Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 167 The Rise of the Fushe Society Following the Donglin Party (Part 2)

While the scholars in Nanjing were vehemently denouncing Wei Zhongxian and his cronies, Zhu Jue suddenly remembered Wei Zhongxian.

It seems he hasn't seen Wei Zhongxian in a long time. Coincidentally, he has something he needs Wei Zhongxian to do.

The next morning around 7 a.m., he had just arrived at the main hall of Yuxi Palace and had not yet reviewed the memorials when he ordered someone to summon Wei Zhongxian.

Wei Zhongxian was starting to get restless.

The emperor hasn't summoned him for a long time, and he doesn't have any important money-making opportunities to curry favor with him, so he's getting a little anxious.

As a former official who held power during the reign of the late emperor, he was no match for the new favorites of the current emperor; he could fall out of favor at any time.

If the current emperor forgets about him and never summons him, he may fall out of favor. Once he falls out of favor, he is finished, and his whole family will be finished as well.

Can he not be in a hurry?

Fortunately, the current emperor has finally remembered him.

Upon hearing that the Emperor had summoned him, he rushed over, slightly out of breath, and bowed, saying, "This servant greets Your Majesty."

Why are you running so fast?
Zhu Jue nodded slightly, then asked, "Zhongxian, what have you been busy with lately?"

Uh, I'm not really busy.

Wei Zhongxian said cautiously, "Your Majesty, this servant has been keeping an eye on the business of Tianbaotang these days, and there's nothing else I've been doing."

Business in the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty is really difficult, mainly because there are too many people doing it, and the vested interest groups have almost snatched up all the profits that can be obtained.

Zhu Jue then asked, "How's business at Tianbaotang?"

Sigh, what else can we do?

Wei Zhongxian sighed inwardly, then explained, "Your Majesty, Tianbaotang's business is only good in the month before the Lunar New Year. We can earn over a million taels a month from boilers and New Year's goods. In other months, we can only earn four or five hundred thousand taels a month."

This business is actually quite successful. You have to understand that the annual tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty used to be only four or five million taels, while Tianbaotang can earn five or six million taels a year.

However, this amount of money is really nothing compared to their current expenses.

Zhu Jue nodded slightly, then asked, "Have you thought of any ways to make money?"

There's no faster way to make money than robbery, but you also said you can't always rely on robbery.

Wei Zhongxian pondered, “Your Majesty, the manager of Tianbaotang said that there are a lot of inquiries about silk and satin. Recently, it seems that there is less and less silk and satin on the market. Many people are asking if I can get some silk and satin to sell.”

"I think if we can make a fortune in the silk and satin business, earning a million taels a month shouldn't be a problem. After all, scholars rely on this to maintain their image. Those with the title of Juren (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations) must have some silk and satin to make some clothes; otherwise, they wouldn't have the face to go out."

You seem quite interested in making money.

Although brocade and satin are also silk, they are not ordinary silk. They are silk that has been dyed, woven, and even embroidered. In ordinary times, a bolt of silk can cost a few taels of silver, or even tens or hundreds of taels. And that is the internal price of the Ming Dynasty. It would be even more expensive when sold overseas.

The Imperial Dyeing and Weaving Bureau does have dedicated personnel to handle this.

Originally, they didn't have enough raw silk, and overseas demand was mainly for ordinary silk. Although brocade and satin could also be sold, the quantity was not large, and the profit was not as high as that of ordinary silk. Therefore, he hadn't thought about producing brocade and satin. Now that they were collecting more and more raw silk, it was time to consider producing brocade and satin.

Perfect timing, he was also thinking of building a textile factory.

Zhu Jue thought for a moment, then solemnly said, "Zhongxian, I plan to move all the cotton cloth weaving factories to the west city. In this way, the east city can specialize in producing silk and brocade, and the west city can build more factories to expand cotton cloth production."

"You go and acquire all the land in the western part of the city. I'll have Grand Tutor Yuan organize the artisans there to build factories and recruit them to make looms and produce cotton cloth. Meanwhile, in the eastern part of the city, I'll have the Imperial Dyeing and Weaving Bureau make arrangements to produce silks and satins as quickly as possible. That way, Tianbao Hall will have silks and satins for sale in the second half of the year."

Great, now I have something to do again.

Wei Zhongxian nodded repeatedly and said, "Alright, Your Majesty, you've taken all the land in the western city, right? In three days or five days?"

Don't push them too hard.

Zhu Jue pondered for a moment and said, "Five days, I guess."

Wei Zhongxian was truly a master at acquiring land. It just so happened that spring plowing had just begun, and the fields in the western city had only just started to be turned over. He ran over and told people to stop turning the land immediately. In five days, he had acquired all the land in the western city except for the houses of the artisans near the outer city wall.

Immediately afterwards, Yuan You summoned the craftsmen there to begin building the factory.

Zhu Jue didn't care about any of that. Weaving wasn't the priority right now; shipbuilding was. They didn't have any warships or even gunboats in the true sense of the word. They absolutely needed to have those, and they had to develop them as soon as possible.

These days he's been going to the East City Shipyard a lot, sometimes to check on the progress of the first batch of 1,600-ton ships, sometimes to discuss the structure of gunboats with Wang Zheng and Zheng Zhilong, and sometimes to check on the progress of the new dock waterway.

The shipyard is now incredibly large, with hundreds of waterways and hundreds of new docks nearing completion. The ten-zhang-long timbers are piled up like mountains, forming a mountain range.

That's not all. Because they've finished building all the new docks, they can only build about 200 ships of 1,600 liters each in one batch. Even if they build two batches a year, that's only about 400 ships. That's less than the output of the Netherlands, a small country with a population of less than a million. Now that the Netherlands has opened up its production, it can build at least 500 ocean-going giant ships a year!

He plans to build a full dock and waterway along the north bank of the Tonghui River, and build at least a thousand ocean-going giant ships every year!

Only in this way could the Ming Dynasty catch up with the Dutch in the number of ocean-going warships in about ten years.

After several days of hard work, the first batch of 1,600-ton giant ships was finally assembled. This thing was over ten zhang long and over five zhang wide, with a deck area of ​​nearly one mu. It looked truly magnificent.

It's been over a hundred years since such a colossal creature has appeared in the inland waterways of the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Jue couldn't resist sitting on it and taking a stroll around.

This behemoth is really smooth to drive and quite fast. It can travel over a hundred miles in an hour. It's not only suitable for hauling goods, but it's also very comfortable for carrying people.

He had just disembarked from the ship, still somewhat unsatisfied, and was pondering whether to build some double-decker bunk beds specifically for transporting people, when Wang Yingchao came up to him with a memorial in hand, bowing and saying, "Your Majesty, the Eastern Depot's spies have uncovered some clues."

They found out so quickly?

Zhu Jue took the memorial and looked at it, his face suddenly filled with realization.

The Eastern Depot's spies reported that the reason why the scholars in Nanjing were cursing the eunuch party and Wei Zhongxian was because a man named Zhang Pu had formed a society called the Fushe.

Zhang Pu was a student of the Southern Imperial Academy and a native of Taicang Prefecture in Suzhou. He was quite famous among scholars in Jiangnan.

This is because he wrote a famous piece called "Record of the Five Martyrs' Tomb" during the Tianqi reign, in which he spoke out for the Donglin Party and the people of Suzhou.

He actually knew all of this. He had heard of Zhang Pu's name, and he had seen the name Fushe many times in later generations.

The Fushe Society was the successor to the Donglin Society, and many people who went down in history came from it.

However, he did not know when the Fuxing Society was established.

Zhang Pu has already set up the Fushe Society. What is he planning to do?

He thought about it carefully, and then decisively said, "Go and have the secret agents of the Eastern Depot continue to investigate. Find out all the key figures in the Fushe Society, their size, what they are talking about, and so on. Investigate everything thoroughly for me."

Wang Yingchao quickly cupped his hands and bowed, saying, "This servant understands."

(End of this chapter)