Zhu Yipai decided to personally send Zheng Haizhu and others to Dengzhou.
It was not out of courtesy to Corporal Xian, but Zheng Haizhu's mental outlook stimulated him somewhat.
The young prince realized that even a woman from a grassroots background would be quite impressive if she traveled around to see the world, her ability to think and her courage to do something.
Therefore, he decided to personally inspect the trade route across the Shandong Peninsula to Dengzhou Prefecture, and asked Tao Lang, the prefect of Dengzhou, whether the current Dengliao Sea Road was deserted as declared by the imperial court. Even the cotton clothes and wages for the troops stationed in Liao were mostly sent to Shanhaiguan.
It happened that the Wenxiang Cult incident happened this time, and Zhu Yi sent King Lu on behalf of King Lu to discuss with Tao Langxian, who had arrested the cult leader. Doubts about the feudal lord.
Of course Zheng Haizhu couldn't ask for it.
According to Xu San's experience, Liaohai will be completely frozen in a month. Yanzhou is nearly a thousand miles away from Dengzhou. If they cannot get to Dengzhou in time, the choice they will face will be to wait until next spring in Dengzhou. To open the ice, one can either turn back and head north, pass through Tianjin Wei, exit Shanhaiguan, take the land route into western Liaoning, and then cross the Liaohe River before arriving in Liaoyang to meet Mao Wenlong.
The latter is not only a matter of long distances, but also the fact that they are exploited by various forms of tax cards.
Liu Shimin from the Weaving Bureau reminded Zheng Haizhu, especially from Dagu, Luanzhou to Shanhaiwei, there are many private tax cards set up by eunuchs from Hebei along the way. It is better to take the sea route if you can, and pay the toll for the Dengzhou Patrol Navy. , it will definitely be less than paying for the eunuch’s travel expenses.
Fortunately, now we have the convoy of King Lu's clan, which can travel all the way from Yanzhou to the east. Not only does it run faster, but it also avoids a lot of questioning and obstruction.
Zheng Haizhu was good at observing words and emotions. When he was in Yanzhou, he encouraged Guo to go with her husband, and told her sincerely that in Jiangnan, the wives of gentry, such as the young lady Han Ximeng to whom he first sought refuge, had considerable freedom to travel. Why does the dignified wife of the general who governs the country confine herself in the back house?
Zhu Yipai also readily agreed.
Therefore, along the way, with Guo by his side, Zheng Haizhu did not have to worry about avoiding suspicion and could spend a lot of time brainwashing Zhu Yipai on why he wanted to institutionalize Yanzhou Coal Mine.
Interest is the best teacher, and Zhu Yipai quickly understood a bunch of new terms: clan shareholders, trading company shareholders, voting rights, dividends, dividends per share, limited liability, investors, managers.
And the most important word: company.
Zhu Yipai simplified the complex and understood it, that is, he needed to persuade King Zhu Shouhong of Lu to divide the shareholding ratio of the Yanzhou coal mine among the members of the Lu clan according to their power and distribute the profits every year.
This may seem like cutting out a lot of meat from King Lu's own bowl, but in fact it is sharing the political risk and using money to silence the lower-level clan members. Don't be jealous of King Lu and King Taixing and his son enjoying the profits of the coal mine. Go and speak ill of the emperor.
Don't underestimate the intensity of the intrigues in these vassals during the Ming Dynasty. Even Yibin, the husband of the princess and county owners, had to be careful.
After all, just over ten years ago, in the Chu vassal in Hubei, Yibin revealed that the ninth king of Chu was not a descendant of the Zhu family. Perhaps the motive was just to dethrone that king of Chu and make his grandson My uncle sat on it.
As for Zheng Haizhu, she wanted to rely on the big tree of Lu Fan and try a joint-stock company. Her purpose was of course not just to prevent Lu King Zhu Shouhong from falling into a "palace drama".
She bet on Huang Zunsu, Lu Xiangsheng, and Sun Yuanhua, who represent the present and future civil power; on Xu Guangqi, who represents the spread of Western learning to the east; on the eunuch Liu Shimin, who represents the imperial power; on the other, who represents the military force and maritime trade. Quan Mao Wenlong and Yan Siqi made bets, but these were not enough.
Unlike when she had just traveled through time and could only start as an employee and servant of the Korean government, now that she had a little capital and strength, she wanted to let herself, Mao Wenlong, and Yan Siqi have a say in the "Haoming Trading Company", and she had complete The shipping insurance company with the right to speak, like the "legal person" shareholders of later generations, entered the Lu Fan's economic empire through equity penetration.
During these days, Zheng Haizhu observed the Zhu Yi sect. Even though he was considered a clear figure in the sect, he still kept saying "I am the Zhu family".
We might as well try a new economic model to see if it will gradually disintegrate the totalitarian shell of the family world or individual such as "my Zhu family" and "nine thousand years old".
This model where you can copy homework is the company system.
The founder of the corporate system in real history was the Netherlands.
In today's time and space, Zheng Haizhu has already experienced the cunning and ambitious members of the Dutch East India Company in Yuegang, Fujian and Tainan.
It is undeniable that the structure of the East India Company was advanced.
Only by separating the investor and the manager, stripping the commercial subject from personal authority, turning unlimited liability into limited liability, and turning shares into financial capital that can be transferred or even circulated, can both the owner and the operator of the commercial subject Well, only then can the mentality and horizons be truly broadened.
The essence of "company" is actually the word "contract", and the establishment of contract awareness in economic life will definitely bring about a social and psychological awareness of equal rights.
King's power, father's power, husband's power... People will gradually discover that the status of superiority and inferiority that they once thought was destiny is not so unshakable.
We cannot allow those barbarians in the deep mountains and forests to call themselves "coats" and "slaves".
…
The clan's car drove smoothly and soon arrived at Ye County in Laizhou, less than a hundred miles away from Dengzhou.
Since entering Laizhou, Zhu Yipai's face began to turn from sunny to gloomy.
While taking a break by an official road in Ye County, Zhu Yipai looked at the wilderness in front of him and frowned: "How come so many fields are deserted? Even if the soil quality is not as good as our Yanzhou Lu Fan, it is still better than the loess Gobi." , isn’t it okay to grow cotton? If you grow cotton, half of it is spun and half of it is stuffed with wadding, and made into winter and summer clothes, and then shipped directly to the port of Laizhou or Dengzhou to Lushun, and distributed to the sergeants of Liaodong? "
Zheng Haizhu thought to himself, it is said that knowing the leakage of a house is under the sky, and knowing the leakage of government is in the grass. It is time for the young prince to come out and see the outside world in order to understand how the empire could be in such a state of collapse.
She was about to open her mouth to answer her doubts, but she heard Guo say: "This is not simple. Cotton farmers also have to pay taxes, do corvee work, and share various miscellaneous taxes. The land of officials, gentry, and scholars in all states and counties They don't have to bear these. Now that they have more and more fields, the gaps in the first three items will naturally become more and more. Don't they still have to be borne by farmers who have their own land? Therefore, they can't survive even in lean years. , I couldn’t survive the good years, so I simply ran away with my family.”
What Guo is talking about is the land annexation problem that began to arise in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. The root cause is that Zhu Yuanzhang granted tax exemptions to powerful groups and so-called scholars from the beginning. Therefore, even a strongman like Zhang Juzheng, as long as he was still in the dynasty, Even though we are struggling within the system, we cannot completely solve it.
Zhu Yuanzhang, an emperor who considered himself to have a grass-roots background, promoted frugality in a performative manner after he ascended the throne. However, what he and his descendants always treated harshly was still the grass-roots, and there was no end to the leeks anyway.
After hearing his wife's words, Zhu Yipai was silent for a moment and said: "No wonder there is such a fuss about the Xiang Cult. In fact, in this way, our sect's property is not taxed. If our descendants continue to live like this, isn't it..."
Guo really had the courage of a military general's daughter, so she responded boldly: "Isn't it possible that the civil unrest will become more and more intense?"
Zheng Haizhu secretly opened a barrage for her: You are absolutely right.
The last emperor of the Ming Dynasty hanged himself in front of Li Zicheng, and the current King Fu, who was doted on by the emperor and his concubines and was living in Luoyang's entertainment and entertainment venues, also died at the hands of Li Zicheng.
It is said that one must marry a virtuous wife. Madam Guo, I think you have the style of the eldest grandson queen.
Zheng Haizhu then boldly interjected: "So Your Highness is wise and willing to persuade King Lu to donate bamboo and wood to collect taxes after Yanzhou mines coal."
Zhu Yipai's expression softened slightly.
Just as his wife looked down on those royal ladies who only competed with each other in their wedding dresses and sedan chairs, he had always despised the excessive extravagance of his family members.
Zhu Yipai couldn't understand the joy of buying fifty live chickens and only cutting off the cartilage in the middle of each flipper to fry a dish, or sending people around to search and spend thousands of dollars to buy a cricket. where.
He felt that it was a good enough pastime for him and his wife to go hunting outside Yanzhou City, or for his wife to read with him while embroidering.
If there was anything that could really make him happy, it would not be seeing the corpses of fifty chickens piled into the mansion at one time, but seeing the green seedlings with yellow spikes and yellow mulberry leaves and white cotton in the vast fields.
After the horses had eaten their fill of bean cakes, the convoy headed towards the county seat.
Ye County is not as wealthy as Weifang, and there is only one stone street in the county.
As soon as the Zhu family's motorcade walked onto the stone street, it was forced to stop.
The carriage that Zheng Haizhu, Wu Bangde and others were riding in was at the front of the group, and they quickly opened the curtains to take a look.
I saw an official in blue robe standing in the middle of the road. There was no official-like entourage following him, only a servant like a book boy followed him.
Zheng Haizhu jumped off the carriage and stepped forward, only to see that the official was fifty years old, with gray hair under his official hat, and a face as dark and rough as a farmer in the field.
He has a serious expression and the word "Chuan" between his eyebrows. The lines are so deep that they can trap mosquitoes. It can be seen that he is not only unsmiling, but also often frowns.
The bird pattern on the opponent's chest was familiar to Zheng Haizhu at first glance, it was the same as Huang Zunsu's.
A seventh-grade official.
The official said solemnly: "My parents' sedan is coming, please stay back."
In the Ming Dynasty, the county magistrate who was in charge of a county was called "Old Parents".
Zheng Haizhu asked, "So this gentleman is not the magistrate of Ye County?"
