Six or seven, great harvest

  "A total of 860,000 taels!"

  Yu Yiqin fumbled out the last piece of data on that sheet of paper, and the joy on his face couldn't be suppressed.

  With the power of the Yu family, wanting to gain benefits without making a sound with the kind of pearl technique, in one year, at most, it would be an increase of only ten thousand taels of silver, but now, all of a sudden, eight years' worth of income is being pocketed!

  But he still clicked his tongue and said with some regret: "Still sold too low..."

  Yu Guozhen, however, didn't think it was sold at a low price. In fact, this price far exceeded his expectations. He had originally thought that selling for 30,000 taels would be satisfying, and 50,000 taels would be the highest.

  The key is that he lacks money, although Yu Yixuan has a "Xiang An Patrol Officer" plaque, but this plaque cannot be eaten as food. The daily expenses of the people he supports are over 30 taels, and in a year, he will spend more than 10,000 taels, not including other expenses.

  The fighting strength of the young guards, among ordinary people and even among the bandits, is considered elite, but the number is still too small, only more than 80 people. He needs to expand it to around 200 people in the next year, which also means that his expenditure will have to increase by a factor of two.

  If history had not deviated greatly due to his arrival, Yu Guozhen remembered that starting next year, the bandits began to harass Anhui, and the following year, a raging tide swept through Anhui, Zhang Xianzhong almost wiped out the essence of Anhui, Wuwei, Tongcheng, were almost slaughtered by him, and then he was full and satisfied with plundering and recruiting!

  So, there is not much time left for him!

  "What's the best way to use all this money?" Yu Yixuan asked with a glint in her eye.

  "Let's take stock of our gains since the new year." Yu Guozhen calmed down: "In the Battle of Fushan, we didn't get much silver money, a total of 341 taels, but we got 12 horses, 4 ships, 4 bird guns, and 12 bows..."

  The Fushan Ambush captured almost all of the core members of the Hengxiang Sect that Wang Haoxian had accumulated over nearly a decade, as well as a large number of weapons. Among them, the horses and bird guns were what made Yu Guozhen most happy. The south lacked horses, so the young guards relied on their family's mules and donkeys to practice riding, with limited effect. With twelve horses, plus Gao Buping, a horse merchant by origin, as their instructor, Yu Guozhen believed that more than half of the young guards would be able to learn how to ride horses.

  He did not expect these young home guards to become master horsemen, as long as they could become qualified mounted infantrymen, he would be satisfied.

  Yu Guozhen was even more delighted with the bird guns, as he had previously tried to request them from his superiors when he was the Xiangyang patrol officer, but was told that there were no new ones in the armory, only old ones. Yu Guozhen took out the old ones with the idea that having something was better than nothing, and fortunately, he was cautious and found that the six bird guns he took out were all rusty and could not be fired smoothly, and even had the danger of exploding.

  The four root bird guns of the Xiangyang teachings were well-crafted, and at least from Yu Guozhen's later military men's point of view, they were also well-maintained.

  Just like those few horses, the greatest use of these four bird guns is still to let young Wei familiarize himself with this kind of weapon.

  "Guo Zhen, you're being a bit dishonest now. The big head of the Huanxiang Sect is somewhere else." Yu Yiqin smiled quietly.

  Yu Guozhen also smiled: "What Erbo said is not wrong, the big head that Xiang Jiao got was the silver ingot from the cellar. Under Fang San'er's guidance, I excavated three cellars and collected a total of 16,400 taels of miscellaneous colored silver and copper coins."

  "Hiss!"

  Yu Yiqin and Yu Yixuan took a deep breath, exchanged a glance, the Yu family's entire fortune was taken out, several tens of thousands of taels of silver were always available, and they had just received more than 800,000 taels of silver, but this number still left them in awe.

  Unfortunately, Wang Haoxian couldn't get anything out of his mouth, and Fang Sanshi was much harder to deal with. Yu Guozhen said casually: "The Xianghua Sect has been causing chaos in the capital and Shandong for decades, I don't know how many foolish men and women have lost their families and property because of it. The money they've accumulated, even if not hundreds of thousands, must be tens of thousands of taels."

  "Now they all followed Wang Haoxian into the ground, and it's unknown who will benefit from it." Yu Yixuan said with regret.

  The news of Wang Haoxian's death had arrived eight days ago, and the government office in Ying Tianfu had even posted a special notice about it, saying that he had died from "bathing" and also from "old age and physical decline with sudden onset of heart disease", only not saying that he had died from "hiding and seeking". And two days before the news of Wang Haoxian's death arrived, Shi Jingyan returned to Xiang'an as a martial arts instructor hired by the Yu family at a high price, and began directing the gunplay and swordsmanship of the young men.

  "Let's count it up, in this one month, we've earned a total of 107,741 taels..."

  This number absolutely exceeded the Yu family's original wealth, and Yu Yixuan still had to forcibly control his emotions, showing a bit of a bookworm's demeanor, but Yu Yiqin was already laughing so hard that her mouth couldn't close.

  The two of them looked at Yu Guozhen and found that Yu Guozhen's mouth was wide open, rarely showing such intense emotions. Even his eyes were three points brighter than usual!

  "Haha, Guo Zhen, it's rare to see you like this. I thought you didn't care about wealth and beauty, but... haha." Yu Yiqin burst out laughing.

  "It's possible that one may not love wealth, but it's not necessarily true for lust. Is that not the case with you, who has traveled thousands of miles from Suzhou to bring this about?" Yu Yixuan also started joking.

  "Heh heh, Second Uncle and Fifth Uncle are right. I'm fond of wealth and beauty. If we didn't have the financial resources, how could we afford to maintain such a large household guard?"

  "It's said that now Guo Zhen is already sixteen, it's time for him to get engaged." Yu Yiqin suddenly said.

  "Right, right, Guo Zhen, which family's daughter have you set your eyes on? I'll go propose to her for you!"

  The two of them sang in harmony, enthusiastically wanting to help Yu Guozhen consider the matter of marriage. Yu Guozhen was immersed in the joy of having made a fortune and hadn't thought it through carefully, so he just went along with their words for a couple of sentences before turning the conversation back to the silver money.

  "107,141 taels... 10,000 taels to Second Uncle, 10,000 taels to Fifth Uncle, 5,000 taels to Eldest Uncle." Yu Guozhen said.

  "Huh?" Yu Yiqin and Yu Yixuan were both stunned: "Guo Zhen, what do you mean by this?"

  "It can't be that all of you uncles just invest money and get nothing in return, right?" Yu Guozhen smiled: "Not to mention anything else, Second Uncle should at least help me accumulate some family property for my brothers. Third Brother and Fourth Brother are also going to get married!"

  When he said this, Yu Yiqin and Yu Yixuan nodded and smiled.

  Yu Guozhen's faction did a good job, although it was a family affair, but if you only saw the investment and didn't see any benefits, the relationship between them would be difficult to last long.

  "What about the remaining silver? Should we hide it?" Yu Yiqin asked again.

  Yu Guozhen sank into thought for a moment: "Second Uncle, Fifth Uncle, the principle of 'the cunning rabbit has three burrows' is something you both understand. Now that the heavens are turbulent and bandits are rising up in all directions, our family may have its own guards, but they can only deal with small groups of bandits. If we were to encounter a large group of tens of thousands of bandits, what would be the best course of action?"

  "Can it be so?" Yu Yiqin was shocked.

  Yu Yixuan fell silent, the joy on his face also subsiding. Yu Guozhen looked at him and said: "Fifth Uncle, you have been to Shandong before, tell Second Uncle about the situation there after the war."

  "It's too tragic to describe." Yu Yixuan didn't speak until after a while: "I haven't arrived at Dengzhou, but only reached the prefecture of Jinan. I saw those refugees who escaped, and not a few were originally wealthy households from Dengzhou and Zhili..."

  Yu Yixuan's words moved Yu Yiqin, who clenched his fist: "In that case, our Yu family's shops in Ying Tian Fu must be expanded!"

  "This is only the second cave, we still need to have a third cave... In addition to that grocery store in Tianfu Prefecture, we also saw a fabric store. From now on, our family's cloth can be directly transported by boat to sell there." Yu Guozhen said: "As for the third cave, wait for some time, I will go south for a trip and see if there is a suitable place."

  Are you going south?

  "Ah, the two uncles, the most profitable business is still going down to the Western Ocean."

  "It's not easy going down the Western Ocean, pirates are extremely rampant nowadays!"

  "The Macanese have red hair, selling goods to them can avoid the risks at sea." Yu Guozhen said, but in his heart he knew that selling goods to the Portuguese in Macau was equivalent to being exploited again, and they could only make a small profit, while the big profit would still go to the Portuguese.

  Since he had made such a decision, Yu Yi-qin and his brothers did not say anything else, only reminding him to bring more people and pay attention to safety. Although the Xiangxiang Sect was basically uprooted, there were still some scattered loyal remnants who might retaliate, so they had to be careful.

  As they chattered on about these things, Yu Guozhen couldn't help but laugh dryly. He had only planned to make a trip south, but the specific time was still early yet.

  The three of them discussed the matter of the cloth shop in Nanjing and finally decided to invest one thousand taels, open up the cloth shop, and put Yu Shou, also known as Yu Yixuan's trusted steward, in charge.

  This is also because Yu's family was not prosperous and lacked talent. Even among the people in the side branches, there were no trustworthy ones.

  "It's really a lack of manpower, Gu Zhen. If you go to the south and set up another den, do you have reliable people?" Yu Yixuan asked as the three left the wine tower.

  Yu Guozhen shook his head and smiled bitterly. The only one who could be of use in his hands was Gao Buping, but Gao's strengths did not lie in management, and going south might not necessarily allow him to exercise his abilities.

  "We need to recruit some people, but reliability comes first. This matter is up to you to decide, I won't say more."

  Yu Yixuan smiled meaningfully at him and said this sentence.

  He knew that Yu Guozhen was ambitious, and as a scholar who was not very successful in the imperial examination, Yu Yixuan also had his own ambitions. If Yu Guozhen could achieve something, then this uncle would also benefit from it, just like the current Xiang'an inspector, who owed his position to Yu Guozhen.

  Yu Guozhen nodded and went straight back to the Xiliu Courtyard - Fang Yizhi had given this courtyard such a name, it was unknown why it became commonly used, and Liu Ru played a significant role in this.

  In her small mind, the "willow" character in Xiang Liu's name coincidentally matched her surname, perhaps this was a kind of mysterious force that linked her fate with this separate courtyard.

  But outside another courtyard, someone beyond reason and logic yet within his expectations was waiting for him.

  Thank you

  (Thanks for the rewards from Qian Tang Yun Ren, ocy110, Chang Feng 01 and Chang Yi Piao Piao ~)