In the 22nd year of Qianlong's reign, the imperial court abolished the Ningbo Trade Port, and Guangzhou became the only port for China's foreign trade. It also set up the Guangzhou Thirteen Trading Group, a trade organization composed of thirteen chambers of commerce, to uniformly contact trade affairs with overseas countries.

The Thirteenth Group purchased a large number of tea, vegetables, ceramics, silk, silver and other goods from the mainland, and sold them to Europe by Dutch merchants. The profits were almost as good as those of the country.

Seeing that the Thirteenth Bank monopolized overseas trade and moved the sea of ​​gold and silver back home year after year, the rest of the merchants who could only share some soup or simply could not see and touch were naturally unwilling.

Although the famous saying "Capitalists will take risks if they have 50% profits; if they have 100% profits, they will dare to trample on all laws in the world; if they have 300% profits, they will dare to risk being on the gallows!" has not yet been published, these merchants have already taken action consciously.

Various smuggling trades have become popular, and they have been banned and have become increasingly serious.

With the rapid expansion of business in both open and secrets, Guangzhou is extremely prosperous.

At that time, a Japanese merchant who came to trade made the following record: "There are many merchant ships on the outside, the streets are crowded with people, Western-style buildings are everywhere, and there are endless merchants coming and going. Looking at Nagasaki in our country, the trade is less than half of the thirteen lines, which is really enviable."

On the most prosperous street in Guangzhou, there is a cloth shop called "Detaizhuang" in a prime location. It was opened by Fang De, a famous wealthy businessman in our province. It operates silk and silk from all over the country. It has spacious shops and complete goods.

Fang Shiyu came to the store door and looked inward. She saw her mother Miao Cuihua wearing a pair of round sunglasses, sitting on a high stool leaning against the counter, supporting her left arm, and gently supporting her cheek with her left hand, twisting a rather convex and convex shape without moving, which made several customers unintentionally listen to the guy selling goods, and their eyes flew towards her from time to time.

"Mom, isn't Dad in the store?"

With this breathless shout, Miao Cuihua tilted her body, her arms that were supporting the counter slipped, and she fell on the counter, and her forehead hit the platen with a loud "bang" sound.

Miao Cuihua rubbed her forehead with one hand, took off her sunglasses with the other hand, looked at the door with a pair of sleepy eyes without focal length, and murmured: "Have you thundered? Then hurry up and put the cloth outside..."

It turned out that she fell asleep just now with her look.

Fang Shiyu laughed loudly, rushed to the counter a few steps, put her face in front of her mother and said, "Mom, you are so awesome, can you fall asleep like this?"

"So it's you, a stinky brat!" Miao Cuihua woke up completely at this time, and casually shaved a chestnut on her son's head and asked, "You are very brave. Brother De wants you to study at home, but you dare to sneak out!"

"If I sneak away, will I still dare to come here?" Fang Shiyu was proud and took out a letter from his arms and held it in front of his mother. "Someone came to his house to send this letter, indicating that he had to give it to his father. I was afraid it was a business matter, so I sent it in person... Isn't Dad in the store?"

"He went to discuss business with someone earlier. My mother learned a good-looking position with a foreign lady who came to buy cloth, so she set it up to show it to him. As a result, she saw that he didn't come back when she fell asleep."

Miao Cuihua said angrily, and at the same time snatched the letter and opened it to read it.

Fang Shiyu hurriedly said, "Mom, this letter was written to my father. The sender repeatedly said that he would release it in person."

Miao Cuihua didn't care at all: "The left and right are just business matters, so I'll take a look first to avoid delaying him..."

She suddenly stopped halfway through her words, her face became extremely ugly, and her beautiful eyes staring at the letter almost spurted out of her fire.

Fang Shiyu didn't understand why, and asked, "Mom, you are..."

"Speak inside!" Miao Cuihua had a blue face, held the letter with one hand and grabbed Fang Shiyu into the inner room.

Fang Shiyu became increasingly confused: "Mom, what's wrong with you?"

Miao Cuihua threw the letter on the table viciously and roared: "That dead ghost Fang De actually has a wild woman outside!"

Fang Shiyu was very surprised. When he hurriedly picked up the letter and read it, he saw only a few words on it: "Boss Fang, I'm going to the east of the city tonight, please go to the 'Chenji Dyeing House' in the east of the city." There was no name at the signature, only a five-petal flower-shaped mark.

He said blankly: "Dad is a cloth seller, so it's not surprising to meet with the dyeing workshop? Mom, why did you think of a wild woman going up?"

Miao Cuihua sneered: "The cloths in our 'Detai Village' have always been dyed by the province's leading 'Zhang Ji Dyeing Floor'. I haven't heard of 'Chen Ji'. It's obviously a small dyeing Floor that is not worthy of the table. How can I do business with us? Besides, is there any appointments to discuss business in the middle of the night? The most important thing is that these words are written in a squint and coquettish manner. In addition, the flower I painted in the last time was written by a vixen!"

When Fang Shiyu looked at the two lines of words again, although he was only a little familiar with the writing, he could barely recognize a bit of grace from the handwriting. It seemed that it was made by a woman. As for the deeper charm of "twist" and "cool", it was not his eyesight that could tell.

Unexpectedly, the letter he sent could lead to a family change. Even though he had always been free, he couldn't help but feel a little worried about gains and losses. So he asked with a little nervousness: "Mom, how do you think this matter will be handled?"

Miao Cuihua poured a cup of herbal tea into her mouth, but she couldn't cool down at all. After holding her five fingers, she pinched a teacup into pieces and gritted her teeth and said, "You just do nothing but hand this letter to the dead ghost. Tonight I will go to the 'Chen Ji Dyeing House' to see what kind of vixen is, and have the courage to compete with me for a man!"

Fang Shiyu looked at the fine powder falling from his mother's fingers, and silently prayed for his father, who had not yet known that the "abuse" had been exposed. As for the fate of the "vix spirit", he didn't dare to think about it.

Not long after, Fang De came back from outside and naturally asked when he saw Fang Shiyu.

Under the terrible gaze of her mother staring at her, Fang Shiyu did not dare to make a fool of herself, so she could only send a letter honestly.

Fang De's face changed slightly after seeing it, but he put away the letter without saying anything.

The family of three was taking care of the business in the store for a while. Fang De suddenly said to his wife: "Cuihua, I remember that there are still some accounts that need to be sorted out, so I will stay in the store tonight. You and Shiyu go home first, and you don't have to wait for me to have a meal."

Miao Cuihua's eyes flashed with a cold light, and she looked indifferent on her face, and said with a smile: "It's good, but you're too 'hard'."
Chapter completed!