Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 215 If You Want Me to Blame Me Again, I'll Kill a Chicken (Part 2)
There are many records of the deaths of princes at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Records show that many of the vassal kings were extremely wealthy, with countless kings being richer than a country itself.

Records show that many feudal lords were stingy, preferring death to donating any money or grain to the soldiers as provisions.

Records show that many princes lived extravagantly and their lives were so luxurious that ordinary people could not even imagine it.

Records show that a certain prince's entire family was driven to drown themselves in the river, or that they were all killed by rebels at once.

There are even unofficial historical records mentioning things like the Fortune and Prosperity Banquet.

There are also records of how anxious Chongzhen was, how he issued an edict to blame himself, and how he worked day and night to mobilize troops to suppress the rebels.

However, there is no record of how anxious the officials of the Ming Dynasty were.

The officials of the Ming Dynasty court seemed to be indifferent to the suffering of the princes and members of the imperial family, showing no concern whatsoever.

In terms of kinship, the princes and royal family members and the court officials were really not related at all.

It seems normal that court officials didn't care about the deaths of princes and members of the royal family. After all, they weren't their own relatives, so why should they care?
But now it's the other way around.

Zhu Jue didn't care at all about the suffering of the princes and royal family members, but the court officials seemed to be extremely anxious.

This is a bit abnormal.

Why are the court officials in such a hurry?

Zhu Jue naturally knew what these guys were in such a hurry for.

These guys are just using the old trick of feinting to the east while attacking in the west.

Historically, whenever Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, or Li Zicheng went on a rampage like madmen, the Jurchens would always have some ulterior motive!

Spring is just around the corner, and Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong are so eager to plunge the Central Plains into chaos. Huang Taiji must have some ideas of his own.

These guys probably all think that with millions of rebels attacking vassal states and slaughtering vassal kings and royal families in the Central Plains, he, as emperor, would definitely send troops to suppress them.

To suppress millions of rebels, sending tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of troops would not be enough; at the very least, hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed.

He only had a few hundred thousand men under his command. If he were to send most of his troops to suppress the rebels, the outcome would be predictable.

Major events will occur in Liaodong and even the capital region, and Huang Taiji will definitely take advantage of the situation to launch an attack.

Historically, Huang Taiji, or rather the three powerful clans and eight imperial merchants of Puzhou, played this trick far too many times, even ruining Emperor Chongzhen's reign.

Zhu Jue would naturally not fall for such a wicked trick.

He wasn't in a hurry; he wanted to turn around and mess with the three powerful clans, the eight imperial merchants, and Huang Taiji in Puzhou.

Anyway, he won't send troops; he'll pretend he's in a bit of a hurry and is considering sending troops.

Actually, he hadn't considered any of that; he was thinking about shipbuilding.

At this moment, the eighty small Weiyuan warships in the shipyard have all been assembled and are being tested in the water, and the hull of the small Zhenyuan warship is also almost finished.

The problem is that the five hundred small Zhiyuan merchant ships and four hundred medium-sized Zhiyuan merchant ships are still just a bunch of loose parts sitting there. Without rubber, they simply cannot assemble them.

Fortunately, news came from Lingshanwei that their fleet had arrived in Dongfan, and Zheng Hongkui and Wang Yingchao had already led their fleet to transport over a million catties of rubber to Lingshanwei.

On the 21st day of the third month, around 9:00 AM, Zhu Juena hurriedly finished processing the memorials and then rushed to the shipyard with Zheng Zhilong, Wang Chengen, Fang Zhenghua, and others.

This was all because, according to the report sent by the fast riders, the convoy carrying rubber should have arrived in the morning.

Sure enough, when he arrived at the shipyard, the long procession of carriages was already winding its way along the North Canal and the Tonghui River, with the first carriage already entering Tongzhou City.

The frozen river surface has now become a flat, open road.

Seeing this, Zhu Jue couldn't help but start thinking about it again.

Perhaps it's time to consider developing land transportation. With such a long ice-covered period in the north, water transportation is completely unconnected. If we could develop a train and then build a railway along the Grand Canal, then the raw materials for all the factories in the capital would no longer be affected by the ice.

However, Wang Zheng and Song Yingxing were both too busy to work on trains at the moment, and most of the skilled craftsmen were busy building steam engines and ships. They simply couldn't spare the manpower to develop trains.

Let's wait until the shipyard is on track before considering building trains.

He pondered all the way and soon rode into Tongzhou City, arriving at the rubber processing factory.

Right now, he only has this one rubber processing plant. All the equipment for processing raw rubber, rubber vulcanization, and even sealing rings, gaskets, and shoe sole molding is in this one plant. There's nothing he can do. In the past two years, the Spanish haven't brought them much rubber. No matter how many plants they build or how much equipment they manufacture, it's useless. Without raw materials, it can only sit there empty.

It's unknown how much raw rubber Zheng Hongkui and his group brought back this time.

After Song Yingxing, Wang Zheng, Zheng Hongkui, and others greeted him, he asked somewhat impatiently, "Well, Hongkui, how much raw rubber did you bring back this time?"

It's impossible to weigh this accurately.

Zheng Hongkui said cautiously, "Your Majesty, they roughly weigh a few sheets of raw rubber and then calculate based on the number of sheets. This time, I brought back roughly two million catties but less than three million catties of raw rubber, which, according to their calculation, is three million pounds."

so little?
Zhu Jue asked with some confusion, "Didn't our people follow them back in July? Judging by the speed of the sailboats, they should have arrived by October at the latest, while you won't be able to arrive until around the Lunar New Year at the earliest."

They've been working for almost two months, and the Spaniards there still have four or five months to harvest the raw rubber after their last shipment. How come they only have three million pounds in total?

Sigh, these colonial robbers are different from us. They work very leisurely and are not in a hurry at all.

Zheng Hongkui explained with some helplessness: "Your Majesty, the Spanish are not in a hurry to organize people to build factories and learn how to tap rubber, brew vinegar, and process raw rubber. It's no use if the craftsmen we sent are in a hurry. They dragged their feet for more than a month before the production of raw rubber slowly increased."

The craftsmen we sent also told me that we can't expect them to build any equipment for producing raw rubber themselves. If we wait for them to build it, it could take several years. It's much faster for us to build all the equipment and bring it over.”

These colonial robbers only know how to rob; it's really too much to ask them to engage in production.

However, this is also a reason for "collaborative development".

Zhu Jue nodded slightly, then asked, "How much raw rubber did you transport to Lingshan Guard this time?"

Without hesitation, Zheng Hongkui replied, "We brought over a million catties, all of which were made by the craftsmen we sent there. They don't need any processing; they can be vulcanized directly."

Hmm, not bad, this saves a lot of time.

Zhu Jue glanced at the craftsmen who were busy vulcanizing and refining rubber, nodded slightly, and then asked, "What about the rubber tree seeds? How many did you bring back?"

They've never collected this before.

Zheng Hongkui said cautiously, "Your Majesty, they never collected rubber tree seeds before. This time, after we arrived at the place, we negotiated a price of one tael of silver for one hundred seeds with their governor before they ordered people to collect them."

We waited a few days until the goods arrived, and they only managed to collect a few tens of thousands of kernels for us, less than 100,000.

However, the governor there wanted to pocket the money, so he was quite keen on the business. He even said that next time we went, we should collect at least one million seeds for him.

These colonial robbers are just greedy. They'd kill anyone if you paid them, let alone just collect some rubber tree seeds.

As for the cost of the seeds, it's nothing at all. A million seeds would only cost ten thousand taels of silver. If a million rubber trees could really be grown in Qiongzhou Prefecture, the value would be more than ten million taels of silver.

Zhu Jue nodded slightly, then asked, "They didn't suspect that we wanted to plant rubber trees to cut off their source of income, did they?"

Zheng Hongkui shook his head repeatedly and said, "No, no, I told their governor what you instructed me to say. I said that the seeds of the rubber tree can be used to extract a special material that can increase the wear resistance of the shoe soles, and their governor did not doubt it."

Very good. Whether that governor was pretending to be confused or genuinely had no suspicions, as long as we get away with it, that's fine.

Oh, right, what about the governor?

Zhu Jue thought for a moment, then asked, "Which governor-general's jurisdiction are you referring to?"

Without hesitation, Zheng Hongkui said, "The governor I'm referring to is the governor of their Peruvian governorate, I think his name is Alfonso, but there's a whole string of names before that, I can't remember them all."

What someone's name is doesn't matter.

Zhu Jue pondered, "So you mean rubber is also produced in the Viceroyalty of Peru?"

Zheng Hongkui nodded repeatedly and said, "Yes, we first arrived at the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The governor there seems to be in charge of the American colonies. Our goods were unloaded there, and he gave us about one million taels of gold as payment."

The other copper, rubber, and the remaining payment were received from the Viceroyalty of Peru.

The Viceroyalty of Peru is a great place; copper, rubber, and nitrates are all there, and there are countless gold and silver mines as well.

Perhaps we could consider taking it one step at a time, starting with "cooperative development" of the Viceroyalty of Peru with Spain, which should make it easier to reach an agreement.

Zhu Jue thought for a moment and then said simply, "It's too tiring to talk standing here. Hong Kui, let's go to Yu Xi Palace to talk."

Uh, is it tiring to talk while standing?
Isn't it tiring to ride a horse to Yuxi Palace in this freezing weather?

Zheng Hongkui was taken aback upon hearing this.

(End of this chapter)