The next morning, the dazzling sunlight shone on Fang Yuan's face, and he also woke up.

Fang Yuan opened his eyes and saw that Xiao Yuan had already gotten up, finished dressing, and was sitting at the head of the bed staring at him.

The two looked at each other, Xiao Yuan's pink smile was so sweet that it seemed to be out of the water, and he said with a grin, "Childe has been tired all night and doesn't sleep much, how can I make Xiao Yuan beg for mercy tonight?" ”

This little goblin, here it is again!

Fang Yuan scratched her little nose, thinking about the lingering with Xiao Yuan last night, but her thoughts went to Princess Kunxing, who had been alone in the empty room all night, and sighed secretly, ordering Xiao Yuan to pack up her clothes and go to prepare breakfast.

Fang Yuan came out of the room, found Hu Qi, and the Jinyi guard who was guarding him, and went straight to Princess Kunxing's wedding room, and asked the palace maid who served last night, "How did the princess rest last night?" ”

The palace maid little insect guarded Princess Kunxing all night, and hurriedly reported, "The princess, the princess waited for the horse to wait until the third watch last night before falling asleep." ”

Fang Yuan was very distressed by Princess Kunxing's grievances, and wanted to explain a little, "That's okay, the meeting was too late last night, so I didn't go back to the marriage room, I'll go in and take a look at the princess." ”

The little bug was very dissatisfied with Fang Yuan's deliberate snub of Kunxing, as for the military aircraft, except for the simple princess Kunxing, the ghost would believe that he held a military and political conference in the middle of the night. But thinking that people are in Jiangnan, where do they dare to be tough with Fang Yuan, they can only pretend that they don't know.

Fang Yuan entered the marriage room and saw that Kun Xing was still asleep on the marriage bed.

He lifted the gauze tent, sat in front of the princess's incense couch, staring at the delicate state of the begonia's spring sleep, it was really an indifferent tent smoke cage jade pillow, and the pink skin sweated and the white lotus fragrance was fragrant.

The more he looked at it, the more he liked it, and he reached out to caress his pink face that was still a little sweaty, but he saw Kun Xing moaning softly, as if he was about to wake up.

Fang Yuan hurriedly got up and sat back at the table, looking at Kun Xing out of the corner of his eye.

In the Furong warm tent, Kun Xing sat up coquettishly, saw Fang Yuan sitting at the table, his nose was slightly sore, he got up and put on his cloud clothes, and asked Fang Yuan, "Don Ma, did you talk about the military aircraft last night?" ”

Fang Yuan fought with Xiao Yuan all night last night, and he had nothing to do with the military aircraft, facing Princess Kunxing's simple and clear gaze, he couldn't say anything about lying, so he hurriedly looked around and said to him, "Princess, you pack up, we will go back to Suzhou Mansion in the near future." ”

Princess Kunxing hurriedly instructed the palace maid Little Worm and said, "Little Worm, I will eat with the horse for breakfast." ”

The little insect immediately brought a large jar of plum soup, still steaming hot.

Fang Yuan looked at the steaming plum soup, his stomach was indeed very hungry, but where did he dare to eat here, he forced a smile, "Princess, I have already had breakfast, I came here to take a look at you." ”

In the stunned gaze of Princess Kunxing, Fang Yuan hurriedly said goodbye, and went back to the room, Xiaoyuan had prepared breakfast early, it was red dates, lotus seeds, white fungus soup, and peanut longan cake, all of which were aphrodisiac and kidney-tonifying. Red dates, peanuts, longan, lotus seeds, the meaning is obvious, that is, the early birth of a noble son.

Fang Yuan smiled dumbly, and when he returned to Xiao Yuan, he felt truly relaxed, pinched her pink face, and made her sit down to eat together.

After breakfast, Fang Yuan summoned Qin Zhan and asked him to hurry up and go back to Suzhou Mansion first, cancel the wedding that was planned to be held in Suzhou Mansion in advance, and then sweep out the original plum garden in the backyard of Canglang Pavilion to settle Princess Kunxing and her party.

Fang originally planned to stay in Yangzhou City for only two days, and then rushed back to Suzhou Mansion.

Just as he was about to leave, the prefect of Yangzhou, Qu Congzhi, came to the door and brought the news that the two richest and most powerful gangs in Yangzhou City, the Shanxi Gang and the Huishang Gang, all hoped to meet Fang Yuan.

The salt tax is the most important tax in the Ming Dynasty. In the last year of Chongzhen, the commercial tax was 3.5 million taels, and the salt tax accounted for 2.5 million. Yangzhou Prefecture is the main salt producing area of Huai, with an annual salt tax of 1.5 million taels, accounting for nearly half of the salt tax in the whole world.

The Shanshan Merchant Gang and the Hui Merchant Gang are the largest salt gangs in the south of the Yangtze River, and they have always been at odds with each other because of the interests of the Yangzhou salt farm, and they have been making trouble for hundreds of years in order to win the tilt of the imperial court's salt introduction policy.

In addition to following the normal procedures to find the government to fight a lawsuit, the two merchant gangs also often demonstrated, and occasionally held large-scale armed fights, just like Ele.me and Meituan Takeaway organized a group of employees to fight in order to grab business, and finally sued Emperor Chongzhen together.

The so-called iron business, flowing water of the yamen, these two business gangs from the middle of the Ming Dynasty to the late Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the grandfather finished the father's trouble, and then the children and grandchildren continued to make trouble, the ancestors and ancestors are endless, and the Yangzhou prefect has changed dozens of people, and it is endless.

In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, in order to solve the supply of grain and war horses in the border passes of northern Xinjiang, Zhu Yuanzhang implemented the salt opening method, allowing private merchants to transport grain to the Jiubian military town in exchange for the salt introduction of Huai salt in the south of the Yangtze River.

The so-called salt introduction is the salt industry business license issued by the imperial court under the salt monopoly system, and the sale of salt with salt is legal sales, and the sale of salt without salt is smuggled and smuggled salt.

Because the base camp of the Shaanxi and Shanxi merchants is located in the northern border pass, they can organize the transportation of grain from Shaanxi and Shanxi to the border military town, and then rely on the official documents to exchange for salt in Yangzhou Mansion and sell salt for profit, which can be said to have taken advantage of the geographical advantage. Therefore, in the early to mid-Ming Dynasty, the Shanxi Gang occupied almost half of the Huai salt trade.

However, after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the method of changing the grain was changed to the folding method of spending silver to buy the quotation, that is, the merchants who sold Huai salt did not have to travel thousands of miles to transport grain to the border pass, and they could directly buy salt quotation by spending silver alone.

The problem that can be solved with silver, it is not a problem, this move completely broke the situation that the Shanxi merchant gang monopolized the operation of Huai Yan, and the neighboring Hui merchant gang began to get involved in the Huai salt trade in Yangzhou Prefecture, and in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the formation of a big salt gang with the Shanxi Gang.

Nowadays, among the eight major salt merchants in Huaiyan, the Shanxi Gang and the Hui Merchants Gang each account for four, which can be said to be evenly divided. But in terms of overall power, the Hui merchant gang is thriving, and the Shanxi gang is going downhill.

I learned from the prefect Qu Congzhi's mouth that the cause of this incident this time was because of the Shanshan Merchant Gang.

In the past, whether it was the governor or governor of Jiangnan, he would not raise war horses in Jiangnan at all, because the cost was too high. And Fang Yuan was determined to build an elite cavalry force in Jiangnan at any cost.

This made the Shanshan Merchant Gang see a rare business opportunity again, and they were ready to put forward a plan to exchange frontier war horses and war horse feed for salt.

The specific measure is that the Shanxi Merchants Gang relies on its geographical advantages to purchase war horses from the horse-producing areas of Shaanxi and Shanxi, as well as the feed used to raise war horses, and can even directly assume the responsibility of military horse feed. transported to Jiangnan in exchange for salt; Then sell salt from Jiangnan to the north. It can be said that it not only reduces the cost of purchasing salt, but also has no empty space for merchant ships to go north and south, making full use of the capacity of merchant ships, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

But as soon as the plan was submitted to Qu Congzhi, before Fang Yuan could review it, the news immediately leaked and was learned by the Hui merchant gang. The two merchant gangs are fighting fiercely, and the Hui merchant gang is preparing to exterminate the Shanxi merchant gang by virtue of its geographical advantage and snatch the territory of the Shanxi salt merchants.

Now both sides have found Fang Yuan through the relationship between Qu Congzhi, and in order to fight for the most favorable salt introduction conditions, the other party is trying their best to curry favor.

The Shanshan Gang had already inquired about Fang Yuan's preference for land over silver, and gave a bribe of 20,000 mu of paddy fields, worth at least 200,000 taels of silver, and the conditions for exchanging war horses for salt were also very generous, and a war horse only cost 30 taels of silver, which was much lower than the previous cost of 421 horses, and the Shanshan Gang was also willing to bear the cost of raising the war horses of the Xuanjia Army;

The Hui Merchants Gang is willing to give away a total of 10% (10%) of the shares of the two major salt merchants, and Fang Yuan does not participate in the operation, as long as he works in Jiangnan for one year, he can participate in the dividend for one year. This strategy was to put Fang Yuan firmly on the ship of the Hui merchant gang. Although the Hui Merchants Gang lost 10% of the shares, as long as Fang Yuan was willing to tilt the Hui Merchants Gang in policy, he could seize the interests of the Shanxi Gang and make the cake bigger, and the profits would be greater than before.

Qu Congzhi reported the bribes sent by both parties, Fang Yuan was secretly amused when he heard it, these two merchants thought they knew Fang Yuan's hobbies, but in fact, they only knew one and didn't know the other.

If Fang Yuan was just a Ming bureaucrat, these bribes would have been sent in the right way. But Fang Yuan's goal is obviously to use Jiangnan as a base for hegemony and run his own industry, and there is a saying in this world that he bribes to the emperor? It's just laughing off the big teeth!

Fang Yuan didn't sort out the salt tax before, firstly, because the salt tax was too big, and it affected the whole body; The second is that Yangzhou Mansion was the last to be subdued, and as soon as Yangzhou Mansion was taken, it went north to relieve the siege of Liaodong, and it had not had time to rectify.

Since this pair fell in love and killed each other, and the enemies who had been entangled for at least two hundred years took the initiative to send them to the door, Fang Yuan was happy to use them to make money.