I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 125 Under the Bustling City
Beneath the flourishing scene of Qizhou City, there are actually many undercurrents.

Three years ago, Zhu Houxuan returned south from the capital and went to Nanjing to pay homage to the Mausoleum of Emperor Xiaoling. After returning to Qizhou, he became very popular for a while, and many people came to Qizhou to show their goodwill to him.

He took advantage of the situation and began to build the most basic industrial system in Qizhou.

At the beginning, his actions were supported by all parties, because in their eyes, the King of Jing was just making trouble and it would not harm their interests, so it was okay to support him.

However, as Qizhou's industry developed better and better, Zhu Houxuan began to feel that external pressure was becoming greater and greater.

Because industrial development requires a huge amount of resources, Zhu Houxuan could only dump the cheap industrial products he produced to the surrounding areas, creating a scissors gap between industry and agriculture in the area around Qizhou.

Moreover, the quality of industrial products produced in Qizhou is much higher than similar products in the surrounding areas, and the cost is much lower. As soon as Qizhou products are on the market, the same products cannot be sold at all. Not only is the scissors cutting hard, but it also makes it impossible for peers around to see any hope of catching up.

The surrounding forces are not stupid either. At the beginning, Qizhou's industrial capacity was not high, so they could still tolerate the harvest of the scissors gap. After all, you are a prince, and you are trusted by the current emperor. His Majesty sends envoys to express condolences every month. They tolerated it for the sake of his majesty's face, but Qizhou's industrial capacity is increasing exponentially every year, and now the surrounding forces can no longer tolerate it.

The market demand in the Ming Dynasty is limited, and the Prince of Jing's Mansion has occupied a large piece of the market, which is equivalent to snatching a piece of fat meat from their mouths, and the more it snatches, the more it gets. No one can tolerate this!

Although you are a prince, what rights do princes of the Ming Dynasty have? First, you cannot command the army, and second, you cannot govern the people. It doesn't matter what you do in Qizhou, but it's ridiculous if you extend your hand outside Qizhou. What influence do you have outside Qizhou? Who listens to you?
Yes, Qizhou products are good, inexpensive and of good quality. We cannot beat you in a business war and we cannot compete with you in the market. However, the ownership of a market in a certain place in the Ming Dynasty is not determined by the results of a business war. The results of a business war are only a very minor factor and cannot determine the final result at all. If we say that we will not allow Qizhou products to come in, then we will not allow Qizhou products to come in. No matter how good your products are, it will be useless.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty was not a unified large market in terms of business. Even in 2022, the State Council of China was still issuing the "Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a National Unified Market."

You are favored by the emperor and receive the emperor's condolences every month. However, there is a saying that "the emperor is far away" and even if the emperor trusts you, he is thousands of miles away and he really cannot help you.

We respect you very much, but we are not afraid of you.

Moreover, Zhu Houxuan was unwilling to bother Zhu Houzhao for these trivial matters. Zhu Houzhao did not understand the significance of what he was doing at all. The more you use affection, the less it will cost. He wanted to use the affection between him and Zhu Houzhao on the most crucial things.

In fact, if things had developed to this point in the European continent where many countries exist, the result would certainly be that Qizhou would use its industrial production capacity and technological advantages to arm a large army, defeat the surrounding forces one by one, and open up markets by force.

But we can’t do this in the Ming Dynasty. Although the Ming Dynasty is not a unified large market in business, it is unified in military and politics. Doing so would be tantamount to suicide!
Fortunately, Zhu Houxuan also understood the way to share benefits and shared the benefits with all parties.

In addition, they increased investment in overseas markets, held on tightly to the Chen family, and used the Chen family's ocean trade channels and transportation capabilities to dump Qizhou's industrial products overseas.

At the same time, the welfare of workers should be improved internally, and the domestic demand market should be increased as much as possible. This will ensure that the industrial development of Qizhou will not be affected.

However, human greed is endless. They were quite satisfied with the benefits distributed to various forces at the beginning. However, as they watched Qizhou develop better and better and become stronger, but they did not gain more benefits from Qizhou's development, they felt unbalanced in their hearts.

Moreover, some people regarded Zhu Houxuan's previous concessions as weakness and wanted to take advantage of the situation to gain more benefits. This was the case with the Prince of Chu's Palace.

Zhu Houxuan also did not want to distribute the shares of each factory to various forces, form a real community of interests with each force, and integrate the resources of each force to develop industry.

But after making some attempts, Zhu Houxuan found that this approach was simply not feasible because the two sides had completely different understandings on some issues.

People in feudal society were simply unable to recognize the potential of the Industrial Revolution; they only viewed the Industrial Revolution based on their own life experiences.

As a time traveler, Zhu Houxuan naturally knew the future potential of these factories under his leadership, and could objectively evaluate the importance of each force.

But the various forces could not do this. They always overestimated their own importance and demanded a share that far exceeded Zhu Houxuan's expectations.
How can we talk about this? There is no way to talk to these people who have feudal ideas!
Even if Zhu Houxun accepted the shares, he would start to interfere in the factory. Are the workers' wages too high? Is the investment in R&D too high? They can be cut! What? You said that you had the same shares but different rights? I don't know what the same shares but different rights mean. I only know that you have reduced the factory's profits by a lot.

Moreover, after getting the factory's profits, they enjoyed them themselves, or directly cast them into silver ingots and hid them in the cellar.

So this approach doesn't work either.

Zhu Houxuan also thought about providing funds, technology, and equipment to build a factory outside Qizhou, and then exchange market share with local forces, following the path of foreign investment in China in the previous life.

But later it was discovered that the business environment in the Ming Dynasty at that time was worse than that in India in the previous life. The example of Xiaomi was there, and this path was simply not feasible.

It is so difficult to develop industry in a feudal society!
If the Ming Dynasty at that time was regarded as a person, then Qizhou was a strange organ that suddenly appeared in this person's body. The pressure Zhu Houxuan was under at this time was the person's body's rejection reaction to this strange organ, and he had to try his best to prevent this organ from being expelled from the body.

Of course, if a person's body can accept this strange organ, then that person's body will undergo an evolution.

All this was entirely caused by Zhu Houzhao's forcing things to happen. He took too big a step and it was a bit unreasonable. Zhu Houzhao was also aware of this. It was normal for him to complete the journey that took decades to complete during the Western Industrial Revolution in the previous life in just a few years.

But Zhu Houxuan did not regret doing so at all. After all, ten thousand years was too long, and he must seize the day!
(End of this chapter)