As soon as Ye Cizhun arrived in Danyang, he kowtowed to Su Qi to apologize, and then helped him settle down. Therefore, Su Qi no longer pursued the matter, and acquiesced in his heart to this future virtuous man, only hoping that the turmoil would pass as soon as possible, and Yu Ming could leave his nationality and return to marry Ye Cizhun as his wife, so that he would be relieved.

What Su Qi never imagined was that only half a year had passed, and Xue Chunyue, who was proud of the spring breeze and dashing and dignified, would become the decadent appearance he is now. He couldn't bear it, and after discussing with Ye Cizhun, he took him to his home to take care of it, which was regarded as repaying him and Ye Qinyu for saving the Su family at the beginning.

After Ye Cizhun returned to leave the state, Xue Chunyue still bought drunk every day, and his three thousand taels were all gone, and they were all given to Su Qi, just begging him to have a straw mat on the day he died drunk, and bury it wherever he wanted, without exposing the corpse on the street.

Su Qi's repeated persuasion was to no avail, but he couldn't repair the book to inform Xue Chenggui that since he and Ye Cizhun couldn't wake him up, then the only one in the world who could wake him up was Ye Qinyu.

Fortunately, there are Xue Chunyue's three thousand taels. Su Qi went to Danyang Wharf to find a few merchants who were familiar with him back then, attached a large amount of money, and asked him to avoid Yuan Qingguan's ears and eyes and privately hand over a letter to the head of Jingchen Dao. The letter vaguely explained Xue Chunyue's current situation, and asked him to get in touch with Ye Qinyu, even if he could only get a few words from her, he might be able to save Xue Chunyue from going astray.

The head of the pure dust road is Su Yuming, who was confiscated into the Tao. After more than a month, the anxious Su Qi finally waited for the reply from the merchant, a thin piece of paper, only a few words, Su Qi was puzzled, so he had to go home as soon as possible and hand it to Xue Chunyue.

"Lu is in Xihe, and I hope you will return."

There is only one sentence in the whole faith.

What does that mean? didn't even have a token, so he wrote this sentence, Su Qi was really puzzled.

Xue Chunyue held the letter and did not move, but his hands gradually began to tremble, as if he was struggling to suppress his emotions, and in the end, he finally burst into tears......

Early the next morning, Su Qi found that there was no trace of Xue Chunyue, and was about to go out to look for him in a panic, but saw that he had returned from outside, and his hands were full of items bought from the market. He put the things on the table, and without saying a word, he pulled Su Qi over and sat down.

"Master Su, this is something from Danyang Market, this is the celadon of Yuezhou; This is the bronze mirror of Shuzhou; There is also this, which is the tea of Xuanzhou; What surprised me the most was this. ”

Rice? The most surprising thing?

Su Qi looked at him with a puzzled expression, isn't Young Master Xue completely crazy?!

"Master Su, what about your business sense?! It's only been more than half a year in Danyang, are your sense of touch dull? These things fully illustrate a truth, although the outlying islands are far away from the Central Plains, vast and sparsely populated, remote and desolate, but they can't stop the footsteps of a group of merchants to pursue profits! You see these things, they are evidence of their conquest of the outlying islands. As long as there are people and markets, there is room for us merchants to live! ”

"What do you mean...... Let's go back to our old business?! ”

"Yes!"

"It's just that it's very backward here, and there are very few people who can afford these things, and they buy things from other places and sell them, but they can only support their families, and it won't help us accumulate power......

It's not that Su Qi hasn't thought about it, but as Chunyue said, the demand for outlying islands is too small.

"Virtuous nephew, it's good that you know, even if we toss the money sent by Master Xue, we can only become a medium-sized family on this outlying island at most, just to make ends meet."

"Master Su, I didn't say that these things were transported to the outlying islands, the outlying islands are only a little bigger, the market has long been saturated, what can we do." I mean, if we transport the things here out, to Binzhou, Haizhou, and then to the Central Plains, what we want to conquer is the market of the Central Plains! ”

Su Qi looked at him in surprise, "But, here...... What can compare to the abundant Central Plains? ”

"Grain."

Su Qi looked at the rice handed over by Chunyue and fell into deep thought.

"These things can come and go to the island, which means that there are cargo ships coming and going on a regular basis, and the ship is scheduled, and I don't have a problem with my little nephew, but I buy cheap and sell high, but the means are not as clever as Master Su, and we cooperate with each other, and we should be more than just supporting our families."

After listening to Xue Chunyue's statement, Su Qi's eyes finally regained their former brilliance, and once again showed the sharpness and decisiveness that a big businessman should have.

The outlying island is located in the southernmost part of Daye, warm and rainy, and the rice can be harvested three times a year, but it is subject to the poor variety of seedlings, and the fields are often mixed with rice barnyard and the yield is not good.

However, these are not difficult for Su Qi and Xue Chunyue, who grew up in the land of Jiangzuo, and the two decided to introduce local grain seeds from Suzhou and Huzhou in Jiangnan Province and Haizhou in Haidong Province after discussion. In this way, the amount of grain produced on the outlying islands will inevitably be considerable, and then Xue Chunyue will come forward to purchase the surplus grain, and then ship it to the Central Plains.

Everything is ready, only the east wind is owed. Xue Chunyue and the Su family's father and son are both exiled, unable to leave Danyang, and occasionally use Ye Cizhun to cover several times to leave the state, but it is not a long-term solution, they urgently need a reliable person to plan on their behalf.

The arrival of Xuecheng and Xinyan surprised Xue Chunyue.

Xue Chenggui was bedridden, the Xue family was almost covered by Xue Huijin and Aunt Ma, and Xue Chenggui, who was trapped in the Xuyi Hall, missed his wife more and more, but the time has changed, and the past of him and his wife is irretrievable, so he can only pin his grief on Xue Chunyue.

So Xue Chenggui ordered the blockade of Xiheju, except for the daily cleaning personnel, no one was allowed to enter, and not a single grass or tree in the courtyard was allowed to be changed, leaving it as it was and waiting for Xue Chunyue to come back. Xuecheng and Xinyan were detained and interrogated by Dali Temple since Xue Chunyue's accident, and they were able to see the light of day again after the case was completed.

After a period of observation, Xue Chenggui finally confirmed the loyalty of the two, so he privately transferred 10,000 taels of silver to Xuecheng and Xinyan, and the two quietly rushed to Danyang to take care of Xue Chunyue.

With the flexible role of Xuecheng, Danyang "Xihexing" Commercial Bank was officially opened.

Since then, all the crops and handicraft products that can be transported from the outlying islands have entered the business scope of Xi Hexing. Crops such as rice, coconut, sugarcane, etc., handicraft commodities such as brocade, sugar, sandalwood, agarwood, cloves, etc., have gradually become large-scale export commodities, especially rice, brocade and spices, which are the golden signs of Xihexing.

The brocade and spices of the outlying islands have a prominent style, and they have become a sought-after item in the market as soon as they arrive in the Central Plains. The outlying island brocade is mainly based on the style of local ethnic minorities, with its pure color, complex patterns and exquisite techniques, showing a very different style from the silk fabrics in the Central Plains and Haizhou, and has become the object of Changxing and Luo'an dignitaries. The spices produced in the outlying islands have emerged in the competition with the traditional spices of the Western Regions with their exquisite aroma and low price, and have become the new favorites of the market.

Xi Hexing soon became the leading merchant on the outlying islands and even in Jingnan Province.

If Xihexing only transported the goods from the outlying islands to the Central Plains, at best, he could only become a big local businessman, and could not compete with the big chaebols in the Central Plains. But Xue Chunyue's layout is far more than that. At the same time, his aim was to turn the outlying islands into a transit point for the flow of goods from the Central Plains to the South China Sea and various states in the Western Regions, and in the future, Xihexing would be both a middleman for buying and selling goods and a transporter of goods, monopolizing the benefits of commodity trade and trade.

As a remote area far from the center of power, the role of the outlying islands has been neglected by the Central Plains Dynasty, and after Xue Chunyue discovered this great business opportunity, he gave full play to his business and shipping talents, making Xi Hexing a commercial champion in the south of the Great Industry Kingdom in just two years.

In the seventeenth year of the great cause, the tax revenue of the two state capitals on the outlying islands has increased fourfold compared with before, and these political achievements are recorded on the head of Ye Cizhun of the Lizhou Thorn Shi. In addition, the reform and expansion of Lizhou Port were all carried out and completed after his arrival, which became the best demonstration of his ability to govern geography and politics.

Contrary to the vigorous development of the outlying islands, in the winter of the seventeenth year of Hongyuan, the average loss and level dispatch of the great cause has reached the verge of getting out of control.

Without a financial management master like Ye Cizhun to control the overall situation, the in-kind tribute tax that enters the equalization link cannot give full play to its best value. For example, the ramie and coarse cloth abundant in Jingnan Province should be transported to the northern border markets with low purchasing power and harsh climate, but the incompetent equal-loser officials only saw the distribution capacity and consumption capacity of the market, so they were transported to Haizhou, Shuzhou, and other places where cloth was abundant, resulting in a large amount of relatively low-quality ramie and coarse cloth being unsalable, accumulating in warehouses and becoming moldy.

Such situations abound, porcelain, bronze, tea, etc., which have always been profitable, regardless of high and low, are all shipped to Changxing, Luo'an, Shuzhou and other prosperous places, resulting in high quality but due to oversupply is depressed, high quality and oversupply, low wandering, low quality can not be sold, so they are not available.

While goods are not profitable, transportation costs have been increasing dramatically. If the in-kind tribute tax is stranded locally, it will incur huge storage costs, so even if the front line is unsalable, the follow-up goods must continue to be transported, resulting in the imperial court's transportation expenses rising. The serious consequences of the imbalance between revenue and expenditure are fiscal emptiness and vacillation of the national treasury. At one time, the government-run economy of the great cause was struggling to be supported by only the two monopoly of salt and iron, and it was difficult to cope with even daily expenses, let alone enrich the national treasury for the purpose of reform in the first place.

Under this circumstance, Ye Cizhun, who had been demoted to more than two years away from the state, once again entered the sight of Emperor Hongyuan.

In the spring of the eighteenth year of Hongyuan, not long after the first day, the imperial court issued an edict to transfer Shi Ye Cizhun from the state to return to the court, and was promoted to the Siqing from Sanpin Taifu, with full authority to manage the affairs of the great cause of the country, the salt and iron franchise, and the Taicang of the homeland, and became the second financial minister after the Hubu Shangshu. Danyang Assassin Shi Zhuangkang, also benefited from the increase in taxes fueled by Xi Hexing, and was promoted to the commander of Binzhou Prefecture, where Jingnan Province is located, and was in charge of Binzhou Port, the largest port in the south.