For a moment, the entire Yangzhou city entered a very fast pace, which made people a little confused.
But there are also smart people.
At this time, many people gathered in the Huizhou Guild Hall.
In the past two years, business has developed rapidly, and many guild halls have been built in various places. Basically, they were funded and built by local big businessmen, and then local businessmen were invited to work together, creating something similar to a local business group.
Once they have funds and strength, they will build such guild halls all over the country, and there will be their guild halls in major cities.
In addition to providing convenience for merchants, guild halls also provide convenience for scholars; they are responsible for contacting local people in other places, and everyone works together to keep each other warm. Even many officials are won over by them; they can also communicate with each other when doing business.
If you cheat your fellow townsmen while doing business in a guild hall, your reputation will be ruined and no one will do business with you anymore.
If you want to do business in another place, people will contact your hometown guild to get your information. Without the guarantee of your hometown guild, your business will be difficult to move forward.
Under such circumstances, the importance of guilds and business groups is reflected.
The Huizhou Guild Hall was one of the most powerful guild halls in the Ming Dynasty, and the Huizhou Merchants were also one of the most powerful merchant groups in the Ming Dynasty. There were some who were more powerful than them, but not many.
Originally, the Shanxi merchants had a strong foundation, but they lost more than half of their forces in Zhangjiakou a few years ago. In recent years, they have been severely suppressed by the Hui merchants in Yangzhou, so their influence is now much less than before.
With the development of salt business, the Huizhou business group became even more powerful.
In addition to the local Huizhou people, there are also some other people doing salt business here, such as the Ye family in Shanyang.
The Ye family of Shanyang was not very successful during its rise, but it was very powerful.
The reason is very simple. The Ye family in Shanyang had a Minister of Revenue among their ancestors.
Originally, the Minister of Revenue was not a very important official. After all, how many cabinet ministers were there in this world? If every high-ranking official's family wanted to run such a big business, there wouldn't be enough business for them in this world.
But the Ye family is different. They are from Shanyang, which was later called Huai'an, the seat of the Governor's Office of the Grand Canal. This shows how important Shanyang's geographical location is.
The Ye family's ancestor was Ye Heng, the prime minister of the Southern Song Dynasty. It was also when Ye Qi was the Minister of Revenue that he successfully persuaded Emperor Hongzhi to change the court's grain tax system to a silver tax system.
As a result, the Huizhou merchants rose to prominence instantly, taking advantage of their geographical location in Huaibei and Huainan. The Ye family also took advantage of this opportunity to expand in Huai'an and became a very famous salt merchant.
Of course, the Ye family was still inferior to the Han family. However, the Ye family also had its own advantages. They were located in Huai'an, the home of the Governor of the Grand Canal, and they had deep operations there. Although officials were always changing, the Ye family did not.
The reforms that Ye Qi carried out were ostensibly for the imperial court, but in fact, all the salt merchants at the time contributed to it, and some even bribed Empress Zhang's brother, Shouning Marquis Zhang Heling.
At that time, paying the silver had become the fundamental interest of all salt merchants. Everyone was pushing for this matter and had indeed accomplished it.
Ye Qi presided over the reform, and his status is now very high and he has a good reputation in official circles.
After all, when you gain benefits, you always have to publicize them. Even the Emperor Hongzhi at that time was a benevolent monarch who worked hard and loved his people.
However, in Zhu Youxiao's opinion, Emperor Hongzhi did not do as well as Emperor Jiajing. The reform of the salt administration by Emperor Hongzhi was a huge pit, and he has not yet climbed out of it.
At this time, inside the Huizhou Guild Hall, Ye Chi from the Ye family was sitting here, playing with his fingers boredly, as if there was something particularly interesting on his fingers.
This made the people around frown in dissatisfaction.
But no one can afford to offend Ye Chi. He controls the canal transportation. If he causes you some trouble, you will have no place to cry.
Under such circumstances, everyone could only let it go. Moreover, this time they had called Ye Chi over to borrow his strength.
In the main seat, Cao Bang, the head of the Cao family, sat there expressionlessly, his eyes slowly sweeping across everyone's faces.
At this time, Cao Bang was very worried, even very scared.
Like many salt merchants, he was also very frightened.
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