Hua Ji felt chilled by the sight of Wu Mei and Li Zhi, and finally calmed down, imitating Li Hong's accent and said: "Why the hell did you come here? Did my father or my mother ask you to come here? This thing in your hand What is this? An imperial edict? What do you want to announce? Give it to me."
Huaji looked at Li Zhi and Wu Mei fearfully, and saw that both of them looked a little embarrassed and livid, while Lanling, Xincheng, and Chengyang all had suppressed smiles on their faces.
"Keep talking." Wu Mei said coldly, her mind filled with dark thoughts.
"Then His Royal Highness took the imperial edict from the slave and threw it on the table..."
"Didn't you see it, little idiot?" Li Zhi asked in surprise, his eyes almost popping out of his head.
"Uh... Your Majesty, Your Majesty, the Crown Prince really didn't look at it." Hua Ji's face looked like he was about to cry, and he knelt down as soon as his knees went weak.
"Then!" Li Zhi was very angry, glared at the three princesses who were holding back their smiles, and continued to look at Hua Ji.
"Then His Highness the Crown Prince asked his slave to help him... help him... write a letter to you and the Queen, so he did so. If he didn't do it, he would not let him come back..."
Li Zhi snatched the letter from Wu Mei's hand, looked at the disgusting letter, and asked with trembling hands: "Did you write this for him? Nonsense, wanton! Someone, pull out the stick for a hundred!" No, two hundred!”
Li Zhi slapped the letter on the table and said angrily.
"Your Majesty, I'm sorry, I haven't finished speaking yet. But while I was writing, His Highness also wrote again. The letter in your hand is indeed His Highness's handwriting. What I wrote was thrown away by His Highness."
"Did he ask you to say that? In fact, you wrote this letter? Don't think I don't know, your handwriting has always been very similar to his!"
"Your Majesty, I am really unjust. I would not dare to lie to you even if I had a hundred more courage." Huaji knelt on the ground, wanting to die.
All this was part of His Highness the Crown Prince's plan. He knew that His Majesty and the Queen would definitely ask him for details, and this person who helped write the letter must have something to say. His Highness the Crown Prince was clearly planning to kill someone with a borrowed knife.
But you want Hua Ji to say that His Highness the Crown Prince has murderous intentions towards him? Hua Ji himself didn't believe that His Highness the Crown Prince wanted to kill him, but it was just His Highness the Crown Prince's bad taste and revenge for slaves like himself, who had nothing to do to report him to His Majesty and the Queen.
Wu Mei looked at the letter in her hand silently, then frowned and said calmly: "Your Majesty, the little idiot did this on purpose. He deliberately wanted to use your hand to punish Hua Ji. He knew that you would definitely do it. So I asked Huaji, so I planned this."
Wu Mei's face was full of melancholy and helplessness. She really didn't know whether it was the Tang Dynasty's blessing or the Tang Dynasty's nightmare to have such a useless prince.
"Why are you planning this?" Li Zhi was still angry and looked at Wu Mei with a puzzled look on his face and asked.
"It goes without saying, brother emperor, you and the queen ask Hua Ji and others to spy on Li Hong from time to time. Of course he wants to take revenge on these people." Xincheng looked at Hua Ji who was kneeling on the ground and explained.
"Yes, Your Majesty, it is indeed the case. Even if I had a hundred more courages, I would not dare to secretly write a letter from His Highness the Crown Prince to you." Hua Ji kowtowed to the ground, took over Xincheng's words, and hurriedly explained.
"Hmph, let's wait and see how I deal with him when he comes back, show off his military skills, and draft an imperial edict. Now let's scold him." Li Zhi's expression completely softened, he sat down and drank tea, and then looked at several women with a smile on his face. With residual anger.
So he asked curiously: "What's wrong with you? Do you need my help with anything difficult?"
"You can't help." Lan Ling sighed.
"Can't I help? I am the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, the Nine-Five Supreme..."
"That little idiot wants to cash out the Ministry of Household Affairs, Taiyi City, and the workshops we originally called cooperation with him. Can you help with this?" Wu Mei glanced at Li Zhi, Now this household department is like an independent yamen of the Tang Dynasty, and I don’t see what happened to you, the emperor.
"It's about the Ministry of Household Affairs. Let's talk about it. If you have any questions about this matter, go to Li Hong and let him take care of it." When Li Zhi heard that it was the Ministry of Household Affairs and that little idiot's business, he simply pushed 625 ,do not care.
"You can leave it alone, then just wait for the courtiers in the court to cry to you." Wu Mei rubbed her sore forehead, feeling uncomfortable thinking about it, her palms itched, and she wanted to beat the little idiot immediately.
Li Zhi was shocked when he heard Wu Mei's words, and asked hurriedly: "Can the affairs of the Ministry of Revenue affect other ministers?"
Wu Mei sighed, and seeing that Bai Chun hadn't come yet, she simply handed the other document in her hand to Li Zhi.
Li Zhi curiously took the letter and thought to himself, the little idiot was quite interesting. He was not just caught in the trap of his father, but it seemed that his mother was also cheated during this trip to the Western Regions. Suddenly, he felt a sense of balance in his heart. .
"The Ministry of Revenue doesn't have much loss, it's just money. Besides, the Ministry of Household Affairs also provides money according to the annual plan formulated by Li Hong himself and according to the budget allocated by the Ministry of Household Affairs to the four towns in Anxi every year, without affecting the courtiers." Li Zhi After reading it, he said relaxedly.
Wu Mei felt angry for a while. No wonder Li Zhi was so relaxed after reading it. For a long time, this was all planned by the little idiot before he left? So when you first discussed cooperation with yourself and others, was that also the plan
If Wu Mei knew at this moment that Li Hong not only took money from the Ministry of Household Affairs, but also asked for people from the Ministry of Works, and that he had tricked his father once, maybe he would be able to feel a little more balanced at this time.
Bai Chun is still dressed in snow-white clothes, and her hair is tied back like Li Hong's all year round. She has never been seen with her hair tied up.
"My slave, Bai Chun, has met Your Majesty, the Queen, and Princess Xincheng, Chengyang, and Lanling." Bai Chun's whole temperament became more and more calm and calm. The previous charm had long since disappeared. Now, Instead, it was as pure as the snow lotus on the mountain that day.
Wu Mei and the three princesses looked at each other, then Wu Mei asked: "When you signed the contract with Li Hong, it was indeed stipulated in this way, but today I have called you here to ask, if you don't follow the contract, Regarding the contract, is it feasible for me and others to only give that little idiot half of the money?”
Wu Mei summoned Bai Chun not because of how important Bai Chun was in her heart, nor because of Bai Chun's transcendent status in Li Hong's Taiyi City.
But it's because Wu Mei believes that besides herself as a mother, only Bai Chun understands Li Hong best. What's more, when it comes to money matters, Bai Chun is probably worse than himself.
So she summoned Bai Chun just to find out, if she did not follow the contract she signed with Li Hong, but followed her will and only gave Li Hong 20% of the money, would it be feasible? Can Li Hong not be allowed to counterattack the four of them
"Back to the Queen, I'm afraid this matter will be difficult. Before I came, I carefully read the contract you signed with His Highness the Crown Prince. If you change the contract, it will not help." Bai Chun took out a contract from his handbag. , handed it to Wu Mei respectfully.
Then he took the gifts prepared for Wu Mei and others from the hands of the eunuchs who followed him, and presented them one by one.
Wu Mei flipped through the contract written in black and white at random, and it was no different from the one in her hand.
Frowning and thinking about it, Wu Mei didn't know what Li Hong could do if she was forced to pay Li Hong half of the contract.
"Then tell me, what will happen to him if I only give him half of the money?" Wu Mei felt a little painful when she thought of giving Li Hong 40% of the money directly according to the contract.
She had just calculated it with the three rich women in Chang'an City. If the four of them paid according to the contract signed with Li Hong, it would be equivalent to giving 60 to 70% of the money to build the Daming Palace to Li Hong in vain.
This money is the total earned by the four of them in the past four years after they signed the contract with Li Hong.
As for the remaining 60%, according to what the little idiot said at the beginning, half was the cash the four of them actually paid out of their pockets, and part of the loan from the Royal Bank.
The other half, the four of them were in a trance, hazy, and were cashed in by some real estate mortgage that Li Hong said. In short, it was mortgaged from the Royal Bank.
At first, the four of them thought that Li Hong had finally stopped talking about them and was finally willing to do business with them sincerely, but now it seems that is not the case.
Bai Chun looked at the queen and the three princesses, and couldn't bear to hurt them, but thinking about Li Hong's virtue, he still said truthfully: "If you only give 20%, then your manors in other parts of the Tang Dynasty will They will all belong to His Royal Highness, and you will automatically lose the workshop to continue to manage and operate."
"What?" Lan Ling stood up first, patted the table and asked with beautiful eyes: "You mean if we don't pay, then all my other manors will belong to Li Hong?"
"Your Royal Highness, to be precise, it belongs to the Royal Bank." Bai Chun explained.
"What's the difference? That bank belongs to Li Hong alone. What's the difference between giving it to the bank and giving it to him?" Xincheng couldn't sit still anymore and stood up to question.
"Uh..." Xincheng stopped Bai Chun. Bai Chun thought for a while and said with difficulty: "To be precise, there is really no difference, but according to the documents, these manors should be under the name of the bank, and It’s not the personal name of His Royal Highness.”
"Is this the difference?" Chengyang felt that the tone of his voice had changed.
"That's true." Bai Chun said.
Chengyang, Xincheng, and Lanling had originally signed contracts with Li Hong for the production of cotton clothing. How could they provide cotton clothing to frontier soldiers every year? How could the Ministry of Household Affairs allocate funds to them.
But Li Hong doesn't want 10% of the shares here, but there is a mandatory requirement in the contract. After four years, he must pay Li Hong a lump sum of 40% of the sales in cash.
As for the purchase of manpower and other equipment, the three princesses could not afford so much money at once, so they were persuaded by Li Hong to give it to the Royal Bank in the name of squeezing the manor, and borrowed money from the bank to build it.
(End of chapter)