In a chaotic and famine-stricken era, I picked up an empress to be my wife.

"Persimmon Beauty Paste, five taels a bottle; Bath Beans, five taels a bottle; Heaven-Mending Pills, twenty taels a pill!"

Luo Li quoted a price: "How is it? Is it too high?"

Shen An was not very satisfied. The cost of persimmon beauty cream and bath beans was not high. If sold at this price, a bottle could earn a 90% profit.

It's also a highly profitable business, but the target customers aren't the general public, but rather the wealthy and powerful.

Given the current scarcity of persimmon paste and bath beans, as long as Helian Business Alliance promotes them, they will surely be able to sell them at a very high price.

As for the Heaven-Mending Pill, it concerns male dignity and is currently the best aphrodisiac on the market.

Don't even mention twenty taels; as long as it's useful, those high-ranking officials and nobles are willing to pay hundreds of taels for a single pill.

"My dear sister, you're not satisfied with these prices?"

"Good brother, of course I'm not satisfied with this. Let me tell you how much they cost!" Shen An painted a rosy picture for Luo Li.

After listening, Luo Li nodded repeatedly: "Good sister, what you said makes sense. So, name your price."

"Persimmon Beauty Cream and Bath Beans are both ten taels a bottle, and Heaven-Mending Pills are one hundred taels a pill! Remember, the future customers for these things will be wealthy people. What we need is not to pursue volume, but to precisely select our customers!"

Luo Li thought for a moment and said, "Then let's go with this price."

"Can you set a price?"

"I can't set a price, but what you said is very powerful. If they listen to it, they will definitely change their business model and agree to your pricing."

"How about this: one thousand boxes each of Shi Mei Gao (a type of herbal paste) and bath beans, and three hundred pills of Butian Dazao Wan (another type of herbal pill), to be delivered in three days?" Luo Li asked.

This woman spoke directly and frankly, without beating around the bush, so Shen An naturally trusted her: "No problem, alright then, see you here again in three days!"

Unlike last time, Luo Li didn't stay overnight before leaving; she came and went in a hurry.

Shen An watched Luo Li leave, calculating the total price Luo Li had just demanded!

Each box of Shi Mei Gao (柿美膏) and bath powder weighs ten taels, and if we need one thousand boxes of each, the total price would be twenty thousand taels.

Three hundred pills of the Heaven-Mending Pill, that's thirty thousand taels of silver!

In total, that's fifty thousand taels!

It must be said that the Helian Merchant Alliance is wealthy and powerful, which once again proves that in times of chaos and famine, only the common people are poor, while the high-ranking officials and nobles are not affected at all.

They can easily take out the money that others earn over several years to buy a small box of skincare products.

Although Shen An felt somewhat emotional, he was mostly relieved that he had opened up a new path to wealth.

Even if the wealthy population isn't that large, he can increase production in the future and lower the price to a level that ordinary people can afford.

At that time, you can continue to make money.

With these 50,000 taels, he could provide the 5,000 soldiers he had secretly recruited with enough food and drink, and equip them with weapons far superior to those of the Great Liang era!

Upon returning, Shen An immediately sought out Old Zhao and asked him to gather manpower to begin production.

Just like when making crossbows before, Shen An divided it into several stages, without telling them the specific proportions, and only let them do some physical labor.

In this way, even if someone betrays him, they will not obtain the secret recipe for making these things.

Three days later!

Shen An delivered the goods on time!

However, the person who came this time was not Luo Li, but a manager of the Helian Merchant Alliance named Wu Santian.

"Manager Wu, why didn't Miss Luo Li come today?" Shen An asked.

"County Commandant Shen, Miss Luo Li has returned to the capital due to family matters. He asked me to tell you..." At this point, Wu Santian hesitated to continue.

"explain."

"Hehe, she told me to tell you: 'My dear sister, don't worry, she'll come back to find you after she finishes taking care of things at home.'" Wu Santian said, trying his best not to laugh.

But Shen An could tell that Wu Santian was practically bursting with laughter inside.

Even though Shen An didn't care about saving face, he was extremely embarrassed at this moment.

He regretted admitting his impotence to Luo Li.

It all started as a way to solve one problem, but because of that one problem, more and more problems are popping up...

Shen An rarely explained, "Miss Luo, that should be the proper way to address her."

Wu Santian shook his head vigorously, like a rattle-drum: "No, County Commandant Shen, that's exactly what Miss Luo Li said. She was afraid I was wrong, so she reminded me three times to make sure I passed on the message, my dear sister..."

Shen An was speechless with embarrassment; he had really embarrassed himself.

"She certainly likes to joke around; let her call me whatever she wants." Shen pretended not to care and immediately changed the subject: "After this transaction, when will you order more goods?"

Wu Santian didn't dare continue the conversation: "County Commandant Shen, the higher-ups want us to try selling it first. If it works well, they'll come to Qingyang County to find you."

"Alright!"

"There's another requirement from above. They hope you won't reveal that you sold these things, otherwise you'll be targeted by many people."

Shen An could tell that what seemed like goodwill was actually an attempt to control the supply of goods to them.

Shen An doesn't want others to know he's supplying goods, otherwise Li Huaiyi will definitely cause him trouble if he finds out.

Shen An is not yet fully prepared to face Li Huaiyi, so naturally he does not want a conflict to break out prematurely.

This move by the Helian Merchant Alliance was exactly what Shen An wanted.

"Okay, I won't tell anyone else."

The two chatted for a while longer, and then Wu shipped the goods away three days later.

Shen An looked at the silver notes in his hand, mounted his horse, and left Qingtian Village. He found Hei Laoliu, gave him 10,000 taels of silver, and told him to continue secretly buying grain and iron to expand the scale of weapons production.

After giving the necessary instructions, Shen An began to attempt to make gunpowder.

He traveled to Daliang and had previously tried making gunpowder.

Saltpeter is hard to find, unlike in other novels where it's easily found.

Now that he has enough manpower, the search will be much faster than if he did it alone.

Time quickly passed. Two months after Li Huaiyi asked Qingyang County to raise the money, only one month remained until the deadline given by Li Huaiyi.

In the verdant mountains.

"Boom!" A loud explosion resounded throughout the heavens and earth.

Shen An stood behind a large tree, looking at the firelight in front of him.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

The gunpowder detonated successfully!

For more than a month, he had been sending people to search for saltpeter.

As a result, we only received three baskets yesterday.

After Shen An prepared all of it into gunpowder, he put it into sealed earthenware jars, making a total of twenty.

One has just been detonated; there are nineteen left.

Judging from the power of the explosion just now, even if all twenty of them attacked together, they wouldn't be able to cause serious damage to an army; at most, they could only kill a few dozen people.

This made Shen An realize that, given the current pace of development in Daliang, it was impossible to popularize gunpowder on a large scale.

However, if used properly, these explosives can certainly have remarkable effects.

"Brother, that damned Feng Zihuan is looking for you everywhere!" Shen Xiaoqi rode over on horseback.

"What does he want from me?"

"I don't know either. They seem to be in a hurry. They said they'd call you back as soon as they saw you," Shen Xiaoqi said.

"Okay, let's go back now!"

When Shen An returned and met Feng Zihuan, Liu Wenyuan, Liao Bing, and the newly appointed county magistrate Hu Demiao were all summoned.

Seeing Shen An arrive, Feng Zihuan stood up with a stern face and said, "Since everyone is here, I'll get straight to the point. Recently, Yuwen Qin's men have been attacking my Yangnan Prefecture, and we urgently need money."

The military governor said, "I'm not waiting for the due date; I require you to have all the money ready within ten days!"

"Inspector Feng, aren't Yuwen Qin and the military governor brothers? They even fought against other people together before, so why did they suddenly fall out?" Liu Wenyuan asked suspiciously.

"How would I know? Perhaps Yuwen Qin is a wolf in sheep's clothing and has been feigning goodwill all along. In any case, you must hand over all the money the governor needs within ten days!" Feng Zihuan urged.

"As officials of Yangnan Prefecture, we must share the burden of the military governor. Everyone, hurry up and raise the money. We must not let the military governor down!" Hu Demiao, the newly arrived county magistrate, stood up and said with a righteous expression.

In the eyes of Shen An and the others, his attitude was tantamount to courting death!

This man appears righteous, but in reality, he used Feng Zihuan's influence to have Li Huaiyi arrange things.

Compared to Feng Zihuan, this person is more appropriately called a lackey.

Since he arrived, he has been using his power to cause trouble in various ways.

If Shen An hadn't been preparing all along and not wanting to cause any unnecessary trouble, he would have already chopped this guy down with one blow.

"Then give me the money!" Liao Bing couldn't hold back any longer.

"Heh, I've just entered officialdom, and I'm penniless. Where would I get any money? You'll have to come and collect it." Hu Demiao patted his chest. "Let me tell you, if I had money, if I were a county magistrate, I would do my utmost to serve the military governor! Unlike you, who are half-hearted!"

"Who the hell are you calling fickle?!" Liao Bing cursed angrily.

"Enough! Now is not the time for you to quarrel. Hurry up and raise the money. I remember you have been raising money all this time. You must have a lot of money by now, right?"

I need to see the money within two days. If I don't, it means you've been deceiving the governor all along.

"You can decide the consequences yourselves!" Feng Zihuan snorted angrily and slammed the door shut as he left.

Hu Demiao immediately followed.

After the two of them left, Liao Bing and Liu Wenyuan both looked at Shen An, and when they saw the corners of Shen An's mouth turn up.

The two of them became excited.

"My lord, are all the preparations complete?"

"We're still short of some food. Once the supplies arrive in five days, we can openly confront Li Huaiyi! As for Feng Zihuan and Hu Demiao, if you want to kill them, I can give you the chance!"

Shen An's words excited the two even more.

"I've had enough of Feng Zihuan for two months. I can take him down in five days!" Liao Bing said, clenching his fists.

Shen An's eyes flashed coldly: "No need to wait five days, we can act in two days! By the time Liu suspects that Feng Zihuan hasn't returned to report on time, it will already be six days later. We have plenty of time!"