Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 206 The Queen's New Career and the Emperor's Troubles
Even the royal breakfast had to be unique and colorful, and new things from all over the world had to appear on the royal table as quickly as possible.

At this moment, looking at the Western bread dotted with sesame cheese, Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but laugh and said, "When did the palace also have this white bread?"

"The people in the imperial kitchen said that this is the new Western bread imported by Lin Tingxuan from Guangdong and Guangxi. This is the first time we have seen it. How come you knew about it so early, Your Majesty?" Empress Xia pursed her lips and looked at Zhu Houzhao. Her big dark blue eyes still retained the playfulness of her girlhood. Seeing this, Concubine Su also smiled slightly and put the milk in a glass cup specially supplied to the royal family by the Royal Industrial Company into her mouth. Streams of white milk seeped out from between her red lips, making Zhu Houzhao, who had just eaten half a loaf of bread, couldn't help but recall some scenes of experiencing bliss with Concubine Su.

Zhu Houzhao shook his head, dismissing this vulgar and inappropriate thought, and only asked Queen Xia: "Is this milk produced by the dairy farm in Xihua Mountain?"

In order to improve the quality of life of the people of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Houzhao decided that it was necessary to popularize milk, a protein-rich drink, in the Ming Dynasty ahead of time. Therefore, he specifically asked the eunuch Luo Xiang, who was in charge of procurement, to find a way to introduce dairy cows, and asked the Imperial Stables to establish a cattle ranch in Xihua Mountain to pilot milk production.

"That's right. Since Your Majesty asked us to use the new sterilization method (pasteurization), this milk can be sterilized at low temperature and can be sold to ordinary people. At the same time, because the sterilization temperature is not high, the quality and nutrition of the milk are preserved. Even the princes are now plump and white, and all the noble families are vying to place orders!"

Queen Xia talked about it with great relish. The charm she exuded when she spoke made Zhu Houzhao feel hot inside, as if someone was tickling him with a beautiful woman's delicate hands. He wished he could hold this young and beautiful queen under him and have some intimate time with her.

Although Zhu Houzhao thought so in his heart, he did not really do it. He did not understand what was wrong with him recently. He always had a strong desire after each meal. Now it was the same even after he had breakfast. He didn't know if it was because he was in his prime, or because he was an emperor and there were too many beautiful women around him.

He had lost control of himself for several days and had sex with many palace maids, causing all the civil officials to start talking about his licentious affairs. Even the eunuchs under him began to tactfully select more beautiful women to enter the palace.

Zhu Houzhao had to reprimand him several times, as he didn't want to end up dying young due to youthful indulgence.

Zhu Houzhao restrained his inner desire and continued to ask the Queen about the Xihuashan dairy farm.

As a time traveler, Zhu Houzhao constantly used the knowledge he gained in later life to influence the people around him, and Queen Xia, who had been sleeping in the same bed with Zhu Houzhao since she was fourteen, was no exception.

Queen Xia was initially interested in Zhu Houzhao's narration of Dream of the Red Chamber and female-oriented romance novels. She was even angry for a while and felt that Zhu Houzhao was not as loving and loyal as the male protagonists in the novels. However, after being executed on the spot by Zhu Houzhao many times, she had to accept reality. Later, she became interested in life sciences, and her maternal love was so overflowing that she said she wanted to use her status as queen to be the mother of all the children in the world to make all the children happy.

Zhu Houzhao wanted to develop the Ming Dynasty dairy industry, and Queen Xia also pushed him to do so.

When Zhu Houzhao accidentally mentioned that the cheese, namely milk, brought back by Zhang Qian from the Western Regions was a very valuable nutritional product, Empress Xia often persuaded him to do so, hoping that all the children in the Ming Dynasty could drink milk.

Zhu Houzhao thought that although the ancestral precepts of the Ming Dynasty stated that the harem was not allowed to interfere in politics, it did not say that the harem was not allowed to engage in business or scientific research, so he did not stop them. After getting the empress to agree to play a few new positions with him, Zhu Houzhao asked Luo Xiang from the Imperial Stables to accompany the empress to build a Xihuashan dairy farm, which was registered with the Ministry of Households as the Royal Xihuashan Dairy Company, with Xia Xianger as the legal representative.

The Ministry of Revenue has now established a new Commerce Bureau in each province's Qinglisi, which is specifically responsible for managing the province's tariffs, trademarks, and enterprise registration, so as to achieve the Ming Dynasty's goal of rationally managing commerce.

However, the civil servants in the Ministry of Revenue were greatly shocked when they saw the emergence of the Royal Xihuashan Dairy Company. What shocked them was not that the royal family had opened a store, after all, this was not uncommon in the Zhengde Dynasty. What shocked them was that the owner of this company was the Queen!

It is the consensus of this civil service group that the harem is not allowed to interfere in politics.

Regardless of whether they were reformist or conservative civil servants, the reformist officials with a background in the Loyal Emperor Society were only loyal to the emperor, not to the empress.

Therefore, when the queen started a company, the entire civil service class faced a new problem, that is, whether the harem could start a company to do business.

According to convention, not only the empress, but even the emperor and the entire royal family were not allowed to open a store, because they could not compete with the people for profits.

But it just so happens that His Majesty the Emperor has already opened a store, and even has the support of powerful and influential people behind him, because the cunning Emperor had distributed some of the profits of the royal industry in the form of shares.

These powerful gentry even hired a group of literati to propose a new idea that the royal family was different from the court officials, and that royal family members were also citizens of the Ming Dynasty. They could own wealth and run businesses in their own names, but they only needed to pay the same taxes.

Even if some people put forward the view that the royal family should not compete with the people for profits, some people refuted it by saying that the royal industry also employed the people, or even employed more people, so that a large number of refugees could have their food and clothing solved. In the eighth year of Zhengde, Yu Feng, the left vice minister of the Ministry of Public Administration, proposed to close the royal shop and even proposed to close the weaving bureaus in Nanjing and Suzhou. As a result, tens of thousands of weaving bureau craftsmen marched in demonstrations, and hundreds of officials related to the interests of the royal family submitted memorials to impeach him. Yu Feng finally committed suicide to prove that he was really public-spirited.

Traditional gentry always have resistance to commercial and social and economic changes. Naturally, they are also resistant to the royal family's opening of shops and even the practice of emphasizing business for profit. Therefore, Yu Feng's behavior is normal even if it is out of public interest.

However, Yu Feng's suicide also forced some gentry who claimed not to compete with the people for profits but were actually afraid that the royal family would infringe on their business interests to stop and watch the royal family enter the business field.

To the extent that the constitution only stipulates that court officials themselves are not allowed to engage in business, it does not stipulate that members of the royal family are not allowed to engage in business.

After Zhu Houzhao issued an edict approving the proposal of the Minister of Revenue Wang Qiong to hand over 50% of the royal tax revenue of the Royal Tax Bureau to Taicang, court officials were even more reluctant to stop the royal family from doing business, because the royal industry contributed a considerable amount of tax revenue every year. If the royal industry was shut down, it would not only result in hundreds of thousands of foodless refugees but also a large loss of tax revenue.

"Nowadays, times have changed. The Queen has also started a company. A few years ago, Wang didn't even know what a company was."

When faced with this question, the Minister of Revenue Wang Qiong only said this: he was not an official who was willing to offend the emperor for the sake of upholding certain principles. He could see that the empress must have had the emperor's permission to start a company, so he approved the registration of Xihuashan Dairy.

The other officials now have no choice but to accept it, because they have not been able to find a theoretical basis to determine whether the Queen's behavior is not conducive to the country.

But in any case, Xihuashan Dairy Farm, the first Ming dairy farm that was originally scheduled to appear during the Chongzhen period, finally appeared ahead of schedule during the Zhengde period.

The empress of Emperor Zhengde obviously began to behave differently from the traditional empress. She was no longer just a virtuous empress following etiquette, but started her own career. She led a group of palace maids and eunuchs to successfully apply the pasteurization method mentioned by Zhu Houzhao to milk production. With the emergence of glass cups, milk sales became possible.

But in fact, what Queen Xia said about making milk available to ordinary people has not yet been realized, because the cost of glass is still not low, and the only container for aseptic milk is currently a high-temperature resistant glass cup, so now the people who enjoy milk are basically the royal family and official families.

But no matter what, milk had just begun to appear on a large scale in the daily lives of people in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Houzhao really wanted to tell the Queen about the method of making yogurt, but his evil thoughts became more and more intense, and for a moment he had an urge that he could not control. He had to say goodbye to the Queen Mother Zhang and signaled Queen Xia Xiang'er to go back with him. However, Queen Xia was so busy feeding her son that she did not notice Zhu Houzhao's fiery eyes.

The same is true for Concubine Su and Concubine Liu.

Zhu Houzhao had no choice but to walk out of the palace, hoping that the cold wind would blow away the fire burning in his heart, but at this time, a palace maid who looked a bit like a Western Hu girl caught Zhu Houzhao's attention. Zhu Houzhao saw that she was tall and standing under the banana leaves of the red gate, so he directly pulled her into his arms.

The eunuch on duty saw this and knew that his Majesty had become horny again, so he quickly dismissed his attendants and closed the doors and windows.

After a long time, Zhu Houzhao's hairpins and crown were messy, and his clothes were in disarray. The Hu Ji palace maid on the ground didn't know whether she was happy or sad. There were still traces of tears in her beautiful eyes, but a smile formed at the corners of her mouth: "Thank you, Your Majesty!"

Zhu Houzhao stood up from the cold golden brick floor, put on his shoes and clothes hurriedly like a cat that had stolen some fish, and then ran out in a panic. He was absent-minded the whole morning.

The chief minister of the cabinet, Wang Hua, knew that His Majesty the Emperor Zhu Houzhao had been like this for several days, with a dazed look on his face. He even heard that Zhu Houzhao had been having affairs with the women in the palace recently, so much so that there were no less than twenty palace maids who had been canonized by the Ministry of Rites.

Therefore, at this time, Wang Hua saw that Zhu Houzhao also looked tired because of this, and could only advise him: "Your Majesty, although the six palaces of powder and rouge are not for viewing only, they should also be restrained."

"I know, but I have been acting strangely these past few days. I am obsessed with this and I am gradually unable to control myself." Zhu Houzhao had no choice but to say, "I will go back and rest for a while. You guys can discuss the matter first."

(End of this chapter)