"Lord, this is the gift list sent by the guests who came to the house to celebrate the banquet." A personal soldier handed over the gift list to Li Guodong. After taking the list, Li Guodong was stunned: "Why did he send so many gifts?" As he said that, Li Guodong turned to look at Zhao Xiancheng and asked, "Shopkeeper Zhao! Why did you tell these shopkeepers?"

Zhao Xiancheng was startled and knelt down quickly: "Boss, the villain is exactly what you said, saying that they would invest in our Xinyuan Hall and let them come to the house for a banquet today."

"That's what it said?" Li Guodong stared into Zhao Xiancheng's eyes, "Why did they give such a generous gift? It looks like we are trying to blackmail them."

"The boss is wronged, this villain really doesn't know." Zhao Xiancheng quickly defended.

Zhang Shuheng, who was standing aside, smiled and said, "The Duke of the Kingdom is famous and is ordered to fight against rebellion. Along the way, how many gentry leaders in Guangdong have fallen to the ground? These Iron Store bosses are actually gentry, so they are afraid of you. If it weren't for the Duke of the Kingdom, you told us that the Jinyiwei should not take them, and the brothers under the officials would have taken them all long ago."

Li Guodong said: "Although these iron shopkeepers also have gentry support behind them, those are industrial gentry. If we want to develop technology in the Ming Dynasty, we need to support them. What I am fighting in Guangdong are land gentry and commercial gentry that are harmful to our maritime trade."

The gentry in Guangdong is also complicated. In fact, among the gentry behind the iron store, some of them were land gentry part-time workers and commercial gentry. So Li Guodong had asked Zhang Shuheng to investigate the situation clearly before. For those land gentry and commercial gentry part-time worker, Jinyiwei let them go. In order to obtain Guangdong's steel industry, Li Guodong was willing to pay the capital and Xinyuantang paid the money to establish Guangdong Steel Industry Group Co., Ltd.

As for the industrial gentry who worked part-time land gentry, their land must be recovered, but they have adopted the method of redemption to recover. The specific method is to convert their land into shares, invest in Guangzhou Iron and Steel Group Corporation, and the land will be nationalized and turned into imperial fields.

Of course, Li Guodong would not adopt Jia Sidao's public land law to redeem land. The public land law was like robbing for nothing. He used Jiaozi issued by the imperial court to redeem land. What is the difference between robbing? Li Guodong robbed all the gentry land in Chaozhou Prefecture because those people did not benefit the development of society and the development of productivity, so he robbed it.

And those gentry who worked part-time in industry still had signs of transformation to bourgeoisie, so let them go.

"Call everyone in." Li Guodong said.

The personal soldiers outside invited all the shopkeepers of the Tiexing who were gathered in the front hall into the inner hall. Luo Yuanfeng, Tao Gui and other shopkeepers of the Tiexing who were brought into the inner hall by their personal soldiers.

When I walked into the inner hall, I saw that there were already ten wine tables in the hall. There were tea sets on the table, and a few bottles of fine wine, including rice wine, white wine, and even wine from Taisie. There were four cold dishes in a circle, including brine platter, roasted wax platter, white seafood platter and fruit platter. The cold dishes inside were all Cantonese cuisine.

Of course, Li Guodong couldn't eat any abnormal dishes such as Sanzhier, called Donkey, Dragon and Tiger Fight, and the regular Cantonese cuisine has a good taste and is important to the original taste. Guangdong people don't like heavy tastes, so they like original dishes.

Since Chinese people like to talk at the dinner table, Li Guodong is no exception. He invited these iron shop bosses to invite them to talk at the dinner table.

But he was notorious for poisoning the gentry. The shopkeepers who received the invitation thought they wanted to extort, so they prepared generous gifts.

"Come on, you are all the shopkeepers of Huizhou Iron Store. Please take your seat." Li Guodong personally greeted these shopkeepers.

Luo Yuanfeng gave a greeting and sat down generously. Tao Gui had been timid for a long time before sitting on the chair, but he only sat half of his butt, not to mention leaning his back against the backrest, looking very twisted.

What was Duke Chu doing? I wonder if he was still satisfied with the gift I gave? Sitting half of his butt on the chair, Tao Gui's mind was not on the table of delicious food at all, but was thinking nervously. If he was not satisfied with the gift he gave, he would not know how much he would be blackmailed by the Duke again.

Li Guodong did not speak from the beginning, but asked Zhang Shuheng to invite everyone to eat and drink.

"This is the terrifying commander of the Jinyiwei Zhang Dusi." Luo Yuanfeng said quietly in Tao Gui's ear.

"Zhang Dusi?" Tao Gui was so scared that his face was pale and his sweat broke out. Isn't Zhang Dusi the commander of the Jinyiwei, known as the Living King of Hell? The Jinyiwei is so terrible that he framed loyal and kind people and harmed the people, so he could stop his children from crying at night. And I heard that this time the foolish monarch gave the Duke of Chu an edict, ordering the Duke of Chu to fight south, so that the commander of the Jinyiwei would follow him to supervise the Duke of the Duke of the Kingdom.

Just talking about the reputation of Duke Chu, it was originally very famous among the people. He fought against Jiannu, wiped out the bandits, and won a great victory in Yangzhou. However, it was not easy to be loyal ministers, and Duke Chu had to listen to the emperor. The emperor asked the commander of the Jinyiwei, who was known as the Living King of Hell, to come to Guangdong. Even if the Duke of Chu loves the people as his son, he would not dare to disobey the emperor's orders.

Luo Yuanfeng lamented in his heart: The Duke of the Kingdom is not a bad person, but the foolish monarch sent the commander of the Jinyiwei, so it is difficult for the Duke of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the People. It is not the original intention of the Duke of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the People of the People, but what can he do?

After three rounds of wine, Li Guodong picked up the wine glass and said loudly: "Dear shopkeepers, I will treat you all today. I will give you this glass of wine to the point. After doing this glass of wine, everyone will be quiet. Please listen to me first."

After saying that, Li Guodong drank it all in one go. How dare the guests on the seat be negligent? They also picked up their glasses and drank them all in one go.

Then Li Guodong opened his voice and said loudly: "Everyone comes to visit the Duke's Mansion, but he has brought such a valuable gift. Li is worthy of it! Let's do this, Li will accept your gifts. Except for the gifts that Li should have accepted, the rest of Li will return them according to the list."

Luo Yuanfeng thought to himself: What does the Duke of the Kingdom of China mean? If he said that he thought there were too few gifts and it was difficult to see him, he would really take action against us, so he should return all the gifts. But he said he should take what he should take and the rest was returned. I really don’t understand what Duke of Chu means.

Just when Luo Yuanfeng and the shopkeepers were uneasy, Li Guodong continued to speak: "Dear shopkeepers, what Li wants is not to take your property for nothing, but to hope that our Huizhou steel industry can unite and establish a large steel company that can compete with Thais Hongmaoyi! Do you know what the company means?"

Most shopkeepers don’t understand, but Luo Yuanfeng knows what the company means. Don’t the Thais have companies in India and Java? What is the East India Company? It is actually a powerful money-making institution, and the company has soldiers in its hands.

Li Guodong shouted: "The Guangdong Iron and Steel Company we are going to form cannot compete with the East India Company of the Thais for the time being, but in the near future, Li will form an all-encompassing company. The company's name has been decided, it is called Nanyang Company! This company not only has a steel company, but also a grain company, a salt company, a sea trade company, etc. The company has a company guard. Our eyes cannot be limited to Guangdong, but a vast land overseas! In order to compete with the Thais overseas, steel is needed!"

"Dear shopkeepers!" Li Guodong cleared his throat and continued, "The imperial court's Jinyiwei has been suppressing the land gentry, causing many gentry to suffer. Li was unable to stop this and felt very sad. But if he did this now, Li could not disobey it!"
Chapter completed!