On this day, the Hu family feasted guests and friends in the Hu family compound and held an engagement ceremony for Pang Wanchun and Hu Jinfeng. Zhao Chongyang, as Pang Wanchun's father-in-law and brother-in-law, prepared a sky-high dowry for him: ten pieces of silk, a women's sword, a sword, a hundred taels of gold, a thousand taels of silver, two bottles of exquisite glass bottles, a set of jewelry, a pair of glass jade pei, a pair of light water jade mirrors, and a water jade Guanyin. Someone calculated that if calculated according to the market price, these gifts are worth more than 200,000 yuan. The two parties agreed that the wedding would be scheduled for February 22 next spring.

Hu Jinfeng, as the pearl of the Hu family, not only found a young man he liked this time, but also got a sky-high bride price for his parents, and the degree of pride in his heart is indescribable.

After everything was over, Zhao Chongyang and they spent two more days in Tangzhou. The Hu family in Tangzhou has now become its own family, and it has undoubtedly become the stable rear of the Wantong Chamber of Commerce in Huaixi. Zhao Chongyang plans to build a new liquor and perfume workshop here so that it can be supplied to nearby states and counties. In this way, Nanyang can specifically supply Wang Qing and them to reduce the pressure on production. The distillers for making liquor and alcohol have been used up, and this time Liu Yuhua will bring several sets to the north. When the new stills arrive, the new workshop will be ready to open.

The Tang and Hu families also contributed all the elites of their own families this time: the Tang family's blacksmith heirloom, Tang Yongwang's eldest son Tang Zhong is a steward in the Beijing craftsman camp, and the blacksmith skills are self-evident. Tang Long's second cousin Tang Hua and elder brother Tang Xing will take more than ten descendants of the Tang family to go to Jiangnan with Zhao Chongyang this time, study for a period of time in the Liujiacun Iron Workshop and Taihu Dongshan Island Machinery Processing Workshop, and after mastering the technology, return to Anpeng Iron Workshop to work. Hu Jinfeng's two elder brothers, Hu Jinshan, Hu Jinchuan are business-minded business talents, Hu Jinfeng also has a cousin Hu Jinqiao has just turned 15 years old, and Hu Jinfeng likes to practice martial arts since childhood, and Hu Jinfeng has learned martial arts with Hu Jinfeng since childhood, and this time he followed his brother-in-law Pang Wanchun to the special training camp to receive special training.

Now that Zhao Chongyang has Wu Song and Shi Xiu around him to manage fifty guards, Zhao Chongyang asked Qian Xiaoan to wait for Liu Yuhua in Tongbai and follow him as an assistant. Therefore, this time he did not bring Qian Xiaoan back to Jiangnan.

On the morning of September 18, Zhao Chongyang took four unmarried beautiful sisters and nearly 20 children of the Tang family, under the protection of Wu Song, Shi Xiu and 50 guards, left Tongbai County in a carriage and went to Xinyang with the convoy transporting soda ash. Halfway in the cross slope restaurant rest for a night, under the arrangement of Zhang Qing and Sun Erniang, the new cross slope restaurant has been completed, and can accept 400 travelers at the same time, in this barren mountains and mountains, open a restaurant of this scale, the business is not bad, and only the Wantong Chamber of Commerce has such courage. Because, every seven or eight days, the Wantong Chamber of Commerce has a large convoy of two to three hundred carriages to pass here, fortunately Zhao Chongyang made arrangements in Wakou and here in advance, otherwise the eating and doing of hundreds of people and horses is indeed a big problem. That night, Zhang Qing and Sun Erniang naturally had to get drunk with Wu Song, Shi Xiu and others. Zhao Chongyang said to Zhang Qing and Sun Erniang that they should pay attention to discovering and cultivating management personnel among their men, and after a while, let them and their husbands serve in the Self-Defense Forces, and don't waste their martial arts.

Zhang Qing said: "Erniang is pregnant, and she wants to lead the troops to run around to protect the convoy, and she will not be able to wait until three years later, when the child is older." Zhao Chongyang heard that Sun Erniang was pregnant, and there happened to be a rich and long-lived golden lock seized to Wild Boar Ridge, so he hurriedly took one out and handed it to Erniang: "Sister-in-law, please accept it, when the child was born, I may have already gone north, so I will take the child's meeting gift first." Everyone saw that Zhao Chongyang left gifts for his future nephews and nieces, and the four little beauties and others were naturally indispensable, but there were suitable gifts for a while. Everyone looks at Zhao Chongyang. Zhao Chongyang became magical, and took a number of gold ingots of ten taels from the system warehouse, starting with Wu Song, Shi Xiu, Tang Hua, Tang Xing, Tang Long, plus four little beauties, and finally Zhao Chongyang himself also made up a piece of it, and received a total of ten gold ingots. Zhang Qing and Sun Erniang were not hypocritical, and they all collected them one by one and put them away.

Early the next morning, Zhao Chongyang and the others set off with the convoy again. When they arrived in Wakou Town in the afternoon, the convoy stayed at the newly built Wantong Restaurant of their Chamber of Commerce. Because the liquor and stir-fried vegetables of Wantong Restaurant here have become a must in the vicinity, the rich people in a radius of dozens of miles have to come to fry two dishes and have a drink, and the business of Wakou Restaurant is hot in the town. Therefore, every time the team comes from Xinyang, they have to bring some vegetables and liquor to the restaurant......

After they arrived in Xinyang, they took a ship carrying soda ash back to Jiangnan. This time, they will transport more than 100,000 catties of soda ash back to Jiangnan......

When they went back, it was smooth sailing, naturally faster than when they came, and on the sixth day of October, they arrived at the Nanjing Wharf of the Wantong Chamber of Commerce. Everyone got off the boat and returned to the headquarters of the Wantong Chamber of Commerce, Zhao Chongyang introduced several young heroes such as Wu Song, Shi Xiu, Tang Hua, Tang Xing, and Tang Long to his father and the main leaders of the headquarters......

Zhao Chongyang rested in the city of Nanjing for a few days, and gave the soldiers of the escort three days off to return home to reunite with their families. In the evening, Zhao Chongyang, accompanied by his father and Wang Zhennan, came to the shipyard and put a large ship with a carrying capacity of 500 tons in the dock with the bottom facing the sky, and put the other three ships outside the dock. The next day, he accompanied Liu Qiaoling back to Liujia Village to live for a day, and by the way, Tang Hua, Tang Xing and other Tang family children were handed over to the steward of the ironware workshop, so that he could choose a good master for each of them according to their hobbies and specialties, and then learn the corresponding skills from the masters......

On October 12, Zhao Chongyang and his entourage arrived at Suzhou Wantong Wharf Mall, and the next day, under the guidance of the guide, everyone went sightseeing in Suzhou City. Zhao Chongyang personally saw that the officials of the Suzhou Yingfeng Bureau said that they were ordered by Zhu Mianzhu, the commander of the Yingfeng Bureau, to raid the house of a wealthy businessman surnamed Wan in Suzhou City, which caused public indignation, and the people of the city accused one after another. caused Wu Song to want to kill people on the street and destroy those officials who fought with people. was stopped by Shi Xiu and Tang Long, and then made a swing. Zhao Chongyang sent someone to inquire about the whole story: it turned out that there were two strange stones two meters square in the courtyard of Wanjia, and after the officials of the Ying Feng Bureau learned about it, they came to ask for it, handed over one piece last year, and came to ask for another one this spring. Then he had to bring people to destroy all the fish ponds and rockeries of Wanjia, take away the strange stones, and at the same time took a fancy to a thousand-year-old tree in the courtyard of Wanjia, and he also had to dig it up and transport it to Beijing to pay tribute to the emperor. Wanjia had no choice but to spend money to avoid disasters, with tens of thousands of dollars, corresponding to the officials of the Feng Bureau and Suzhou Mansion up and down, at that time barely preserved this strange stone and ancient tree, who knew that last month Zhu Mian returned to Suzhou from the capital home to the hometown of the Feng Bureau, after learning about this situation, sent someone to send a message to Wanjia: either take 200,000 guan to avoid the emperor's errand, or hand over the strange stone and the thousand-year-old tree.