my brother-in-law is the prince

Chapter 427
Everything went surprisingly well.

The first to start to take action was Qixia Trading Company.

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.

That is, a large number of ships have been ordered.

For this reason, a large number of shipyards 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.

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

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

And whenever any shipyard optimizes its process and improves its craftsmanship, 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, involving not only wood and wood treatment, but also ship paint, metal construction, canvas, cables and other industries.

Because of this, workshops in various counties also began 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 make you greedy.

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

These people traveled 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 a native of Shandong Province.

In Daming, perhaps in the Taiping Mansion, the status of scholars has been greatly reduced, and ordinary scholars may not be regarded highly by people.

Juren is obviously different. In the early Ming Dynasty, Juren could go directly to the Ministry of Officials to select officials, and if he became an official, he could at least 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 Xie 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 become a Jinshi.

Xie Yuan, the chief envoy of Shandong Province, 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 it may not be impossible to become a good scholar directly.

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 merchants here were Shandong natives. They were doing business in the capital, or settled in Shandong.

Since he is from the same township, it is easy to talk. Ma's family is located on the ground in Shandong, and he is a scholarly family. He still has connections. Many merchants are willing to approach him, and they can't ask for it.

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, and 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 3 taels of silver.

After that, Ma Yu became more comfortable. Instead of using all the money to order one ship, he distributed 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 order, 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, with 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. People who only know how to memorize by rote are often enough to pass the exam, but it will be difficult to go up.

When Ma Yu was raising 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, you get 100 taels and the other 200 taels, the trouble is a bit more troublesome, but their shares are scattered. In this way, Ma Yu, who invested 3000 taels in a boat, became 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.

Therefore, although these ten ships came from 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, after all, no one has officially tasted the sweetness. 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.

It is different if you have [-] mu of land and if you have [-] mu of land.

With [-] 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, he went out from the inn, and became taciturn, and did not return until midnight.

After that, Ma Yu simply moved to Qixia.

Some 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, which 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 has begun to become a little bit tight.

It's just that the downturn in life made Ma Yu more interested in running his 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 that 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.

But Ma San, Ma Yu's servant, was in a hurry.

Ma San's face was full of sorrow and he said: "Young master, the test is coming soon, if you don't study 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, to describe the relationship between teachers and brothers, don't appear 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 want to be impartial, any deviation from the two aspects may arouse the other party'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 test, it's just like reading and writing essays. 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.

But Ma Yu sighed: "These days in Qixia, I know the way of the world has changed, hey... once the trend of the world 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 need to talk less and watch more. By my side, you will be enlightened sooner or later. Maybe in the future, I will borrow you."

As Ma Yu said, he sealed the letter carefully, 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 spring of Yongle's 19th year.

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 and not to worry about.

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

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

For this imperial examination, Zhu Di showed great interest.

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

Right now, the world is full, except for Zhili, no matter if they are from their parents or officials to 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 jar, even though it is nothing to Zhu Di to quell the rebellion 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, for this imperial examination, Zhu Di attached great importance to it. He ordered Xia Yuanji, the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, to be the examiner.

After a meeting, the public's discussion on the imperial examination at this time has obviously covered up the previous matter of Taiping Mansion 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.

On Zhang Anshi's side, he was happy that he was not noticed.

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, it is a problem to use the river boats walking on the river to connect the goods after the sea-going ships dock at Songjiangkou.

Songjiang Mansion has also carried out new policies, 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 a person who handles things very well. What's more, he has been familiar with the operation of Taiping Mansion after being exposed to a lot of official documents in the County King's Mansion.

Although he is young, he has his own way of doing things, and he doesn't like Zhang Anshi or others pointing fingers, 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.

It was only when Zhang Anshi arrived at Wenlou that he realized that today was 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, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with him.

On the contrary, Xia Yuanji, with a red face, presented the list to Zhu Di, Zhu Di took a look at it, and said: "This meeting, is it actually a northerner?"

Zhu Di looked very surprised.

All the ministers were also stunned, especially Hu Guang, who has always... been a candidate from Jiangxi. He won the top three in the general examination and palace examination. If one of the top three is not a scholar from Jiangxi, it is an accident.

But who would have expected that this time... a Beiren actually 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.

Not many people have an impression of the scholars in the north.

However, 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.However, this person's life, logically speaking, should be the champion of high school in the next imperial examination, not in Yongle 18th high school.

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

Has history changed?After Zhang Anshi's many prescriptions came out, medicine has made great progress. Although his mother fell ill, she 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. It's shining.

"This man is so powerful, I never thought that a scholar from Shandong is so powerful!" Zhu Di blushed all over his face.

Due to the imbalance between the north and the south of the imperial examinations, an anomaly suddenly appeared, which is undoubtedly a great thing for Zhu Di.

………………

Classmates, come and support me with some monthly tickets. No, I love you.

(End of this chapter)