Tang Dynasty Hidden Guards

Xue Wei rolled his eyes and thought for a long time. "If I become a hidden guard, it means I won't have an official position for a long time, but I also want to find something to do."

"I ask you to be my bodyguard and protect my safety!"

Xue Wei rested his chin on his hand and smiled, "The guards are fine with Zuo Qingling and the others. I want to be your secretary."

"What is a secretary?" Yuan Min asked, puzzled.

"A secretary is someone who does the work when there's work to be done, and does the work when there's nothing to do!"

Yuan Min tilted her head, looking at him with a half-smile, "Do you want me to be your secretary?"

Xue Wei chuckled, "How could that be! You're the boss's wife."

He suddenly sat up straight. "I've made up my mind. I'll be your partner!"

"What does 'partner' mean?"

"Haven't we discovered a lot of wealth? We'll split it in half, and then I'll invest my half in your business. That's called being a shareholder, or you could call it being a partner."

"I understand, you want to be my partner!"

Xue Wei nodded. "He's also your advisor."

What is a consultant?

"I just happened to have the time, so I asked."

Yuan Min said, both amused and annoyed, "I know, you just want to hang out here. Whenever I run into trouble, you step in and handle it for me. You're just a hands-off manager when it comes to normal chores."

Xue Wei gave a thumbs up. "Very clear explanation, how about it? Partner and consultant."

Yuan Min's eyes darted around, and she smiled slyly, "Sure! I don't want that wealth, it's all yours, but I have a few conditions. First, you must invest it all in me. I just happen to need a large sum of money to buy a pawn shop. I'll give you 40% of all my assets."

Secondly, we need to sign an agreement: you can only ultimately receive 40% if you marry me. If you change your mind and get seduced by some other woman, sorry, your 40% will be forfeited, and you won't get your investment back. This is called a loyalty deposit.

Xue Wei rolled his eyes. This woman was incredibly shrewd. On the surface, she didn't want the wealth and even gave him 40% of it, but in the end, it was all hers.

"What if you change your mind?" Xue Wei countered.

"If I change my mind, all the shops are yours, I won't take a penny, I'll leave with nothing."

Xue Wei sighed, "I'll sign the agreement with you, but don't include the clause about you changing your mind."

Yuan Min leaned closer, looked up at him, and smiled brightly, "You trust me?"

Xue Wei nodded. "If you change your mind, it must be because I did something to wrong you first. So before you changed your mind, I had already violated the agreement, and my 40% share is now void."

Yuan Min pouted and muttered under her breath, "That sounds nice, but if I changed my mind, you would have already slaughtered everyone!"

"What did you say?"

"I say, you're smart. Come on! Help this owner figure this out."

"What are you consulting?"

Yuan Min placed two scrolls of documents in front of Xue Wei. "These are two pawnshops, both of which are willing to sell. One is Chen's Pawnshop of Houmo Chen family, and the other is Qingyun Pawnshop of Shangguan Wan'er."

"Shangguan Wan'er is even selling her shop?"

"She's selling off all her properties in Luoyang right now. Before, she pretended she wouldn't sell the Shangwanlou for less than 50,000 guan, but in the blink of an eye, she's selling it for 30,000 guan. Then there are three Shangwanlou buildings and two shops in the South Market. Finally, there's this store, which was initially priced at 120,000 guan, but it was eventually sold for 60,000 guan. She's in a hurry to get money to buy up properties in Chang'an at rock-bottom prices. Shops in Chang'an are very cheap right now; the same shops are only half the price in Luoyang."

"Sixty thousand strings of cash? That's twice as expensive as going upstairs to the evening."

"What a fool, Uncle Xue!"

Yuan Min laughed, "Because it's not just one store, it has six stores, three in Luoyang and three in Chang'an. Moreover, all the land belongs to her. There is a main store in Chang'an and one in Luoyang, each with a warehouse, covering an area of ​​thirty acres, averaging 10,000 strings of cash per store, and the locations are all very good."

"Besides the land and the house, what else did Shangguan Wan'er leave you?"

"There are also qualifications for manager, clerk, and cashier. These days, it's very difficult to get a cashier qualification. You can forget about getting one without spending three thousand strings of cash to bribe someone."

How do pawn shops make money?

Yuan Min thought for a moment, "It mainly involves lending money using other people's savings, with an interest rate of 1% every three months. It's more profitable than any other industry, but of course, the risks are also high. Usually, real estate and land are used as collateral. I heard that someone used a haunted house as collateral, took the money and ran away. Later, the haunted house couldn't be sold, and they lost a lot of money."

"Let's talk about the shop of the candidate fairy!"

Yuan Min rolled her eyes at him. "I thought you only remembered Ajiao. Hou Mochen's pawnshop also has six shops, three in Luoyang and three in Chang'an, with the same conditions as Qingyun Pawnshop. But their minimum charge is 100,000 guan. The advantage is that they have acquaintances, so it's a one-off deal and you won't regret it later."

Although Qingyun Pawnshop is 40,000 strings of cash cheaper, I don't really trust Shangguan Wan'er. What if she regrets it later? She'll never think of redeeming it with money; instead, she'll use underhanded tactics to force me to pay her back, or sell it to her for a few thousand strings of cash at the official price.

Xue Wei thought for a moment and said, "I prefer to buy Shangguan Wan'er's shop. If we don't even have the ability to protect ourselves, our hundreds of shops would have been looted long ago."

Yuan Min pondered for a long time. After all, it was a discount of 40,000 guan, which was equivalent to a top-tier restaurant in the best location. She finally nodded.

"Alright! Then let's consider Qingyun Department Store first."

"Actually, there's another problem!"

Yuan Min looked at Xue Wei with a meaningful gaze. "Buying other ready-made shops also requires changing the owner at the Ministry of Revenue, which will cost at least two thousand strings of cash. The money is a small matter, but I'm worried that Wu Sansi won't approve it. However, I'm too embarrassed to ask my mother for help. What do you think, Advisor Xue?"

........

That night, Xue Wei and four female warriors worked together, spending the entire night moving all 120 wooden crates to the upper floor.

The total amount was 120,000 taels of gold and silver, including 60,000 taels of gold and 60,000 taels of silver, which was equivalent to 660,000 strings of cash.

Yuan Min rewarded each of the four female warriors with one thousand strings of cash.

Xue Wei and Yuan Min worked together to paint over the four characters "义军军俸" (meaning "righteous army's salary") on the box with red paint.

"Where is all this gold and silver stored? Won't they question its origin?"

You're overthinking it!

Yuan Min smiled confidently and said, "We store the money directly in the Dugu family's Baoji storehouse. I have five special vaults, each three zhang square. All of our business's assets are stored there. No one will ask questions when we put gold and silver in."

This morning, my transaction with Shangguan Wan'er regarding this Shangwan Tower involved transferring 28,000 taels of silver from my storeroom directly to Shangguan Wan'er's storeroom. This is a highly secretive method for large transactions.

Xue Wei became interested. "I'll go check out the store tomorrow!"

........

The following morning, the group hired two covered mule carts to transport the gold and silver chests to Baoji Pharmacy in Nanshi, and went directly to the warehouse at the back.

Baoji Pharmacy's warehouse used an extra-large iron transport box with iron wheels. One hundred and twenty wooden boxes filled the two large iron boxes. The lids were closed and locked, and four strongmen dragged them into the warehouse.

Xue Wei finally witnessed what a century-old foundation meant. The entire warehouse was built with large bluestones, and the extremely thick beams were like the pillars of a palace. Inside, it was like a factory in later generations, with a huge scale, similar to the Yingtian Tower Palace he had visited. Inside were five rows of densely packed stone houses, each row containing hundreds of rooms.

The size of this warehouse is actually a bit excessive, but it is for a special purpose, just like the main halls of Taoist temples and Buddhist temples, which are special cases and can be exempted.

Two managers simultaneously used large keys to open the two iron gates in the third row. A strongman dragged two large iron boxes to the front of warehouse number C-30. All the shopkeepers retreated and stood outside the iron gates to observe them.

Yuan Min took out two keys and opened the two iron doors of the warehouse, one inside and one outside. Everyone worked together to push the two large iron boxes inside, and after closing the iron doors, they began unloading the goods.

Yuan Min carried a lantern, while Xue Wei and four female warriors nimbly stacked one hundred and twenty wooden boxes neatly in the warehouse.

Yuan Min breathed a long sigh of relief. She had been quite worried, but now that this batch of gold and silver had entered the storeroom, she could finally relax. From now on, most of her large transactions would be conducted in this storeroom warehouse.