Before Xie Qian left the capital, he wrote a letter to inform Chen Xi that Zhu Houzhao was missing.

Later, Xie Qian walked south along the canal and wrote a letter to Chen Xi almost every few days, reminding him to pay attention to Zhu Houzhao's whereabouts.

Xie Qian obviously had a premonition that Zhu Houzhao was going to Huguang. In order to avoid accidents in the middle, Chen Xi could only find a way. Each letter was like a death talisman, which made Chen Xi's life uneasy.

"The prince set out from the capital. If everything goes well, he will arrive in Huguang at the end of April. It is mid-May now, and there is no news yet, which means that the prince has not gone to Huguang for the time being, or has been delayed elsewhere. Liu Jin took the position of Nanzhili, and took the prince to defend the power of the eunuch, and would be grandly received everywhere. Zhu Houzhao is probably the boy who is wild, and he probably doesn't want to come to Huguang to suffer..."

Chen Xi wanted to write a letter to Xie Qian and told her own speculation, but found that she could not know where Xie Qian was going next, so she could not find the exact delivery address. At the same time, if the letter was written out, if someone was interested, they would mistakenly think that the prince was abducted by them.

There is no news about Zhu Houzhao coming from Ma Jiu for the time being. For Chen Xi, this matter can only be dragged down.

As for the salt and tea franchise reform in Huguang Province, it has been implemented very smoothly now, and there is another thing that makes Chen Xi very happy, that is, Li Jin and Hui Niang have arrived in Nanchang Prefecture successfully.

Chen Xi couldn't wait to go to Nanchang Prefecture, not only because he was concerned about Hui Niang, but also because he wanted to complete the Jianggan commercial layout as soon as possible.

There is a coal urgently needed for Chenxi in western Ganxi to develop the steel industry. Later Anyuan Coal Mine was a famous coal base and can use the high-quality coal here to make coking coal. Coking coal is mainly used for blast furnace iron smelting and blast furnace smelting of non-ferrous metals such as copper, lead, and zinc, and plays a role as a reducing agent, heating agent and material column skeleton.

The iron-smelting blast furnace uses coke instead of charcoal, laying the foundation for the large-scaleization of modern blast furnaces, and is a major milestone in the history of metallurgy.

Even though Chen Xi is not familiar with physics and chemical knowledge, he still knows the great role of coke and the status of Anyuan Coal Mine in Chinese history.

In addition, Jianggan has more than just coal. The Dexing Copper Mine in northeastern Jiangxi is known as the first non-ferrous metal mine in China. Later generations produce 120,000 tons of copper, 5 tons of gold and 20 tons of silver. In the Ming Dynasty, copper was actually synonymous with money. As long as there is enough copper, the corresponding copper coins can be made.

Finally, Chen Xi wanted to meet his son he had never met and fulfill his responsibilities as a father.

But Chen Xi's affairs in Huguang are not over now. If he set out for Jianggan now, it would make Jianggan local officials and gentry be wary of him and he had to find an excuse to get through. Originally, it was a good reason to find the prince, but the court has not announced the news of the prince's disappearance so far, indicating that the royal family has kept the matter confidential.

Chen Xi thought to himself: "Even if Emperor Hongzhi can keep covering up on the grounds that he personally cultivated the prince to be familiar with government affairs, the prince never went to Wenhua Palace to study. How could the lecturer of the Eastern Palace in Zhanshi Mansion not find any clues? It is already a miracle to delay this incident for three months. I am afraid that even Liu Jian, Li Dongyang and others will have doubts in the next step. I guess they will ask the emperor for a short time."

The issue of the prince in the Ming Dynasty has always been a sensitive topic.

In the system of inheriting the throne, the Ming Dynasty always advocated that the eldest son should not be established, which was completely different from the system of crown princes in the Qing Dynasty. Because foreign barbarians always had the custom of establishing children or wise men, especially Emperor Kangxi later adopted the system of "secret establishment of crown princes", which prevented the inheritance of the throne of the Qing Dynasty from being greatly affected.

But in the Ming Dynasty, if the eldest son was not established, he would be greatly criticized. Even if the eldest son was just a concubine, he would not be deposed like Zhu Youzhang.

Now Emperor Hongzhi is Zhu Houzhao, and the position of the prince is naturally as stable as Mount Tai. However, if there is a problem with Mount Tai, you must consider choosing a spare tire, which will cause turmoil in the current situation.

Chen Xi was waiting for the opportunity to go to Jianggan, but was afraid that the local people would treat him as a guard against jackals and beasts. Chen Xi finally understood how difficult it was to be safe in this era.

"Although I have reminded myself that I no longer care about the dirty things in the local area, but when I really see them, how can I ignore them? Especially now that I am qualified to manage them, should I watch unfair things happen in front of me?"

Chen Xi always felt that he could integrate into this era, but in the end he found that he could not help but want to change this era.

But he also clearly realized that he was powerless in some things, especially when it comes to traditions formed over the past few hundred years, the people of the Ming Dynasty seemed to be very stubborn. No matter how he used to enlighten the people's wisdom, the results were not ideal.

When Confucianism develops to a certain extent, it becomes a slave-like idea, which makes people content with mediocrity and not enterprising.

...

...

On May 12, the Governor's Office distributed the last batch of tea and salt.

Half of the previous tea and salt citations were under the commercial organization controlled by Chen Xi, and Song Xiaocheng paid taxes to complete salt, tea transportation and trading.

When Huguang merchants found that Chenxi didn't need them to play local commerce, they became nervous. They changed from refusing to cooperate before and actively cooperated. This time they gathered at the Governor's Office and rushed to buy salt and tea ingots.

But unfortunately, Chen Xi did not give them the opportunity to bid. The price of the first induce tea and the second induce salt is open and transparent, in order to prevent salt merchants and tea merchants from making huge profits from it.

The Wen family and the Zhong family were not involved. Judging from the rumors, the Zhong family seemed to have plans to leave Huguang and move to Nanzhili, while the Wen family chose to stay, but replaced all their property with land and houses, and prepared to be a big landlord with peace of mind and no longer involved in local specialty commodity trading.

In Shen Xi's opinion, the Wen family's decision was relatively wise. As for the Zhong family, it was a bit of annoying, and the final outcome would only be to cause trouble.

On this day, tea and salt yin each took 40,000 yuan. Local salt merchants and tea merchants basically bought some. Even if the profit is not very high, they can ensure that they make a living.

Among the last batch, Song Xiaocheng only received three thousand tea ingestions, but did not buy salt ingestions because the fine salt supplied in Qiongzhou Prefecture has almost been sold out.

It’s not that something went wrong with the newly opened salt farm, but because Chenxi has transferred too much new salt to Huguang for sale during this period to fill the gap. At the same time, Chenxi is also preparing to leave some salt to supply the chemical workshop under preparation.

To change this era, we must introduce the chemical industry. Sea salt is the basic raw material for the production of acid and alkali. Chen Xi is preparing to use his shallow chemical knowledge to guide craftsmen to gradually create three acids and two alkalis.

At this time, Tang Yin, who was far away in Qiongya, also wrote a letter.

After Tang Yin and Miss Xia got married, the couple's life was roughly harmonious, but the problem was that Tang Yin claimed to be extraordinary literary talent and was unwilling to continue doing odd jobs, and wanted to go back to Shen Xi to show his strengths.

Perhaps because he was afraid that Chen Xi would not agree, Tang Yin came to take action first and then report, and wrote a letter to inform Chen Xi that he was leaving, and then set off directly to Guangzhou Prefecture.

According to Tang Yin's letter, he was going to take his brother-in-law Xia Kuan to Huguang to find Chenxi to work together to plan major events.

Chen Xi was very troubled. You guy felt that you didn't cause enough trouble for me and were going to continue to cheat me, right? You can come, your salary is paid to the clerks of the Governor's Office. Don't think I will spend a huge amount of money to hire someone!

I don’t have the preparation to keep idle people here. When I come, I will show my real skills and don’t just eat all day long and wait for death!

Chen Xi had already deeply felt the shortage of manpower. For him, it was actually like timely rain for Tang Yin and Xia Kuan to come.

According to Chen Xi's vision, these two people came here not to be counselors, but to continue to be in charge of practice.

Now the workshop below needs someone to preside over it. Chen Xi wants to be an official, review official documents, and deal with military and political affairs of the two provinces. He doesn’t have much time to take care of the chores. It is best to let Tang Yin and Xia Kuan deal with it. At least they have certain abilities, and they are not stupid and accept new things quickly.

The workshop that Chenxi asked to build had started vigorously in May. With the completion of the brick and tile workshop, the green bricks and red bricks produced began to be continuously supplied to the building. Unfortunately, the Sanhe soil production used to bond the walls is very small. If it were cement, the construction progress would be faster.

Unfortunately, Chen Xi also had only a few understandings about cement. He only knew that it was made of limestone and clay and sent to the cellar to calcination. However, he didn't know what auxiliary materials to add in the middle. These all require continuous experiments.
Chapter completed!