The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

Chapter 138

In Jiangnan, Chu Li received a letter and money notes from Zhou Chu from a member of the Imperial Guard.

These banknotes totaled ten million strings of cash, and they were bearer banknotes. Zhou Chu sent dozens of Imperial Guards to escort the letter and these banknotes alone, in order to prevent anyone from running away with the money. Of course, Zhou Chu sealed all these things in a small box and strictly ordered the Imperial Guards not to open it.

A few days ago, Chu Li had Xiao Dao deliver a letter to Zhou Chu. In addition to summarizing many things, the letter also requested funding from Zhou Chu.

More than half a year ago, when Chu Li first came to Jiangnan, she found that although the merchants and gentry in Jiangnan seemed like a united front to outsiders, there was also competition among them, and they were not as united as they appeared on the surface.

That's normal. After all, the cake is only so big. If you take a bigger bite, someone else will take a smaller bite.

Besides this issue, based on the smuggling information Zhou Chu had given her about the southeastern coast, Chu Li also concluded that smuggling ships would carry as little raw silk as possible.

Raw silk is not very profitable compared to porcelain and finished silk products, but it is the favorite of the local powerful families in Japan. After all, they can make five to ten times the profit by reselling raw silk. Compared to raw silk, the profits of other products are too low.

This is the crux of the contradiction: for the gentry and merchants of Jiangnan, smuggling raw silk was not profitable, but they had to carry raw silk on their ships. Therefore, the amount of smuggled raw silk was actually limited, and the main raw silk was still destined for the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

With this basic information, Chu Li came to the conclusion that raw silk could be shorted. The premise for shorting is that a commodity is not in short supply, which raw silk meets, as can be seen from the fact that the price of raw silk has always fluctuated.

The concepts of short selling and long selling were explained to her by Zhou Chu. Although his explanation was rather rough, since Zhou Chu wasn't a finance major, Chu Li was naturally intelligent and focused on business, so she grasped the concepts quickly.

So, six months ago, Chu Li meticulously planned and shorted a small amount of raw silk, acquiring it at a lower price. At the same time, the short selling also made her a profit.

But even though she was very careful, she almost got caught by those people. If it weren't for the timely tip-off from the Rongmen of Jiangnan, Chu Li would have been retaliated against if she had been discovered.

Although these people are not very united, they never show any mercy to out-of-town businessmen, and can even be described as lawless.

Because of this extremely dangerous encounter, Chu Li behaved herself for half a year, and during that time she never dared to take risks again.

However, Chu Li has not been idle in the past six months. With Chu Huizu's secret help, she has been trying to infiltrate the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce. Although she cannot be considered a member of the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce yet, she has become a familiar face. At least these people are no longer hostile to Chu Li.

This was exactly the effect Chu Li wanted.

A few days ago, Chu Li suddenly learned that Zhou Chu had risen to the top and become the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. He had also ordered the Embroidered Uniform Guard in Jiangnan to protect her and fully cooperate with her actions. This made Chu Li's originally peaceful mind restless again.

So she had Xiaodao deliver a letter to Zhou Chu, requesting funds from him. This time, she was going to go big.

Shorting the raw silk market in Jiangnan.

When Zhou Chu received Chu Li's letter, he immediately went to the palace to see Zhu Houcong and explained the matter in detail so that Zhu Houcong could better understand it.

Upon hearing this, Zhu Houcong waved his hand and directly allocated five million strings of cash to Zhou Chu from the money obtained from the previous confiscation of his property. Zhou Chu also contributed almost all of his liquid assets, raising a total of five million strings of cash, which amounted to ten million strings of cash. He then deposited the money into several banks under the names of different people.

The reason for doing this was to avoid arousing suspicion from the people in Jiangnan, since they owned most of these money shops.

Looking at the ten million guan notes in her hand, Chu Li was both excited and deeply moved. She was excited because she had never seen so much money before, and moved by Zhou Chu's trust in her. She had only written a letter asking for funds, and Zhou Chu had sent such a staggering amount of money without even asking any questions.

But thinking about it, it makes sense. If you have less capital, how can you short the entire raw silk market in Jiangnan?

The reason Zhou Chu gave Chu Li so much money without hesitation was to ensure Chu Li's success. Once the short selling was successful, it would be like cutting a piece of flesh from the gentry and powerful families of Jiangnan. Moreover, with so much capital, Zhou Chu believed that with Chu Li's abilities, it was not just about short selling. She could short sell first and then go long, profiting from both sides.

If the profits from short selling are limited, then there are virtually no restrictions on going long. Zhou Chu even specifically mentioned this in his letter.

Both Chu Li and Chu Huizu vaguely knew the truth behind their parents' deaths, a fact that Zhou Chu had been subtly hinting at to solidify Chu Huizu's stance.

After all, it wasn't easy to imprison Chu Huizu. If Chu Huizu didn't have a strong enough will, he would betray them sooner or later.

What could be more inspiring than the hatred of a family wiped out?

Chu Li was no exception; seeing an opportunity to carve out a piece of flesh from the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce, she naturally wouldn't let it pass.

After receiving the money, Chu Li immediately sent a visiting card to Zhang Ziyi, the vice president of the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce. Zhang Ziyi was the largest raw silk supplier in the entire Jiangnan region, and he alone controlled almost 30% of the entire Jiangnan raw silk market.

Thirty percent is already the limit; any more than that and others will not tolerate it.

Zhang Ziyi was somewhat surprised to receive Chu Li's invitation. In the past six months, Chu Li had made a name for herself in Jiangnan. Although she was just a woman, no one dared to underestimate her.

However, in terms of both business scale and status, there is a huge gap between Chu Li and Zhang Ziyi. Normally, Zhang Ziyi would not even glance at such a visiting card. But one sentence in the visiting card made Zhang Ziyi unable to look away.

This woman wants to do a raw silk business with me? And the amount is as high as several million strings of cash? Even Zhang Ziyi was unsettled when she saw this number.

Although he was very wealthy, with nearly ten million taels of silver alone, not to mention copper coins, he rarely engaged in such large-scale business dealings.

For most merchants, buying one or two hundred thousand strings of raw silk at once is considered a very large transaction.

Zhang Ziyi didn't know what this woman was up to, but Jiangnan was his territory, and Chu Li was just a merchant from out of town. As the saying goes, even a powerful dragon can't suppress a local snake. Moreover, in Zhang Ziyi's eyes, Chu Li was far from being a powerful dragon.

"Have her set a time."

Zhang Ziyi said to the person who delivered the visiting card.