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

Chapter 89 Zhu Houxuan’s Ambition
Zhu Houxuan only knew that the people suffered greatly from the imperial store before, but he did not expect that the imperial store was operated in this way and even had the power to collect taxes.

"Don't they recognize each other when they collect taxes?" Zhu Houxuan became more and more interested in this topic.

"What the hell! Not only do I not recognize it, but even how much I charge depends on my mood. When I'm in a good mood, I charge less. When I'm in a bad mood, I charge more." Liu Si continued to complain.

"Then you can also not sell in this area and just avoid the imperial store." Zhu Houxuan roughly figured out what was going on.

"Where else can I sell my products if not in this area? The royal stores are all located in good locations with many people. How can I do business if I don't go to crowded places? I can't avoid it!" Liu Si said with a long sigh.

Zhu Houxuan felt that the things here were becoming more and more interesting. He looked towards the salt shop. The location of the salt shop was very good, at the intersection of two streets, but the small vendors nearby were almost extinct, and the number of pedestrians nearby was much smaller.

Many pedestrians quickened their pace as they passed the salt shop.

"What do you mean by the lackeys of the imperial store?" Zhu Houxuan continued to ask.
"Those are thugs recruited by the imperial store. They stop the merchants and collect taxes all day long. But how much of this tax can they pay? And how much goes into their own pockets?" Liu Si shook his head sadly.

After Liu Si left, Zhu Houxuan became more interested in the imperial store and simply parked the carriage nearby to observe.

He observed that the imperial store was still doing business. Although the business was not huge, there were people dressed in civilian clothes constantly entering the salt store and then walking out with sad faces.

Zhu Houxuan quickly asked Qin Ming to stop an elderly man who had just walked out of the imperial store and started chatting with him.

"Hello, old man. I just arrived in Beijing and am not familiar with this place. I saw you coming out of the salt shop and you looked quite angry. I wonder why?"

The old man looked at the guards behind Zhu Houxuan warily, but still patiently explained: "I went to the salt shop to buy salt and found that it was much more expensive, so I got angry!"

"If the salt is expensive in this salt shop, then go to other salt shops. There's no need to be angry about it!" Zhu Houxun asked deliberately.

"From the young master's accent, it can be seen that he has a southern accent. He probably just came to the capital and doesn't know much about the capital. That store is the royal store, and my family lives in this area. We have to go to the royal store to buy salt every month, otherwise someone will come to cause trouble!" said the old man with a sigh.

“Then buy less.”

"The people in the salt shop know how many people there are in my family. They know how much salt we use every month. They can't buy less," said the old man angrily.

Then he took out a small bag from his pocket, opened it and showed it to Zhu Houxuan, saying, "The price of this salt is twice the market price. It's bad quality, but there's so much sand mixed in it. This much salt is not enough for a family to eat for a month. We have to go buy more from other places."

Zhu Houxuan stretched his head to take a look and found that the salt was indeed mixed with a lot of sand, estimating that it was about one-fifth.

"Beijing is a big city, and it's not easy to live here!" The old man sighed and left.

Zhu Houxuan is now more interested in the Imperial Store. He can hire thugs to collect taxes, has unlimited taxation powers, and can find out the population of each household. He must have the support of the government. He can probably look at the population yellow book or something. He can also set high prices and force sales so blatantly. This power is too great!

He wanted to go to the salt shop to take a look, but he was not familiar with the current prices of various salts. He then remembered that there was a cloth shop at the next intersection which was also a royal store, so Qin Ming drove the carriage to the next intersection.

He asked Qin Ming to park the carriage some distance away from the store, and then he took Qin Ming directly into the cloth store without any guards.

As soon as Zhu Houxuan entered the cloth shop, he noticed that the hygiene inside the shop was not very good. The floor had probably not been cleaned for a long time and there was a lot of debris and dust.

No one greeted him when he entered the door. He searched for a long time before he saw a sleeping clerk behind the counter.

"Cough!" Qin Ming coughed heavily, and then said loudly: "Is the boss here? Buy some cloth!"

Qin Ming's voice echoed in the store, and the clerk behind the counter was immediately awakened. He said impatiently: "It's so unlucky. Who dares to disturb my sweet dream? I am the shopkeeper."

Then three more shop assistants appeared in different corners of the store. They all had fierce faces and were not easy to deal with. "We are here to buy some cloth to make some clothes! Isn't this a cloth shop?" Qin Ming said carelessly.

The shopkeeper's eyes darted around Zhu Houxuan and Qin Ming, and he was relieved to see that they were wearing ordinary clothes. Then he said, "What kind of cloth are you buying? Tell me quickly!"

"We both want to make a few spring clothes. Does the shopkeeper have any recommendations?" Zhu Houxuan said kindly.

"Let us recommend? Okay! Wait!" The shopkeeper winked at the three clerks behind him.

After a while, the three shop assistants came out each with seven or eight pieces of cloth, and they put the cloth on the counter.

"These are all suitable. You can buy them all. The total is 20 taels of silver." The shopkeeper looked at Zhu Houxuan with a sneer.

Zhu Houxuan reached out and touched the cloths, only to find that they were of poor quality. Some were even moldy and poorly dyed. A piece of these cloths could not be sold for even a penny of silver, yet now they dared to ask for one or two taels of silver per piece.

"These cloths are not suitable. We won't buy any of them. Goodbye, shopkeeper!" Zhu Houxuan bowed and was about to leave.

But two people suddenly appeared at the door of the store and blocked the entrance.

"Hey~ You want to leave after making us suffer?" The shopkeeper showed a cruel smile, "Either pay the money or leave your arm behind!"

"I don't want to stay either of them!" Zhu Houxuan was not at all flustered.

"You are from another place, don't you know whose territory this is? This is the emperor's store! How dare you act so arrogantly here? Come on, beat him up!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhu Houxuan's guards rushed in and knocked down everyone.

Zhu Houxuan walked out of the store leisurely. He was too lazy to say another word to the shopkeeper as he had already gotten what he wanted.

After returning to the carriage, Zhu Houxuan fell into deep thought.

He knew that the Royal Store had a bad reputation, but he didn't expect that its style of operation was so bad. It arbitrarily and repeatedly collected taxes from merchants, forced them to buy and sell, and sold at high prices and low quality.
Such royal stores are all over northern Zhili, and are constantly expanding to other places.
The eunuchs in charge of the imperial store did not know how to run a business. They used this method of killing the chicken to get the eggs to predatory seize the wealth of the people, which greatly stifled the vitality of private commerce.

Every year, the imperial treasury only receives a few hundred thousand taels of revenue from the imperial farms and stores. However, judging from the behavior of the members of the imperial stores today, I'm afraid that the money they collect is at least several times more than this figure.

The damage they caused would cause at least tens of millions of taels of silver in losses to the Ming society.

Zhu Houxuan felt a little heavy
In fact, he really wanted to do something, and the position he had always wanted to obtain was the one that controlled the imperial estate and the imperial store.

If the imperial farms and stores were under his control, it would be no problem for him to pay millions of taels of silver to the treasury every year, not to mention hundreds of thousands of taels, and it would also make the people's economy more prosperous.

This Imperial Store is an access license for the entire industry. He can use the Imperial Store to extend his tentacles into every aspect of the Ming Dynasty. No local protection policies or trade barriers exist in front of this powerful dragon, the Imperial Store.

After he got this position, he could mobilize a lot of resources to promote the industrial revolution of Ming Dynasty. What is the most valuable thing in this country? Policy! And the Royal Store can have whatever policy it wants!
His identity was too sensitive, and the Imperial Store was the only position he could strive for, because there would be no place for him whether in politics or in the military.

The only thing is that the imperial store is the emperor's private property in nature. As the emperor's relative, it is reasonable for him to help the emperor manage his private property.

Moreover, business and industry have been neglected and even discriminated against since ancient times, so taking control of the imperial store would not arouse the vigilance of the civil servants, because what he was going to do was beyond their imagination.

Moreover, Zhu Houzhao was so short of money now, so he felt that he had a great chance of winning this position, so that he could form a solid alliance of interests with Zhu Houzhao.

The imperial store will evolve into an imperial enterprise in his hands, and eventually become a state-owned enterprise!
But how to win this position still requires him to think carefully.
(End of this chapter)