When Shen Mingwen came to Tingzhou Prefecture, he naturally could not live in Shen Mingjun's house.

Zhou specially arranged to rent a separate courtyard for him, saying that he would have a quiet place to study, but in the past few days in the city, Shen Mingwen stayed at home for no reason, so he went to the printing workshop early in the morning, saying that he was going to learn from Shen Mingjun how to print colorful comic strips.

On the fourth day of the September 1st, Zhou's secretly came to the capital city and asked the person to inform his mother-in-law in Ninghua County that it was expected that the old lady Li would come from Ninghua in a few days.

On the sixth day of the September 1st, Chen Xi came home from school and learned that Su Zhaiqi had been here that day.

Starting from mid-August, Su Zhaiqi interrupted the order for color comics, mainly because he used the price of pirated color comics on the market as a reason last time, and was flatly rejected by Hui Niang, so he held a grudge.

Su Zhaiqi thought that as long as he cut off the order, Hui Niang would definitely surrender, but not long after, he learned that two batches of color comic strips in Tingzhou Prefecture flowed into Nanchang, Hangzhou and other places at the end of August. The retail price was about ten cents lower than the yi 20 cents he had set before, which made Su Zhaiqi so angry that he specifically asked Hui Niang to "ask for an explanation".

Freedom of buying and selling, you are willing to do it. Hui Niang originally agreed to hand over the sales of Jiangnan comic strips to Su Zhaiqi, but Su Zhaiqi himself interrupted the cooperation, so Hui Niang transported the comic strips to various places for sale through the Chamber of Commerce.

Hui Niang did not violate her previous promise, but Su Zhaiqi had a background behind her, so he was fearless this time.

"Shopkeeper Su is very familiar with many big businessmen in Jiangnan Yidian. They are planning to fight a price war with us this time. With the current scale of the Chamber of Commerce, I am afraid that they will not be able to compete with them."

Hui Niang's face was full of worry.

Even if all the merchants are integrated, their competitiveness is still not as good as those of Su Zhaiqi, who have operated several generations of official businessmen.

Behind Su Zhaiqi is a steady stream of financial resources as support, and there are many business partners who have been operating for decades. The wealth and connections accumulated in their hands are far beyond imagination.

Chen Xi asked, "What did the auntie, Su's surname said?"

"He said that unless we sell colored comic strips to him for thirty cents, the business of colored New Year paintings will also be handed over to him. Otherwise, we will not only fail to operate, but will also raise the price for the supply of rice, grain, wine, official salt, medicinal materials, etc. They will cut off all the supplies to Tingzhou Prefecture and block water transportation at the same time, and we will end up even worse by then."

Hui Niang wanted to compromise, "I think I can't delay the interests of all merchants in the Chamber of Commerce."

Chen Xi shook his head repeatedly: "It's a pity that the procurement channels we recommend are not perfect. In fact, what we lack mainly in cargo transportation is fleets and carriages. With the current financial resources of the Chamber of Commerce, it may not be able to compete with them, but if the money deposited in the silver number is taken out, it should be almost the same."

Hui Niang was shocked: "Xiaolang, how can this be done? The money from the silver account is used to lend. Now I have collected about 10,000 taels of silver. If I just use it like this, what if I encounter a run for the people?"

Chen Xi sighed, "Auntie, haven't you seen it? Now the person surnamed Su wants to join forces with foreign merchants who have opinions about the chamber of trade before our business has become bigger and stronger. If we choose to surrender, how could they give up? With the threat of the first time, there will be a second time. If we don't fight their arrogance, what is the significance of the establishment of the chamber of commerce?"

Hui Niang was speechless.

In fact, she also understood that printing workshops can be regarded as the foundation of all careers. After all, compared to profitability, even silver numbers are currently not as good as those of silver.

If he surrenders, it means that most of the profits of the printing workshop will fall into Su Zhaiqi's hands, and the printing workshop will be completely reduced to a cheap workshop. Later, Su Zhaiqi will become more presumptuous, stealing his own printing technology, and even making a comeback to force the chamber of commerce to give him more benefits.

"Auntie, you should hold a meeting of the whole chamber of commerce to explain the current situation. The shopkeepers of the chamber of commerce may now think that the business of the printing workshop has nothing to do with them. It is best to let us give in to the profits to ensure their interests. But the aunt might as well tell them that with this compromise, the chamber of commerce will be in name only, and it will definitely be suppressed by those big merchants in the future. The aunt can promise to take out part of the profits of the printing workshop as the basis for this battle, so that everyone in the chamber of commerce knows that my aunt is determined to go all the way."

Hui Niang clenched her fists, looked at Zhou with a gloomy face, and said, "What do you think my sister is the boss in the printing workshop?

Zhou had no opinion and nodded, "Sister, please make the decision."

With the support of Chen Xi and Zhou, Hui Niang finally regained her confidence and decided to do a big move.

According to Chen Xi's proposal, Hui Niang held a general meeting of the chamber of meeting the next day and proposed to take out the profits of the printing workshop for quarters as compensation for supporting the price war with Jiangnan merchants, and obtained support from the Elder Hall and the shopkeepers of the following merchants.

Since Su Zhaiqi wants to cut off all the supplies shipped to Tingzhou Prefecture, he has to buy them at a high price. Tingzhou Prefecture Chamber of Commerce will receive goods at a higher price from surrounding prefectures and counties. As for the money, the part that is higher than the original cost price will be paid by Yinhao and Huiniang.

In the past two years, Hui Niang has accumulated six or seven thousand taels of silver by running printing workshops, pharmaceutical shops, pharmaceutical factories and silver accounts, half of which are from Zhou's family. In addition to the deposits in the silver accounts and the funds that each shop can provide, she has raised 40,000 taels of silver to fight a price war with Su Zheqi and other Jiangnan merchants.

This tit-for-tat business war mainly involved official salt and medicinal materials. Because relatively speaking, there are many channels for supplying tea, wine and rice, which makes it impossible for Jiangnan merchants to "out of stock" with Tingzhou Prefecture. Although the two products of official salt and medicinal materials are daily needs of the people, the supply channels are relatively simple, and it is easy for Jiangnan merchants such as Su Zheqi to monopolize the supply of goods.

Starting from mid-September, the supply of official salt and medicinal materials in Tingzhou Prefecture has dropped significantly, and the prices of these two commodities in the city began to rise. At the beginning of the establishment of the Chamber of Commerce, the government strictly ordered that the prices of eight counties in the prefecture be stable. Hui Niang's requirements for the Chamber of Commerce were also, no matter how high the purchase price was, the cost could not be transferred to the people.

Just as this business war broke out, something big happened to the Shen family.

The old lady of the Shen family, Li, entered the mansion for the first time in her life, and brought her third son Shen Mingtang and fourth son Shen Mingxin to "set the accounts" with Shen Mingwen.

The letter was written by Zhou, but she had discussed it with Shen Mingjun before.
Chapter completed!