry Han people, hoping to gradually assimilate them and make them truly Chinese people in the future.

The Chinese culture is profound and extensive, and these natives themselves are not opposed to it. For example, the natives in Lianzhou, who have lived under the rule of the Chinese for a long time, have already mastered the Chinese culture very early. If we talk about ordinary people in the tribe, there may be some who do not speak Chinese, do not take Chinese surnames, and do not wear Chinese clothes, but these chieftains have long been no different from the Han people. It is just that in order to rule the people under their rule, most of them hide the Han books and do not allow them to be circulated under their rule.

Keeping the people ignorant is the easiest way for these chieftains to control them. If they are allowed to be influenced by the Han people who believe that "kings, dukes, generals, and ministers are all of the same species", how can these chieftain families be passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years?

They came to the city to trade pearls. As everyone knows, Lianzhou is rich in South Pearls, and trading pearls is one of the main sources of income for these chieftains. The Ming Dynasty did not care much about the income from South Pearls, and unlike the Yuan Dynasty, it did not set up a special pearl mining department to collect the profits from South Pearls. Therefore, these profits were naturally swallowed up by these local chieftains taking advantage of the change of dynasties.

With such a huge profit, they naturally need a way to sell it. The Hakka merchants in the city naturally came for the profit of the South Pearls. Each of these chieftains has a large number of South Pearls to sell. The Li people produce less pearls, so these two families usually cooperate with the Qin family, who are from the Xu family. Together, the three families agree on a place to trade with the merchants in the city in order to sell them at a better price.

They entered the city today to meet with merchants for business.

After a few pleasantries, the topic naturally turned to the market that had been abuzz in the city in recent days. Speaking of the market, the chieftain surnamed Gao smiled and said, "I heard that the Han people from the Ye family actually received the imperial permit and opened a shop in this market to openly sell pearls... Hehe, how much can they sell the few southern pearls they produced for?"

"They have to collect taxes from the court. In my opinion, these Han people have lost their minds. How can we be happier than accepting the profits ourselves if we let the court share a share of the profits?"

"That prince Zhou is making a fuss, thinking that Lianzhou is the north, and that he can make a profit by opening a market... Maybe he bribed the Ye family to support him. Otherwise, if the market is empty, where will he put his face as a prince?" said the chieftain surnamed Tian. "The Ye... is a Han Chinese after all, and he still has to be controlled by the Han government. If the prince Zhou threatens him with bribes, he really can't turn a deaf ear... Let them deal with the mess of the market, and we can just pretend we don't know."

The chieftain surnamed Qin picked up the teacup on the table, took a sip of tea slowly, and then said, "Haha, the South China pearls in the hands of the Han chieftains are not even a fraction of what our tribe produces, and they have to pay taxes to the court. How can they be our opponents?"

"Ye wants to accompany King Zhou, but once King Zhou finishes suppressing the bandits, he will return to the capital. By then, even if Ye survives, he will be seriously injured. He may even have to sell off the pearl pool in the clan..." The chieftain surnamed Qin smiled slightly, showing that he had a good idea. "Maybe this time, we can make further progress!"

Of course, these chieftains were not united, and there were some strife and fight among them. If they could take advantage of the opportunity to swallow up the South Pearl business of those Han chieftains, they would definitely do it.

"Okay, let's not talk about this for now." After chatting for a few more words, the chieftain surnamed Qin said. After all, this is Lianzhou City, and even this Dongpo Tower is now the property of the Zhou Palace. Although they arranged guards at the door in advance, who can guarantee that there will be no ears on the wall?

"We'd better hurry up. After trading goods with those merchants, it's right to return to our tribe... It's so strange, why are those merchants so slow to come today? Normally, when they see us coming to the city to trade pearls, shouldn't they all flock to us?" Chief Qin looked outside the door where there was no movement, and said in confusion.

(End of this chapter)