Liangzhou City.
The auction has ended. Although the heads of the major families had smiles on their faces, they were cursing each other in their hearts. The price was agreed upon at the beginning, and several families also swore an oath together, but today's price was exceeded, forcing them to take over these grasslands at a higher price.
Of course, there is one family that is different from them, and that is Cui Yuncheng from the Cui family.
The Cui family has a good habit. Once they decide to do something, the person in charge cannot change it at will. If they do not receive instructions from above, they will do it according to the original plan. Even if there are changes on the spot, they can only make small adjustments. Now the price has soared more than twice. Even if Cui Yuncheng wants to follow the bidding, he does not have that much money.
"Gentlemen, General Cheng and I will be returning to the capital after today. If you wish to return to the capital as well, you may join our army."
General Qin Qiong also raised his glass for a rare occasion. Usually, General Qin hated these businessmen very much, thinking that they only cared about profit. But today, General Qin also got a lot of benefits, so he had to maintain his dignity.
According to the emperor's edict, one-third of the grassland was auctioned and given to the soldiers who participated in the war, and they were distributed according to their merits and ranks.
Although Qin Qiong and Cheng Yaojin did not fight deep into the grassland, they were strategizing in the city and naturally got a lot of money. They got the same as Li Xiang, 200,000 strings of cash each.
For Li Xiang, this amount of money was nothing, but for the two generals, this amount of money was equivalent to their income for one or two years, so the two generals were extremely happy. They had originally predicted that it would be good to get tens of thousands of strings of cash, but they did not expect that the bids would get higher and higher today, which also made them fatter in their pockets.
"You're too polite, General."
The managers all raised their glasses. While they were drinking the finest Tang Dynasty wine, which likely cost several thousand taels of silver, they were still feeling a bit uncomfortable spending money today. It was double the original budget. What did this mean? It meant that many future projects wouldn't be able to proceed. Even on the closing date a month from now, they might have to divert significant funds from other businesses, impacting many of their previous plans.
Although raising horses and cattle on the grassland is a profitable business, there will definitely not be any profit in the short term. In addition to the money spent on buying horses and cattle, they have already felt what the future will be like. That is, for a long time, they may not have any liquid funds, and they will also need to pay Li Xiang a lot of interest.
When the treasure was auctioned, if one deposited one million strings of cash with Li Xiang, one could get an interest of 50,000 strings of cash. They thought it was a pure money-making venture, and everyone fought for it.
But now they're regretting it. If they'd known about the grassland auction, why would they have kept their money with someone else? Wouldn't it be better to keep it in their own hands? They could get a loan, but not only would they need a large amount of collateral, but the interest rate had already risen to 13%.
The most important thing is that the person who got the treasure told them that they cannot pay off the money in one go. If you want to borrow money, especially a large loan of more than 500,000 strings of cash, you must repay it in their way, which is in installments.
When they first learned about the installment repayment plan, they thought that Zhidaobao's plan was not bad. With only three percentage points more interest than the original plan, they could repay the money in twelve months. This would save them a lot of money. At that time, they signed the agreement without hesitation and asked the government to act as a guarantor.
Now everyone is a little sad again. The little money left every month must be used to repay the principal and interest. Of course, you can also pay it off in one lump sum, but then you have to pay a penalty of 4%.
It's obvious that they want to earn your interest...
Although they have understood it now, it has been signed in black and white. If you breach the contract, don't think that the other party is an unknown little kid. He is the eldest grandson of the emperor who has just made great contributions. It is said that if he gets the treasure, he will get a part of the interest from the emperor. You want to default on the emperor's money, how can you be so capable?
In fact, Li Xiang just moved the modern society's Alipay borrowing method over, and nowadays, if you want to borrow money, the interest can even be several times higher. Li Xiang only reduced the interest rate to 20% to 30%, which is still much lower than the social loan interest rate in general, but the amount of funds is too large.
"Brother Cui, you must be a little disappointed today. We only took over a small piece of grassland, and as far as I know, there is no river passing through there. Your cattle and sheep will have a problem getting water."
The Wang family of Taiyuan reaped great rewards in this auction. The major families had long been dissatisfied with the Cui family, so they prepared more funds. They thought that the people of the Cui family would dominate the auction, just like the last treasure auction. Unexpectedly, this time Cui Yuncheng did not lose much value, but instead became a spectator.
"A large amount of our family's funds have been tied up, and I have limited funds. Brother Wang has returned with a full haul this time. Among the pastures that our families have auctioned off, yours are rich in water resources and abundant in grass and grass. If you need more war horses in the future, you must cooperate with our Cui family and let us have some benefits."
Cui Yuncheng is flexible and can bend and stretch. Even if the other party comes to ridicule him, Cui Yuncheng can control himself. Just based on this kind of mentality, this guy is already much better than others.
"Brother Cui, what are you talking about? We will definitely cooperate in the future. Everyone knows that your horse farms are all over the country. If we don't cooperate with you, where will we sell our horses?"
The prince didn't say much else, but he felt something was amiss. Since everyone was clearly coming here to make money, why didn't the Cui family follow suit? Was there some conspiracy?
Cui Yuncheng didn't understand this either. He had already written three letters and sent them to Chang'an as quickly as possible, but there was no reply from Chang'an. This meant that he had to proceed according to the original plan. Was there really something going on here?
Thinking of this, Cui Yuncheng waved his hand, and a waiter came over from a distance.
"Didn't His Royal Highness the Crown Prince buy the pasture?"
Cui Yuncheng said in a low voice, his expression tense to the extreme...