Traveling through time and space and becoming a deposed prince, he just wants to survive!

The meeting continued, not giving everyone much time to think. As long as one person signed the contract, the others would follow suit.

After completing the first step, Mr. Zhao began to explain the second step.

At this time, Mr. Zhao had added glutamic acid to table salt, which had now become sodium glutamate, as well as lemon powder made from purchased lemons, edible refined salt, vegetable oil, icing sugar, star anise, Sichuan pepper, ginger, galangal, cinnamon, white pepper, and a mixture of amomum villosum powder.

These items were placed in a straight line on the table. Mr. Zhao introduced them one by one and asked them to taste them.

Finally, they weighed the protein and meat strips, which had been soaked in water, with great precision, breaking them down and adding them in the correct proportions, as per their contract. Finally, the finished food was served to everyone.

At this time, they found that the taste was exactly the same as that sold on the market.

Seeing that the design was mature, Mr. Zhao smiled and said to everyone, "You have also seen the ingredients, so please calculate the price and how much profit is there?"

Those who can attend such a meeting are extremely smart. After calculating the cost and adding the costs of labor and transportation, they finally find that the profit is less than 10%.

Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. They spent 10,000 taels of silver on learning something in vain. It was simply useless.

"Everyone, please be patient. I'll tell you a story. In a certain dynasty, a country was about to go to war, and the city was short of arrows. The king said, 'Send craftsmen to make them quickly.' However, the craftsmen in the city numbered no more than a thousand, and they could only make a little over ten thousand arrows."

Zhao Sheng said this, looking around at the crowd. "Someone suggested that when making arrows, firstly, the arrowhead is made of metal, which is a bit difficult. Secondly, the feathers need to be installed symmetrically on both sides to ensure balance. Thirdly, the arrow shaft needs to be symmetrical and straight."

"Over a thousand craftsmen in the city can make arrows, but each person can only make ten. How many arrowheads can one person make in a day? If the installation workload is light, a hundred people will be enough. Is it feasible to have two hundred people making the arrow shafts and seven hundred making the arrowheads?"

"Seven hundred people are forging arrowheads. I'll provide a hundred for smelting and transporting the iron. How many arrowheads can six hundred people forge? If each person forges twenty, that's an extra two thousand. In fact, I understand they can forge more than thirty, which means eighteen thousand arrowheads."

"Doesn't this mean there are 8,000 more than expected?"

As soon as the person who made the suggestion finished speaking, everyone in the court praised him for his intelligence.

Unexpectedly, he said, "One person can guide the melting of iron, and any carpenter can make the arrow shafts. And if one person can bundle the fletching, then there will be nine hundred craftsmen who can make arrowheads. It is not impossible to make thirty thousand arrows a day."

Zhao Sheng finished speaking and said to everyone with a smile: "Actually, we do things the same way. Each of us does one thing well, and then we divide the money. The first is the investment and effort, and the second is the size of the resource allocation. This way, everyone can make money."

Everyone understands that everyone has their own expertise. The key is to distribute the resources evenly. Everyone is doing the same thing, and then coordinating resources with each other, so that profits can be maximized.

"So how much is the profit?" a family head couldn't help but ask.

"With such large-scale sales, I estimate the net profit to be 30% within the Zhou Dynasty, and it may be higher abroad. Of course, we won't go out to buy, so the profits here will definitely be earned by overseas merchants."

Who are you looking down on? These days, who doesn't have a few foreign relatives? We also want to make money abroad.

In fact, the most difficult thing here is that spices such as pepper and star anise are expensive. As for refined salt, they calculate it purely according to the market price. Once the beets come in, they can make sugar, and the cost will be much lower.

Zhao Sheng mainly wanted to get these people from aristocratic families to work on spices.

In fact, among these aristocratic families, the Cui family and the Zheng family both have people making spices in the south, and if they purchase the goods specifically, the price will be much cheaper, and the profit here is also what the Cui family wants to earn.

But Zhao Sheng is not stupid. He will put a production line in Xingyang, so that the southwest corner will be the world of the Zheng family in the future. With such good conditions, he doesn't believe that the Cui family will not interfere.

It is said that Zhao Hui returned to Shangjing, but Zhao Heng had already left. The Cao Gang agreed to Zhao Heng's suggestion and let him take the Cao Gang's boat first. When he entered the territory of Chuzhou, he was surrounded by people from the Salt Gang.

It was not difficult for Zhao Heng to see that some of the ships were salt transport inspectorate ships, which were there to help the salt gang make up the numbers.

"Who are you? Why are you intercepting a passing merchant ship on the river?"

Because going to Chuzhou was downstream, there were no trackers on the river bank. The boatman was from the Cao Gang, and the officers and soldiers on the boat were hiding under the canvas.

When the Salt Gang members heard someone shouting, they all said with a smile, "I recognize you. You are the captain of the Cao Gang. You are not coming to Chuzhou specifically to seek revenge, are you?"

The captain was about to speak when Zhao Heng stepped forward and shouted at the intercepting boats, "Are you officials or bandits? Give me the truth and stop talking nonsense. You're delaying my journey."

The Salt Gang had the support of the Salt Transport Inspection Department today. They were not intimidated at all and taunted Zhao Heng, "We can be officials or bandits. When we beat you, we are officials. When you die, we are bandits."

As he spoke, Zhao Heng's two boats approached, forming a confrontation with the opposing boats. The salt gang members knew a fight was about to begin, and shouted to the salt transporters, "Everyone, give way, or you'll get covered in blood!"

Before he could finish his words, Zhao Heng on the opposite side gave the order: "Shoot!"

In an instant, arrows as dense as black clouds covering the sun flew from the sky, piercing the people on the opposite deck like hedgehogs.

The people from the Salt Transport Inspection Office were already standing by, just there to help out and act as peacemakers when the time came. However, they didn't expect that the Cao Gang members were so powerful this time, and thousands of arrows flew towards them.

Those who didn't have time to hide were basically stabbed through, and the rest of the Salt Gang members were so scared that they didn't dare to come out.

Zhao Heng didn't waste any words. He waved his hand and ordered the boats behind to move forward. One by one, they jumped onto the deck and killed all the remaining people inside.

The ships of the Salt Transport Inspectorate, which were not wearing official uniforms, were not spared either and were all killed by the people who came over.

In fact, Zhao Heng only brought 5,000 people this time, and he selected 100 people as personal guards. That was the number of people who headed towards Chuzhou.

The people who boarded the boat and killed people were actually from the Cao Gang. After all, Zhao Heng's men had no experience in naval battles, and they basically didn't know how to do difficult maneuvers like boarding.

The water in the river was flowing downstream at this time, and the corpse dyed the water red and flowed downstream with the river.

The dock was now occupied by the Salt Gang, and a small number of the Cao Gang were also gathered near the dock.

The Cao Gang received news today that more than 10,000 people will come to eliminate the Salt Gang.

When people saw the river gradually turning red and the corpses flowing down, some people initially discovered that they were from their Salt Gang. Later, they found that more and more corpses were from the Salt Gang. At this time, people on the dock began to get scared.

The ship was getting closer and closer, and no one knew whose ship it was or who was on it!

Another burst of arrows was fired, and then the ship docked. The members of the Cao Gang attacked from both ends and beat the members of the Salt Gang on the dock badly.

At this time, Zhao Heng had already quietly slipped away with his men without waiting for the battle to end.

The government could not have been unaware of such a large-scale fight. Just as the governor of Chuzhou was preparing to lead his troops to suppress the incident, he suddenly heard that His Royal Highness the Prince of Chu had arrived and demanded that the entire city be under martial law. No one was allowed to lead troops through the streets without permission.