The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

Liu Sheng withdrew his gaze from Xu Du and looked at a report with many pages on the imperial case.

Since he is planning to rectify the salt industry, he has naturally made arrangements for it.

Huai Salt is an important part of Da'ei Salt Industry and can even be called the leader of the salt industry.

Therefore, as early as the year before last, Liu Sheng ordered the Xiuyi Guards to secretly inspect the salt farms in Huaiyang and related salt merchants.

At the end of last year, Liu Sheng asked Xu Du, who was in charge of Jiangbei Embroidery Guard in Nanzhili, to prepare a summary report on the work.

On the tenth day of this year, this report was sent to Liu Sheng's case.

After reading this report, Liu Sheng had to admit that Xu Du was really suitable to be an embroidered guard.

First of all, he was a scholar, gentry, and landlord in the former Ming Dynasty, and he was just one step away from entering the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, he had an understanding of many of the activities of the gentry, scholars, landlords, and officials in the pre-Ming Dynasty, and even knew them clearly.

Secondly, in order to cause trouble, he once "recruited warriors and formed friendships". In fact, he was just a gangster.

He has enough ability and a big picture view. He also attended the Nanjing Military Academy and finally received professional training from the Xiu Yiwei.

With such background, experience, ability, and potential, after joining the Xiuyi Guards, he was naturally at home, and he was promoted repeatedly through meritorious service.

Xu Du obviously realized very early that Liu Sheng was going to take action against the salt merchants, so this report was quite good.

However, after all, not everything can be written clearly in the report.

Therefore, before preparing to rectify the salt industry, Liu Sheng still summoned Xu Du to Nanjing to make targeted inquiries.

"This work report you wrote is very good." Liu Sheng first affirmed Xu Du's labor results, and then said: "However, I still have some things that I need to understand carefully..."

Xu Du's performance in Tianxin Palace lasted for nearly an hour.

When he left, his face was red and his fighting spirit was high.

Xu had a premonition.

After the rectification of the salt industry, he will probably be able to jump into the upper echelon of Xiuyiwei and become one of the high-ranking officials in Damei!

···

Yangzhou.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, this city, which had become more prosperous (and deformed) due to the wars in the late Ming Dynasty, has gradually returned to normal.

Now its prosperity has caught up with that of the Wanli period of the former people, and even surpassed it.

Because during the Wanli period, the officialdom was already quite dark, and corruption and power-seeking officials abounded.

There are even more foreign envoys coming out to collect taxes and set up obstacles to hinder business.

Today, the overall governance of Da'ei is relatively clear. Although the formal commercial taxes have increased a lot, other messy local taxes have almost disappeared.

The most important thing is that the roads are peaceful and bandits are almost extinct.

This gave many small and medium-sized businessmen the courage to go out to do business, making business prosper rapidly.

Yangzhou naturally also benefited from this.

This big city has a permanent population of 700,000 to 800,000.

Even in the Qing Dynasty, it was a first-tier city second only to Nanjing, and tied with Beijing, Suzhou, Hangzhou and other cities in terms of population.

Yangzhou was famous for many things in the world.

There are Yangzhou thin horses that make the wealthy gentry and wealthy people in the north and south excited after hearing about them, and there are also Yangzhou salt merchants who are the richest in the world.

As for the food, luxury houses, gardens, etc., they are also on par with famous cities in the south of the Yangtze River such as Nanjing, Suzhou, and Hangzhou.

Yanchun Tower.

It is a low-key and elegant restaurant in Yangzhou City.

The refreshments, drinks and dishes are all expensive, and only private banquets are open, with a limit of 20 tables per day.

The consumption per table is no less than one hundred taels.

Oh, this is the old rule of Qian Ming.

Nowadays, the consumption per table is no less than two hundred silver dollars.

The private rooms in Yanchun Tower are also divided into grades.

There are ordinary private rooms that are similar to ordinary restaurant rooms, but more elegant and spacious.

There are medium-sized private rooms on a quarter floor.

There are also top-level private rooms that use an entire floor of the pavilion as the venue.

As for the kind of restaurant that uses a large house or even an entire garden as a "private box" and only receives one guest a day, of course it exists in Yangzhou, but it is not the business model of Yanchun Restaurant.

Tanchun Pavilion.

One of the two top private rooms in Yanchun Building.

Wang Wende came upstairs with his servants and saw three other servants drinking tea outside.

The slim female intellectual came up with a smile and led him to the inner room. As for the servants, they were led outside by the waiter to make arrangements.

After pushing the door open and walking in, Wang Wende saw the three people who invited him over, sitting on each side of the room in the large inner room, drinking tea and chatting.

"Brother Wang is here? Hurry and take a seat."

"Brother Wang, you are so slow to come. We have already drank half the tea pot."

"Hahaha, Brother Wang is busier than us, so it's okay to come late."

Seeing Wang Wende, the three of them stood up to say hello.

"Brother Cheng, Brother Fang, Brother Wu."

Wang Wende also said hello and sat down.

After drinking some good green tea, I asked, "What were the people talking about just now?"

Cheng Xinyan said: "There is news from the capital (Nanjing) that the emperor wants to build a royal school in the Forbidden City so that the princes and the descendants of nobles and ministers can study there."

Wu Minqing followed, "So, we were talking. The emperor wants to expand business. I wonder if he will select a few children of big businessmen to accompany him in the palace, so as to improve the status of us businessmen."

Wang Wende laughed when he heard this.

"Then you are overthinking. Since ancient times, among scholars, farmers, industry and commerce, merchants have been at the bottom."

"Even if the Holy Emperor wants to develop business today, it is impossible for us people to have the same status as real scholars."

"Not necessarily." Wu Minqing disagreed with what Wang Bozhang said, "The current emperor is the founder of the country. How many new things have been done in the two or three years since the founding of the country?"

"If you don't want to talk about anything else, let's just open up the sea. How could anyone in the past dynasties pay so much attention to maritime trade when they founded their country?"

"There are also the establishment of science and the construction of railways, which are unprecedented things. How can it be impossible to improve the status of us businessmen?"

Wang Wende smiled and said nothing, not arguing with Wu Minqing.

They are both giant businessmen in Huizhou, mainly engaged in the salt industry. They usually cooperate on many business matters, so it is not worth the harm to their friendship over this matter.

Wu Minqing is only in his early forties and is not mature enough yet. He seems to still want to debate this matter.

Cheng Xinyan, the oldest, saw this and said, "Now that everyone is here, let's let them serve the food?"

Wu Minqing was awakened and realized that he had just been taken advantage of, so he immediately agreed to order.

soon.

Four maids dressed like ladies from wealthy families came up and stood beside the four of them.

Then the well-dressed waiters filed in with portions of meals.

However, the four of them did not sit at the same table, but ate at separate tables like the ancients before the Yuan Dynasty.

First, there are appetizers, including frosted cashew nuts, sweet-scented osmanthus glutinous rice cakes, sweet-scented osmanthus yam puree, pickled ginger, etc.

Then there are the cold dishes, beef in sauce, shredded rabbit in garlic sauce, vegetarian chicken in sauce, braised pork belly, assorted vegetarian dishes, etc.

Then came the hot dishes, fried kelp with crabmeal, emerald catfish and lion head, stewed pheasant with matsutake mushrooms, stewed raw meat, emerald shrimp balls, eight-treasure gourd duck, etc.

The portion of each dish is very small, and you can probably finish it in three to four, or at most five, bites.

But every dish is delicious and delicious, especially when the beautiful maid helps to deliver it to the bowl, and you can even feed it to your mouth. It is the ultimate enjoyment.