With Zuo Zongtang's support, Hu Chuyuan gradually felt that life had become better again, and the pressure on his body was much less.

Although it was inevitable that he would have to participate in the political struggle of the late Qing Dynasty, what about it...... The risk is greater, and he has more opportunities, not only to save the country and strengthen the country, but also to fulfill all his wishes.

For example, wrestling his wrist with Li Hongzhang and fighting with Sheng Xuanhuai is a mystery of a business war.

For example, strangled the book and defeated Tsarist Russia.

Of course, Hu Chuyuan is not a pure eighteen-year-old boy, he has also had his own experience, whether it is success or failure, everything in the past is his experience and experience.

The idea of "Jiangnan Commercial Bank" has also been brewing in his mind for a long time, and it didn't really pop up suddenly.

His idea is to take the current industry of the Hu family as the foundation, merge the Hu family's silk shop and rice shop, let Liu Chengxiang be responsible, try to choose the best shop in every prefecture and county in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and choose a good warehouse, the warehouse must be large enough, convenient enough, and conducive to transportation.

On the other side, he asked Tan Yiyun to hang up the signboard of the Jiangnan Commercial Bank first, run the rice market, and prepare to transport rice to the north.

Because there are only three roads, Shanxi is the most serious, it is inevitable to go to one road, the remaining two roads, in consultation with Tan Yiyun, Hu Chuyuan will concentrate on the two routes in Shandong, one from Yantai into the port, in Yantai and Weihai area development, the other from Qingdao, Yuezhao into the port, to Laiwu, Weifang development.

He also asked people to poach people in the tea estates and salt shops of other businesses in various places, and compiled some very simple manuals for the tea, salt, rice, and silk industries, but each literate man had one set.

Just as he was preparing for these things, an astonishing news suddenly came from Zhejiang's salt industry -- Zhejiang Governor Mei Qizhao thoroughly investigated the salt affairs and arrested more than 40 salt officials at one time, more than 10 salt merchants who illegally bribed them, more than 60 salt shops in Taizhou, Wenzhou, Ningbo, and Jiaxing that were seized, and countless large and small businesses closed down.

Zuo Zongtang also heard the news, in fact, he already knew about it before the news spread throughout Zhejiang.

This incident was not only unexpected by him, but also reasonable.

He wanted to use the salt industry tax to make up for the salary of the Hunan army, and it was circulated in the officialdom of Jiangsu and Zhejiang for a while, and Huang Libin, the Jianghuai salt transportation envoy, was Li Hongzhang's fellow villager, and Wu Yuanbing, the governor of Jiangsu, did not dare to move, but Wu Yuanbing had a faction after all, and Zuo Zongtang was reluctant to move him easily.

This is exactly what Zuo Zongtang is difficult to do, he stayed in Hangzhou for a long time, just to let Wu Yuanbing's acquaintance move a position and give him space to do this.

Zuo Zongtang didn't expect that Zhejiang Governor Mei Qizhao would do it first and give him a very good opportunity.

On the night when he learned the news, Zuo Zongtang personally wrote a letter of repetition, first praising Mei Qizhao for doing a very good job, and secondly, he asked for a comprehensive and thorough investigation of the salt affairs of Liangjiang.

Nothing in politics has ever been done overnight, and if you want to deal with the salt politics of the entire Jiangsu and Zhejiang, even Zuo Zongtang has to go step by step.

In mid-August, after several rounds of court discussions, the imperial court decided to transfer Wu Yuanbing to the governor of Jiangxi to fill the vacancy, and to transfer the governor of Shaanxi Tan Zhonglin to the governor of Jiangsu.

Tan Zhonglin is a native of Hunan, and he was reused because of Zuo Zongtang's recommendation.

Xichun, the minister of the Qincha Minister's Department, is a Manchurian, and the "coincidence" is that he and Tan Zhonglin were both born in the sixth year of Xianfeng, and the two not only had a friendship of the same year, but also had a good personal relationship when they were the same editor in the Hanlin Academy.

When the two arrived in Yangzhou, they began to inspect the salt administration, and the salt officials in Huaibei and Huainan were killed and injured in one place, and the investigation was even more ruthless than Mei Qizhao, and the Jianghuai salt transport from Anhui made Huang Libin neglect government affairs, accepted bribes, and was dismissed from his post on the spot for investigation.

In September, Tam Chung-lun wrote a letter proposing to replace the existing salt ticket law with the unified sales price limit method.

Although the salt ticket law is good, it has always been controlled by the governor and the salt transport envoy, and the governors are in charge of the military and political affairs of two or three provinces, but they cannot get the real power of the salt administration, so of course they are in a hurry.

In the fourth year of Guangxu, at the beginning of October, the imperial court ended its deliberations and agreed to implement the unified marketing law in the five provinces of Liangjiang, Fujian and Zhejiang, and the governors of the two places decided to supervise on their own.

At this time, the Jiangnan Commercial Bank had already been officially opened, and a large number of rice from Huguang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang were transported northward, and grain was sold in Yuezhao, Qingdao, and Yantai.

After the land deed was exchanged, the firm distributed grain through the rich gentry who were looking for a joint venture in the locality, and it was definitely too late for millet and sorghum, so they could only distribute corn, or they would directly plant spring wheat.

In fact, the famine is not terrible, what we are afraid of is that the peasants will eat up all the grain they grow in the coming year, and there will be no grain next year, even if the climate improves, it will still be barren.

The risk of this business is extremely high, and the situation in Shandong is not bad, and it can be regarded as making a lot of money...... There is no money, and the fields are calculated in millions of acres.

The commercial banks have sent a shopkeeper in each county, and because of the shortage of manpower, they are basically hired from the localities temporarily, and these shopkeepers who are familiar with the local situation select prosperous small and medium-sized rich peasants and set up grain cooperatives and rice farms with them.

The situation in Shanxi was very bad, there were hungry people fleeing and exiled everywhere, and after the six million catties of grain were transported to the county seat of Jinzhong, the Hunan army and the green battalion soldiers did not dare to leave the city...... Outside are hungry people waiting to grab food, and when you go out, there will be chaos.

Mi Xing's business may still be profitable, but Hu Chuyuan has fallen on Xia Si's acquisition.

Due to the fact that there are too many people in various places to fry raw silk and the price is outrageous, Hu Chuyuan took out most of the funds in his hand to do rice market business, but he reluctantly purchased 210,000 catties of summer silk in Hangzhou and Jinqu Basin, which is less than 1/10 of the total output of summer silk in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

All of a sudden, the whole of Jiangsu and Zhejiang was talking about this matter, and there were rumors that the Hu family was afraid that the family would fall into the middle of the road, and the eldest son Hu Chuyuan was cowardly and incompetent, and his ability was much worse than Hu Xueyan.

Rumors abounded, and Hu Chuyuan did not explain.

He only knows one thing, that is, the foreign companies and the mainland silk merchants have not been able to reach an agreement for a long time, Xia Si purchase war is extremely tragic, the average price of many silk merchants is as high as 7 taels of silver per catty, plus freight and heavy taxes, the purchase price of foreign companies can not be less than 8.5 taels of silver.

However, the foreign companies are still only willing to buy at last year's price, and adopt the method of breaking down one by one, negotiating with each silk merchant individually.

Let them go, Hu Chuyuan is too lazy to care about these things, the average purchase price of his Xia Si is 5.8 taels of silver per catty, which is 1.21 million taels of silver, and he is backlogged in the treasury of Hangzhou City, waiting for the results of the negotiations between the foreign bank and the silk merchant office.

Because his quantity is not much, and they are all second-class goods of Hangzhou silk, foreign companies do not come to negotiate with him, and Tang Yanshu's big silk merchants do not look for him to unite, deliberately downplaying the status of the Hu family in Zhejiang's raw silk industry.

After living in the Hu family's compound for three months, Zuo Zongtang prepared to leave and return to Jiangning Mansion to officially serve as the governor of Liangjiang and the minister of Nanyang trade.

That night, he called Hu Chuyuan over, and specially asked Yang Changjun to tell Hu Chuyuan to change into a neat and good outfit.

The line is clothes, toys, such as peiyu, wrenches and the like.

Hu Chuyuan has a lot of these things.

picked out a plain white gauze silk horse coat, found a jade wrench to tie it, Hu Chuyuan got up and went to Rongdong Courtyard, Yang Changjun also accompanied him all the way, and the evil smile on his face made Hu Chuyuan's heart feel empty.

Entering the flower hall, Hu Chuyuan was startled as soon as he raised his head, and at a glance, he felt that he had seen at least two governors and two governors.

Dizzy.

Two governors plus two governors, what big things need such a lineup...... Want to rebel?