This woman is not beautiful, she has the temperament of a lady. When she entered the wine shop, she still couldn't hide the anxiety on her face even though she wanted to restrain herself.

The woman was at a loss, as if she had placed all her hope on this unknown witchcraft warlock. Even in the rain, she had to get off the boat and find someone to ask clearly.

"Going north, this is a rough direction. In fact... it's better to go to the capital. Do the lady have relatives in the capital? Let them help inquire, maybe there is news..."

Lao Xu's words were not very constructive, but for this woman looking for her father, it was like a guiding light.

Chen Xi shook his head and continued to head towards his own medicine shop in the west of the city.

On the way, he was also thinking about the woman's affairs: "This woman's father may have been secretly arrested for the court. Even if she can find her, life and death are unknown. Wouldn't she be happy?"

Finally returned home, Chen Xi entered the medicine shop. Because it was raining outside, there was no customer in the medicine shop.

Xie Yuner was talking to Zhou. When she saw Chen Xi coming in, Zhou's scolding came first: "It's getting more and more unruly. When I went out, I knew to say hello to me first. Now I'd better find someone to come back and tell me and run away?"

Chen Xi looked helpless: "Mom, it's not what I took the initiative to go, it's Mr. Su who insisted on taking me to the cruise river."

Zhou was going to curse, but suddenly he remembered something and asked curiously: "Silly, please tell my mother clearly what is a cruise river?"

Xie Yuner smiled and took the initiative to explain to Zhou.

When Zhou knew what was going on, he waved his hand disdainfully: "What's the fun of sailing on the river? It's better to stand on the ground and come safely. A fool, go in to study and go to school tomorrow. After this exam, I'll wait for the scholar next year to take the exam. Do you know?"

Chen Xi picked up the umbrella in the back hall and returned home in the light rain. He was still thinking about the official woman who was looking for her father.

The woman's father should not have been convicted even if she was arrested, otherwise her family would be exiled, or she might have some background behind the official. The court did not want to make things public.

Lin Dai didn't have such good luck. Her father was arrested by the Jinyiwei, and even his family had to be displaced.

It rained heavily for several days.

In the past few days, Chen Xi initially went to school to attend classes, but there was too much rain later, the roof of the school began to leak. Feng Huaqi could only ask the students to go home to study.

Because of the continuous heavy rain, the stores along the streets of Fucheng are basically closed. Although the pharmacy shop is half open, the business is very light. Occasionally, people who suffer from acute illness will come to ask about medicine. Zhou and Xie Yuner often sit down to chat.

But Hui Niang still had no time to be idle. She had to deal with the matters of the Chamber of Commerce and contact the government to discuss the details of opening bank accounts and chambers of commerce branches in surrounding prefectures and counties.

As the rain continued, the water level of Tingjiang River soared. Prefectures and counties along the lower reaches of the river were already suffering from disasters.

The river section around Tingzhou Fucheng was originally quite peaceful, but it was raining heavily, and the government began to gather people to fight floods and disaster relief by the river, and the Chamber of Commerce also contributed money and efforts.

In the past, when the government had something to do, the first thing that came to mind was to pay donations to the gentry. However, with the rise of the Tingzhou Prefecture Chamber of Commerce, the government seemed to have found a more convenient way.

The government asked someone to repair the embankment, which required a large number of sand and soil bales and also asked someone to dig and transport them. There was a free laborer in the Chamber of Commerce. The government directly called for personnel and did not pay wages, so it directly asked the Chamber of Commerce to take care of itself.

In order to fight the flood, the government office asked the Chamber of Commerce for two thousand taels of silver. At the same time, it extorted more than one thousand taels of silver from the gentry in the city, totaling more than three thousand taels of silver.

Although the Chamber of Commerce made a lot of profits, it was still a bit unbearable to suddenly take out two thousand taels of silver.

Hui Niang was in a state of great anxiety for several days. On the one hand, she was anxious for the stagnation of traffic on both sides of the road to rainstorms and droughts. More importantly, she wanted to raise the additional expenditure of 2,000 taels of silver.

"...The government is killing us. Otherwise... we can just disband the Chamber of Commerce. We can't bear enough to be angry all day long. As long as these officials open their mouths, we will run around, but we didn't see a few officials going up the river bank. Instead, we went to various companies to urge donations and left diligently."

Zhou's face was filled with anger.

The Chamber of Commerce will pay 2,000 taels, but due to the purchase of real estate and running schools, boat shops and carriage shops, the activity funds in the Chamber of Commerce are now only more than 2,000 taels. Next, they have to pay the cost of sand bags and the wages of Lifu. In addition, the daily operations of carriage shops and boat shops, they dare not touch too much of this money.

However, if you want to pay donations to the Chamber of Commerce, the shopkeepers of various stores will shirk their responsibilities in every way.

Originally, something happened in the city, and the family could only give a few dollars or one or two taels of silver. Now, the Chamber of Commerce was established, and during natural disasters and man-made disasters, it made the Chamber of Commerce a big deal, and many people were indignant. In their opinion, since the trouble was caused by Hui Niang, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Hui Niang had to bear the burden himself, and Hui Niang should also pay the big deal.

This fully demonstrates the nature of the chamber of commerce, which can share wealth but not suffering. When there is money, it is clearer than the other when there is disaster.

Xie Yuner didn't complain, after all, she had no shares in the chamber of commerce, especially the silver company. She asked softly: "Sister decides what to do?"

Hui Niang sighed, "I am going to... take out 1,200 taels of silver from the silver account to temporarily fill the vacancy. In the past two years of arriving in the capital city, I have indeed made some money, just treat it as giving back to Yumin."

Shen Xi sneered beside him: "I don't think it's giving back to Yu people, but to those corrupt officials?"

"Count me." Zhou complained, but at this time she was not vague.

There is a natural disaster in front of you. The government has no money, so it is understandable that it has to pay donations to the people, but the problem is that the government takes this opportunity to make money.

Although Gaoming City has no bad reputation for governing the local area, he is not a clean official. Otherwise, where would there be money to manage some connections in Gaoming City and pave the way for him to continue to be an official?

Shen Xi could also notice the clue from Gao Chong's actions. A prefect, whose annual salary was only 100 taels. His grandson went to the Jiafangsi and took advantage of it at will. He would just take advantage of it. He would say that he was a clean official, and there would be a ghost.

Nowadays, officials have to make money mainly from accepting bribes and filial piety from subordinates, as well as tribute from local gentry and merchants, and including gifts from some people who ask for help from the government after encountering problems.

If we start from corruption, we basically start the operation from the warehouse. The government greed for food and supplies from warehouses in large and small cities every year. That is an extremely huge number. In order to deal with the famine, the imperial court has arranged local warehouses in local areas. It has become the key target for the borers to encroach on them.

At present, Gaoming City is greedy for money by taking advantage of natural disasters, and then he will step down and the warehouse needs to replenish the warehouse, and he will also be greedy for money... At that time, Gaoming City will seek money from the Chamber of Commerce and the gentry in the city in the name of "continuous natural disasters and man-made disasters" in Tingzhou Prefecture in recent years. There are many unspoken rules and tricks.

The warehouse stayed in the warehouse after the previous relocation was a bad debt, and the next one would use this as a reason to ask the local government for money, and then sell all the materials allocated by the court, and then leave the deficit for the next one.

After repeated cycles, even if the court knew that there were so many disadvantages below, it would be difficult to reform, mainly because the court lacked the courage and courage to reform.

Hui Niang heard Chen Xi's words and looked helpless: "Even if she knew that the government would fill her personal bags? The businessman was at the bottom of society, and the government was the sky. I just hope that the people along the river would not have any trouble..."

Hui Niang was kind-hearted and knew she was going to be slaughtered this time. She gritted her teeth and accepted it.

This made Chen Xi deeply realize how important it is to have an official in the official society. If he can really become an official in the future, even if he is just a false official without real power, the local government will be a little afraid. Who dares to ask the Chamber of Commerce for money if he opens his mouth?

In the end, Hui Niang admitted her loss and repaid more than 1,000 taels of silver from the bank account. In addition, the total amount was 2,000 taels of silver raised by the chamber of commerce.

Originally, Hui Niang was in a hurry to send the money to the government, but Chen Xi had different opinions:

"...Auntie. You hand over the money at once. When the government sees that we are so happy to pay the money, we will definitely continue to ask for it for various reasons. Even if we want to give it, we can only deliver it in batches. It is best if the quantity is not uniform every time, and it is not an integer. There are both scattered silver and copper coins in between. In this way, the government will feel that we have been working together to force the money to gather all the money, so that they will not make things difficult for the future."

Hui Niang thought Chen Xi’s words were very reasonable.

In fact, although the government knows that the Chamber of Commerce makes money, people who are not doing business do not know the profitability of all walks of life.

In the eyes of those people in Gaoming City, even if the Chamber of Commerce makes more money, how much can it be made? The staff of Gaoming City have carefully calculated the accounts for him. How much can the Chamber of Commerce make? Let him ask for it. It is best to get 40% or 50% of the Chamber of Commerce's profits. In this way, Gaoming City has both the "political achievements" of managing the flood, but also the money can be made. It can be said that it will kill two birds with one stone.

But those officials did not expect that the Chamber of Commerce had made quite profits over the past year. After almost a year of lending, the total share capital expanded from the initial 3,000 taels to 10,000 taels, and each share could make more than 100%. With Huiniang and Zhou's 50% of the shares in the bank account, they made a net profit of more than 5,000 taels of silver in this year.

This does not count the profits of printing workshops and pharmaceutical factories caused by monopoly.

The silver number is not only a money shop for exchange of silver and copper plates, but also has some functions of pawn shops and modern banks.

With the profits, the money earned by the silver account is very rich. If all the money loaned out is taken back, Hui Niang can be considered a wealthy person in Tingzhou Prefecture. Since she started running the chamber of commerce, it has been less than three years since she started.

On the government side, as Chen Xi expected, only a small part of the money sent was used to build dams and provide relief to the victims, and more part of it was corrupt for the people in the government.

If the rain had passed like this, Gaoming City and his officials would have been very happy.

But the weather did not go as expected. Just after the rain stopped around Tingzhou Fucheng, heavy rains in Wuyi Mountain area upstream of the Tingjiang River dropped sharply. With the mountain torrential torrents, the water level in Tingjiang River did not drop but rose instead.

After another two or three days, rainfall came to the entire Tingzhou area again. The river water flooded in a few days. Not to mention the farmland and villages outside the city, even Tingzhou Prefecture City suffered disasters. The flood poured into the city, and the water level went from the initial knee to the back to the waist, and there was a continued upward trend.

Gaoming City is completely panicked now.

He originally felt that this flood was a gift from God, which allowed him to obtain political achievements before leaving office, which helped him continue to choose a place to become an official, and also made a big profit.

Unexpectedly, the flood came too violently and almost ruined his dream of career.

***************

ps: I am solemnly recommending my friend Jingye Shishi's new book "Return of the Immortal World" (book number: 1oo3374314): The soul of a generation of giants in the fairy world is scattered, and a wisp of soul returns to the original body on Earth. Tang Xiu was surprised to find that ten thousand years have passed in the fairy world, and only one year has passed on Earth.

Link: (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!