After breakfast, Zhao Hao helped Zhao Shouzheng brew tea, grind ink, and get ready to work.

Then he earnestly advised: "Father, please stay at home and study hard recently. We are a poor family, so don't go out if you don't have anything to do."

Zhao Shouzheng was sitting on a wobbly old chair, scratching his head while holding a copy of the Analects of Confucius.

"There is something I need to do. Tomorrow I have to go to the Imperial College to go through the procedures for returning to school... I have not been in prison for the past two years, so I am afraid my student status has been suspended."

"Of course I have to do something, so just focus on studying today."

Zhao Hao, like a worried old parent, gave Zhao Shouzheng a few instructions and left him some money for lunch in the afternoon. Then he said he wanted to go for a walk and left.

"You let me study at home, but you go out and wander around!" Zhao Shouzheng protested, but unfortunately the protest was ineffective.

~~

Of course, Zhao Hao didn't go out to stroll around.

As long as he thought that the family only had two taels of silver left, and the slightest disturbance would lead to the dilemma of not being able to make ends meet, he did not dare to delay for a moment.

He wanted to see if he could find some way to make money to solve the urgent needs of the father and son.

He had originally planned to go to the most prosperous area around the Confucius Temple on the Qinhuai River, but when he asked for a horse-drawn carriage, he was told that it would cost twenty cents to get there.

"So expensive?" Zhao Hao couldn't help but feel pain.

"My friend, it's twenty miles away. If there are no passengers on the return trip, I will lose a lot of money on this trip." The driver wearing a bamboo hat said unhappily.

"How can I let you lose money?" Zhao Hao smiled, put his purse back into his sleeve and said, "I won't go."

"You little bastard, you're just making fun of me!" After he walked away, the driver was still cursing at him from behind.

Zhao Hao curled his lips and pretended not to hear anything.

But he was not capable of traveling 40 miles on foot. Recalling that there were many bustling streets near the Bell and Drum Tower that day, he figured out the direction and changed his destination.

The further south you go, the more prosperous it becomes. After crossing the Lion Bridge and reaching the Drum Tower Outer Street, the prosperous scene that Zhao Hao saw yesterday reappeared before his eyes.

He had no idea what to do at the moment, so he just went through each store carefully.

That day, he just took a quick look and got a rough idea of ​​the prosperity of the Southern Capital of the Ming Dynasty. Today, after a careful look, he was truly shocked by the prosperous business and abundant materials in Nanjing City...

Zhao Hao made a rough count and found that on the wide street less than a mile long in front of him, there were no less than a hundred eye-catching shop signs of various styles either erected or hung.

In addition to the most common restaurants, eateries and teahouses, there are dozens of businesses in total, such as Liu Xiaoping's Sichuan and Guangdong Grocery Store, Zhou Ji Fa Dui Official Bird's Nest, Chongming Seafood Store, Northwest Liangkou Leather Goods Store, Ruixiang Silk and Satin Store, Nanwazi Cloth Store, and Tang Ji Southern Goods Store.

Moreover, the wide range of goods and the complete categories in these shops were also unimaginable to him before. Zhao Hao entered the Nanwazi cloth shop and saw that there were hundreds of various kinds of cloth on the counter.

Zhao Hao was very curious, so he pretended to want to buy some cloth and tricked the shop assistant into reciting a clear and fluent dialogue.

"We have Xitang cloth from Jiaxing, Suzhou blue, Songjiang blue, Nanjing blue, Guazhou blue, red cloth, green cloth; Songjiang large shuttle cloth, medium and small shuttle cloth; Huguang Xiaogan cloth, Linjiang cloth, Xinyang cloth; Dingtao cloth; Fujian raw cloth, Anhai raw cloth, Jiyang cloth, coarse linen, Shufang raw cloth, lacquer cloth..."

Zhao Hao was very satisfied with what he heard and couldn't help but applaud. The shop assistant became even more proud and listed dozens of fabrics. Then he panted and asked, "Which one would you like?"

"Well, let me think about it." Zhao Hao crossed his arms, pretended to think for a moment, and said to himself: "It seems that there is room for improvement in looms and printing and dyeing technology."

But the problem still remained: distant water cannot quench immediate thirst. Faced with a room full of cloth, he could not find any way to make quick money.

"Sorry, I'll just take a look around..." Zhao Hao smiled apologetically at the clerk, but couldn't bear to see his resentful eyes, so he escaped from the cloth shop.

Zhao Hao went from store to store like this, and was amazed by almost every one of them. He even found a seafood store that specialized in seafood. In addition to selling marine fish, the store also used seawater to raise crabs, eels, shrimps, snails, clams, clams, silverfish, razor clams, yellow snappers, etc. The variety was not much less than that of seafood markets in later generations. I don't know how they got these seafood that were difficult to keep fresh and difficult to transport alive from hundreds of miles away.

Looking at these seafoods, Zhao Hao felt hungry and hurried out of the seafood store called "Chongming Seafood".

Unexpectedly, the street was also filled with all kinds of tempting food aromas, and Zhao Hao suddenly realized that it was already lunch time. Not only were the restaurants and eateries fragrant, but the various food stalls on the roadside also displayed a dazzling array of various foods, making people salivate.

"It's boiled dried bean curd, osmanthus duck, pan-fried buns, braised pig's trotters... and fried knife fish, fried meatballs, roasted chicken, and stinky tofu... How come even the stinky tofu smells so good?"

Zhao Hao couldn't help sniffing and swallowing his saliva, but when he touched the only two taels of silver left in his arms, he felt that the moment was extremely cruel.

"I just had a basket of steamed buns this morning, so I'm not hungry." Zhao Hao repeatedly reminded himself, "This is all an illusion. I'm greedy, not hungry!"

But he couldn't help but swear secretly that when he became rich in the future, he would take revenge severely.

Well, I eat a bowl of boiled dried bean curd and pour it out...

~~

Zhao Hao endured his hunger and visited a few more shops. After noon, he entered a shop with a sign that read "Tang's Southern Goods Store" with black letters on a yellow background.

The so-called southern goods are naturally the specialties of the south. The store is full of Jinhua ham, Shaoxing rice wine, dried seafood, Lingnan dried fruits and other foods from southern Jiangsu, Ningshao, Fujian and Guangdong.

"Selling food again..." Zhao Hao muttered and was about to leave, but he accidentally glanced at the shelf in front of the store. There were dozens of coarse porcelain bowls neatly stacked, and the bowls were filled with black-brown or reddish-brown pastes.

"What is this?" Zhao Hao asked curiously.

"Sir, you don't even know the difference between brown sugar and brown sugar?" the shop assistant asked with amusement.

"I've never seen it in a bowl." Zhao Hao shook his head and picked up a bowl of brown sugar to look at it carefully. He saw that its surface was rough like sand, and there were snowflake-like patterns on it. It was very beautiful.

“How much is this?”

"Black sugar is thirty cents a bowl, and red sugar is one penny a bowl." The waiter asked with a smile, "Would you like some, sir?"

"What's the price of sugar?" Zhao Hao asked casually.

“White sugar…” The waiter was stunned, as if he had never heard of this name.

Zhao Hao clearly remembered that he had drunk sugar water when he first came. And in his memory, little Zhao Hao also ate a lot of sugar, so there must be something like this.

"Sir, are you talking about frosting?" the waiter asked tentatively.

"That should be it." Zhao Hao thought to himself, it seems that the name is different, so he nodded and said, "Do you have it at home?"

"Yes, yes..." The waiter took out an exquisite small wooden box from the counter, opened it and showed it to Zhao Hao. There was indeed white sugar inside.

Zhao Hao subconsciously reached out and wanted to pinch a little to taste it.

Unexpectedly, the waiter acted as if facing a great enemy and immediately slammed the lid shut, almost pinching Zhao Hao's finger.

"You are such an ignorant guest. How can you take such a valuable thing lightly?"

"Isn't it just white sugar? How can it be so expensive?" Zhao Hao said a little unhappily.

"One tael of silver for one tael of sugar, are you kidding?" the waiter asked with wide eyes.

"What? One tael of silver for one tael of sugar?!" Zhao Hao was stunned.

ps. I'll add another chapter to express my gratitude. Please vote for recommendation and comment on the chapter~~~~

ps2. Uh, there is another leader, so there will be another update at 8 o'clock...