That day, everyone spent the night on the boat and arrived at Yangzhou City the next morning.

Yangzhou is located on the Grand Canal and the Yangtze River. It has been a top commercial metropolis in the world since ancient times. Merchants from all over the world live here, making Yangzhou a prosperous city for thousands of years.

In this dynasty, although Yangzhou's status as an economic center was replaced by Nanjing, Suzhou and Hangzhou, it was still the national salt transportation center.

Every year, hundreds of millions of kilograms of sea salt are transported from Yangzhou along the Grand Canal and the Yangtze River to various parts of the country for sale. It is no exaggeration to say that half of the people in the Ming Dynasty eat Huai salt shipped from Yangzhou. There is no doubt that this is now a city that thrives because of salt. There are more than a hundred salt merchants in the city, of which the Hui merchants are the most numerous.

Hui merchants took charge of salt transportation in Yangzhou. The quota for Lianghuai was more than 16.9 million, all of which were undertaken by a dozen Hui merchants and then distributed to the small and medium-sized salt merchants below.

These big salt merchants had huge capital and made money without doing anything. They had no business troubles, so they naturally regarded money as dirt, and they had long lost the diligence and stinginess of traditional Huizhou merchants. They lived a lavish life in Yangzhou, competing to build gardens, raise skinny horses, set up opera troupes, collect... Of course, in addition to these personal enjoyments, they would also actively build bridges, roads, and schools, and generously donate to public undertakings.

The salt merchants were also particularly fond of providing financial aid to students. Not only did poor students in Yangzhou and Huizhou receive their financial support, but any candidate who came to Beijing from the Grand Canal to take the imperial examinations would be warmly received by the salt merchants as long as they settled in Yangzhou, and would be given a generous gift before leaving.

Therefore, the reputation of salt merchants among scholars was not as bad as most people imagined. On the contrary, they were very popular among scholars. Among the candidates traveling with Zhao Hao, there were many who had received funding from salt merchants.

Passenger ships with yellow flags arrived at Yangzhou's Dongguan Wharf one after another.

Whenever a ship arrived, the candidates would be invited back to their gardens by the salt merchants who had been waiting at the dock for a long time, where they would hold grand banquets and entertain them lavishly.

Zhao Hao and his friends were no exception.

Moreover, their ships had the most yellow flags, and the competition they caused was the most intense.

Finally, it was the Ye family, one of the eight major salt merchants in Yangzhou, who stepped in and divided their ship of candidates into two parts. Half was divided among the other families, and the other half was reserved for the Ye family.

Zhao Hao and his companions sat in a luxurious and comfortable sedan chair carried by eight people, and were carried into Yangzhou City through the streets and alleys amid the sound of gongs.

When they got off the sedan chair, they found themselves in a luxurious and beautiful garden. Everywhere there were brocade curtains and sable curtains, calligraphy and paintings, and sacred vessels adorned with precious jades and stored with famous perfumes. The exquisiteness of the clothes they wore and the exquisiteness of the pools and pavilions were too numerous to count.

At this time, the sun was shining brightly at noon, so the host set up a banquet in the waterside pavilion. When Zhao Hao and others sat down, they felt that the room was as warm as spring, and the surrounding water and trees were clear and blue, and fish were swimming. There were also several beautiful ladies around them, with warm fragrance and soft voices. There was also a Liyuan opera troupe, which responded to the call from the hall, and the singing and the long music made the candidates feel like they had come from the human world to heaven. They felt that the surroundings were shining with gold and jade, colorful lights, and people and flowers, blurry and messy.

Zhao Hao and his son were on pins and needles. For Zhao Hao, he was still young and couldn't bear to see such a messy scene; for Zhao Shouzheng, he couldn't do such a messy thing in front of his son.

Fortunately, the host was very considerate and smiled, whispering a few words to the concubine who looked like a fairy beside her. The concubine then invited Zhao Hao and his son to follow her to a flower hall at the end of the corridor.

"Someone is waiting for you two, please come in and meet them." The concubine bowed slightly and made a gesture for invitation to come in.

Zhao Hao vigilantly grabbed Zhao Shouzheng.

Seeing this, the concubine couldn't help but chuckle and said to the inside: "Master Zhao, the person you are waiting for is here."

While Zhao Hao and his son were stunned, they saw Zhao Xian, dressed like a rich family's son, wearing a sharp brocade robe and a jade-inlaid fu hat, walking quickly to the door.

Zhao Shouzheng was surprised when he saw his nephew. "Hey, Zhao Xian, didn't you go back to Xiuning? Why are you here? Did you see your grandfather?"

Zhao Xian hurriedly bowed to his second uncle, and then greeted Zhao Hao.

The concubine bowed and left silently.

"Uncle, this is..." Zhao Xian was tongue-tied. Facing his uncle's barrage of questions, he didn't know where to start for a moment, so he stamped his feet and said, "Let's talk about it when we get home."

"Go home?" Zhao Shouzheng couldn't help but ask, "Go back to Nanjing or Xiuning?"

"Next door." Zhao Xian led the way with a wry smile, and said to the two helplessly, "You'll know everything when you get there.

Zhao Shouzheng had no choice but to suppress his doubts and followed his nephew through a white marble moon-shaped doorway on the wall to another luxurious garden.

~~

Entering the garden and walking along the winding bluestone path, you will see thousands of green bamboos and lush flowers and trees on the roadside.

When you pass a Taihu stone called "An Liu Hua Ming", the view in front of you suddenly opens up to a small lake with withered lotus leaves reflected in the water, and there are extremely elegant winding corridors, pavilions, flower halls and study rooms.

Although not as magnificent and luxurious as the one next door, it appears more elegant and stylish, and more in line with the ideal aesthetic of scholars.

Zhao Shouzheng nodded repeatedly and said to his son with a smile: "When we settle down, we will build a garden like this, and then we can enjoy the flowers and fish every day. It will be so beautiful..."

"What a good-for-nothing!" Zhao Shouzheng shuddered in fear when he heard a familiar scolding.

The father and son looked in the direction of the voice and saw Zhao Liben, who had not been seen for nearly a year. He was wearing a Pingding square scarf with a black gauze on his head and a maroon silk Taoist robe with dark patterns. He was looking at his son with a flushed face and pretending to be angry.

"Oh, father..."

Zhao Shouzheng's eyes were dim, and he burst into tears as soon as he saw Zhao Liben, whom he was worried about day and night.

He rushed forward with tears in his eyes and was about to hug Zhao Liben. "Son, are you dreaming?"

Zhao Liben pushed him away with a look of disdain and lectured him angrily: "You are a juren now, so you should pay attention to your manners!"

"Even if I become the prime minister, I am still my father's son." Seeing that his father refused to hug him, Zhao Shouzheng pulled Zhao Hao and knelt on the ground to kowtow to Zhao Liben.

"Okay, okay, get up." Zhao Liben then reached out to help his grandson and said to his son, "Let's go inside and talk."

The four generations of grandparents and grandchildren walked into the flower hall named "Tinghexuan" by the pond.

I saw that the windows of the flower hall were not covered with common Korean paper, but were inlaid with colorful glass.

Looking in from the outside, nothing can be seen clearly. But when you go in and look out, you can see the outdoor scenery clearly and colorfully.

What surprised Zhao Hao even more was that there was a silver-framed glass mirror hanging on the wall of the study!

Looking at his own exquisite self in the mirror, he couldn't help but ask, "Is this Western goods?"

"My dear grandson is very knowledgeable," Zhao Liben nodded with satisfaction, "This is a glass mirror smuggled in by the Portuguese. One mirror costs five hundred taels of silver. In Yangzhou, if you don't have a few Western goods like this, you'd be embarrassed to greet people."

Zhao Hao thought to himself, this business is really profitable...

ps. Chapter 6, 1600 votes and more updates delivered, please give me monthly votes and recommendation votes~~~~