Good son-in-law of the Ming Dynasty

Three hundred catties of salt is imported, and the cost is nearly ten taels.In other words, the official salt ended up in the hands of salt merchants with only three or four hundred wen.Adding transportation costs, labor costs, wear and tear, shop rent, and commercial taxes, it is about two cents.

Selling it for three cents a catty still has a [-]% profit.

It is not uncommon for a large salt merchant to hold tens of thousands of salt coins.

After a year, it is not difficult to earn several 10 taels of silver.

After getting such a result, Su Mu took a breath and was greatly shocked.

First of all, this official salt is so expensive that it can be sold for three renminbi a catty, if it is changed to modern society.If you dare to sell a catty of salt for 200 yuan, it is no wonder that the common people do not rebel. No wonder there are so many private salt dealers in Cangzhou City.It is true that official salt is expensive and of poor quality, and cannot afford to hurt it.

Secondly, the salt merchants are too profitable.No wonder that when Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty went to the south of the Yangtze River, the salt merchants gave tens of 10 taels of silver to the emperor's Zaoxin Palace in order to curry favor, without frowning.At that time, in Yangzhou alone, the capital of Huizhou salt merchants was equivalent to more than half of the national inventory of silver at that time.

Salt merchants in Yangzhou were the most extravagant merchants in the world. Those with less than a million dollars were called "small merchants."

Hearing people talk about this, Emperor Qianlong and the people around him were stunned, and sighed: "The wealth of the salt merchants is great!"

It's no wonder that little girl Taikang wants to use her own hands to make a fortune in Cangzhou and buy her a large dowry.

In fact, this place is really a treasure land of geomantic omen!

However, it is also sad to say that when the emperor and Princess Taikang got angry for 200 million taels of silver.Putting this little money among the salt merchants is just a small merchant.

"Perhaps, being a salt merchant is also a good way, but..." Su Mu quickly rejected this idea, mainly because the salt merchants follow the guidelines, and if they get involved in it now, it is inevitable to make enemies on all sides if they touch other people's cakes. .Moreover, it is illegal for the royal family to do business as a taboo.The most important thing is that time waits for no one. If you want to be a salt merchant, this year is impossible.Next year, I, Su Mu, don't want to celebrate the New Year in Cangzhou!

Let's deal with this month's 30 taels first, so as to give the court an explanation.

"Salt merchants, millionaires are still small merchants..." Chewing on these words, Su Mu walked around the room and suddenly had an idea.

I couldn't help laughing, and said to Gu Run, who was reading a book leisurely in the room: "Mr. Gu, and find the backlog of business affairs in the past few days, let's deal with them first."

Solve these trivial things first, otherwise the backlog will continue, and there will be more and more, and it will be troublesome to deal with in the future.If anyone with a heart finds out, please refer to the book, saying that Mr. Wu's corpse is a vegetarian meal, I'm afraid he will not be able to do it as an agent of transshipment.

In the past few days, Gu Run saw Su Mu looking at the old files every day and doing nothing, so he was disdainful in his heart: what's the use of sharpening the gun before the battle.If I guessed right, this person surnamed Mei doesn't know anything about the official affairs of the Salt Company, so how can he learn it now?

He was in the same room with this rival in love surnamed Mei all day long. The more Gu Run looked at Su Mu, the more he disliked Su Mu. Listening to his words aroused old and new hatred, so he didn't look up, but sneered ironically: "Look at Mr. You don’t let go of the book in your hand, and you can see ten lines at a glance. You have the refined style of my Confucian scholar. If you don’t know you, you really think you are a scholar with a reputation! Gu has little talent, I’m afraid I can’t help you, Mr. Mei Even if you force yourself to do it, if something bad happens, you will lose Master Wu's reputation. Besides, you are a great talent, even Su Ziqiao's "Dream of Red Mansions" has to borrow your poems. How dare you show your ugliness in front of you?"

Hearing him mention Mei Fugui's plagiarism of poems from "A Dream of Red Mansions", several other staff members in the room and the book office all laughed softly, with the utmost sarcasm and sarcasm in their laughter.

Ordinarily, when most people heard this, they would have long been ashamed.

But Su Mu didn't want to, but smiled bitterly: Copying yourself, isn't that considered plagiarism?

Seeing Su Mu's calmness, everyone despised him even more: This person was so satirized, but he didn't change his face, isn't he too thick-skinned?

Su Mu looked at the pile of documents, and then at the others.

Several scholars in the official office shook their heads at the same time, and said with a smile: "With Mr. Mei here, there is no room for us to discuss it in the future, but we will steal your limelight."

"That's right, we can't compare to Su Ziqiao, and naturally we can't compare to Mr. Mei!"

"Haha!" Everyone laughed.

Su Mu raised his eyebrows, and without speaking, he went straight to the pile of paperwork and carried them to his desk one by one.Then he picked up the notebook and read it quickly.

After just a few glances, he picked up the pen and wrote down the verdict, which was amazingly fast.

In this way, one after another, in a short while, he wrote and sentenced more than 20 documents handed in from below.

At this time, the other scholars in the official office felt something was wrong.

Judging by the posture of this surname Mei, sitting upright and handling his pen like a wind, he looks like an old official who has a well-thought-out plan for all the affairs in the yamen.

"Everyone, pretend!" Gu Run sneered and whispered to the crowd, "This Mei is a rough man, he may know a few words, but he just doesn't want to lose face in front of us, so he just insists on it. If you don't believe me, when I read his handwriting, it must be too sloppy to read."

Gu Run and the others were also arrogant, perhaps to annoy Su Mu on purpose, discussing in private and not avoiding him.

Su Mu sneered in his heart, and after another pot of tea, he judged the thirty or so documents, put them together, and said: "Send it to the transshipment envoy, if you agree, use the seal!"

Just kidding, the seeds of a dignified study, a famous Juren, and a systematic royal education.When it comes to dealing with specific affairs, Su Mu naturally wants to get rid of Gu Run, a group of people who don't work hard and don't distinguish between grain and grain.

What's more, when the imperial court selects scholars, what they pay attention to is body, speech, writing, and judgment.

The body is the appearance, the words are the articles, the book is the calligraphy, and the judgment refers to the administrative ability to deal with government affairs.

If you can't even make a verdict, even if Su Mu's book is read to the stomach of a dog, it will fail the teachings of famous teachers such as Shao Tai, Wu Shiqi, Liu Jian, Xie Qian, and Li Dongyang.

Gu Run wanted to see Su Mu make a fool of himself for the first time, so he strode up and snatched the stack of documents.

Su Mu smiled: "Then I will trouble Brother Gu to send it to the Wu transfer envoy."

Only then did Gu realize that, under Su Mu's commanding tone, he took over the documents in such a hurry, on the surface, he looked like a submissive subordinate.

Unknowingly, he suffered from being dumb, and his face turned purple with anger.

After receiving the document, without looking at it, he snorted coldly and strode towards the door.

Several book offices hurriedly followed up: "Brother Yiyu, wait a minute, let's see how the character surnamed Mei is written."

"Yes, there is still a verdict!"

"We can't wait to see the excitement."

Soon, several people surrounded Gu Run in the middle, each of them stretched out a hand, and each grabbed a document.

Seeing the commotion at the door, Su Mu stopped his pen and looked at them playfully.

"how is this possible?"

"This word...was really written by someone surnamed Mei?"

"Just now you waited but did you understand?"

Suddenly, everyone let out an exclamation.

It turned out that Su Mu didn't hide his clumsiness this time, it can be said that he took up all his power and wrote every word extremely neatly.

Under normal circumstances, if you want to use calligraphy to shock all living beings, you must naturally use your best Dong Qichang style.Although Dong Qichang's character is very bad, bullying men and women, in Yurou Township, he finally angered the common people and burned his house down.But this man was the number one calligrapher in the Ming Dynasty, a rare master in the Ming and Qing dynasties who pioneered a new style.

But Su Mu thought about it, killing a chicken and using a sledgehammer, there is no need for Dong Ti calligraphy to deal with a few ordinary scholars.

Moreover, to convince them, they have to use the calligraphy fonts they are best at.

Cangzhou scholars, or the scholars of the Ming Dynasty, most admired the fonts than the Sanguan style, which is what later generations call the Guange style.

It’s not that there’s anything special about this font. In fact, it doesn’t have any artistic value at all. What’s important is that it’s one-to-one stroke, correct and standard, and the highest state is as if it’s just printed.

The emergence of Guange style is mainly for the imperial examination, in order to prevent the examiner from reading your handwriting effortlessly.

In this time and space, practicing calligraphy is not as simple as in later generations.All you need to do is to enroll in a specialty class, buy a few copybooks and follow your face. All you need is perseverance.As long as you have this perseverance, no matter what you want to learn, if you stick to it for ten years, you will be able to write a good calligraphy.

But in ancient times, it was not so easy to practice calligraphy well.The key is that the copybooks are hard to find, and there is no photocopy, so the students can only follow the words of the master.The better calligraphy copybooks are all authentic, priceless, and are treasured by aristocratic families.

Unlike modern society, a copybook of Wang Xizhi only costs more than ten yuan.

Turn on the computer and search, and it will cost some electricity.

After time travel, thanks to the literacy rate of less than [-]% in this era, in Su Mu's opinion, many scholar-level scholars can't handle their handwriting very tightly, which is only at the level of his elementary school.

Because there was no place to learn calligraphy, ordinary scholars in the Ming Dynasty could not write very well.But in the imperial examination field, bad calligraphy will suffer a lot.

According to the imperial examination system of the Ming Dynasty, because the official examination in the first court examination involves the candidates' merits, the papers made must be copied again by a special transcription, and then the names will be pasted and handed over to the examiners for review, in order to prevent cheating.

If your handwriting is sloppy, you only need to copy one wrong word when transcribing the paper, and you are finished.

When it came to the first level of the palace examination, the proportion of the roll marks was also ridiculously high.It even appeared that candidates were admitted directly based on the quality of their calligraphy.

Therefore, even if there is no copybook, ordinary scholars will take a book and learn stroke by stroke according to the characters on it. This is the so-called Guange style.