Ma Cheng walked in the alley of the back house with a bowl full of sugar. The back house of the Governor's yamen was not big, and only entered the courtyard five or six. Ma Cheng's mother Gu and his father Ma Shiying lived in the second to last.

Ma Cheng came to my mother's house and shouted loudly: "Mom, my son is here!"

Gu's voice in the room laughed and said, "My son will come in!"

At this time, a maid lifted the curtain and Ma Cheng lowered his head and entered the house. Today, the only sister-in-law Zhang was accompanying my mother in the house, and no one else was in the house.

Ma Cheng saluted my mother first, and Gu said with a smile: "What are you doing in the front yard? It makes the yard full of sweet fragrance!"

Ma Cheng smiled and delivered the sea bowl in his hand to my mother: "Mom, what do you think this is?"

Gu's family business is in charge of the family business and knows very well about things like firewood, rice, oil and salt. Seeing that the bowl Ma Cheng sent to the noodles was snow-white, he thought the bowl was filled with the best snowflakes and salt.

Gu frowned and looked at Ma Cheng, and asked with regret: "Son, are you fiddling with these things if you don't study?"

Although snowflake fine salt is very expensive, it has a very small sales. Except for some big families who purchase small quantities, ordinary people will not buy these fine salt at all. The large bag of sea salt that costs 100 kilograms of silver is a regular product for ordinary people. Gu's family is in charge of the business group, so he naturally has a deep understanding of salt.

Seeing Gu's angry, Ma Cheng quickly came over with a smile: "Mom, this is not salt, what do you want to taste?"

Gu patiently dipped some of this white crystal with his little finger, then put it in his mouth, and a sweet smell immediately came out.

"Hmm? This is sugar! Sorry, what white sugar did you buy?"

The sugar on the market is now produced by sugar factories in Fujian and Guangdong. In the Ming Dynasty, sugar production mainly uses the yellow mud slime penetration method, and the production process in the Ming Dynasty is not perfect, so even the sugar that has been filtered ten times is not pure white, but milky white.

The method used by Ma Cheng has added basic chemical knowledge. Through chemical reactions, impurities in the saturated solution are precipitated. After adsorption by charcoal, the sugar naturally produced is better. The most important thing is that the sugar produced by chemical methods does not have the slightly astringent taste of earthy white sugar. There is no way, and the physical method cannot remove odor 100%.

When Ma Cheng heard my mother ask him, he smiled and said, "This white sugar is sweet, it's mainly because there is no strange smell. This is what my son made!"

Ma Cheng originally thought that I could be happy when I heard that I was saying, but I didn’t know that after hearing Ma Cheng’s words, I scolded him with regret: “Son! How could you be willing to fall into depravity and learn this kind of thing? Are you going to be angry to death?”

The eldest sister-in-law Zhang looked at Ma Cheng from the side and turned into disdain. Ma Cheng glared at his sister-in-law Zhang and asked, "Mom, this is a way to make money, son is ready..."

Ma Cheng was about to express his grand ideals, but he was interrupted by Gu: "Shut up, you go back to the house to study now! You are the concubine whom you want to meet, why don't you care about watching you make a fool of yourself?"

In the Ming Dynasty, the highest social status was of course scholars, the second was a farmer, the third was a craftsman, and the last was a businessman. The Ma family has been scholars for generations, and in the Ma Shiying's generation, there were two Jinshis, and in Guiyang it was a top scholarly family.

Even Ma Shiying's son Ma Luan was a Juren when he was in his twenties. You should know that Ma Luan was not a Juren in Guizhou, but in Nanzhili. There has always been a saying that Jin Juren is a Jinshi. Because Nanzhili has a strong literary style, it is not much easier to pass the Jinshi in Nanzhili. It is precisely because Ma Luan passed the imperial examination at a young age that a great gentry like the Zhang family in Ningbo married his daughter to Ma Luan.

Of course, Ma Luan’s reading is hope in his parents’ eyes, but Gu did not completely give up on the useless second-generation ancestor Ma Cheng. Although Ma Cheng did not study when he was a child and was idle when he grew up, who said that Ma Cheng had a good father?

There were three types of official careers in the Ming Dynasty. The first type was officials who were promoted to officials. These officials were mainly concentrated in the founding period. Because there were very few scholars at that time, but the country still needed officials to govern them. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang wrote a big pen to make ordinary officials qualified to be officials. However, this system was just a temporary measure. In the middle of the empire, officials who were promoted through this system were basically extinct, and officials who were promoted to the imperial examination were not lacking. You, a profession-based official, still want to be an official? Don’t dream!

The second way to become an official is the right way to become an imperial examination. Everyone knows the same origin of an official, so I won’t go into details here. Now let’s talk about the third one. This one is clearly stated as the back door opened for the powerful and powerful people of the dynasty. This is the tribute student system.

The imperial examinations of the Ming and Qing dynasties produced many famous politicians. Although these tycoons of the court have low character, hypocritical and beastly clothes, they are also human beings and hope that their sons can succeed in the imperial examination and take over their own mantle. However, learning such things cannot be inherited. It is not that the father who is the top scholar must be the top scholar if he is the top scholar.

The imperial examination system was the most fair system for selecting talents in ancient China, but the system was determined by people, so naturally some people would open a backdoor for themselves.

Everyone has watched it on TV. If there was another scandal in the imperial examination, the imperial examination questions were leaked, etc., the emperor was furious and the whole country called the emperor's wise and wise.

However, this kind of leaked test questions are low-level methods used by low-level officials. The real imperial chiefs disdained this because there was another system in the imperial examination, which was to draw tribute students.

The first thing to do is to give tribute students is the country's reward for those good students. Even if a scholar becomes a scholar after the college entrance examination, he or she will gain fame, but the scholars usually study in the official schools of their prefectures and counties, and are called entitlement students. However, there are always some scholars who are good at studying. Local local officials will recommend these outstanding students to the Central Imperial College. This is the entitlement students.

Of course, you may not necessarily become an official after entering the Imperial College, but everything is exceptional. Every year, the Ministry of Personnel will select some outstanding talents from the Imperial College to serve as local officials, such as the eighth-rank teacher, the ninth-rank sixth-rank clerk office, etc. Although the positions are low and the competition is fierce, there is a possibility of becoming an official after all, so there is a possibility of doing work.

What is Ma Shiying's identity? Deputy Minister of National Defense and Commander of the Military Region. It is too easy for such a rank-level official to operate a 70-8-rank official for his son. This is also the reason why Ma Cheng is not very disappointed with Ma Cheng even though he is not studying and cannot read, Gu is not very disappointed with Ma Cheng. He has already prepared a way and is waiting for Ma Cheng to go to Nanjing Imperial College.

But Ma Cheng said today that he wanted to do business and play sugar, which made Gu very disappointed.

Gu said earnestly: "Son, just play with this kind of thing, just leave it to the servants to do. You still have to go to the official career to be the right way!"

Ma Cheng is now determined. Besides, when is this time? In another year, the Iron Hoof of the Qing Dynasty will be coming to Nanjing. What kind of official position is the right way to make money and train troops!

"Mom, my son gets a headache when he reads books. What's the point of being an official? I'm not used to being a fool for his son, so I'd better be a businessman and make money by selling sugar!"

Gu heard Ma Cheng say this and angrily slammed the table and cursed: "No, Mom definitely doesn't agree with you to be a businessman! You are not afraid of embarrassing your father, but also afraid of embarrassing!"

When Ma Cheng saw that my mother didn't agree, she hugged her legs and cried, "Mom, isn't there a big brother in school? My elder brother is now a juren and is about to pass the Jinshi. My son just wants to save some family business for himself. What's wrong with it?"

Gu was furious when he saw Ma Cheng so lazy, so he pulled Ma Cheng up and slapped him in the mouth!

This was the first time that my mother beat her in Ma Cheng's memory. Ma Cheng was stunned at that time, but Ma Cheng thought that this would not work. She couldn't cry and had to hang herself.

Ma Cheng used to be frustrated and was afraid of Ma Shiying's beating, so he played crying, making a fuss and hanged. Now he was not good at crying, so he could only hang himself!

Of course, hanging is just a description. Now Ma Cheng has no ropes in his hand and cannot hang himself. Ma Cheng still used the same move yesterday to attack his little brother.

Ma Cheng raised the teapot on the table again, aimed at his little brother and was about to start, crying and shouting: "Mom, if you don't agree to your son, your son will let your niece be a widow, and your family will be defeated!" Ma Luan's wife Zhang, who has only given birth to one daughter for more than ten years, has now been arduous tasks for the Ma family to inherit the family lineage.

My mother, Gu, saw that Ma Cheng's old trick was repeated, had no choice but to sigh and say, "You are so angry that you are so angry?"

When Ma Cheng saw that his mother was really angry, he quickly said, "Mom, this is also because of the consideration of this family. The eldest brother and son have become officials. What should I do if my mother's property is in the future? Will it be given to Ma Xi?"

There was an unwritten rule in the Ming Dynasty that if the son was not a good man or an official, he could run the family industry at home. For example, Ma Shiying's family had a scholarly family. If Ma Luan and Ma Cheng both went out to become officials, then the family industry could only be managed by Ma Xi.

But who is Ma Xi? Ma Xi is the concubine. His mother was Ma Shiying's concubine back then. And Gu hated this Aunt Zheng the most. Gu would never hand over the family property to the son of this enemy to manage.

Thinking of this, Gu felt that what Ma Cheng said was not unreasonable. His own son would be better than that bitch's son in charge of the family industry. Even if Ma Cheng went to the Imperial College, after being selected, he would be a low-ranking official of the eighth or ninth rank. Needless to say, the salary of officials in the Ming Dynasty was low. If the ninth rank Beijing officials were not corrupt and bribed, they would not be able to live on. With Ma Cheng's big hand, the salary was not enough for him to live on.

Thinking of Gu's heart, Ma Cheng observed his words and looked at his mother's feelings, and quickly said to the side: "Mom, my son is not willing to fall into depravity and insists on becoming a businessman. His son is just going to find a place to produce the sugar, and then distribute it or use the home business gang. My mother and son just collect money!"
Chapter completed!