Ma Cheng walked in the alley of the back house with a sea bowl full of sugar, the back house of the governor's yamen was originally not big, only five or six courtyards before and after, Ma Cheng's old mother Gu and father Ma Shiying lived in the penultimate entrance.

Ma Cheng came to the old lady's house and shouted: "Mother, my son is here!" ”

Gu's voice in the room smiled: "I'll come in!" ”

At this time, a girl ring opened the door curtain, and Ma Cheng lowered his head and entered the house. Today, only the eldest sister-in-law Zhang was accompanying the old lady in the house, and no one else was there.

Ma Cheng gave the old lady a salute first, and Gu smiled and said, "What are you kid doing in the front yard?" It makes the yard full of sweet fragrance! ”

Ma Cheng smiled and sent the sea bowl in his hand to the old lady: "Mother, what do you think this is?" ”

Gu is in charge of the family business and knows a lot about firewood, rice, oil and salt. Seeing that the bowl that Ma Cheng delivered to the noodles was snow-white, I thought that the bowl was filled with fine snowflake salt.

Gu Shi frowned and looked at Ma Cheng, and asked with regret: "Son, you are tinkering with these things if you don't study?" ”

Although the price of snowflake refined salt is very high, but the market is also very small, except for some large households will buy a small amount of salt, ordinary people will not buy these high-quality salt at all, the kind of silver and 100 catties of large bags of sea salt is the common spare goods of ordinary people. The Gu family is in charge of the family business, so he naturally has a deep understanding of things like table salt.

Ma Cheng saw that Gu was angry, and hurriedly leaned over with a hippie smile: "Mother, this is not salt, what do you taste this?" ”

Gu Shi patiently dipped his little finger in some of these white crystals, and then put them in his mouth, and immediately a sweet smell came out.

"Huh? It's sugar! Son, you bought such white sugar? ”

Now the white sugar on the market is produced by the sugar factories in Fujian and Guangdong, and the sugar production in the Ming Dynasty mainly uses the yellow mud leaching method, and the production process in the Ming Dynasty is not perfect, so even the white sugar that has been filtered ten times is not pure white, but milky white.

The method used by Ma Cheng has added basic chemical knowledge, through chemical reaction to precipitate the impurities in the saturated solution, after charcoal adsorption, the natural white sugar is better, the most important thing is that the white sugar made by chemical methods does not have the slightly astringent taste of the white sugar. There is no way to do it, physical methods cannot remove the odor 100%.

Ma Cheng heard the old lady ask herself, and said with a smile: "This white sugar is sweet, the main thing is that there is no peculiar smell, this is made by his son!" ”

Ma Cheng originally thought that the old lady would be happy to hear her, but who knew that the old lady hated iron and scolded after hearing Ma Cheng's words: "Son! How can you be willing to fall into such a thing? Do you want to be angry with your mother? ”

Sister-in-law Zhang's eyes turned into disdain when she looked at Ma Cheng on the side, Ma Cheng glared at her sister-in-law Zhang, and then asked: "Mother, this is a way to get money, my son is going to prepare... ”

Ma Cheng was just about to say his grand ideals, but he was interrupted by Gu: "Shut up, you go back to the house to study right now!" And your concubine who wants to meet your mother, why don't you care about watching you mess around? ”

In the Ming Dynasty, of course, the highest social status was the scholar, the second was a farmer, the third was a craftsman, and the last was a merchant. The Ma family has been a scholar for generations, and there are two Jinshi in Ma Shiying's generation, which is a first-class scholarly family in Guiyang.

Even Ma Shiying's son Ma Luan was lifted when he was in his twenties, you must know that Ma Luan was not in Guizhou, but in Nanzhili. There has always been a saying here in Nanzhili that the gold lifts people and silver jinshi, because Nanzhili's literary style is prosperous, and the difficulty of lifting in Nanzhili is not much simpler. It is precisely because of Ma Luan's young age that a scholar like the Zhang family in Ningbo can marry their daughter to Ma Luan.

Of course, Ma Luan's reading is so good is the hope in the eyes of his parents, but Gu has not completely given up on Zu Ma Cheng, the second waste king. Although Ma Cheng didn't study when he was a child, he grew up idle, but who called Ma Cheng a good father?

The career of the Ming Dynasty is divided into three kinds, the first is the official who was promoted by the officials, this kind of officials were mainly concentrated in the founding period, because there were few scholars at that time, but the country still needed officials to govern, so Zhu Yuanzhang waved his pen and let ordinary officials also have the qualifications to be officials. However, this system is only an expedient measure, and in the middle of the empire, the officials who rose through this system were basically extinct, and there was no real shortage of officials who came up from the imperial examination. Stop dreaming!

The second way to become an official is the right path of the imperial examination, and everyone knows the background of this kind of official, so I won't go into detail here. Now let's talk about the third type, which is clearly the back door opened for the powerful people of the current dynasty, which is the tribute system.

The Ming and Qing dynasties cited many famous politicians, although these court tycoons were of inferior character, sanctimonious, and well-dressed, but they were also human beings, and they also hoped that their sons could take over their mantle. But learning this kind of thing can't be inherited, it's not that the father is the champion, and the son must be able to win the champion.

The imperial examination system is the fairest system for selecting talents in ancient China, but the system is set by people, and naturally some people will open a back door for themselves.

Everyone has seen it on TV, if there is another scandal in the imperial examination, what imperial examination questions are leaked, etc., the emperor will be angry, and then the whole country will call the emperor Shengming.

However, this kind of leaked examination questions are all low-level methods played by those low-level officials, and the real court bigwigs disdain to do this, because there is also a system in the imperial examination, that is, to pull tribute students.

At the beginning, Bagongsheng was a kind of reward from the state for those good students, and a scholar who passed the college examination to become a Xiucai was considered to have a meritorious reputation, but Xiucai generally studied in the government-run schools of their respective prefectures and counties, and was called a disheng. However, there are always some talents who are very good at reading, and the local magistrates will recommend these outstanding students to the Central Guozijian, which are Bagong students.

Of course, entering the Guozijian does not necessarily mean that he will become an official, but there are exceptions to everything, and every year the state officials will select some outstanding talents to serve as local petty officials in the Guozijian, such as the teachings of the eight products, the six books of the nine products, and so on. Although the position is low and the competition is fierce, after all, there is the possibility of becoming an official, so there is the possibility of doing work.

What is Ma Shiying's identity? Deputy Minister of National Defense and Commander of a Large Military Region, it is too easy for this kind of feudal official to run a petty official of seven or eight grades for his son. This is also the reason why Ma Cheng is not reading or illiterate, but Gu is not very disappointed in Ma Cheng, people have already prepared the way, just wait for Ma Cheng to go to Nanjing Guozijian.

But Ma Cheng said today that he wanted to engage in commercial play with sugar, which made Gu really disappointed.

Gu Shi said bitterly: "Son, this kind of thing is just for fun, just leave it to the next person to do it, you still have to take the official path is the right way!" ”

Ma Cheng is now iron-hearted, and when is this coming, in another year, the Manchu Dynasty will be in Nanjing, what else will he do? Making money and training is the right way!

"Mother, my son has a headache when he reads a book, what's the point of being an official? I am not used to deceiving my son, so I still sell sugar as a businessman to make money and calculate! ”

Gu Shi slapped the table angrily when he heard Ma Cheng say this, and scolded: "No, my mother absolutely doesn't agree with you to be a businessman!" You're not afraid of being embarrassed, and your father is still afraid of being embarrassed! ”

Ma Cheng saw that the old lady disagreed, and hurriedly hugged the old lady's legs and cried: "Mother, don't you have a big brother when you study!" The eldest brother is now a lifter, and he is about to become a sergeant, and his son just wants to save some family business for himself, why not? ”

Gu Shi was furious when he saw Ma Cheng being so slack, and pulled Ma Cheng up and slapped him in the mouth!

This is the first time the old lady hit herself in Ma Cheng's memory, and Ma Cheng was stunned there at the time, but Ma Cheng thought that this would not work, and he had to hang himself if he cried.

Ma Cheng used to cause trouble and was afraid of Ma Shiying's beating, so he would cry, make trouble, and hang himself, but now it's not good to cry, so he can only hang himself!

Of course, hanging is just a description, now Ma Cheng has no rope in his hand and can't hang himself, Ma Cheng still used the same trick yesterday to attack his little brother.

Ma Cheng raised the teapot on the table again, aimed at his little brother and was about to start, crying and shouting: "Mother, if you don't agree to your son, your son will let your niece stay alive and widowed, and let your family die!" "Ma Luan's wife Zhang has only given birth to a daughter after more than ten years of marriage, so now the arduous task of inheriting the Ma family is on Ma Cheng.

The old lady Gu really couldn't help it when she saw Ma Cheng's old trick repeated, so she just sighed and said, "Rebel, do you want to be angry with your mother?" ”

Ma Cheng saw that the old lady was really angry and hurriedly said: "Mother, this is also the son's consideration for this family, the eldest brother and the son are both officials, what will happen to the mother's family property in the future?" Is it to Marcy? ”

There was an unwritten rule in the big family of the Ming Dynasty that if the son did not become an official, he could run the family business at home. Like Ma Shiying's scholarly family, if Ma Luan and Ma Cheng both go out to become officials, the family property can only be managed by Ma Xi.

But who is Marcy? Ma Xi is a concubine, his mother was Ma Shiyingna's concubine back then, and the Gu family hates this Aunt Zheng the most, and the Gu family will never hand over the family property to the son of this enemy to manage.

Thinking of this, the Gu family felt that what Ma Cheng said was not unreasonable, his own son was better than that slut's son to manage the family industry. and Ma Cheng, even if he goes to Guozijian and becomes an official after being elected, he is at most a low-level official of eight or nine grades. Needless to say, the Ming Dynasty officials were so low that if the Jiupin Beijing officials were not corrupt and bribed, they would not be able to live at all, and the little money they would not be able to live with Ma Cheng's generosity.

Thinking of this, there was some activity in Gu's heart, Ma Cheng observed his words and looks, and saw that the old lady was moved, so he hurriedly said on the side: "Mother, my son is not willing to degenerate and has to be a businessman, my son is just going to find a place to produce this sugar, and then distribute it or use the family businessman's help, and the mother and son just need to collect the money!" ”

All kinds of factors combined, Gu had no choice but to nod and agree with Ma Cheng's idea, and took out 1,000 taels of silver as start-up capital to choose a place for Ma Cheng to establish this sugar workshop.