Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 275 Chuan Ting Opens the Tai Chi Chaos (Part 2)
The Jiannu camp was located more than ten miles north of Yushe County in Liaozhou, Shanxi.

Night had fallen, and the vast valley was dotted with tents, stretching for dozens of miles.

Huang Taiji brought all 80,000 cavalrymen under his command. This force was probably only matched by the hundreds of thousands of chariot soldiers of the Beijing Garrison and the Liaodong Army in the entire Ming Dynasty.

At this moment, the chariots and cavalry of the Beijing garrison and the Liaodong army are still in Liaodong, where they are almost invincible.

Therefore, he had not worried about his safety along the way, but he felt uneasy that night.

Inside the command tent, he sat cross-legged on the carpet by a solitary lamp, staring at the map before him, his brows furrowed into a deep frown.

At this moment, he was unaware that Sun Chuanting had already recovered the south bank of the Hun River.

He was considering whether or not to pursue the Hanzhong army.

Now that he's already here, how can he just run back without severely damaging the Hanzhong army?

Putting aside the grain and pig iron promised to him by the three powerful clans and eight imperial merchants of Puzhou, just making this trip was no easy feat.

He traveled over 3,000 miles to get here. Does he intend to just run back without doing anything?
To be honest, he was a little unwilling; this wasn't how you fight a war.

Since he's gone to such lengths, he must have achieved something.

If he makes a wasted trip, it's the same as not coming at all, and he'll most likely have to come back again later.

This is because, if the Hanzhong army had not suffered a major blow, its strength would still have far surpassed that of Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong.

If Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong cannot withstand the fierce attack of the Hanzhong army, he will still have to lead his troops to their aid.

Therefore, he was eager to catch up and severely damage the Hanzhong army.

The problem is, the Hanzhong army was like they had oil on their feet; they had barely arrived here when the enemy had already run off to Lu'an Prefecture.

While he was still hesitating about whether to chase after them, they had already headed south all the way to Zezhou!
If he chased after them at this point, they would probably have already run all the way to Huaiqing Prefecture.

Given the vast distance and the mountainous terrain, would he still pursue them?

This problem really troubled him.

As for whether Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong's men, including those border troops who secretly joined Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong's forces, would ambush him on the way, that was not a concern.

There's no way these guys can fight them.

Historically, this was the case. Before the seventeenth year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign, the Jurchens and the rebels had never fought a single battle!
Even though Li Zicheng commanded an army of over a million, he never laid a finger on the Jurchens.

This is clearly not normal.

If Li Zicheng truly wanted to conquer the world, the declining Ming Dynasty would have been no match for him; his main enemy would have been the Jurchens.

Under these circumstances, he still relentlessly pursued and attacked the Ming army until he captured the capital of the Ming Dynasty, while the Jurchens did not even touch him, which is really a bit unreasonable.

Even if his goal was to seize the Ming capital and become emperor, he still had to consider the problem of dealing with the Jurchens.

This guy seems to have no brains; he attacks any Ming army he sees, but never considers the Jurchen problem.

Even though he had millions of troops under his command, he never sent a single soldier north of the Great Wall.

This is clearly a cardinal sin in military strategy. He didn't even know where the main force of the Jurchens was. Is this the attitude one should have when facing an enemy?
The way he fights is the same as not knowing how to fight at all.

As a result, his troops were routed in their first encounter with the Jurchens, and even the Ming capital, which they had finally managed to capture, was handed over to the Jurchens.

It's easy to imagine how much shady things are going on here.

Zhu Jue didn't care how much shady business the Jurchens and rebels had. He had already entrusted the Jurchens and rebels to Sun Chuanting and Pan Yunteng to deal with, so he didn't need to worry about it.

Right now, he's busy preparing to meet with the Spanish envoy.

Or rather, he's busy preparing to extort money from people.

This time, he wasn't just trying to extort gold and silver; he wanted to extort Spain's colonies throughout Southeast Asia!

So, how do you extort money from this?

Would European colonial powers voluntarily give up the colonies they conquered?

That seems impossible.

However, nothing is absolute. The Spanish went to Southeast Asia to seize colonies simply for profit. As long as they could offer enough benefits, it seemed that extorting those colonies wouldn't be a problem.

More importantly, it's not that he can't beat them; he just doesn't want to do it at this time. If he can't extort money, he'll threaten to fight—what can they do about it?

Of course, it's best to use extortion if possible; starting a war now would not benefit his grand plan to dominate the seas.

Around 9 a.m. that day, after he had finished reviewing the memorials, he led Zheng Zhilong, Wang Chengen, Fang Zhenghua and others straight to the Wanshou Pharmaceutical Factory next to the Yuxi Palace.

By this time, they had tried almost all the over-the-counter medicines for common ailments. They had tried almost all the medicines that should be made into tablets, granules, pills, and decoctions. Wanshou Pharmaceutical Factory had started producing and selling over-the-counter medicines.

Inside the pharmaceutical factory, rows of punch presses were constantly banging away, and the punched tablets were being hauled in basins to the adjacent medicine storage room, each basin containing tens of thousands of tablets.

Zhu Jue looked around the punch press for a while, and then went to the factory building next door that was used to store medicine.

Right now, there are hundreds of old palace maids sitting in front of rows of long tables, quickly packing pills. The bottles of pills are neatly arranged and look very beautiful.

He walked to a long table, picked up a bottle of sky-blue pills and examined it closely. Then he said solemnly, "Zhilong, you need to translate the instructions for these pills as soon as possible. Translate them into both Spanish and Portuguese. Once they're translated, take them to be typeset and printed."

Does this mean we're going to sell these medicines in Europe?
Zheng Zhilong nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty, I understand."

Zhu Jue thought for a moment and then asked, "What price do you think would be appropriate for this bottle of medicine if sold in Europe?"

How do you say this?

Zheng Zhilong pondered, "The glass bottle containing the medicine looks very valuable. I estimate that selling one bottle of medicine for ten taels of silver is definitely not a problem."

We're not selling medicine bottles.

Zhu Jue slowly shook his head and said, "Ten taels is too little. This is a life-saving medicine. You can try to find out if the Europeans have a lot of medicine. If not, then we will ask for at least fifty taels per bottle."

Anyway, their gold and silver were stolen, worth less than grain. It's okay if you charge a higher price; the key is to see if they need medicine.

Uh, that's too harsh!
The cost of this bottle of medicine is less than fifty coins, yet you're asking for fifty taels a bottle!
Zheng Zhilong guessed, "Your Majesty, they are probably short of medicine. This is because they purchased herbs from me before. The profit margin on herbs is actually quite high. We in the Great Ming sell herbs for more than ten coins per catty, but we can sell them for several taels of silver per catty without any problem."

The key issue is that we didn't have many herbs back then, and I couldn't acquire many either. Therefore, the herbal medicine business couldn't take off at that time.

If you can sell herbs that cost ten or so coins per kilogram for several taels of silver, then selling a well-prepared bottle for fifty taels of silver is definitely not a problem.

Those guys are shady. The new drugs they develop in later generations only cost a few dollars to produce, but they can sell them for thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands!

Medicines for headaches, muscle atrophy, anemia, and anti-aging can all sell for millions of dollars a bottle!

Now that the Ming Dynasty has taken the lead in prepared medicines, what's wrong with him prescribing a bottle for fifty taels?
This is a very reasonable price compared to the exorbitant prices charged by those colonial plunderers.

Upon hearing this, Zhu Jue decisively said, "Then let's give them a base price of fifty taels for all the medicines. If they want to make them, we can send them a thousand bottles of each first so they can test their effects."

Uh, you give away thousands of bottles even though each bottle costs fifty taels?

We have not just a few, but dozens of proprietary medicines!
Upon hearing this, Zheng Zhilong was taken aback for a moment, then cautiously said, "Your Majesty, if we set the base price at fifty taels per bottle, and we still send them thousands of bottles, that would be medicine worth hundreds of millions of taels."

Does this mean you sent too many gifts?

Zhu Jue shook his head slightly and said, "What I mean is that we will only send them if they want to do this business; if they don't want to, then we won't send them."

Furthermore, the same goes for shoes. We'll offer a base price of one hundred taels per pair. If they want to do this business, we'll give them one hundred pairs of each item.”

Wow, there are so many more kinds of shoes!

Upon hearing this, Zheng Zhilong asked with some confusion, "Your Majesty, I am foolish. They definitely want to do these two businesses. There is no reason for them not to."

We're trying to extort money from them.

Zhu Jue nodded slightly and said, "Yes, they definitely want to do it, but if they don't agree to give us their colonies in Southeast Asia, then we won't let them do it."

Oh, that’s what it meant.

Upon hearing this, Zheng Zhilong nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty, I understand."

As they were discussing, Fang Zhenghua suddenly rushed in, carrying a memorial, and bowed, saying, "Your Majesty, Lord Sun has an urgent report."

So fast?
When Zhu Jue took the memorial, he saw that Sun Chuanting had indeed captured the south bank of the Hun River and blocked the northern exit of Dingliao Right Guard.

How many days has it been?

He was taken aback when he received the message; if Huang Taiji had received it, he would probably have been terrified.

(End of this chapter)