At the beginning of February of the twelfth year of Hongxi, Li Guoyong came to Suzhou Jinyi Wei Thousand Households.

Li Guoyong is a Suzhou businessman, his family has been doing business for generations, and he originally did not take the sea route, but when Yongle fought against him, he saw that Zhu Gaochu supported sea trade and lifted the ban on the sea, and his father Li Chun went to Fujian to seek refuge in Zhu Gaochu for the first time and secretly helped Zhu Gaochu transport grain.

At that time, this matter was quite bold, equivalent to a rebellion, once Zhu Gaoxu was defeated, the Li family might be wiped out, but at that time, many businessmen in Jiangnan and Zhejiang did this, and they all supported Zhu Gaoxu, because everyone wanted to cancel the ban on the sea.

Moreover, when everyone supported Zhu Gaoxu, Zhu Gaochu had already won three big victories in Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou and other places, and his momentum was strong.

It is true that the businessmen are profit-seeking, and everyone is also looking at the bet, and afterwards Zhu Gaochu really won, and the Li family suddenly rose, and then Zhu Gaochu put down the right to sell sugar, and businessmen from all over the coast, all who supported Zhu Gaochu, were given priority.

In the past ten years of the Hong Xi Dynasty, the wealth of the Li family has risen several times, and it is currently ranked among the top five wealthy businessmen in Suzhou.

But his father Li Chun also achieved this status, Li Guoyong is twenty-three years old this year, and when Zhu Gaoxu fought against the war, he was less than ten years old and couldn't speak.

The richest man in Suzhou is now the Huang family.

The Huang family was a maritime merchant back then, mainly engaged in maritime business, before Zhu Gaochu fought against the war, the Huang family didn't know how to get in touch with Zhu Gaoxu, anyway, he had been helping Zhu Gaochu transport goods, and there were often ships along the waterway to send supplies to Yunnan.

When Zhu Gaochu raised the army, the Huang family is said to have also helped a lot, and there were ships to help, so after Zhu Gaochu succeeded, the Huang family was immediately reused, in Zhu Gaochu's later restructuring of salt, mines, sugar, red mansions, gambling stalls, etc., the Huang family took the lead, obtained the right to operate the red mansion in Suzhou for ten years, the right to operate the gambling stalls for ten years, the sales of salt in half of the county of the province included the manufacturing rights, and also won two mines in Suzhou Prefecture.

But everyone can't help it, people invested to help when Zhu Gaoxu was the king of Han, Li Guoyou and other businessmen were half a beat slower, and they decided to invest only after the king of Han won three big victories.

The icing on the cake is definitely not a charcoal in the snow, so Li Guoyong has been obsessed with this matter all these years and is very unconvinced.

He was born a few years early, and he must have persuaded his father to support Zhu Gaoxu as early as possible.

The status of merchants in the Hongxi Dynasty has risen sharply, and they can still see officials without worshipping after paying enough business taxes, like Li Guoyong's family has paid enough, and they can even not worship for generations.

But Li Guoyong is still not satisfied, he has been running business with his father since he was a child, and his studies are not very good, but he failed to pass the imperial examination a few times, and he is now an official.

Because he felt that the Hongxi Dynasty might be the best era of the Ming Dynasty, and the emperor was extremely open-minded and accommodating all directions.

In the future, when his sons and grandsons come up, it is difficult to say whether the merchant will have this status.

So Li Guoyong has been thinking about how to be an official for the past two years.

At present, in the Ming Dynasty, if you don't take the imperial examination, you still want to be an official, and there are many ways.

For example, immigrants to Central Asia and West Asia, I heard that there are iron products in Shanxi and horse merchants in Shaanxi, and they all immigrated with their families, and they were rewarded by the imperial court, and their families all had children as officials.

But Li Guoyong didn't want to go that far, and he didn't want to emigrate with his family.

There is also a contribution, a huge contribution to the imperial court, in the tenth year of Hongxi, Emperor Zhu Gaoxu set up a task hall in Jinyiwei, and Jinyiwei can receive tasks from all over the country, tasks include:

Discover all kinds of major minerals in the Ming Dynasty, discover various important islands and specialties overseas, there are no seeds, animals and plants in the Ming Dynasty, transmit intelligence news from overseas and other dynasties, invent important tools, firearms, science and technology, etc., as long as you find that the invention is recognized by the imperial court, you will either get a lot of money or get an official position in one step.

Not long after the establishment of the Jinyi Wei Association, a Shaanxi peasant found a mineral called oil appointed by the imperial court, and after being identified and recognized by the imperial court, the farmer was directly appointed as the local county lieutenant, and his son was sent to the local primary school, from primary school to university, all fees were free, and he was trained by the imperial court, and he could inherit his father's county lieutenant after graduation in the future, and even if the graduation results were excellent, the emperor personally promised that he could directly hereditary as the county order.

But this is not the most important thing, the most important thing is that the emperor said that if this mine produces oil and sells it in the future, the farmer family will own one percent of the shares and dividends for generations.

When the news came out, it shocked the big tomorrow.

Last year, someone transformed the loom, since the Tang and Song dynasties, the loom has been further improved, the efficiency is far more than several times, the woman is old, but her son is still a college student, the court has predicted the official position for her son, and he can become an official after graduating from college.

From the tenth year of Hongxi to the twelfth year of Hongxi, there are more and more tasks in Daming, and high-quality tasks are usually published in Daming Daily, which is well known throughout the country.

These things inspired Li Guoyong, he wanted to be an official and take shortcuts.

Early this morning, he came to Suzhou Jinyi Wei Qianhu Office.

The local Jinyiwei covers a relatively large area, and the west side of the thousand households is the mission hall, and Li Guoyong was startled when he came to the door of the mission hall.

Good guys, there is a lot of people at the door, there are people everywhere, there are people who gather at the door to chat, and there are people who come in and out of the door, it seems that most of them are merchants, because the clothes are more gorgeous.

The Li family is famous in the local area, and many people also know him, and everyone greeted him after seeing it.

"Young Master Li."

"Young owner."

"Qin Gongzi."

Li Guoyong walked all the way over, greeting people while everyone tacitly wanted to take a shortcut to become an official.

knew that he should have studied hard back then, Li Guoyong thought in his heart, but when he thought about the Jianwen Yongle Dynasty back then, he wanted to sleep when he got those so-called sage books, and he couldn't read them at all.

But his son, who is now in elementary school, every time he looks through his son's textbook, he feels very interesting, the emperor is still a few years late, and he became an emperor a few years earlier, and I can read a book and read it.

Li Guoyong walked into the mission hall with his thoughts, and as soon as he entered the courtyard, he saw a huge hall dozens of steps away.

The main hall of the mission hall should be Suzhou Mansion, or a relatively large and famous building in the Ming Dynasty.

After Li Guoyong returned to the main hall, there was a whistling sound behind him, he turned around and saw a person holding a dog he had never seen before, his hair was still golden black, his appearance was weird, and he looked a little fierce, he knew that this must be a foreign dog.

He went up to the main hall at the same time as this person, and there were many people in it, as well as many staff members, all wearing the clothes of the brocade guard.

The man holding the dog stepped forward to find a staff member and said, does his dog count?

This person really came from Nanyang, it is said that this dog was bought from the hands of Western merchants, and it is rare to see in the Ming Dynasty.