All Heavens and Worlds Modified History System

Chapter 191 From the Emperor to the Ministers, No One Understands Economics

"Let the people of Ming Dynasty have access to cheap spices!"

Shouting such inspiring slogans, a fleet consisting of eighteen large foreign ships with a capacity of more than 400 tons left Shitoujin in a mighty manner, heading east along the river towards the sea.

"Brother? Why didn't you go and see him off?"

"Fourth brother? You didn't go to see him off either?"

At the East Palace martial arts arena, Zhu Biao, with a gloomy face, met Zhu Di, who also had a gloomy face.

Today is the day that Chen Ran goes out to sea again, but neither of the two brothers went to see him off.

"This bastard said that people from our Zhu family easily dissolve in water."

"This guy said that our Zhu family drowned the young Ming King, and it is easy to dissolve in water when it is close to water."

The two brothers looked angry at the same time, "What you said is so irritating!"

While I was angry, I also felt a little guilty.

After all, everyone in the world knew that it was Zhu Yuanzhang who drowned the young Ming King.

Everyone is afraid of gods, monsters, curses, revenge, etc., especially those who have done something wrong.

The two brothers vented their dissatisfaction with Chen Ran, and their mood improved a lot.

"Old Four, I heard Zihou asked you for someone?"

"Yes." Zhu Di nodded and replied, "A monk named Yao Guangxiao. I am also curious about what ability this monk has that made that guy who speaks so irritatingly likes him."

"Yao Guangxiao?" Zhu Biao recalled carefully and was sure that he had never heard of this person.

"Why do you need a monk?" he asked puzzledly. "Are you praying for blessings on the boat?"

"How should I know?" Zhu Di was annoyed and scratched his head.

He always felt like he had lost some important opportunity, which made him very unhappy.

"Brother." Zhu Di simply stood up and called to Zhu Biao, "Since you have nothing to do, how about we have a discussion?"

"If I can't beat Zihou, I can't beat you either?" Zhu Biao immediately accepted it.

The two brothers fought for a while, and finally both lay down panting and gasping for breath.

"Brother." Zhu Di, who had recovered from his shock, spoke first, "Chen Zihou knocked us down with just three punches and two kicks. How did he do that?"

"I really asked Yongchang Hou (Lan Yu) about this." Zhu Biao, who was lying on the ground with his eyes closed, groaned in response, "He said that Chen Zihou used all the methods of killing on the battlefield, and he was going to kill us from the beginning. We fought him with the mentality of a duel, so naturally we were at a disadvantage."

"I see!"

Zhu Di's face showed a look of sudden realization, and he turned over and sat up. "When he comes back, I will definitely have a good fight with him. I will also fight with my life!"

Looking at his brother who was eager to try, Zhu Biao felt it was quite difficult.

Because Lan Yu also said the second half of his sentence, "Chen Zihou is a man of ruthless character. Once he strikes, he will show no mercy. He has a murderous aura. He is definitely a man who has fought on the battlefield for a long time."

Among the fierce warriors coming down from the battlefield, none of them is easy to deal with.

He shook his head and changed the subject. "Zihou said that he wanted to make spices available to the people of the Ming Dynasty. Do you think it's possible?"

"How can it be."

Zhu Di shook his head upon hearing this and said, "The registered population of the Ming Dynasty has exceeded 60 million. If we calculate it based on one catty per person, that would be 60 million catties!"

"Where can I find 60 million kilograms of spices? In a dream?"

"makes sense."

More than half a year passed in a flash, and no news came back from the fleet that went out to sea.

Although she knew that this was a common occurrence, Princess Huaiqing still went to the temple every now and then to pray and burn incense, praying for Chen Ran's safe return.

Zhu Biao was also becoming more and more worried. After all, the sea was very rough and there would be no room for maneuver if anything happened.

He has made up his mind that he will never let Chen Ran go out to sea again.

If anything goes wrong, I won’t be able to explain to Funing girl.

Moreover, it is a waste of Zihou's talent to use him to sail.

He has a lot of government affairs to deal with recently and urgently needs Chen Ran to give him some good advice.

More than a month passed, and Princess Huaiqing had become sick with longing for her father. Finally, a fast horse arrived from Songjiang Prefecture, delivering news in an express delivery of 400 miles.

Chen Ran's fleet returned and had arrived at Songjiang Prefecture. It was now going upstream towards Yingtian Prefecture.

On the day the fleet returned, both sides of Shitoujin were crowded with people.

Not only Zhu Biao, but even Zhu Yuanzhang was alarmed. Regardless of the fact that the Ming royal family was easily soluble in water, he personally came to the shore to greet them.

As for the reason, it was in the letter sent by Chen Ran by express horse, which clearly stated that he returned with a full load of various spices.

Before the advent of the Age of Navigation, the source of spices for Middle-earth was either through the Silk Road or shipped by sea from the extremely business-savvy Arabs.

It is conceivable how expensive it will be.

In the market of Yingtian Prefecture, the price of spices is basically equal to the same weight of silver.

It is not available to non-rich and noble families.

Ordinary people can't afford it at all.

It's like some propaganda films hundreds of years later, calling on everyone not to eat shark fins, wild animals, etc.

But in reality, who among ordinary people can afford to eat these things?

This kind of thing usually appears in high-end restaurants and canteens. Ordinary people can't even smell it. I don't know what Chen Ran was thinking when he called on people not to eat it. Chen Ran's original intention was to use spices as a stepping stone to open the eyes of everyone in the Ming Dynasty.

Tell them to look overseas, there is everything overseas.

Whether you snatch it back, buy it back, or get it back in other ways, you must go out and get it.

Spices are expensive?

Then just ship in massive amounts of spices and drive the price down to rock-bottom levels.

The people of the Ming Dynasty could not afford spices, but they could always afford cabbage.

Zhu Yuanzhang didn't care whether the people of the Ming Dynasty could afford the spices. He only cared that the spices could be sold in exchange for enough money and food to support him in mobilizing troops and continuing the war.

The war in southern Yunnan has been declared over. Mu Ying and his men have pacified southern Yunnan and killed King Liang of Yuanting.

Next, we can finally move troops to the north.

If the soldiers and horses are not moving, the grain and grass will go first.

To march against the remnants of the Yuan court, the first thing to do was to raise enough money and food.

"Biao'er."

Old Zhu, who rarely smiled, looked at Zhu Biao with satisfaction and said, "If all 18 ships are fully loaded, each ship will have 300 to 400 kilograms of materials, and each ship will have more than 100,000 kilograms of materials, which means millions of dollars of money and food."

"Your Majesty, calm down!"

Seeing that Zhu couldn't hold back his smile, Zhu Biao had to interrupt his sweet dream and said, "It's impossible to sell so much money and grain."

"Hmm?" Old Zhu stopped smiling and looked puzzled. "Jinyiwei went to the market for research yesterday. One pound of spices costs one pound of silver!"

Zhu Biao smiled bitterly and shook his head.

He had the same idea as Lao Zhu before, but after seeing the second letter sent by Chen Ran, he was enlightened.

The second letter only talked about one thing, which was the price of spices.

"Dad." Zhu Biao lowered his voice, "Zihou brought back so many spices. Only a madman would buy them at the original price."

"Besides, the current price of spices is only affordable for the rich and powerful. Even if they eat spices three times a day, they still can't finish all the spices. They don't have that much money and food to buy spices every day."

Zhu Yuanzhang's expression changed and became increasingly ugly.

"How could that be?" Lao Zhu expressed his incomprehension. "Aren't spices very valuable?"

The words in Chen Ran’s letter flashed through Zhu Biao’s mind again.

'.From the emperor to the ministers, no one understands what economic laws are.'

"Dad." Zhu Biao simply responded with the words in Chen Ran's letter, "Scarcity makes things valuable. When spices were scarce before, their prices were naturally higher than gold and silver. But Zihou brought back more than a dozen ships of spices. If there are too many, they will definitely not be able to maintain their prices, and the price will definitely drop sharply."

"How about the price?" Zhu Yuanzhang hit his forehead and came up with a solution, "Specify that the spices must be sold at the current price."

Zhu Biao sighed. It was just as Zihou had written in the letter. An emperor who did not understand economics would do such a outrageous thing as pricing.

"Dad, no one is stupid." Zhu Biao explained weakly, "Spices are not food. If you don't eat them, you will starve to death. Everyone knows that there are a large number of spices, and the supply will increase every year. Only a madman would buy them at such a price."

“If it’s priced right, it won’t sell.”

Zhu Yuanzhang stamped his feet in annoyance. "Then what do you say we should do?"

"Wait until we meet Zihou and ask for his opinion." Zhu Biao was also at a loss. He had never experienced a situation where the supply of something far exceeded the demand.

I couldn't think of any good solution after thinking about it, so I just asked smart people what to do.

A large number of boatmen were dragging the large ships with their sails dropped towards the shore one by one.

The ship had a deep draft and was obviously full of cargo, and the trackers were exhausted.

There was no concept of displacement for large ships in the Ming Dynasty, and the unit of measurement was material.

The so-called material refers to the volume.

One batch of material has a capacity of ten cubic feet, and four hundred batches of material have a capacity of four thousand cubic feet.

Converted, it is about 130 cubic meters in capacity.

For example, dry goods like spices weigh nearly a thousand kilograms per cubic meter. A ship of 400 tons can carry nearly 100,000 kilograms.

After all, other personnel and supplies, such as food and water, need to be loaded.

Before Liu Daxia monopolized maritime trade on behalf of the civil service group, the Ming Dynasty's maritime trade was very developed and ships were getting bigger and bigger.

Not to mention the super treasure ship that Zheng He used to sail to the West, Liu Daxia burned all the information about it, so later generations don’t know what it looked like.

However, the inscription on the stele erected by Zheng He in Jinghai Temple clearly stated that his fleet included ships of 2,000 tons and 1,500 tons.

It is also recorded in books such as "Mission to Ryukyu" and "Six Records of a Floating Life" that when the Chinese envoys went to Ryukyu to confer rewards on the King of Ryukyu, the ship they took was of 4,000 tons!
Calculating based on the displacement being twice the capacity, a ship of 4,000 tons would be a giant ship of more than 2,000 tons.

While the Ming Dynasty already had thousand-ton ships roaming the seas, Europe was still struggling to survive in the darkness.

When Liu Daxia burned the treasure ship information and the geography and other materials of previous voyages to the West, Columbus, who was a dozen years younger than him, set out to sea with his small fleet.

The balance between Eastern and Western civilizations began to reverse at that moment.

Seeing Chen Ran again, Zhu Biao looked him up and asked in confusion, "Other people who go out to sea are all tanned and thin due to the wind and sun, but why are you still fair and strong, just like before you set out?"

"this."

Chen Ran touched his nose and said, "Maybe it's a natural talent."

PS: Thank you for the 100-point reward from my friend Shuhai Laosiji. I am very grateful. Thank you~~~
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(End of this chapter)