Daming Military Empire

Chapter 61 Development of Industry
In June in Tianjinwei, the grass grows and warblers fly. Because it is located on the coast, Tianjinwei has not been affected by the severe drought. Pieces of green potato stems and leaves are blowing in the wind in the field. laughter.The season of potato harvesting has arrived. With a shovel down, you can shovel out a pile of fist-sized baby bumps. After a while, the big bamboo basket will be full.

For the victims who have been starving for months or even years, there is nothing more exciting than eating. There was really nothing to eat in their hometown, and the grass roots could be dug out to eat. These potatoes are delicious. It's not grass roots, it tastes better than white flour steamed buns, how can the victims of the disaster be unhappy.

Wuqing is the closest city to the capital of Tianjin Wei. It was originally a small county with only 4 to [-] people. This time, more than [-] victims were moved here. The small county was expanded several times in an instant. It is full of simple wooden houses.

On this day, the entire city of Wuqing was suddenly occupied by the Beijing camp. The streets, big and small, were lined up with elite imperial guards. Teams of brocade guards were patrolling the streets and alleys. They were so serious that a mouse might not be careful. If they ran into the street, they would be hacked to death with knives.

The victims of the disaster and the residents of the original county all knew that some important personage was about to come to inspect it. Judging from this posture, it was very likely that he was the current emperor!

It turns out that the residents of the county are nothing more than that, the emperor is just a legendary figure, and has nothing to do with them. Those who are curious may go to have a look.

It is different for the displaced victims. The emperor is their savior. If the emperor hadn't asked them to move out of the disaster area where there was no grass, many people might have starved to death by now!How does starvation die? Few people in modern times can imagine it. The pain cannot be expressed in words. When you are hungry and feel that your stomach is about to be digested by yourself, you know that hunger is a kind of death. What kind of feeling, of course, that is just the beginning, far from starving to death.

The victims who had experienced hunger were full of gratitude to the emperor. They organized themselves and knelt on both sides of the official road. If they could, they would put up longevity tablets and burn incense. Come out and be by your side.Of course they didn't want to give it to the emperor to eat, but to tell the emperor that we have something to eat.

The person who came was of course Emperor Chongzheng Zhu Cijiong. He originally wanted to visit in private, but the empress dowagers of the two palaces heard that he was leaving Beijing and insisted on coming with him.Zhu Cijiong had no choice but to prepare for the battle. He brought [-] Beijing elites and [-] Jinyi guards to guard the two empress dowagers along the way, and slowly came to Wuqing.

Right now, our little emperor is sitting in the arms of the great beauty Qin Mingyue, riding on a magnificent white horse, guarded by five thousand royal guards, looking around curiously.He couldn't stay in the imperial sedan chair any longer. Although the two empress dowagers had scary names, they were actually young women under 30 years old. Say big.Our little emperor said that his dragon ear was seriously injured, so he had to get rid of their embrace and let Qin Mingyue ride on a horse with him in his arms.

Zhu Cijiong came to Tianjin Wei this time mainly to see the situation of the weaving factory. The shuttle loom has been invented. Naturally, it is necessary to build a weaving factory, otherwise how to create benefits.He asked Song Yingxing to make a thousand flying shuttle looms first, and then asked Bi Maokang to find a place to build a factory building, and planned to come out to see the effect of the whole weaving factory.

Why build the factory in Wuqing?Because there is really no such a big place in the capital, and the Tianjin Wei side is mainly garrisoned. Only in Wuqing County, there are not many garrisons and a lot of open space. Just relocate and build a factory.

Now, the factory building has been built and the looms have been installed, and it is waiting for recruitment and opening. Zhu Cijiong naturally wants to come to see the situation. This is the first factory he has built.Coincidentally, the season for the potatoes to ripen has arrived, and he can drop by to see how the victims are doing.

Along the way, seeing the well-growing potato fields and the smiling disaster victim Zhu Cijiong, I felt so beautiful. This was an unprecedented severe drought, and he solved it with a single move. Even he himself admired it a bit own up.When the team arrived outside Wuqing City, Zhu Cijiong was even happier when he saw the people lining the road to thank him. He couldn't help laughing and said: "Hahahaha, good, you have done a good job, and everyone will be rewarded."

As soon as he said the words, he regretted it. When it comes to this reward, promotion is no longer enough. Their officials are big enough, especially Xu Guangqi is a first-rank official, how else can he be promoted.Since he can't be promoted, he can only reward money. The problem is that he has no money now!After these few months of tossing, the problems of the victims have been solved, but the treasury is also clean, and the new taxes will have to wait for August to be collected into the treasury. He has been a pauper for these two months!
Of course, he still has bank notes. Rixinglong Company has printed 1000 million taels of silver notes, and the deposits it has now absorbed are only about 9000 million taels, and the remaining 100 million taels of silver notes are all in Cao Huachun's place.But this bank note cannot be used indiscriminately, he can use up to 100 million taels, otherwise others will not be able to withdraw money with the bank note, and Future Xinglong will have to close down!Now the Rixinglong head office in the capital has just opened, and the branch offices in various places are being built one after another. It is the time when money is needed. If it is not supported by the money of Chang Wei and his nine Shanxi merchants, his [-] million taels of silver bills will not be worth it. Dare to use.

Naturally, the emperor can't be too stingy in giving rewards, but he can't give out all the 100 million taels of silver notes, right? He was weighing it over there, but the weaving factory has already arrived.Seeing the newly built factory building, he couldn't help being enlightened, he laughed and said: "This weaving factory will definitely make a lot of money in the future, so I will pay you 1000 million taels and give you 20% of the shares, [-] taels of dry shares per person, and dividends at the end of the year. "

Xu Guangqi and the other five naturally knew that this weaving factory would make money. Just kidding, the same cloth can be nearly one-third cheaper, so it's no wonder it doesn't make money.When they heard that each of them could get 20 taels of dry shares, they couldn't help being excited. Regardless of the fact that they are just dry stocks, the dividends in a few years have exceeded 20 taels. As long as they continue to work with the emperor, they will have nothing to worry about for the rest of their lives. Eat and drink, and even their descendants will be rich because of it!
Although Qin Mingyue didn't know what the dry shares and dividends meant, she knew that it was a good thing from the excited faces of Zhu Cijiong's cronies beside her. She couldn't help but lowered her head and whispered coquettishly in Zhu Cijiong's ear: "Your Majesty, what about me? Where are my aunt and brother?"

Zhu Cijiong was in a good mood at this time, and said in her ear without hesitation: "I will give you 100% of the Qin family, [-] million taels of dry shares. This is a good thing. Don't tell people everywhere, lest they will be jealous."

Qin Mingyue naturally agreed happily, and took advantage of people not paying attention, kissed him on the cheek.

So, our little emperor Zhu Cijiong walked into the weaving factory with a group of cronies in a daze, and walked around like a drunk for a long time before recovering.

According to Zhu Cijiong's intention, the weaving factory was built in a square shape, with a steam room in the middle and loom rooms around, which not only facilitates the connection of steam pipelines, but also has a good lighting effect.The problem of lighting was not considered when the machining workshop of Wang Gong factory was built. There are no electric lights at the moment, only oil lamps. Lighting up oil lamps will not only increase the cost, but the smell of oily smoke in the workshop can suffocate people to death!

The newly-built weaving factory is different, with a grid-shaped structure, all the looms are placed in front of the windows, the lighting effect is good, and there is no need to light oil lamps at all.Moreover, Zhu Cijiong is going to install glass on this window. If it is still covered with paper, it will still be impossible to work in rainy days.

Zhu Cijiong doesn't know how to make this glass, and he doesn't plan to buy it from Europeans. Instead, he plans to exchange glass manufacturing technology with the Portuguese East India Company with the agency rights in Europe, and then build a factory to produce it himself.

At that time, there was no concept of customs in the Ming Dynasty, and all the money was earned by private individuals. At most, private individuals could organize some armed merchant ships to protect them. There was no navy at all. It is true that there is less and less money, let alone dominating the sea, and it is impossible to build a decent fleet.

So Zhu Cijiong is going to establish customs to regulate foreign trade. Whether it is a businessman or a country, foreigners who want to do business with Ming Dynasty, or people of Ming Dynasty who want to do overseas trade must obtain the approval of the Ming Dynasty government and pay customs duties. What do you want the Portuguese East India Company to do? If you want to be an agent in Europe, you must send me the glass manufacturing technology, otherwise you will never want to buy something from Daming.

Don’t underestimate this overseas trade. At that time, the Ming Dynasty was the most advanced country in the world. Cloth, ceramics, and tea were all in demand abroad, so overseas trade was already very profitable at that time. Those sea merchants All the transactions are in the tens of millions of taels. It is said that Zheng Zhilong, the richest sea merchant, has even hundreds of millions of assets. That is not hundreds of millions of dollars, but hundreds of millions of taels of silver!
These people can be said to be richer than the country, Ming Dynasty is poor, but they are rich, so what will happen?It's not for nothing that the Manchus are cheaper, once the Qing army kills them, let alone money, their lives are gone!
Therefore, only a strong country is really strong. No matter how rich a private individual is, if the country perishes, people will crush you to death, just like crushing an ant.

Of course, these are all things to say later, the establishment of customs is not a matter of a day or two, and overseas trade does not mean that it can be regulated. The road to becoming a powerful country in Ming Dynasty has just started, and our little emperor Zhu Cijiong is still a pauper. Had to start from scratch.

(End of this chapter)