Women dressed as men: powerful officials

If the Geshu tribe wanted to take Song Xiujing back, they certainly wouldn't do it secretly.

What they wanted was to bring Song Xiujing back in a grand manner, and let everyone know that the princess of the Geshu tribe was being raised in Tianqi and was already engaged to the Tianqi royal family.

In this case, there may be two outcomes for the Song family.

First, the two clans have good relations, and the Song family has risen to a higher level in the court. With the Geshu tribe behind them, the Song family will not fall as long as Song Xiujing is alive.

Second, they may be convicted of treason and have their property confiscated and exiled.

Of these two possibilities, Xu Yuan is more inclined to the second one. After all, the late emperor died on the way to the expedition against Geshu. There is a blood feud between the two tribes, and it is not easy to make peace with them.

Not only that, the Third Prince's faction has already wanted to take action against the Song family. They are willing to even abandon Song Xiujing and not marry her. There is no way they will just watch the Song family rise to prominence through this.

The Song family will definitely fall.

After Song Xiujing became Princess Geshu, it would be natural for her to marry the third prince.

This should also be Geshu's intention, to resolve the blood feud between the two tribes through marriage.

After making a wish, he murmured, "Perhaps, this matter should wait a little longer..."

-

After three days of continuous rain, it finally cleared up.

It has become even colder in Beijing.

Wu Shiming came to find Xu Yuan early in the morning and gave him a thick booklet.

"These are all the embroidery shops in the capital. I also checked which embroiderers there are and what they are good at embroidering. However, most of the embroiderers who are good at Shu embroidery are in the palace, not outside the palace."

"Not even one?" Xu Yuan was stunned. "That shouldn't be the case. Shu embroidery is also famous. It should be available in the capital."

"At first, I also found it strange. After all, although Shu embroidery and Shu brocade are made of different materials and have different production methods, Shu embroidery is more valuable than Shu brocade. If there is no one selling Shu embroidery in Beijing, someone should go there to learn how to sell it, and then the rivals will not steal the business."

Wu Shiming sat down on the chair, poured himself a cup of tea, and then said, "So, I went to find out. Most of this Shu brocade comes from Shu. It is ready-made material. But Shu embroidery is different. It relies on embroiderers. In the past, there was an embroiderer in the capital who knew this skill and made clothes for some wealthy families. But now she is gone."

"why?"

"It seems like she died of illness. It's been so long. If it weren't for the fact that there was only one embroidery club in the capital, others wouldn't remember it so clearly."

Wu Shiming took a sip of tea and continued, "In the capital, those who can afford Shu embroidery and Shu brocade basically cut the fabrics and ask embroiderers to make clothes. But there are no embroiderers who can do Shu embroidery here, so naturally they are not considered. As for the Shu embroidery sent to the capital to be sold, they are basically small items, such as handkerchiefs, but most young ladies can make them themselves, so they don't sell very well. Gradually, no one sells Shu embroidery anymore."

Xuyuan nodded and said, "I understand."

According to what Wu Shiming said, that embroiderer should be the one who made the dragon robe.

The dragon robe that was seized during the confiscation of property was Shu embroidery. In order to avoid any mistakes, the person behind the scenes would definitely not have taken the trouble to send it to Shu for embroidery.

After all, killing a person is much easier than getting the dragon robe from Shu to the capital. Therefore, the embroiderer did not die of illness, but was silenced.

"If you really want to do Shu embroidery, you may have to go to Shu to find an embroiderer, or ask someone to go to Shu to learn. These two methods..."

Wu Shiming said, and seeing that Xu Yuan seemed to be in a trance, he could not help but stop, waved in front of Xu Yuan, and asked: "Xu Yuan, are you listening to me?"

"Ah?" Xu Yuan came back to his senses and asked again, "What did you say?"

"Is the illness not healed yet?" Wu Shiming was a little surprised.

For some reason, he felt that Xuyuan didn't seem to care much about this matter.

"I'm fine. I was just thinking about other things."

"I say, if you really want to do this business, you can either go to Shu to hire an embroiderer, or send someone there to learn. But no matter which one you choose, the expenses are huge and the cost is very high." Wu Shiming repeated it with great patience.

However, this time, Wu Shiming did not say the same words as last time.

Judging from what he has found out in the past three days.

Shu embroidery is sold in the capital.

There is none now. As he said, it would be very expensive to send an embroiderer to study there, and it would also be very expensive to hire an embroiderer over here.

Moreover, land in Beijing is extremely expensive, and food and accommodation are both costly.

Most of those embroidery shops have regular customers, and behind the vast majority of the shops are the mistresses of wealthy families. The money earned by the embroidery shops actually does not fall to them, so as long as they can make money and not lose money, they will not bother to think about learning Shu embroidery.

But Wu Shiming is different, he wants to make money.

If he opened a shop like this, all the profits would be his.

After all, private salt business was still stealing the royal family's business, which was precarious and dangerous.

It’s different with embroidery shops, you can’t find any fault with them.

Moreover, once the shop was opened, Xu Yuan became his owner, and he basically had the final say on whether the shop was profitable or loss-making.

At the same time, Xu Yuan had good relations with the Imperial Tutor's Office, the Censor's Office, and the Prime Minister's Office. It was equivalent to that he only needed to pay Xu Yuan and there would be a group of high-ranking officials behind him to protect him...

As a result, Wu Shiming didn't even dare to imagine how much money he could make.

Xu Yuan paused and said, "Why bother?"

Wu Shiming was stunned, thought about it, and said hesitantly: "Xuyuan, do you have any better ideas?"

"Didn't you say there was an embroiderer who could do this?"

"Yes, but the person has already died."

"She is dead, but what if she still has children?" Xu Yuan looked at Wu Shiming and said, "As far as I know, embroiderers will pass on their skills when their children are still young. Perhaps, we don't need to go to Shu specifically to find embroiderers."

"What if it doesn't happen?"

"It's better to try first than to send people directly to Shu, isn't it?"

Wu Shiming wanted to say no.

But he looked at Xu Yuan's expression, hesitated for a moment, and finally said, "Well, I'll go ask around, but don't hold your hopes too high. After all, he's been dead for so many years. If there are still people who know how to do Shu embroidery, they would have opened a shop long ago."

"I know." Xu Yuan nodded, then changed his words and said, "But you are right. We cannot pin our hopes on this one person. Can you find someone to go to Shu to inquire? It would be best to find an embroiderer."

"Okay." Wu Shiming nodded.

"Okay, then you go to Shu embroidery and ask around. I'll go ask the embroiderer who previously knew how to do Shu embroidery to see if there are other people in her family who know this craft."

"No problem." Wu Shiming nodded, smiling more.

Hearing this, Xu Yuan stood up and said, "Wait for me, I'll get the money."

Shen Yichuan has already sent someone to deliver the silver and money.

Three thousand taels in total.

He also said that if the money was not enough, he could go find him again.

Xuyuan didn’t know how much it would cost to open a shop, but it should be about the same.

"Make a wish." Wu Shiming called out to Xu Yuan.

Xuyuan turned around and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Are you investigating this Shu embroidery just because you want to open this shop?" Wu Shiming looked at Xu Yuan and said, "Or are you actually investigating something else?"