Zhao Liben tried to persuade him patiently, but Zhao Hao was still confused.

The old man could only accept the fact that his grandson had not yet figured it out and changed the subject to secondary matters.

"What's the situation with your damn Jiangnan Company? Why didn't you contact us last time in Yangzhou?"

"Hey, I made up this name to reassure Mr. Wu." Zhao Hao smiled and replied, "But after a tour in Taicang and Wuxi, I managed to attract a few shareholders, so it's not a lie now."

"How much money did you cheat others out of?" Zhao Liben asked curiously.

"The two Wang families each have 100,000 taels of silver and 50,000 dan of grain. The Hua family has 150,000 taels of silver and 80,000 dan of grain." Zhao Hao counted on his fingers and said, "Sister Xueying wants to pay 1 million taels, but I'm worried that other shareholders will have objections, so I only want half from her."

"Oh my goodness..." Zhao Liben almost popped his eyes out. "You got 1.2 million taels of silver in one go without any effort?"

Rice was expensive in Suzhou and Songjiang, and during the lean season, the price of rice was never less than two taels per stone. Wang Jiahua's family only offered two taels of silver, and Zhao Hao did not suffer any loss.

"Grandpa, you are wrong." Zhao Hao said seriously, "How can it be a free-for-all? I am using the goodwill I have accumulated in the past."

"Goodwill, what is that?" Zhao Liben was puzzled.

Young Master Zhao patted his chest and said nothing.

"Well... isn't that still just getting something for nothing?" Zhao Liben sneered.

"If grandpa insists on saying this, I can't do anything about it." Zhao Hao spread his hands helplessly.

"It's a skill to be able to trick someone." Zhao Liben smiled, took out an envelope from his sleeve, handed it to Zhao Hao and said, "There are still people chasing after you to give you money."

"This is?"

"The last time we passed by Yangzhou, the salt merchants begged you to form a partnership, but you refused. This time, they just gave all the money to grandpa."

"And they're afraid you won't agree, so they've signed a document guaranteeing they won't interfere with the company's business and won't sell their shares. They'll just share the dividends with you." Zhao Liben handed Zhao Hao another envelope.

"It's time to take them out to play, right?"

"So good?" Young Master Zhao opened his mouth in surprise.

"Their money came from the sea, and they can't spend it all, and they have nowhere else to put it. Instead of keeping it in the cellar and letting it grow moldy, it's better to keep it with you to have children." Zhao Liben smiled and said, "Look, how generous they are."

Zhao Hao opened the first envelope and saw a thick stack of bills inside. After counting, it was worth a million taels. "Whose family is this from?"

"There are five in total, and each of them has 200,000 taels." Zhao Liben laughed and said, "The other three are not from our Huizhou merchants, so we won't play with them... Do you think this is appropriate?"

"Yes, they have done this much, why shouldn't I say yes?" Zhao Hao hesitated for a moment and said:

"Now that Jiangnan Company has taken over Xishan, the stock price should have gone up. But since they are so sincere and it's my grandfather's honor, I'll just settle for one tael per share."

"Hehe, so bright! You are worthy of being grandpa's good grandson!" Zhao Liben was very happy. He finally completed his mission and had something to report when he returned.

Zhao Hao opened another envelope and saw five documents inside. The gist of it was that each family would invest 200,000 taels of silver in Zhao Hao, and he would be in charge of the shares. They would share the profits and losses and would never withdraw voluntarily.

To put it bluntly, the salt merchants regarded this as a financial investment and did not see it as a big deal at all...

Come to think of it, two hundred thousand taels is really nothing to the wealthy salt merchants.

~~

In fact, even if the salt merchants did not grant Zhao Hao full voting rights, Mr. Zhao would take the initiative to reduce his shareholding to less than 50%. This would show that Jiangnan Company was not owned by him alone, and would also help to stop the gossips.

In fact, Mr. Zhao didn't need to be so careful. In that era, there was no regulation that prohibited officials' relatives from doing business in the place where they worked.

But it is better to be safe than sorry. Who knows if this might be used to attack him and his son in the future?

Therefore, he would not even serve as the chairman of Jiangnan Company, and planned to invite Grand Tutor Hua Chahua to act as a mascot.

Zhao Liben will not interfere with these specific and minor matters. He only focuses on the overall strategic direction.

Taking a sip of tea, the old man talked about the situation of the eight major families.

"Last year, they didn't find the golden seal of King Jinghai, so they wanted to renegotiate the number and cast a new one."

Zhao Liben gloated and said, "But just as I expected, it's not that simple. Previously, the Lu family relied on the power of Lu Bing and his son, who were both Jinyiwei, to monopolize 20% of the share, and each family felt that they had suffered a loss. Now that the Lu family has lost, how should the 20% be divided? Should everyone share it equally, or whoever succeeds as King Jinghai will get the largest share? The eight families are arguing endlessly."

"Of course." Zhao Hao nodded and refilled his grandfather's tea. "The families that know they have no hope of winning the throne will definitely hope to divide it equally. A strong party like the Xu family will naturally want to take it all for themselves."

"Besides the dispute over land market share, there are even more troublesome issues at sea," Zhao Liben continued to explain to his grandson:

"Wang Zhi's Wufeng Fleet originally controlled the shipping in the southeast and two oceans, and the nine major families could only sell their goods to him, so at that time, the power and profits were in Wang Zhi's hands."

"The nine great families were naturally dissatisfied with this, and they united to find ways to get rid of Wang Zhi. After Wang Zhi's death, his fleet broke up and attacked each other, and maritime trade was completely ruined."

"The nine families used both hard and soft tactics to get the five fleets of Wang Zhi and jointly promote the Lu family as the new King of the Sea. The King of the Sea is the one who has the final say over all fleets on the seas of Zhejiang."

"The goods of the nine great families are distributed to the five great fleets by the King of the Sea. The five great fleets then sell the goods to the two oceans, make money and pay the King of the Sea, who finally distributes it to the nine great families, and thus a maritime trade is completed."

Zhao Hao nodded, and said with some gloating: "Once King Jinghai dies, the sea will definitely be more chaotic than the land."

"Of course. Most families on land are proud of their status and have some kinship, so it's hard to tear each other apart. But the sea is a place where the strong prey on the weak. Are those fleets merchants or pirates? No one can say for sure." Zhao Liben also laughed:

"So the sea needs order even more. Once there is no order, all fleets will be in chaos. Without the King of the Sea, there is no one to supply them with goods, and they don't know who to pay for the goods. Trade was cut off immediately."

"Those sea merchants are people who make a living but spend twice as much. After six months of no income, some of them go back to their old ways and become pirates and start robbing. I heard that the Wang family in Taicang had two batches of goods robbed in the first half of the year."

"Oh." Zhao Hao suddenly realized that it was no wonder that Wang Shimao was sweating when he mentioned this. It turned out that he had suffered a great loss.

"The Xiang family simply took advantage of the opportunity to swallow up a fleet, wanting to produce and sell their own products and not play with everyone else. As a result, the other families refused to accept this, and on the first day of the first lunar month, they set fire to more than a hundred of the Xiang family's ships. Naturally, the Xiang family wanted revenge, and it took several months and hundreds of people to die before they stopped."

ps. Second update, please vote for me!!