My Brother-in-law is the Prince - Chapter 427

Chapter 427 Dragon and Phoenix among people

Everything went surprisingly smoothly.

It was Qixia Trading Company that first started to make a move.

In addition to the construction of warehouses in various places in Taiping Prefecture, as well as the ferry and wharf to deal with a large number of overseas commodities in the future, some railway branch lines will be repaired.

is to order a large number of ships.

For this reason, a large number of docks also need to be built, and in the shipyards, shipwrights and labor are recruited wantonly.

At this time, the upsurge of voyages to the West has passed, but a large number of shipbuilding craftsmen are still there. Nowadays, these people who were originally craftsmen are attracted by the salary of the Taiping Mansion. Therefore, a large number of ships from Fujian, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Carpenters began to pour in.

As far as the shipyard is concerned, how to quickly manufacture sea-going ships that can be launched into the sea can earn a lot of money. Therefore, in order to speed up the manufacturing process, each shipyard has also racked its brains.

This is different from the ships that were built to sail to the West.

The ships sailing to the Western Ocean were ordered by the imperial court and supervised by the government.

And this shipyard manufacture, because there are so many orders, in order to speed up the delivery, there is room for optimization in manpower management and manufacturing process.

As long as any shipyard optimizes the process and improves the process, other shipyards will immediately copy it without hesitation. On this basis, more shipyards will continue to optimize after thinking hard.

Shipbuilding is a big project, which involves not only wood and wood treatment, but also ship paint, metal construction, canvas, cables and other industries.

Because of this, workshops in various counties have also begun to spring up.

After Qixia Commercial Bank ordered a lot of merchant ships, some commercial firms have begun to follow up. Although other commercial firms may not be sure that this sea trade can earn a lot of money, at least they know that Qixia Commercial Bank will not lose money. bought and sold.

Immediately afterwards, other small businessmen also began to follow.

It’s just that the price of a sea-going ship is high. If it is necessary to purchase goods and recruit a large number of sailors and crew to go to sea, it will cost a lot.

This is no longer something small businesses can afford.

But seeing such a good deal, if you remain indifferent, it will be really greedy.

At this time, some go-betweens began to appear on the market.

These people wandered up and down Qixia, and began to organize people to sign partnership contracts to buy ships with their own reputation. They often have enough reputation, and at the same time, they are also proficient in laws and regulations. Of course…they are often eloquent.

And Ma Yu is one of them.

He is from Shandong Juren.

In Daming, perhaps in Taiping Mansion, the status of scholars has been greatly reduced, and ordinary scholars may not be able to look up to them.

Juren is obviously different. In the early Ming Dynasty, Juren could go directly to the Ministry of Officials to select officials and become officials. At the very least, he could be sent out to be a county magistrate or chief bookkeeper in a county.

To put it bluntly, he is an official.

Not only that, Ma Yu got Jie Yuan in the provincial examination in Shandong.

The reason why he didn’t choose to be an official was because he still wanted to take part in the examination and get a Jinshi.

The Jie Yuan of Shandong Chief Envoy is basically equivalent to stepping into the ranks of Jinshi with one foot. In the future, he may even be lucky and be able to rank among the best among Jinshi and directly become a good scholar. It may not be impossible.

It can be said that such a person is definitely a star of tomorrow.

In this way, this gave Ma Yu a lot of room to maneuver. He first contacted the Shandong Chamber of Commerce where Qixia was located. Most of the businessmen here are from Shandong. They do business in the capital, or land in Shandong.

Since he is from the same township, it is easy to talk. The Ma family is located in Shandong, and it is a scholarly family. There are still connections.

You must know that although many merchants do business in Qixia, they need to send a large amount of goods to Shandong for sale. If you know a friend like Ma Yu, if you are made things difficult by officials in Shandong, you may spend thousands of dollars. Ten thousand taels of silver may not be able to solve the problem, but Ma Yu can solve this problem with a letter.

To put it bluntly, the social circles are different. What you think is a headache is just a matter of effort for others.

Immediately, with the help of many big merchants, Ma Yu began to find banks to borrow money. Some merchants from his hometown were willing to guarantee him, and directly borrowed 30,000 taels of silver.

After that, Ma Yu became more comfortable. Instead of using all the money to order a ship, he scattered them and ordered ten ships directly. If there was insufficient money, he raised money from other merchants.

In his opinion, one ship is not very useful. On the one hand, the price of ordering one ship is different from ordering ten ships. Because of the large number of orders, the shipyard is often willing to give some discounts, after all, it is a large order.

On the other hand, the business of one ship under the name is different from that of ten ships under the name. There is only one ship under the name, which may only transport some bulk cargo, but if there are ten ships, then there will be direct and some The capital for the cooperation of large merchants. For large merchants, what they require is a continuous and stable supply of goods. The other party has more ships, and the risk of supply is small. They would rather pay more for shipping than accept it.

When purchasing insurance, the price of ten ships will also be slightly discounted.

In this way, one plus and one minus, all the profits can be pocketed.

These are all Ma Yu’s observations in Qixia these days.

In his view, such things are the same as reading. Observing the situation of the shipping industry is like reading. As long as you grasp the key points and sort out the main relationships, you will not worry about not being able to write good articles.

On the contrary, it is like that, when the brain is hot, I just wish I can read all the books by heart. For those who only know how to memorize by rote, it is often enough to pass the exam, but it will be difficult to go up.

When Ma Yu raised funds, he also deliberately avoided those big merchants, because the big merchants had a lot of capital and were willing to give more money. In this way, they became the major shareholders of these ships and could control the use of the ships.

And if you just look for those small businessmen, one hundred taels and another two hundred taels, the trouble is a bit more troublesome, but their shares are scattered, so Ma Yu, who invested three thousand taels in a boat, Instead, it became the largest shareholder.

As both a major shareholder and a juror, even when it comes to negotiating the transportation of goods with big trading houses, you don’t underestimate it. You can even negotiate with the government on an equal footing, even if you are negotiating in various vassal states. The long history of these vassal states He can also deal with it easily without compromising the government.

Thus, although these ten ships were obtained by raising funds, in fact, these ten ships can almost be decided by Ma Yu alone, and the rest of the small businessmen can only participate in dividends at most.

What Ma Yu wants is to be able to master these ten ships. Although many people have ordered ships, no one has officially tasted the sweetness after all. Therefore, although there are many docks and many orders, it has not yet formed a trend.

And once someone gets rich by shipping, at that time, the price of the ship, as well as the price of transportation, will probably skyrocket.

Even after Ma Yu placed an order for ten ships, he had already prepared that once the ship was launched, he would immediately discuss with other small merchants to use the ten ships as collateral to continue borrowing money from the bank, and then expand the scale. mean.

He was born in a scholarly family, and he knows very well that this thing is the same as the local gentry.

You have 10,000 mu of land, which is different from your own 100 mu of land.

With 10,000 mu, the more you can save every year, you can continue to annex the land, and every disaster year, the stronger your ability to resist disasters. When a famine passes, there will be starvation everywhere. Make huge profits.

And if you only have a hundred acres of land, except for food and drink for the family, the surplus is too little. Whether it is the ability to resist risks or the speed of saving surplus grain to buy new fields, it is appallingly low, and it may not be decades. You are about to fall into poverty and become a tenant from now on.

The same is true for boats. The more boats you have under your name, it doesn’t matter even if you are in debt, but your ability to resist risks is greatly enhanced. The annual profits are huge, not only enough to cover the annual arrears, but the remaining profits are also enough for you to continue The chicken lays the egg, the egg lays the chicken.

A full month has passed, and this Ma Yu has become reclusive in the eyes of the same year and her classmates.

Every morning, I went out from the inn, and became taciturn, and didn’t return until midnight.

After that, Ma Yu simply moved to Qixia.

Some of the scholars who made good friends with him gradually did not know his whereabouts.

Ma Yu is different from others, his family is in decline, although the family in a scholarly family is in decline, and the family in decline is different from that of ordinary people.

It is nothing more than a cloud of servants in the past, a wealth of wealth, and a thousand hectares of fertile land, but now there are only a few servants in the family, and life begins to become a little bit tight.

It’s just the downfall in life, which instead makes Ma Yu more interested in running her own family business.

What’s more, he is originally from Shandong. During the Yuan Dynasty, Shandong people had a lot of experience in going to sea.

Naturally, the most important thing is this. In his opinion, this is simply a pie that fell from the sky, just like there are gold ingots on the ground. If he refuses to bend down to pick them up, then it is really a sin.

Ma San, Ma Yu’s servant, was in a hurry.

Ma San’s face was full of sorrow and he said: “Master, the test is coming soon, if you don’t review your homework at this time, if you lose your name this time, it will be terrible.”

Ma Yu lowered his head at this time, he was writing a book.

He heard that Lu Song’s Ning Wang Changshi was also from Shandong. He has studied under him for several years, and he is still his senior brother.

He decided to repair a letter. Although the ship has not been built at first glance, he can pave a way first. If he can help carry some of the goods of His Royal Highness King Ning, it will not only be good for the order, but most importantly, once he is in contact with King Ning’s mansion If the business is carried out, it will be of great benefit to the goodwill of the future fleet.

He pondered, picked up his pen, and carefully considered every word in the letter.

On the one hand, we must express the love between teachers and brothers without appearing to be a philistine. Second, you need to give some hints to let the other party know your intentions.

This is like dancing on a tightrope. If you are impartial, any deviation from the two aspects may arouse the opponent’s disgust.

Soon, the letter will be completed.

He blew on the ink, raised his head and smiled and said: “Don’t worry about taking the exam, reading and writing are just like that. Once you know the tricks, you can write a thousand words. If you only know how to memorize by rote, it will be difficult to write.”

Ma San was still very worried and wanted to say something.

Ma Yu sighed: “These days in Qixia, I know the way of the world has changed, hey… the trend of the world, once it changes, if you can’t follow the trend, what will happen in the future?”

After a pause, he continued: “You haven’t read the book, so you don’t know the truth. A few days ago, I read a storybook, and there was a saying in it, which said: “The dragon can be big or small, can ascend or hide; the big one can prosper the clouds.” Breathing out mist, small ones hide their shapes; ascending ones soar among the universe, hidden ones hide in the waves. You see, dragons change from time to time, just like a man who achieves his will and travels across the world. This man should follow the same example when he is alive. Only those who can bend and stretch, and change with the times, can be outstanding.”

Ma Sanzi couldn’t understand such profound words, so he kept blinking his eyes.

Seeing him like this, Ma Yu shook his head and said: “In short, you just talk less and watch more. By my side, you will be enlightened sooner or later. Maybe in the future, I will borrow you.”

Ma Yu said, then carefully sealed the letter, handed it to Ma San, and repeatedly urged: “Send it without delay.”

Ma San had no choice but to take the letter in a hurry, and left in a hurry.

The nineteenth year of Yongle began in spring.

This early spring test attracted everyone’s attention.

After the scholars suffered a huge blow this time, they finally…encountered something worthy of the attention of all scholars.

Juren from all over the world have already gathered in Nanjing City.

Immediately afterwards, the imperial examinations were held every three years.

Zhu Di showed great interest in this imperial examination.

He knows the truth of having a big stick in one hand and sweet dates in the other.

At present, the world is full of people, except for Zhili, no matter whether they are parents, officials or local squires, these people are still the power to stabilize the world after all. If they blindly press their heads and beat them desperately, no one will be able to bear it. Once these people go crazy, if they simply break the cans, even though it is nothing to Zhu Di to quell the rebellions in various places, Zhu Di does not want to see the turmoil in the world and the displacement of countless people. of.

Now the new policy carried out by the Taiping Mansion has nothing to do with the provinces and prefectures and counties in the world for the time being. In this case, let’s take advantage of the imperial examinations to express how much we value scholars. Feed them a sweet date first, and then hit them hard. Only by beating them is the top. The art of kings.

Therefore, Zhu Di attached great importance to this imperial examination. He ordered Xia Yuanji, Shangshu of the Ministry of Household Affairs, to take the examination, asked several times about the preparation of the imperial examination, and issued an edict ordering Yingtianfu to take care of the candidates who came to Beijing.

After a meeting, the public’s discussion about the imperial examination has obviously covered up the previous matter of Taiping Mansion’s going to sea.

This is actually understandable, after all, the imperial examination determines the fate of countless people. High school students will become ministers who will govern the world in the future, not to mention… many scholars have a lot of anecdotes, and there is a lot of room for discussion.

Zhang Anshi, on the other hand, is happy that he doesn’t get attention.

He has too many things to do, and it is not easy to earn a sum of money for maritime trade. The various feudal states need to be connected, the foundation must be solidified, the money from the bank must be distributed, and the military and civilians must also preach overseas. benefit.

There are too many stereotypes and customs that need to be slowly resolved, and there are too many obstacles that need to be broken through.

Not to mention other things, just talking about the use of river boats traveling in the river to connect cargo after the sea-going ship docks in Songjiangkou is a problem.

Songjiang Mansion has also carried out a new policy, but it is far less enlightened than Taiping Mansion.

In desperation, Zhang Anshi had no choice but to implore the imperial court to set aside a piece of land at the mouth of the Songjiang River as a port under the jurisdiction of the Taiping Mansion.

The only thing that pleased Zhang Anshi was the preparation of the customs.

Yu Qian is very organized in his work, not to mention that he has been familiar with the operation of Taiping Mansion after being exposed to a lot of official documents in the county mansion.

Although he is young, he has his own way of doing things, and he doesn’t like Zhang Anshi or others to dictate, but he only does things according to his own ideas.

For Zhang Anshi, this is actually a good thing. There is no need to adapt to the customs problem, just follow the rules.

More importantly, he can also worry less and have more time to be busy with other things.

After the beginning of spring, Zhu Di summoned Zhang Anshi to meet him.

When Zhang Anshi arrived at the Wenlou, he realized that today is the day to release the rankings.

Zhang Anshi is one of the few people who is not very enthusiastic about the examination.

This is a scholar’s business, so it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with him.

It was Xia Yuanji, with a red face, who presented the list to Zhu Di. Zhu Di took a look at it and said, “This meeting is actually from the north?”

Zhu Di looked very surprised.

All the ministers were also stunned, especially Hu Guang, who has always been a candidate from Jiangxi.

But who would have expected that this time… a Beiren appeared.

Zhu Di said in horror: “Interesting, this Ma Yu is from Laizhou Prefecture. Do you have any impression of this person?”

Everyone was silent, with blank eyes.

You don’t have many impressions of the scholars in the north.

Zhang Anshi vaguely remembered that the first champion in the north of the Ming Dynasty seemed to be surnamed Ma, but he didn’t know if it was this person. But this person’s life, logically speaking, should be the number one scholar in high school in the next imperial examination, not in Yongle Eighteen Years High School.

It seems that during the imperial examination this time, on the way to Beijing, because I heard that my mother was ill, I had to give up the imperial examination.

Could history have changed? After Zhang Anshi’s many prescriptions came out, medicine has made great progress. Although his mother fell ill, it was not seriously ill to the point of threatening her life, so… the person who was supposed to shine three years later, finally distributed it ahead of schedule. light up.

“This person is amazing. I never thought that a scholar from Shandong is actually so powerful!” Zhu Di’s face was flushed.

Because of the imbalance between the north and the south of the imperial examination, now there is an anomaly, which is undoubtedly a great thing for Zhu Di.

………

Students, come to some monthly tickets to support No, I love you.

(end of this chapter)