Chen Xi stayed at Hui Niang until the middle of the night. Now that he was about to go back after the matter was handled, Hui Niang personally sent him to the gate of the yard.

Chen Xi actually had an idea in his mind. If he did business alone, it would be easy to interfere with the gangsters and the government. In addition to doing business, he would naturally have a good relationship with the black and white forces, but if he could cultivate his own strength, it would be the best choice.

But Hui Niang is a female and lacks enough appeal. Chen Xi is young and cannot take responsibility. She can only think of a way to develop her connections and power based on future business income.

The next day, Hui Niang told Zhou about the possible troubles of the printing workshop by the bookstore, but she did not mention that Chen Xi had gone over to discuss with her late at night.

Zhou was very worried when he found out, but Hui Niang had a certain plan in her heart and acted calmly.

Following Chen Xi's instructions, Hui Niang made arrangements for the printing workshop. She secretly moved the raw materials and semi-finished products and finished products of the colorful New Year paintings to other places at sunset and dusk. Every day at dusk, Shen Mingjun led someone to transport the colorful New Year paintings printed on that day to the new warehouse for storage.

This is naturally done to minimize the losses in the printing workshop when it is damaged.

Hui Niang's second integration of the pharmacy chambers is also in full swing. She gathered the owners and shopkeepers of all pharmacies in Tingzhou Fucheng and other seven counties, including Ninghua County, and took out the commerce charter listed in Chen Xi before, so that the owners and shopkeepers of each pharmacy shop were circulated and discussed.

Because Chen Xi's charter mainly starts with the monopoly and exclusivity of the Chamber of Commerce, it advocates that the Chamber of Commerce colleagues will take advantage of the interests and advance and retreat together. Joining the Chamber of Commerce can not only prevent peers from fighting each other, but also prevent things like the printing workshop being disrupted.

The owners and shopkeepers of each pharmacy shop agreed after reading the charter, but they made some complaints about the issue of the bill and the rental site construction hall of the Chamber of Commerce, and they believed that this was a unnecessary expense.

Hui Niang calmly expressed her opinions on this. She rented the venue of the Chamber of Commerce's main hall first. Even the daily expenses of the main hall were provided by her in the first year, because the venue does not need to be placed in a conspicuous downtown, and it cannot cost a lot of money.

As the leader of the chamber of commerce, Hui Niang introduced a voting system that obeyed the majority and established a "Presbyterian Hall". It did not mean that each drugstore had the same say in the chamber of commerce, but instead elected members of the "Presbyterian Hall" based on the regular bank paid by each bank in the chamber of commerce, plus recommendations, and elections.

In addition to Hui Niang's identity as a party member, the "Elder Hall" will be evaluated in half a year according to the annual election. If the elders cannot get more than half of the votes in favor during the assessment, the elders will be removed from their posts. At this time, the "Elder Hall" will not elect new elders, and the election will be unified until the end of the year.

The "Elder Hall" operates completely in accordance with the chamber of commerce regulations designated by Chen Xi. In addition to having the power to make decisions on major matters of the chamber of commerce, the elders can also be responsible for external negotiation affairs as representatives of the chamber of commerce and have a respected status.

On the premise that the chamber of commerce only involves the pharmaceutical shop industry, the role of the elders is mainly reflected in voting to decide on the price increase and price reduction of medicinal materials, as well as external negotiations with medicinal materials merchants to purchase, which is equivalent to controlling the price of medicinal materials in the entire Tingzhou Prefecture.

The owners and shopkeepers of various pharmacies heard that entering the "Elder Hall" had such great benefits, so they naturally wanted to join. Anyway, according to Hui Niang, in the first year, even the people in the Elder Hall did not have to pay extra membership fees.

The "Elder Hall" was originally designated as six people. In addition, Hui Niang, who is the head of the Chamber of Commerce, means that seven people voted when encountering problems. Hui Niang has the right to veto the vote, but even if half of her proposals do not agree, it cannot be passed. However, this has fully guaranteed Hui Niang's status in the Chamber of Commerce.

Although the owners and shopkeepers of each pharmacy shop were extremely jealous of the position of elders, they did not see clearly the huge energy that the elders of the Chamber of Commerce had in the future. Therefore, at first, only seven or eight people proposed to be the elders. In the end, they did not go through elections, but simply discussed and elected six relatively respected pharmacy shop owners and shopkeepers, and established the "Elder Hall".

Hui Niang took only three days to become the real boss of the Chamber of Commerce. She immediately asked someone to rent a place, a two-story building located not far from the entrance of Min Lane, west of the city. Although the place was remote and not very spacious, the rent was cheap. Hui Niang set up the address of the Chamber of Commerce General Pavilion and immediately started to go through the relationship between the government and gave gifts to the prefect through the connections within the Chamber of Commerce.

The reason why we did not follow the Changting County Government is that the county government and the government government government are in the city. No matter how good the relationship is, the government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government government can turn its back on its account even if there are any small actions on the county government government.

Therefore, people in this period have a very appropriate saying, "Three lives are unfortunate, and the magistrate is attached to the capital", which means that the county town and the prefecture or provincial town are in the same place, that is, the magistrate is in the same place as the magistrate or the governor. The magistrate's movements are restrained, "tired and running", and there is no prestige of "parents".

The original intention of establishing the Chamber of Commerce was mainly to change the current situation where merchants were rich but had low social status. After a lot of efforts, Hui Niang could not contact the prefect, but at least she had stuffed money from Tongzhi and Tongzong. The two were also given face and greeted the officials, officials, households, and lis. The Chamber of Commerce was officially named in the Tingzhou Prefecture.

Although this move is of little practical significance, it makes the people of the Chamber of Commerce feel that Hui Niang's ability to do things is extraordinary and has won official support for the Chamber of Commerce.

On the second day of the twelfth lunar month, Hui Niang handled the affairs of the Chamber of Commerce General Pavilion and hired Zhike to be responsible for entertaining guests. Several rooms were set up on the second floor as the residence of merchants. Although the Chamber of Commerce is just an empty shell at the moment, Hui Niang was still very attentive in its management.

That afternoon, the gangsters found by the bookstore in the city went to the printing workshop to disturb the troubles, destroyed the New Year pictures printed in the workshop, snatched away the drafts, and even moved a lot of tools away.

Fortunately, Hui Niang had already explained that after the incident, Shen Mingjun did not bring people to fight with these people, but instead covered the female worker's retreat, which avoided casualties.

After all, it is the charity place of the head of the Yi Mansion, and the criminals dare not make a big deal. They just smashed and robbed the scoundrels and did not set fire.

After Hui Niang asked about the situation, she hurriedly took Zhou and Shen Xi to check the situation. Finally, the total loss seemed to be serious at first glance. Most of the equipment and processing materials were damaged, and the rest came from the premium of finished colored New Year pictures. However, if the real loss is less than ten taels of silver based on cost calculation, it is completely within the acceptable range.

Even though he was beaten and robbed, Hui Niang was still angry and said angrily: "Go and report to the official."

With Hui Niang's instructions, Shen Mingjun went to Changting County Government. After half an hour, a few yamen servants were sent to the county government.

Nowadays, the gangsters and gangsters in the city also have a certain background in the government. The county yamen is not very concerned about it. After seeing the yamen, the yamen officer who came here recorded the matter lightly, saying that he would handle it in the future, and simply fooled it and then just let it go.

When the county jail servants left, Hui Niang originally wanted to go to the government office for help, but was stopped by Chen Xi.

Although the government office can indeed take charge of the affairs of the county government, after all, the government office will not easily interfere in the affairs of the county government. If the county government is offended by this, it will never come to the government office every day to make trouble in the future. Not only will it be possible to find the government office to make a breakthrough in everything by then, not to mention not borrowing power from the government office, it will affect the prestige of the chamber of commerce.

In the printing workshop, everyone was helpless and silent, and the atmosphere was extremely depressing. Chen Xi pulled Hui Niang's sleeve and winked. Hui Niang nodded understandingly.

At night, it was midnight again, Chen Xi sneaked to the medicine shop and went to her room with Hui Niang to discuss things.

"Xiaolang, you said that the chamber of commerce has been integrated now, but it is futile to sue the yamen. What's the best thing? If they dump our New Year pictures at a low price, who will come to our goods?" Hui Niang asked anxiously. She was anxious, and she always liked to think about things badly. The more she thought about it, the more she felt that the prospect was bleak.

Chen Xi said coldly: "I'm afraid they won't take action. If they blatantly take out colorful New Year pictures and sell them at low prices to disrupt the market, then will the Chamber of Commerce be vegetarian?"

Hui Niang looked at Chen Xi in confusion: "Xiaolang, you can explain it more clearly. Auntie doesn't quite understand what you mean."

Chen Xiyi said confidently: "They sell New Year's paintings, and you will raise the price of medicinal materials through the chamber of commerce and post notices, saying that because the bookstore in the city is unscrupulous, they have to fight back by giving medicinal materials a price increase. At that time, in order to stabilize prices, the government will definitely come forward to make peace."

Hui Niang was a little scared: "It is probably inappropriate to go against the government so openly."

"Auntie, you must never retreat like this. We are not fighting against the government head-on. We are targeting those book shops. There are stolen stolen goods on the market. Everyone knows that it was done by the book shops. Why can't we fight back?"

Hui Niang gritted her teeth: "Okay, we have prepared a lot anyway, and there are not many New Year pictures that have been robbed. If they really want to do this, then they will force themselves."

Hui Niang finally made up her mind to fight the bookstore in the city to the end.

The next day, there were indeed stolen New Year pictures in various bookstores in the city, and the price was only 20 yuan, which was clearly a low price. Because before the end of the year, the market for New Year pictures was originally lukewarm. This batch of New Year pictures appeared. Many small vendors immediately asked to return the goods when they saw that the retail price was far lower than the wholesale price.

Originally, returns were basically impossible in this era, but Hui Niang was kind-hearted and gritted her teeth to accept it. However, deducting a depreciation fee of five cents per piece is actually just to recover the cost, so that even if it is rotten in her hands, there will be no loss.

But in the eyes of those bookstore shop owners, their conspiracy succeeded, and those who don’t know how to do business think that since ordinary black and white New Year paintings cost four or five cents, the cost of such exquisite New Year paintings with color-painted color and powder is more than twenty cents. They snatched away the yibiao, and the number of returned printing workshops on the market is enough to make the printing workshop go bankrupt because they are unable to make ends meet, and they can get the technology back in the future.

But these people obviously overestimated the cost of mass printing of colored New Year pictures. After returning, there was no loss in the printing workshop, but the cheaper colored New Year pictures on the market are selling fewer and fewer.

Then, according to Chen Xi's proposal, the "Elder Hall" of the pharmacy chamber decided to raise the price of all medicinal materials in the palace after discussion. It was publicly announced that the city bookstores bullied people and jointly suppressed the members of the chamber of commerce. The chamber of commerce had no choice but to fight back.

Although the chamber of commerce is limited to the pharmaceutical store industry at present, the purpose of the chamber of commerce is to protect members as long as they enter the chamber of commerce and advance and retreat together.

For pharmacies that are not easy to operate in the eight counties in the prefecture, price increases are a good thing. In the past, I dare not rise because if you rise, others will not rise, so I will definitely not be able to sell them. I can only take the path of small profits and quick turnover. But now, the Chamber of Commerce has come forward and will start to rise. If you have the ability, don’t get sick. Otherwise, as long as it is in Tingzhou Prefecture, all pharmacies will be at this price.

Medicinal materials are necessities for the people. After the price increases, public grievances, and the public opinion of the pharmacy shops and chambers have done well, allowing the people to transfer the conflicts to those unscrupulous bookstores.

As the end of the year approaches, the government knows that public opinion cannot be ignored. Otherwise, officials who investigate people's livelihood and hear the news will sue the court for local affairs, and the officials will cut off their promotion.

Especially the other seven counties except Changting County, the city of Fucheng, were purely affected by the fish, and immediately reported the matter to the government office, which gave the government office an excuse to intervene in the incident.

In order to quickly stabilize the drug prices and relieve the complaints of the people, with the approval of the prefect, the Tongzhou Prefecture General and the Tongzong quickly convened the Changting County Magistrate for consultation.

It was obvious that the bookstores in the city went to provoke others first, but the county government could not admit that they were inaction. So he summoned the shopkeepers of each bookstore signed a letter of commitment, so he did not infringe on the chamber of commerce merchants, and at the same time, he privately compensated the losses to Lu Sun's printing workshop.

The printing workshop was smashed and lost less than ten taels of silver, but the compensation he received was as much as forty taels. It was also the two levels of government officials who came forward, and the shopkeepers of the bookstore had to suffer the loss.

After receiving compensation, Hui Niang received the endorsement from the government, so she promised to lower the price of herbal medicines, and the matter came to an end.

ps: The first update! The emperor asks for collection and recommendation votes to support!
Chapter completed!